Comment by Nevermark

> US social media platforms already kowtow to domestic and foreign policy

That is an entirely different and less dangerous issue.

The issue is that when you give power of individual attestation to the government, over your ability to access age-gated sites, you have also given them the power to individually withhold or revoke attestation.

Age-gating will spread as sites limit their legal liabilities, and governments saber rattle.

Even child-friendly sites will age-gate to avoid liability issues, by confirming parents set up their child's account.

This isn't theory: Right now, Wikipedia is having to fight to avoid age-gating. [0]

This fine-grained government control over each citizen is an unprecedented expansion of power/control/threat to freedom. Whether used explicitly, or as a tool of fear that operates implicitly no matter who is in power.

[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/we-support-wikimedia-f...