Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

社交媒体年龄验证：自由互联网终结的开始？

June 1, 2026 | Privacy 2026年6月1日 | 隐私

So-called age verification for social media is spreading across the world, framed as an effort to create a safer internet for children. In reality, age verification lays the foundation for a fully government controlled internet. 所谓的社交媒体年龄验证正在全球范围内蔓延，其名义是为儿童创造一个更安全的互联网环境。但实际上，年龄验证为政府全面管控互联网奠定了基础。

Countries around the world are moving to introduce online age verification. Part of this involves age verification for harmful content (most often pornography, sometimes video games), but above all it focuses on banning social media for children. 世界各国正纷纷引入在线年龄验证。这部分涉及针对有害内容（通常是色情内容，有时也包括电子游戏）的年龄验证，但其核心重点在于禁止儿童使用社交媒体。

The big tech social media companies are bad. Their business model is bad; it is based on mass surveillance and manipulation, and they cooperate with governments in mapping entire populations. But age verification is fundamentally the wrong approach to preventing children from using big tech social media platforms. 大型科技社交媒体公司确实存在问题。它们的商业模式很糟糕；这种模式建立在大规模监控和操纵的基础上，并且它们还与政府合作，对全体人口进行画像。然而，年龄验证从根本上来说，并不是阻止儿童使用大型科技社交媒体平台的正确方法。

Introducing age verification is based on the state being able to force social media companies to verify their users’ identities. But the big tech social media platforms already know which of their users are children. Their business model depends on knowing this. They know how old users are, who their friends are and what ice cream they like. 引入年龄验证的前提是国家有能力强制社交媒体公司核实用户的身份。但大型科技社交媒体平台早已知道哪些用户是儿童。它们的商业模式正是建立在掌握这些信息的基础上。它们知道用户的年龄、朋友是谁，甚至知道他们喜欢什么口味的冰淇淋。

As age verification is based on coercion of the social media platforms, politicians could instead force them to stop doing the things politicians consider harmful to children, or force them to block children (again, they know who they are) from using their services. But instead, politicians seek to massively invade everyone’s privacy and undermine democratic rights on a global scale. In other words, the latter is the real objective – they do not want to protect children; they want to impose control. And impose it they do. 既然年龄验证是基于对社交媒体平台的强制手段，政客们本可以强制要求这些平台停止他们认为对儿童有害的行为，或者直接强制平台禁止儿童（再次强调，他们知道谁是儿童）使用其服务。然而，政客们却选择大规模侵犯每个人的隐私，并在全球范围内破坏民主权利。换句话说，后者才是真正的目标——他们并不想保护儿童，他们想要的是实施控制。而且，他们确实正在这样做。

Australia has already introduced a social media age restriction for users under 16. The same applies to Indonesia and Brazil. Age restrictions have been approved but not yet implemented in Denmark, Portugal, and Malaysia. In France, an agreement has been reached, though details are still being discussed. Proposals are on the table in Spain and Turkey. In Germany, the major parties agree on introducing age restrictions, and in Sweden the issue is under investigation. The topic is also being discussed in countries such as the Czech Republic, Greece, Austria, Poland, Canada, Slovenia, and the Netherlands. 澳大利亚已经对16岁以下用户实施了社交媒体年龄限制。印度尼西亚和巴西也采取了同样的措施。丹麦、葡萄牙和马来西亚已批准但尚未实施年龄限制。法国已达成协议，尽管细节仍在讨论中。西班牙和土耳其也提出了相关提案。在德国，主要政党一致同意引入年龄限制，瑞典也正在对此进行调查。捷克、希腊、奥地利、波兰、加拿大、斯洛文尼亚和荷兰等国也在讨论这一议题。

In April 2026, the European Commission launched an EU age verification app, and one month later Ursula von der Leyen presented plans for EU-wide age restrictions. In the United States, half of all states either have pending legislation or have already introduced laws imposing age restrictions for inappropriate content and/or social media. The number of countries preparing age verification measures is growing rapidly. Updates can be followed on Techpolicy.press. 2026年4月，欧盟委员会推出了欧盟年龄验证应用程序，一个月后，乌尔苏拉·冯德莱恩提出了欧盟范围内的年龄限制计划。在美国，一半的州要么有待决立法，要么已经出台了针对不当内容和/或社交媒体的年龄限制法律。准备采取年龄验证措施的国家数量正在迅速增加。相关更新可在 Techpolicy.press 上查看。

Most age verification is identity verification

大多数年龄验证本质上是身份验证

As age verification is currently being rolled out, it is up to individual websites and services to implement it as they see fit. As a result, the quality of age verification measures varies greatly. This became clear in the autumn of 2025, when Discord was hacked, exposing the ID documents of 70,000 users. 随着年龄验证目前正在推广，各个网站和服务机构可以自行决定如何实施。因此，年龄验证措施的质量参差不齐。这一点在2025年秋季变得显而易见，当时 Discord 遭到黑客攻击，导致7万名用户的身份证件泄露。

However, there is one common factor in most age verification systems (Zero-Knowledge Proof being an exception, more on that below): if age verification is introduced, everyone will have to identify themselves either to the service/website they want to use or to a third party capable of linking them to their activity on that service/website. The correct term for age verification as it is implemented today is therefore identity verification. 然而，大多数年龄验证系统都有一个共同点（零知识证明除外，下文将详细说明）：如果引入年龄验证，每个人都必须向他们想要使用的服务/网站，或者向能够将其与该服务/网站上的活动关联起来的第三方证明自己的身份。因此，当今实施的年龄验证，其准确术语应该是“身份验证”。

Given today’s internet infrastructure, it is unreasonable to assume that this information will not be shared through commercial agreements or with governments. The consequence of introducing identity verification is therefore that freedom of information is restricted (you can no longer visit regulated websites anonymously) and that you can no longer post anonymously on social media. 鉴于当今的互联网基础设施，认为这些信息不会通过商业协议共享或不会被政府获取是不现实的。因此，引入身份验证的后果是信息自由受到限制（你无法再匿名访问受监管的网站），并且你无法再在社交媒体上匿名发帖。

You cannot be certain that your criticism of the government will not be followed up by the authorities. You can no longer start a digital initiative on a social media platform aimed at gathering people to criticize an authority without facing a significant risk of consequences. Depending on the country you live in, this could even endanger your life. 你无法确定你对政府的批评不会遭到当局的追究。你无法再在社交媒体平台上发起旨在聚集民众批评当局的数字倡议，而不面临严重的后果风险。根据你所居住的国家，这甚至可能危及你的生命。

In its current form, social media identity verification removes important tools for activists in countries where criticizing those in power is dangerous. Freedom of expression is threatened not only in a direct sense (you post something and then the police knock on your door), identity verification also creates a chilling effect. It becomes a cornerstone of censorship machinery in the sense that people begin to self-censor if they know that expressing opinions may have personal consequences. 以目前的形式，社交媒体身份验证剥夺了那些在批评当权者会有危险的国家中活动人士的重要工具。言论自由不仅在直接意义上受到威胁（你发了什么，然后警察就敲你的门），身份验证还会产生“寒蝉效应”。它成为了审查机制的基石，因为人们一旦知道表达观点可能会带来个人后果，就会开始自我审查。

This is also something that changes over time. What is considered acceptable to post online is determined by whoever currently holds power. Different sides of politics often have different views on what constitutes harmful content. Just because what you post today is not considered inappropriate does not mean it will remain acceptable in the future. Broad and arbitrary legislation, along with mandatory ID tagging for every post, hardly provides a strong foundation for freedom of expression. 这也是随时间而变化的。什么内容适合在线发布，取决于当前掌握权力的人。政治立场不同的人往往对什么是“有害内容”有不同的看法。仅仅因为你今天发布的内容不被视为不当，并不意味着它在未来依然会被接受。宽泛且随意的立法，加上每条帖子必须强制实名标记，很难为言论自由提供坚实的基础。

Today, 30 people are arrested every day in the United Kingdom for posting something online that authorities classify as “grossly offensive.” In Germany, police conduct raids on people’s homes for insulting politicians online. One infamous example is the so-called “Pimmelgate,” where a person was subject to a police search after calling a German politician a term for male genitalia. In the United States, authorities are trying to pressure tech companies into revealing the identities behind accounts protesting ICE. Another example is when Canada introduced emergency acts during the 2022 trucker protests and then used soc… 如今，英国每天有30人因在网上发布被当局归类为“严重冒犯”的内容而被捕。在德国，警方因民众在网上侮辱政客而对其住所进行突击搜查。一个臭名昭著的例子是所谓的“阴茎门”（Pimmelgate），一名男子因用男性生殖器的词汇称呼一位德国政客而遭到警方搜查。在美国，当局正试图向科技公司施压，要求其披露抗议美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）的账户背后的身份。另一个例子是加拿大在2022年卡车司机抗议期间引入紧急法案，随后利用社交媒体……