this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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299
Kids say they can beat age checks by drawing on a fake mustache (www.theregister.com)
submitted 5 days ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
35 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The group surveyed over 1,000 UK children and their parents, and while it did report some positive effects from changes made under the OSA, many children saw age verification as an easy-to-bypass hurdle rather than something that kept them genuinely safe.

A full 46 percent of children even said that age checks were easy to bypass, while just 17 percent said that they were difficult to fool. The methods kids use to fool age gates vary, but most are pretty simple: There's the classic use of a video game character to fool video selfie systems, while in other instances, children reported just entering a fake birthday or using someone else's ID card when that was required.

Does anyone find this surprising ?Ask anyone who know how the internet works and most will say this won't work

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[–] MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip 30 points 5 days ago (2 children)

IMO the purpose of age verification is to legalise social media companies data collection before they get in hot water over it.

That's why Meta has been spending millions on lobbying for age verification.

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Also, adding age verification is a costly burden that makes it more difficult for competitors to enter the market.

[–] MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago

Yep, absolutely!

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This, and it also gives them the ability to tell who’s a bot and who isn’t. For somebody who’s entire income is based on advertising, being able to guarantee advertisers actual human eyes on is worth a lot of money.

[–] Electricblush@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Correction: to make sure the only bots/manipulation of views etc are the bots they control.