For anyone who missed it, last week the Massachusetts House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed "a bill requiring social media companies to implement age verification systems to prohibit users under the age of 14."
https://malegislature.gov/PressRoom/Detail?pressReleaseId=359
This is massively problematic because there aren't really ways of verifying someones age without collecting data on who they are, which means that our legislature would be legally requiring *more* surveillance.
The counterpart bill by the Massachusetts Senate does not require age verification, but it's not clear what's going to happen now that the two bills have moved to conference committee.
State Representative Erika Uyterhoeven published a little explainer about where things sit.
https://www.electerika.com/newsletters/the-house-took-a-blow-torch-to-your-privacy
These kinds of age verification bills are profoundly disturbing on a whole bunch of levels. They are very attractive to a lot of mainstream people who fixate on the real psychological harms of social media, and knowing that young minds are particularly vulnerable, see sheltering children as minimal common sense solutions.
But the consequences are increased surveillance, barriers to young people accessing resources they need, and (importantly) deflecting attention from harms to *adults*.
Age verification billls like the Massachusetts House just passed functionally outlaw broad swaths of communication platforms that have been designed to protect user privacy. That's bad in itself, but it also has the side effect of effectively making independent social media platforms like Mastodon illegal.
The hosts of the journaling platform #Dreamwidth have written extensively about the problems with age verification laws and similarly restrictive legislation.
They have a whole feed dedicated to their advocacy work on these issues:
https://dw-advocacy.dreamwidth.org/
Unlike Facebook, Dreamwidth is run by a small group dedicated to treating their users with dignity. But it's platforms like Dreamwidth that are hurt when age verification laws are passed.
Massachusetts H5366 (https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H5366), the age verification bill that just passed the House, defines a social media platform as, "a public website, online service, online application or mobile application that displays content primarily generated by users and allows users to create, share and view user-generated content with other users" except for "email, cloud storage, SMS, MMS, RCS" or similar services.
As far as I can tell, this would include #Fedi platforms.
Massachusetts H5366 not only requires that "social media platforms" prohibit use by children under 14 and that "to the extent practicable, the age assurance or verification system shall consist of the best technology available to reasonably and accurately identify a current or prospective user’s age," but also that each social media platform *publicly publish* data on the numbers of users tested and flagged by this age verification technology.
Specifically, in Section 4, the bill passed by the Massachusetts House requires that
"(a) A social media platform shall publicly and conspicuously post to the social media platform’s website the number of: (i) users processed using the age assurance or verification system pursuant to section 3;
(ii) users granted access to the social media feed due to the age determination appeal process under section 3; ..."
(continued below)
(continued)
"...(iii) users denied access to the social media feed due to the user not meeting the age requirements under section 2;
(iv) users granted access to the social media feed after providing the social media platform with verifiable parental consent under section 2;
(v) account user age verification review requests received under section 3; and
(vi) accounts subsequently terminated for not meeting age requirements due to account user age verification review requests."
Leaving aside how gross it is to require platforms that want to respect user privacy to collect data on exactly who their users are, I don't see how it can possibly be realistic to expect hosts of medium-sized or small Mastodon instances to publish this kind of exhaustive information. But it would be nearly effortless for a platform like Facebook to publish this kind of information once they had an age verification system set up.
This language feels like a gift to Meta.
The penalties for non-compliance with Massachusetts H5366 are not small either:
"(c) A social media platform violation of section 4 shall be punished by a civil fine of not more than $1,000,000; provided, that each day that a violation of section 4 persists shall be considered a separate violation under this section."
Here's the list of how Massachusetts representatives voted on the bill:
https://malegislature.gov/RollCall/194/HouseRollCall156.pdf
129 yeas and 25 nays.
You can read more here: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2026-04-09-massachusetts-house-advances-unconstitutional-social-media-ban-bill-that-will-harm-lgbtq-youth-and-human-rights/
The Massachusetts House has advanced H. 5349, a draconian and laughably unconstitutional bill that would ban minors from social media, force social media platforms to enable parental surveillance of teenagers’ online activity, and subject everyone to privacy-invading online ID checks in order to access information or speak out online. Dozens of civil liberties, racial justice, […]
I just had a good phone conversation with a staffer at Massachusetts Senator Pat Jehlen's office, and she affirmed that all the advocacy against age verification is being heard. #Massachusetts residents, if you have bandwidth, please keep pushing on this.
You can look up your state senator here: https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator
You can also use the call tool here:
https://www.stoponlineidchecks.org/MA
@athorn Since Jehlen is your state senator, as she is mine: she's retiring. Rep Uyterhoeven who was one of very few reps to vote against this in the house is running to replace her: https://www.electerika.com/
(If you already know all this, sorry for the unnecessary information.)
Fixed. Apologies.
Letter text:
Hi Will,
I understand that the House and Senate are working on a bill requiring social media platforms to block users under the age of 14. Worse, the House version of the bill includes an age verification requirement.
Prohibiting users under the age of 14 from accessing social media will hurt more than it helps people. It's a performative band-aid which avoids the real work of regulating social media companies to prevent harm to everyone, not just children.
(1/4)
But age verification laws are so much worse. There are, theoretically, ways to do age verification in privacy-protecting ways. If the states passing age verification laws were requiring privacy-protecting age verification, then we would be having a very different discussion right now. But the laws are being written in such a way that rampant privacy violation for adults is going to result.
(2/4)
will cause much more harm than the theoretical good the bill purports to be trying to accomplish.
Please don't let this happen.
I would be glad to discuss this with you in more detail over the phone if you would like more details about my concerns. You can also read this excellent thread by Alexandra Thorn about it:
https://better.boston/@athorn/116390734067937689
Thank you,
Jonathan Kamens
(4/4)
For anyone who missed it, last week the Massachusetts House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed "a bill requiring social media companies to implement age verification systems to prohibit users under the age of 14." https://malegislature.gov/PressRoom/Detail?pressReleaseId=359 This is massively problematic because there aren't really ways of verifying someones age without collecting data on who they are, which means that our legislature would be legally requiring *more* surveillance. #privacy #surveillance #MAPol #MAPoli
Alexandra Thorn
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Itamar Turner-Trauring
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Dr Neenah Estrella-Luna
Jonathan Kamens 86 47