[Aunche]

The new laws in the US don't require any real verification. Parents who care will just select a flag on device/OS setup that gets passed to websites. They can also just lie if they really want to. In the EU, they are trying to verify age with zero knowledge proofs.

It would be nice if the author actually spelled out the specific weaknesses of those approaches or even just referenced those laws instead of fear-mongering about "spying on kids", but I suppose that would be to much to ask of someone who made a career out of vibes based rage. Ironic that Doctorow is so eager to capitalize on the enshittification of journalism.

[Aerroon]

The specific weakness of these systems is that the governments cannot be trusted with this. They have demonstrated this - Snowden leaks for the US and several EU states, and the general monitoring clause in the Data Retention Directive for the EU as a whole.

Even if these governments come up with a zero knowledge system, it's only one click away from being replaced with a full-knowledge system, because the user is already used to it. These governments have already tried spying on everyone (and they almost certainly still do).