PersephoneFigures that meta(Facebook) are behind a lot of the age verification stuff going aroind. They have a functionally complete set of products. Facebook, Intagram, what's app, all have been basically feature complete for a decade at this point. They've not added new user facing features in a while, at least not obvious enough that I remember them.
If you can't compete on features you've got to compete by making it harder for the opposition. Adding something to support a new regulation is trivial for them. But a dozen slightly different rules in different parts of the world make it really really hard to bring up a new Facebook competitor.
With the amount of regulations and paperwork from osa (which I've long said was designed to prevent an English Facebook competitor) it would be a wild amount of work for a new social media company that wants to be focusing on features but now need to get a legal team too.
The other advantage to Facebook of age verification is that they don't need tracking cookies and other hacks to know what you're doing online. They'll have your fucking driving license, passport, or gov ID. For them it's a massive bonus
If you can't compete on features you've got to compete by making it harder for the opposition. Adding something to support a new regulation is trivial for them. But a dozen slightly different rules in different parts of the world make it really really hard to bring up a new Facebook competitor.
With the amount of regulations and paperwork from osa (which I've long said was designed to prevent an English Facebook competitor) it would be a wild amount of work for a new social media company that wants to be focusing on features but now need to get a legal team too.
The other advantage to Facebook of age verification is that they don't need tracking cookies and other hacks to know what you're doing online. They'll have your fucking driving license, passport, or gov ID. For them it's a massive bonus
Retro Librarian
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Tom Forsyth
Pavel A. Samsonov