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Comment by everfrustrated | Hacker News Reader

A ban on social media for children is a different way of saying ID Verification for the entire population.

They are implicitly the same thing.

You can't exclude children without first verifying _everyone_ and from there excluding people who match age < approved. This is basic logic.

If you were a cynical person you could imagine this is actually politicians wanting to bring in an ID law and using "think of the children" as the social justification for it.

If you're a conspiracy theorist you'd wonder why Apple and Google have now added the ability to upload and link your passport and other real id into their respective app wallets. How long before your phones browser is digitally signing all your social media posts with your ID...

View on HN

Yup the aim is to de-anonymise the Internet for increased policing/spying abilities

> How long before your phones browser is digitally signing all your social media posts with your ID...

Under 10 years I'd say at this rate

>A ban on social media for children is a different way of saying ID Verification for the entire population.

ID verification was not required for adults in Australia. Age was inferred based on activity. In fact, blanket verification was disallowed by the legislation.

I'm Australian and neither any Meta platform nor Reddit have asked to verify my ID, as I presume both just inferred that I was over 16 and that was adequate.

In fact, the Australia law makes it illegal for a social media platform to require you to verify your ID.

It's like people here are arguing about a law they haven't even read.

This whole thread is confidently wrong people arguing about legislation they have no understanding of. Social networks have already very accurately estimated your age for the purposes of selling advertising to you. The legislation expects them to use this estimate to restrict access to under 16s. So far it seems to be working pretty well in Australia, only children have been affected.

Children haven't been affected either. Source; a mate's kid

The law forbids government ID as the sole age verification mechanism, but does not prevent it from being an option:

> As stated in the law passed late last year, platforms also cannot rely solely on using government-issued ID for age verification, even though the government-backed technology study found this to be the most effective screening method.

> Instead, the guidelines will direct platforms to take a "layered" approach to assessing age with multiple methods and to "minimise friction" for their users — such as by using AI-driven models that assess age with facial scans or by tracking user behaviour.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-15/social-media-ban-fina...

> If you were a cynical person you could imagine this is actually politicians wanting to bring in an ID law

Sounds like a good theory, apart from the minor flaw that France already has ID cards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_card_(France)

Gaming platforms are already doing it.

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