Why Every Country Should Set 16 as the Minimum Age for Social Media Accounts

Re:Why Every Country Should Set 16 as the Minimum Age for So... by camillomiller on Wednesday January 14, 2026 @08:55PM (#46626944)

This is actually a great idea. It is even compatible with having private companies run the system. The real issue is distribution (online code verification is trivial). Tbf I believe that a fully government-owned anonymous system should be the goal. The government knows you already, so creating a proof of age anonymous token should also be somewhat trivial. Truth is companies don’t want to forgo the potential profit in data mining, and governments don’t like the actual lack of control and full anonymity, otherwise we’d have this already worldwide

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Re:Why Every Country Should Set 16 as the Minimum Age for So... by fc417fc802 on Wednesday January 14, 2026 @11:47PM (#46628163)

In theory I agree. In practice I have severe misgivings about directly incorporating government issued IDs into mundane online transactions.

I don't want "papers please" to be normalized. If the smart ID can do anonymous attestation of age then it can presumably also share various details with a requesting party. Next thing you know Facespace 365 is requiring you to provide your (attested) full legal name in order to register an account. I find that to be a highly objectionable outcome.

If things escalated beyond basic age checks that also adds hardware requirements. Would I find myself needing a smartcard reader to do anything online? The friction of needing to visit a bank in person seems like a feature to me.

What doesn't bother me is age restricted content guarded by a low fence. The bare minimum required to blunt the impact of something that appears to be analogous to an epidemic.

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Re:Why Every Country Should Set 16 as the Minimum Age for So... by munksbeer on Thursday January 15, 2026 @09:14AM (#46632798)

I may not have been following this topic closely, but I do like this suggestion. Truly anonymous age tokens should be a thing.

However, we're not going to get that because politicians would just say it is open to abuse. Anyone can go to a liquor store and supply alcohol to minors. The same would apply to anonymous age tokens. I don't know if it would be a big issue in practice, but it will in the minds of politicians.

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