Democrats and Republicans in Congress have struck a deal on the KIDS Act, which could pass on the House floor as soon as next week; if enacted, it would fundamentally change the way everyone accesses the internet. At stake is your ability to use many social media platforms without revealing your identity.
The KIDS Act strongly incentivizes — and, for some services, outright requires — age verification. Companies like X, video-sharing services like Vimeo, and others with a history of users’ populating social feeds with edgy content may be required to verify users’ ages.
This is a big problem for people who need to be able to use the internet anonymously, since, as @TaylorLorenz writes, “there’s no way to reliably verify someone’s age without verifying who they are.”
Threats to online anonymity harm everyone, but one group is often overlooked: journalists and the sources who talk to them. Age verification requirements will help the Trump administration carry out its vendetta against the press by creating new avenues to identify journalists’ confidential sources. Read the full piece https://theintercept.com/2026/06/29/objection-ai-judges-journalism-dsouza/
@theintercept And I think those major commecial platforms are fine with that. Their real business is selling their own users' data, and this just makes that more valuable. And, it out-sources the costs and hassles of doing what the public has wanted them to do all along. It's a win-win for them. They don't care about anyone's privacy, only their money.