Over the past few years there’s been a rise in age verification methods all over the internet requiring people to scan pictures of their IDs, faces, or both into company databases in order to use their software. On paper this crackdown sounds appealing, making sure children don’t get into adult spaces. In practice it doesn’t work at all; these age verification methods aren’t mandatory everywhere yet, so children are free to use these applications without an ID; they can steal their parents’ ID and use it for verification. If these age verification methods became mandatory on applications people currently use, then the company would lose a chunk of their audience.
Not to mention how often these company databases get hacked, spreading hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of sensitive IDs out onto the internet for 20 cents a picture. It’s not appealing in the slightest to send your sensitive personal information in these “safe” databases that time and time again show reports of hackers stealing information from.
This movement for age verification came from Louisiana’s 2022 legislation requiring an ID to access adult content. With this statewide law, it set the precedent for others to follow, like Texas’s mandatory age verification, the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act, and most notably the Australian women’s rights group Collective Shout and their movement in 2025 against adult content.
This movement involved the group targeting payment processors like Mastercard and Visa, advocating stricter age verification, and the censorship and removal of adult content. They listened; now Mastercard and Visa have been targeting adult spaces and adult content in an effort to save face.
It’s concerning to me that people can just go after payment processors to get their way and everyone else must oblige because these guys handle the financial transactions of the world.
These people think they have a just cause, but they don’t look at the bigger picture. There should be adult spaces for adults, kid spaces for children, and teen spaces for teenagers. Social media has become one giant space for all ages, and frankly it doesn’t work as well, since people feel the need to censor these spaces to accommodate for children instead of having a space explicitly for children. We used to have Club Penguin, Toon Town, and little games where children could go on in a safe environment. Now all of these children’s spaces exist for all ages since there are children who grew up with games like Roblox and Minecraft, and they have their own share of messes too, more so Roblox.
Instead of worldwide censorship, we should create quality dedicated spaces for children, teens, and adults without the need to send in your ID or face. Use censored chat messages and content in these spaces depending on the age rating; it worked in the past. I see no reason not to bring it back.
