I’m asking for public policy ideas here. A lot of countries are enacting age verification now. But of course this is a privacy nightmare and is ripe for abuse. At the same time though, I also understand why people are concerned with how kids are using social media. These products are designed to be addictive and are known to cause body image issues and so forth. So what’s the middle ground? How can we protect kids from the harms of social media in a way that respects everyone’s privacy?


Thats true for social media, but social media isn’t the only time you want to do age verification.
If you want to see porn or order (legal 😇) drugs for delivery.
And this is just times where the way to “protect kids” is age verification online. There are other times where you want to protect kids too, but doing so is invasive.
Sure, my answer is limited to social media because that is the question that is being asked here.