Censorship creep is potentially continuing in the US with Republican’s wanting to expand age verification to app stores.
Notice: We understand that the collapse of America can be distressing to some American readers, but help is available. If you are suffering from a mental health crisis, you can call 988 to talk to someone.
Yesterday, I wrote a report talking about age verification laws being expanded to other areas beyond pornographic websites. The report focused largely on efforts in Australia to expand those laws onto social media and video games. Here’s a sample of what I wrote at the time (the report got delayed because I had somehow forgotten to hit “publish”):
The reality is that this follows a very familiar maxim that is well known among those who work for government: once you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Age verification laws on anything at all, and it is generally pornographic material that is the first target, is the governments way of getting that hammer. Convincing people that this is to protect the children is the selling point of getting said hammer. After all, who wants minors watching porn all day long? Clearly, a case can be made that maybe the government should have censorship powers over the internet, right?
A big part of the problem here is that what we are talking about is the government censoring otherwise legal speech. That has long been a big fundamental change. Some in the ISP industry know that ISPs in multiple countries already censor websites that deal with CSAM, but this has been a lesser known aspect about the industry. Further, such protected speech is not legally protected speech. That’s why there hasn’t been that much uproar over it, yet these age verification laws get a huge amount of uproar.
As such, my view since the beginning has been that once government is able to start implementing laws that effectively censor legally protected speech, the only natural question government asks next is what other kinds of material does the government censor next? After all, if the lawfulness of the speech in question isn’t a barrier for such censorship powers, nothing really is in the end.
When I wrote that report, I had no clue what I was even going to write about today. As such, I had no clue I would be talking about censorship creep coming in the US. Specifically, Republican’s are putting together an effort to expand government censorship by expanding age verification efforts to app stores:
A campaign by social media giant Meta to force app store giants Google and Apple to verify the ages of their users is picking up momentum with legislators in Congress.
Federal and state lawmakers have recently proposed a raft of measures requiring that platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram block users under a certain age from using their sites. The push has triggered fierce debate over the best way to ascertain how old users are online.
Last year Meta threw its support behind legislation that would push those obligations onto app stores rather than individual app providers, like itself, as your regular host and Naomi Nix reported. While some states have considered the plan, it has not gained much traction in Washington.
That could be shifting.
Two congressional Republicans are preparing a new age verification bill that places the burden on app stores, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. John James (R-Michigan) could introduce the legislation imminently, the people said. The bill would be the first of its kind on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have called for expanding guardrails for children amid concerns about the risks of social media, but where political divisions have bogged down talks.
The measure would give parents the right to sue an app store if their child was exposed to certain content, such as lewd or sexual material, according to a copy obtained by the Tech Brief. App stores could be protected against legal claims, however, if they took steps to protect children against harms, such as verifying their ages and giving parents the ability to block app downloads.
To be clear, age verification laws are not exactly anything new. There have been multiple efforts in different states to push age verification laws for adult websites. Generally speaking, those efforts are largely considered obviously unconstitutional. Last we checked in on this was back in July when the US Supreme Court was saying that they are going to weigh in on this again. A big part of the problem is that it violates freedom of expression protections granted in the US constitution (and such protections are stronger than in Canada).
While I had warned that expanding these government censorship efforts was probably in the works, I didn’t think I would be seeing a big example crop up this soon (literally the next day). Yet, here we are with Republican’s (who are huge fans of government censorship) carrying out the marching orders of their buddy, Mark Zuckerberg, and trying to implement age verification laws on app stores. My words of the government looking for nails now that they have the censorship hammer ended up being a spookily prophetic – even if I was focusing on the wrong country at the time. Me and my big mouth.
Still, the effort to censor app stores is going to run into the very same constitutional problems as before. Like I’ve said repeatedly about these proposed laws, you are getting into the realm of the government censoring legally protected speech. Normal porn is legally protected speech (there are types that aren’t, but that’s not what the age verification laws are focused on). Apps available in app stores are also legally protected speech. It really is the exact same problem here.
Politically, I’m not really surprised that it’s Republican’s leading the way on trying to crack down on free speech in the first place. Their hatred towards free speech is only exceeded by the hatred of the existence of people that would dare to disagree with them on anything. After all, there is a reason why they want to silence the media if they dared to offer even the slightest criticism towards the Trump regime. The fascist regime wants unquestioned obedience no matter what, after all. Come January, we’re going to see how far the Trump regime is going to take things.
It’s unclear what the odds are that this legislative effort has in passing at this point from my perspective. It’s entirely possible it could just float around in the halls of government and never get passed for all I know. Still, with the forthcoming Trump presidency wielding seemingly unlimited power, who really knows? Either way, though, heavy handed censorship is seemingly coming and I’m not sure what can be done to stop it.
Notice: We understand that the collapse of America can be distressing to some American readers, but help is available. If you are suffering from a mental health crisis, you can call 988 to talk to someone.
