Marketplace All-in-One How online age-gating laws went mainstream this year
Dec 26, 2025
Drew Harwell, a tech reporter at The Washington Post, dives into the surge of online age verification laws now affecting half of U.S. states. He discusses various age-check tools like ID scans and AI algorithms, raising concerns over privacy and surveillance. Drew reveals the implications of recent Supreme Court rulings and how compliance is reshaping content accessibility across platforms. He highlights alarming security breaches in age-verification services and the unexpected traffic shifts between compliant and noncompliant sites.
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Age Verification Moves Into The Mainstream
- About half of U.S. states now require online age verification for certain content, and the Supreme Court upheld a Texas law allowing states to demand websites verify users' ages.
- That ruling encouraged more lawmakers to push age-verification rules at state and federal levels.
New Market Of Age-Verification Vendors
- A cottage industry of contractors provides varied age-verification tools like ID scans and AI age estimation by webcam.
- Platforms and sites increasingly integrate these services as a new security layer on many websites.
Smaller Sites Face High Costs And Censorship
- Smaller sites face steep costs because age-verification firms often charge per scan and can be prohibitively expensive.
- Some platforms even cut service to entire states to avoid legal exposure, as happened with Blue Sky in parts of Mississippi.