When the nonprofit Freedom House recently published its annual report, it noted that 2025 marked the 15th straight year of decline for global internet freedom. The biggest decline, after Georgia and Germany, came within the United States.
Among the culprits cited in the report: age verification laws, dozens of which have come into effect over the last year. "Online anonymity, an essential enabler for freedom of expression, is entering a period of crisis as policymakers in free and autocratic countries alike mandate the use of identity verification technology for certain websites or platforms, motivated in some cases by the legitimate aim of protecting children," the report warns.
Age verification laws are, in some ways, part of a years-long reckoning over child safety online, as tech companies have shown themselves unable to prevent serious harms to their most vulnerable users. Lawmakers, who have failed to pass data privacy regulations, Section 230 reform or any other meaningful legislation that would thoughtfully reimagine what responsibilities tech companies owe their users, have instead turned to the blunt tool of age-based restrictions — and with much greater success.
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Over the last two years, 25 states have passed laws requiring some kind of age verification to access adult content online. This year, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory to backers of age verification standards when it upheld a Texas law requiring sites hosting adult content to check the ages of their users.
Age checks have also expanded to social media and online platforms more broadly. Sixteen states now have laws requiring parental controls or other age-based restrictions for social media services. (Six of these measures are currently in limbo due to court challenges.) A federal bill to ban kids younger than 13 from social media has gained bipartisan support in Congress. Utah, Texas and Louisiana passed laws requiring app stores to check the ages of their users, all of which are set to go into effect next year. California plans to enact age-based rules for app stores in 2027.
These laws have started to fragment the internet. Smaller platforms and websites that don't have the resources to pay for third-party verification services may have no choice but to exit markets where age checks are required. Blogging service Dreamwidth pulled out of Mississippi after its age verification laws went into effect, saying that the $10,000 per user fines it could face were an "existential threat" to the company. Bluesky also opted to go dark in Mississippi rather than comply. (The service has complied with age verification laws in South Dakota and Wyoming, as well as the UK.) Pornhub, which has called existing age verification laws "haphazard and dangerous," has blocked access in 23 states.
Pornhub is not an outlier in its assessment. Privacy advocates have long warned that age verification laws put everyone's privacy at risk. Practically, there's no way to limit age verification standards only to minors. Confirming the ages of everyone under 18 means you have to confirm the ages of everyone. In practice, this often means submitting a government-issued ID or allowing an app to scan your face. Both are problematic and we don't need to look far to see how these methods can go wrong.
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