Do not ban social media for kids

Our Take

The channel behind this video, Digital ID, Mass Surveillance and Digital Currency, makes a point we think is worth amplifying: every time lawmakers push a 'ban social media for kids' bill, the fine print usually requires everyone — adults included — to prove their age with some form of government-backed digital ID or biometric scan. That's not child protection, that's a new surveillance rail being laid down under a sympathetic headline. We've watched this exact playbook before with license plate readers: a narrow, emotionally compelling justification (find the kidnapper, stop the dangerous driver) gets used to justify a system that ends up logging the movements of every single person who drives past a camera, guilty or not.

The pattern is the same whether it's a camera on a pole or an age gate on a login screen: once the infrastructure exists, the use case quietly expands. Age-verification systems built to keep teenagers off Instagram become databases that can be queried, breached, subpoenaed, or repurposed. Flock Safety's ALPR network started as a tool for solving car break-ins and has since become a de facto national tracking grid tapped by local cops, federal agencies, and anyone with a login. 'For the children' and 'for public safety' are the two most effective phrases in the modern surveillance salesman's pitch, and both deserve the same skepticism.

Credit to this channel for connecting age-verification mandates to the broader digital ID push most outlets ignore. If you want to see how that same creeping logic plays out on the streets in your own town, check our camera map and then head to take-action to push back before the next 'safety' system becomes permanent infrastructure.