California nears vote on social media age checks amid privacy clash

Debate surrounding California’s latest age assurance law is seeing rhetoric amp up on both sides of the issue, with lawmakers set to vote on a bill as early as next week.

Assemblyman Josh Lowenthal introduced AB-1709 to keep children off platforms that have addictive features, such as notifications, endless scrolls and autoplay The age verification bill “would prohibit a covered platform, as defined, from permitting a user who is under 16 years of age to create or maintain an account on the covered platform and would require a covered platform to implement reasonable measures to prevent users under 16 years of age from accessing or using accounts on the covered platform.” It would also create a new e-Safety Advisory Commission to enforce the law.

Quoted by Komo News, Lowenthal says social media is “wreaking havoc on the minds of our youth” and that platforms “have adopted design choices that malignantly target users’ neurological systems, leading to addiction, depression, and, in grave circumstances, death.”

Critics say bill would destroy privacy, but social media has already done that

Opponents of the bill are equally agitated. A blog from the Electronic Frontier Foundation beseeches readers: “Act Now to Stop California’s Paternalistic and Privacy-Destroying Social Media Ban.”

“Under this bill, all Californians would be required to submit highly sensitive government-issued ID or biometric information to private companies simply to participate in the modern public square,” EFF says. And, “when California leads – especially on tech – other states follow. There is no reason for California to lead the nation into an unconstitutional social media ban that destroys privacy and harms youth.”

Similarly, a blog from Cambridge Analytica frets that “California lawmakers are fast-tracking a sweeping bill that would require every resident – regardless of age – to hand over government-issued ID or biometric information to private companies just to use social media.”

The “modern public square” argument is perhaps feasible in the U.S., where people get shot in public squares more often than most places. But it still rests on the idea that it is abhorrent to have to hand over data in order to be able to hand over more data to social media firms. Facebook, Instagram, X and Snapchat are not public squares and never have been: they are huge digital pens from which billionaire social media tycoons harvest data infinitely.

However, Cambridge Analytica has a compelling argument that California’s bill strengthens Big Tech rather than challenging it. “Steep fines and costly compliance regimes disproportionately harm smaller platforms,” says the firm. “Where large corporations can afford to absorb legal risk and shell out for expensive verification systems, smaller forums and emerging platforms cannot. Platforms have already shut down or geoblocked entire states in response to age-gating laws. When small platforms shutter, their users and valuable data migrate straight back to the largest companies.”

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  California  |  data privacy  |  social media