Tag: think of the children

3 Disasters That Legal Weed Didn’t Unleash—Despite the Forecasts

Happy 4/20 to the millions of people across the country who celebrate, including much of the Reason staff. As someone who’s never been interested in pot—save for one summer in college—or drugs in general, I’ve always found the day a bit strange. But as I’ve grown older (and more libertarian), I’ve come to appreciate it as a celebration of personal freedom. 

I’m not the only one who has changed his mind. In 2025, 64 percent of Americans thought marijuana should be legal for both medical and recreational use (up from 31 percent in 2000), according to Gallup. Meanwhile, 40 states have legalized medical use of cannabis, including 24 that also allow recreational use. Late last year, President Donald Trump ordered that marijuana be reclassified from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act, putting it in the same category as prescription drugs such as “ketamine, anabolic steroids, and Tylenol with codeine,” explains Reason‘s Jacob Sullum.

Prohibitionists warned that legalization would have dire consequences. Here are some of their predictions that have yet to come true. 

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US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

A bill introduced by Representative Josh Gottheimer in the House on April 13 would require Apple, Google, and every other operating system vendor to verify the age of anyone setting up a new device in the United States.

The legislation, H.R. 8250, travels under the friendlier name of the Parents Decide Act, and it is among the most aggressive surveillance mandates ever proposed for American consumer technology.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The press releases describing it lead with children. The text describes something much larger. To confirm a child is under 18, the system has to identify everyone else, too, and the bill builds the infrastructure to do exactly that.

This is child safety as a delivery mechanism for mass identification. The pattern is familiar by now. A genuine harm gets named, a sympathetic victim gets centered, and the solution proposed reshapes the digital lives of three hundred million people who were not the problem.

The Parents Decide Act follows that template with unusual precision. It takes the real suffering of real children and uses it to justify building a national identity layer underneath every device sold in the country, administered by two private companies, with the details to be filled in later.

The mandate sits in Section 2(a)(1), which obligates providers to “Require any user of the operating system to provide the date of birth of the user” both to set up an account and to use the device at all. Adults included.

There is no carve-out for grown users, no opt-out for people who simply want to turn on a phone without handing a date of birth to Apple or Google first.

The age check is the entry fee for owning a computer. What happens to that data afterward gets handed off to the Federal Trade Commission to sort out later. A federal bill that mandates identification as a condition of using a general-purpose computing device represents something the United States has not previously had, which is a national ID requirement for turning on a device.

Gottheimer framed the proposal at a Ridgewood news conference on April 2, standing outside the local YMCA with a coalition of allies. “With each passing day, the internet is becoming more and more treacherous for our kids. We’re not just talking about social media anymore — we’re talking about artificial intelligence and platforms that are shaping how our kids think, feel, and act, often without any real guardrails,” he said.

His diagnosis of the current system is accurate enough. “Children are able to bypass age requirements by entering a different birthday and accessing apps without any real verification. Kids can bypass age requirements by simply typing in a different birthday. That’s it. That’s the system,” he said.

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US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

A bill introduced by Representative Josh Gottheimer in the House on April 13 would require Apple, Google, and every other operating system vendor to verify the age of anyone setting up a new device in the United States.

The legislation, H.R. 8250, travels under the friendlier name of the Parents Decide Act, and it is among the most aggressive surveillance mandates ever proposed for American consumer technology.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The press releases describing it lead with children. The text describes something much larger. To confirm a child is under 18, the system has to identify everyone else, too, and the bill builds the infrastructure to do exactly that.

This is child safety as a delivery mechanism for mass identification. The pattern is familiar by now. A genuine harm gets named, a sympathetic victim gets centered, and the solution proposed reshapes the digital lives of three hundred million people who were not the problem.

The Parents Decide Act follows that template with unusual precision. It takes the real suffering of real children and uses it to justify building a national identity layer underneath every device sold in the country, administered by two private companies, with the details to be filled in later.

The mandate sits in Section 2(a)(1), which obligates providers to “Require any user of the operating system to provide the date of birth of the user” both to set up an account and to use the device at all. Adults included.

There is no carve-out for grown users, no opt-out for people who simply want to turn on a phone without handing a date of birth to Apple or Google first.

The age check is the entry fee for owning a computer. What happens to that data afterward gets handed off to the Federal Trade Commission to sort out later. A federal bill that mandates identification as a condition of using a general-purpose computing device represents something the United States has not previously had, which is a national ID requirement for turning on a device.

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Xbox Now Wants Your Face to Let You Play Games You Already Own in Singapore

Singapore gamers who bought and downloaded Xbox titles years ago are now being told they need to prove they’re adults before they can keep playing them.

Microsoft has started rolling out identity verification requirements across its Xbox and Microsoft Store platforms in Singapore, demanding face scans, government ID uploads, or authentication through the country’s national digital identity system, Singpass.

The price of accessing games you already own is now a biometric selfie or a copy of your passport.

The trigger is Singapore’s Online Safety Code of Practice for App Distribution Services, a regulation from the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) that took effect on April 1, 2026.

The rule requires app stores to prevent anyone estimated to be under 18 from downloading apps rated for adults, including dating services and content with sexual material. Five storefronts are covered: Apple’s App Store, Google Play, Samsung Galaxy Store, Huawei AppGallery, and Microsoft Store (which includes Xbox).

Each company has chosen its own methods for compliance. The methods vary, but they all share one thing in common: they collect sensitive personal data that didn’t exist in the platform’s records before this regulation.

Microsoft announced its approach on March 17, 2026, framing the verification as optional, while making it mandatory for anyone who wants full access.

“Microsoft users in Singapore will have multiple options to complete age assurance for our stores, giving people flexibility while prioritising privacy,” the company wrote, listing those options as Singpass verification, “secure facial age estimation using a selfie,” or uploading “an official government ID such as a national ID, driver’s license, passport, or residence permit.”

The company describes this as a one-time process. What it doesn’t describe is who processes the data, how long it exists in transit, or what happens if the system holding it gets breached.

Discord learned this lesson last year when its own partner leaked user data. The company that promises to delete your face scan still has to receive it first.

Singapore residents have started receiving emails from Xbox notifying them about the verification requirement, prompting confusion and concern.

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Report: 60% of Australian Teens Are Evading Social Media Ban

The Molly Rose Foundation (MRF), a British-based group that generally favors online safety measures for children, published research on Monday that found about 60% of Australian teenagers are evading their country’s landmark ban on social media accounts for children under 16.

MRF’s report was entitled “Australia’s Social Media Ban – Is It Working?” The report concluded it wasn’t, not really, although the ban has significantly impacted the online activity of Australian youth.

“There are significant questions about the effectiveness of Australia’s social media ban. Three fifths (61%) of 12–15 year-olds who previously held accounts on restricted platforms continue to have access to one or more active accounts,” the report noted.

MRF found that over half of the 12 to 15-year-olds who used the most perilous of the social media platforms, including TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, were still able to access those services. 

Seventy percent of children who responded to the survey, which was conducted in partnership with Australia’s largest online youth panel YouthInsight, said it was “easy” to avoid the social media ban. Fifty-one percent of respondents said the ban made no difference to their online safety, and 14% said they felt less safe after the ban was imposed. 

“This may reflect a range of factors, including their displacement to smaller or more poorly moderated platforms, their experiences on sites not covered by the ban, or a perception that online platforms have pivoted from safety towards prioritizing access restrictions,” the report’s authors ventured.

The ban does seem to have reduced the amount of time children spend online overall, which will likely be taken as a positive development by child safety advocates.

MRF suggested some of the blame for the questionable effectiveness of the ban lies with social media companies, which do not appear to making very aggressive efforts to detect or deactivate accounts created by under-16 users, after headlines were made by a large number of account deactivations in the early months of the ban.

On the other hand, about 5% of the children who evaded the ban were using virtual private networks (VPNs), a tool that has been successfully employed around the world to mask user identities and evade digital censorship. VPNs are a very effective tool for masking user identity, which is why censorious governments are looking for ways to ban them.

MRF noted in passing that one of the earliest government efforts to ban children from online platforms was undertaken by South Korea, which prohibited online gaming for children from midnight to 6:00 a.m., beginning in 2011. The ban “initially resulted in a reduction of time spent online,” but those improvements faded over time, and in fact Internet use by children wound up increasing. The South Korean government eventually discontinued the ban.

MRF felt its report directly contradicted claims by the Australian government that its ban on social media for teens has been “very successful in its early days,” and this could have implications for other countries thinking about bans of their own, including the United Kingdom.

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Massachusetts House Passes Social Media Age Verification Digital ID Bill

Massachusetts just voted to force every social media user in the state to prove their age to a tech company. 

The bill passed the House 129-25 on Wednesday, banning children under 14 from social media entirely, requiring parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds, and mandating that platforms build age verification systems to enforce all of it. If it becomes law, the policy takes effect on October 1.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

House Speaker Ron Mariano and Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz framed the legislation as protection. “This ban would be among the most restrictive in the entire country, helping to protect young people from harmful content and addictive algorithms that have a proven negative impact on their mental health,” they said in a joint statement. 

They also described the broader goal: “The simple reality is that Massachusetts must do more to ensure that our laws keep pace with modern challenges – especially when it comes to protecting our children, and to setting students up for success in the classroom and beyond.”

The bill doesn’t say how companies should verify ages. It leaves that to Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who would have until September 1 to write the implementing regulations. 

That vagueness is deliberate, according to Michlewitz, who said it gives the AG flexibility in a changing industry. 

But the practical reality of age verification is that someone has to prove who they are. 

That means government IDs, facial scans, or behavioral tracking, and those requirements don’t just apply to kids. Every user on the platform has to go through the system, because you can’t filter minors without checking adults, too.

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Meta To Comply With Florida Age Verification Digital ID Law

Meta agreed to comply with Florida’s age verification law, HB 3, and will begin purging accounts belonging to children under 14 starting in May. 

The company’s capitulation comes ahead of an April 8 deadline set by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who threatened litigation against any platform still refusing to verify the ages and identities of its users. Uthmeier is now pressuring Snapchat, Roblox, Discord, and TikTok to do the same.

What Florida calls child protection is also the construction of a statewide identity verification system for the internet. Meta is one of the biggest companies lobbying for age verification checks on the app store level.

HB 3 bans under-14s from social media entirely and requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds. But to block minors, platforms first need to determine who is and isn’t a minor. That means age-checking everyone, adults included. The surveillance burden falls on millions of people who have every legal right to use these services without proving who they are.

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Zorin OS Says No to Mandatory Age Verification in Linux

Zorin OS has entered the broader Linux debate on age verification laws. Co-founder Artyom Zorin stated on the Zorin Forum that the distribution will not introduce mandatory age or ID checks. He emphasized that privacy and security are core values for the project and confirmed the team is monitoring new OS-level laws that may impact Linux distributions.

Zorin’s response clarifies that the project will not independently add mandatory age or identity verification. However, it notes that not all current proposals are equally invasive.

Regarding California’s law, Zorin OS states that the requirement resembles age attestation rather than strict identity verification. Users would self-declare their age or date of birth during account creation, and apps would only receive a general age bracket, such as under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, or 18 or older.

Zorin also notes that, based on its interpretation of the law, users would not need to upload photo ID, submit face scans, or share raw birth-date data with apps or government entities.

However, the project does not endorse this approach. Zorin describes California’s model as less invasive but warns it could set a concerning precedent. The statement notes that some proposals in other jurisdictions are more intrusive and raise greater privacy concerns.

That is where Zorin draws its clearest line. The project states that laws requiring full age verification through personal documents or face scans would significantly invade user privacy. If such rules were enforced, Zorin might withdraw from affected jurisdictions rather than implement them.

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Apple Expands Age Verification to Singapore & South Korea

Apple’s identity verification demands are spreading across Asia. Starting in late March, the company expanded age verification requirements in both Singapore and South Korea, adding these countries to a growing list alongside the UK, where users must prove they’re adults before Apple lets them fully use their own devices.

Singapore has been partially locked down since February 24, when Apple began blocking downloads of apps rated 18+ unless users confirmed they were adults.

That initial wave also hit Australia and Brazil. But the late March update goes further, bringing Singapore’s requirements closer to the UK model. Apple now requires Singaporean users to confirm they’re 18 or older to download or purchase 18+ apps, using a credit card, a driving license, a National Registration Identity Card, or a Foreign Identification Number card. Passports, debit cards, and gift cards aren’t accepted.

That list of acceptable documents tells you something about Apple’s priorities. Passports are internationally recognized government IDs, but they don’t work here. Debit cards, which millions of adults use as their primary payment method, are also excluded because minors can technically hold them.

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New Company Hopes to Build Age-Verification Tech into Vape Cartridges 

Their goal is to use biometric data and blockchain to build age-verification measures directly into disposable vape cartridges.

Wired reports on a partnership between vape/cartridge manufacturer Ispire Technology and regulatory consulting company Chemular (which specializes in the nicotine market) — which they’ve named “Ike Tech”:[Using blockchain-based security, the e-cig cartridge] would use a camera to scan some form of ID and then also take a video of the user’s face. Once it verifies your identity and determines you’re old enough to vape, it translates that information into anonymized tokens. That info goes to an identity service like ID.me or Clear. If approved, it bounces back to the app, which then uses a Bluetooth signal to give the vape the OK to turn on.

“Everything is tokenized,” [says Ispire CEO Michael Wang]. “As a result of this process, we don’t communicate consumer personal private information.” He says the process takes about a minute and a half… After that onetime check, the Bluetooth connection on the phone will recognize when the vape cartridge is nearby and keep it unlocked. Move the vape too far away from the phone, and it shuts off again. Based on testing, the companies behind Ike Tech claim this process has a 100 percent success rate in age verification, more or less calling the tech infallible. “The FDA told us it’s the holy grail technology they were looking for,” Wang says. “That’s word-for-word what they said when we met with them….”

Wang says the goal is to implement additional features in the verification process, like geo-fencing, which would force the vape to shut off while near a school or on an airplane. In the future, the plan is to license this biometric verification tech to other e-cig companies. The tech may also grow to include fingerprint readers and expand to other product categories; Wang suggests guns, which have a long history of age-verification features not quite working.

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