Child safety bills are reshaping the internet for everyone

By the end August 2023, adult content will get a lot harder to watch in Texas. Instead of clicking a button or entering a date of birth to access adult sites, users will need to provide photos of their official government-issued ID or use a third-party service to verify their age. It’s the result of a new law passed earlier in summer 2023 intended to prevent kids from seeing adult content online. But it’s also part of a broad — and worrying — attempt to age-gate the internet. In 2023, more than half a dozen states have passed similar legislation and even more are looking to follow suit. While these rules are focused on adult content, another raft of laws is aimed at locking down minors’ access to the internet more generally — including banning teens from social media without parental consent. Republicans and Democrats alike are backing age-gating bills. For some lawmakers, it’s an extension of a yearslong fight against Big Tech — a way to rein in the alleged harmful effects of social networks on youth. For others, it’s part of a much broader culture war. Conservative state houses and school districts have recently altered public school curriculums and banned books predominantly written by and about people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Online child protection bills are a new weapon in the fight. These parallel movements have created an unprecedented appetite for a new kind of internet. It’s one where parents might have far more control over what minors see online and kids are more shielded from the darker spaces on the internet. It’s also one where adults and young people alike could have trouble reading, watching, or otherwise engaging with constitutionally protected speech and where privacy is hard to find.