The evidence that social media platforms are harming children has been available for years, and Missouri has not waited for Washington to act on it. When the state joined 32 others in suing Meta in 2023, the charge was documented and damning: platforms had knowingly designed their products to get children addicted to harmful content, building features into Instagram and Facebook that purposefully hooked children and teens while publicly insisting the platforms were safe for young users. The state’s own data backed it up, with nearly 35% of Missouri school-age kids reporting feelings of hopelessness.

On July 21st, Parliament gave final approval to the bill introducing a minimum age for accessing social media in France. The legislation establishes the principle of a ban on social media for those under the age of 15. Platforms will now be required to verify the age of their users before they open or maintain an account, using a ‘double anonymity’ verification system. Users will have to prove their age to a trusted third party, which will issue a cryptographic token certifying only that they are of legal age in relation to the set threshold, without disclosing their identity to the platform.

Teenagers’ use of social media and digital services is a popular subject among politicians worldwide, including those in the European Union (EU). While some countries are currently considering bans up to age 16, others are considering more modest approaches with lower thresholds (pictured below). Meanwhile, a digitally advanced Estonia openly rejects the idea of an EU-wide minimum age for social media use, emphasizing the importance of digital literacy among minors, teachers, and parents, as well as stronger enforcement of existing legal frameworks, such as the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Recently, the House of Representatives passed the KIDS Act, an omnibus package of bills that could fundamentally change how all users experience the internet. This approach puts policymakers, not parents, in control of what their children see online. And it threatens speech and privacy rights for adult users, too.

At a liquor store, bar, or casino, getting carded is part of the cost of entry. Now the internet is carding people, too—and the companies doing the carding are cashing in. New laws and platform rules are pushing games, social platforms, AI products, and adult sites to replace birthday boxes (the fields where you enter your DOB) with identity checks. What was once a compliance tool for sellers in age-restricted industries is becoming infrastructure for the internet, and a growth market for the companies supplying it.

Australia banned under-16s from social media in December; the U.K. is now investigating whether TikTok’s age checks even work; and France just finalized its own under-15 ban this week, racing to beat the August recess. Platforms are grappling with how to handle the “age verification trap,” how do you collect information about a user online without infringing on their privacy and being too intrusive. And while these bans are taking place abroad, some states in the country are toying with similar measures, or fully banning users from specific sites if the platforms can’t verify their age accurately.

Earlier this year, juries in California and New Mexico returned significant verdicts against Meta for harms inflicted on children through its platforms. Within hours, some supporters of the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA) seized on the verdicts as proof that legislatures must enact the bill. The irony is breathtaking: Meta has spent millions lobbying for this very bill in more than half of U.S. state legislatures and Congress precisely to avoid paying judgments like the ones recently handed down.

France passed a landmark law on Tuesday restricting access to social media for anyone under 15, the first European country to do so, and the latest in a wave of countries acting against what they view as malign effects of such services on minors.

Imagine if every website had its own border crossing. Some would ask to see your passport before you entered. Others might simply ask you to confirm your age, while some wouldn’t stop you at all. Which checks you encounter depend not only on the service you’re using, but also on the country you’re logging in from. This approach is already shaping our experiences online.