What started as age gates on adult websites has quietly crept into app stores and operating systems.

As of today, about half of all U.S. states have some form of age verification law around. Nine of those were passed in 2025 alone, covering everything from adult content sites to social media platforms to app stores.

Right now, California’s Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043) is all the rage right now, which targets not only websites and apps but also operating systems. Come January 1, 2027, every OS provider must collect a user’s age at account setup and provide that data to app developers via a real-time API.

Colorado is also working on a near-identical bill, which we covered earlier.

The EFF’s year-end review put it more bluntly: 2025 was “the year states chose surveillance over safety.” The foundation’s concern, which I concur with, is, where does this stop? Self-reported birthday today, government ID tomorrow? There appears to be no limit to these laws’ overreach.

  • TehPers@beehaw.orgEnglish
    8·
    1 day ago

    It also affects subjects like atheism, as the various religious cultures generally do not want people contemplating the idea that there isn’t a god, especially not while they’re young, they want you long indoctrinated into belief before you can explore different ideas.

    This reminds me of a Pakistani person I don’t personally know, but someone I know talks to them.

    In their hometown, people recite verses from the Quran as part of their religious activities. There’s only one problem: the Quran they use is written in Arabic, but everyone there speaks Urdu. People don’t actually know what the passages say, just how to say them.

    So this person asked them once what the passages say. Why do we read the passages in Arabic instead of Urdu? People here don’t know Arabic.

    Anyway, he got belted shortly after that.

    • Powderhorn@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      4·
      22 hours ago

      Wasn’t it Vatican II that finally allowed Catholic services in local languages instead of Latin? That really wasn’t long ago in the grand scheme.