New Year’s Message / From the Vault: Age Verification

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Host Corbin Barthold offers some end-of-year reflections on the moral panic over kids’ use of social media and AI. Then we revisit Episode 405 (“No, Internet Age Verification Has Not Been ‘Solved’,” Apr. 30, 2025), in which Prof. Eric Goldman discusses his paper “The ‘Segregate-and-Suppress’ Approach to Regulating Child Safety Online.” Links: This Country Banned Social Media for Young Teens. Here’s how They’re Defying It. (https://tinyurl.com/y2t8sj6y) Australia’s Social Media Ban Goes Into Effect as Pretty Much Everyone Realizes It’s a Total Mess (https://tinyurl.com/3znvf24m) The “Segregate-and-Suppress” Approach to Regulating Child Safety Online (https://tinyurl.com/ymdxn2kc) Tech Policy Podcast 417: Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton Is Wreaking Havoc (https://tinyurl.com/mwdh2mvb)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I spoke on a panel recently about kids and social media and AI.
0:30.5	I was honored to be invited, so I don't mean this by way of complaint, simply by way of observation about the way the world is right
0:38.9	now. We made it 40 minutes before I said a word. We had a keynote from a congressperson,
0:49.5	so to be fair, that took up a good bit of time. Then we had a researcher. Then we had an activist.
0:58.1	And they both spoke. And by the time it got to me, we had done every single social media and
1:06.0	AI panic talking point available. Addiction, mental health, sex distortion, bullying, distraction. I'm sure I've
1:16.8	missed a few. It was all there before I had said anything. I did my best to give a short response,
1:42.1	but it was like being the devil's advocate in the Catholic Church, where the person is going to be sainted, and you just get a few minutes to say something edgewise before everyone does what they were already going to do.
1:49.1	My personal experience is illustrative of wider trends.
1:53.0	We had a congressional hearing recently.
2:00.3	The Energy and Commerce Committee convened to discuss a slate of 19 bills involving minors and the internet. Let's check in, more or less at
2:04.6	random, on how that went. I've said for years, Facebook is the Philip Morris of our time, yet they
2:12.5	are just one example of the cesspool that is the modern internet. Americans are waking up to big text game.
2:20.2	They provide lip service on how they're protecting children while actually delivering none of
2:24.4	those protections. Social media has been labeled the primary culprit and for good reason.
2:29.5	Countless studies and multiple congressional hearings make clear that social media is not only
2:34.0	addictive service for children, but is also harmful for their mental acuity, studies and multiple congressional hearings make clear that social media is not only addictive
2:34.5	service for children, but it's also harmful for their mental acuity and overall mental
2:39.5	health. The damage social media is doing to our kids is unconscionable and extremely disturbing.
2:45.3	Big Tech is knowingly and willingly wreaking havoc on our kids' mental health. As a father of three school-age boys,
2:52.5	the warning signs of social media's impact on kids
2:54.8	are abundantly clear to me and to all parents.
	...

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