European Commission Moves Us One Step Closer to the End of the Open Internet
Reason · RC · trust 49/100
Elizabeth Nolan Brown | 7.15.2026 12:00 PM
As per usual, the scheme is being billed by authorities as a common-sense way to protect children. "Social media is not a toy," von der Leyen said in a July 12 statement . "While ultimately it is up to parents to decide when children get their first smartphones, what we already have is a consensus that there needs to be a start date for the age children can join social media."
"It is clear we need age-appropriate restrictions to platforms," von der Leyen continued, touting the European Commission's new age-verification app .
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In truly Orwellian fashion, von der Leyen claimed that "this is about putting power back into the hands of parents."
But of course, government-imposed bans on teens using social media do the exact opposite. They take decisions about age-appropriate internet usage out of the hands of parents and give it to regulators.
This is what Australia did last year, stipulating that no one under age 16 could have a social media account, regardless of whether their parents think it is OK. And despite report after report suggesting that Australia's ban is a flop —teens are easily getting around it—politicians in the U.S. and in the U.K. are rushing to emulate Australia. Now, it looks like the whole of the European Union could be next.
("In a few short years, the entire Western world might finally end the age of the open internet," notes Kelsey Piper at The Argument .)
"We need to set the age at which [minors] can legally access social media," said von der Leyen on Sunday. She promised to "present a proposal after the summer" that would focus on keeping minors off not just social media but all platforms that the government deems to have "age-inappropriate and addictive features"—a category she's calling "social media plus." (Shudders.)
As per usual, the rhetoric used to promote this scheme sounds so sweet and benign. Who could be against keeping kids off of "addictive" and "inappropriate" websites?
But the reality of implementing "social media plus" bans is that adults, teens, and children alike need to show ID or otherwise verify their real identities on every platform with which they interact.
From posting political commentary on X to asking potentially embarrassing health questions on Reddit, reviewing books on Goodreads, posting to a forum for LGBTQ young people, consuming TikTok content, subscribing to Substack newsletters, joining a community for people dealing with psychological issues, and so much more, your real identity will be tied to your online activity. Tech companies, regulators, and law enforcement may be able to connect you to activity across the internet. There would be no more online anonymity, at least not in any real sense.
Sure, some age-verification schemes do a better job protecting privacy and personal data than do others. (All things being equal, it's better to upload your ID to one app and then use that app to access various websites, rather than submitting your data to a bunch of sites individually.) But the whole business is still a privacy nightmare. Some companies that aren't supposed to store data surely will. Age-check apps themselves can be hacked. All of us become more vulnerable to snoops, identity thieves, and other malicious actors.
Meanwhile, the whole foundation of the open internet is upended. Instead of the free and open internet that has existed for decades, we get a "papers, please" internet. We normalize the idea that every online interaction should be traceable and every forum we visit should know who we are.
This is especially dangerous in countries without strong free speech protections. "In the U.K., where thousands of people have been arrested for online posts , it's hard not to interpret the sweeping age-verification laws for social media in terms of the secondary effect of requiring everyone to submit a bunch of identifying information to use social media," notes Piper. And even in the U.S., age-verification laws could open up more people to punitive government action based on their speech. After all, "the government has harassed and stalked people for anti-ICE speech," Piper points out.
All the while, teenagers either find ways around bans (as many in Australia are showing) or they're cut off from the online world—including the news, community, emotional support, abilities for self-expression, and other benefits it brings.
Politicians and the sort of pundits who have made a career out of tech fear mongering routinely suggest that the online world's harms to minors are catastrophic and proven. But the evidence is actually incredibly mixed, with many studies finding no link or even some positive correlations between social media or phone use and well-being, and neither the positive nor the negative studies are able to show a causal link . (Plus, there's just a lot of really bad or overhyped research out there.)
I'm not suggesting unfettered screen time is good for young children, that social media can't be bad for developing brains, or that parents should put no limits on what kinds of content and platforms their kids can access. And I realize that our current solutions for putting parents more in control are imperfect.
But that doesn't mean that putting the government in control is the right solution.
Sex work decriminalization in Thailand hits a snag. "A citizen-sponsored bill seeking protection of the rights of sex workers has hit a procedural hurdle after parliamentary leaders ruled that it qualifies as a money bill, meaning it cannot proceed without the prime minister's endorsement," Bangkok Post reports .
Called the Sex Worker Protection Bill, it will now need to be certified by Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul before lawmakers can even debate it. And since there's no set deadline for when Charnvirakul must make a move,…
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