This is the reason interview with Nick Gillespie.

Thanks for listening.

Today's show is brought to you by Better Help, HELP, online therapy.

More on them later in the show.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee dragged the heads of meta,

TikTok, and

X to Washington to charge them with exploiting children by allegedly addicting them to social media

that sexually harms them, drives them to eating disorders, and even kills them.

The Spanish Inquisition vibe of the proceedings reached a crescendo when Republican Senator Josh

Hawley demanded that Mark Zuckerberg apologized to the families of children for the harms

supposedly caused by Facebook and pay compensation to them out of his personal fortune.

But is social media really that bad for kids?

And is the solution being pushed by Democrats and Republicans alike, universal age verification for all users of the internet, even technically feasible without shredding the First Amendment, destroying privacy, and creating major security issues. The answer is a resounding no,

according to Shoshana Weissman, director of digital media at R Street, a free market think tank,

and the author of The Fundamental Problems with Social Media Age Verification Legislation. Here is

the reason interview with Shoshana Weissman.

Shoshana Weissman, thanks for talking to Reason.

Thank you so much for having me.

So we're talking right at the start of February and two interesting things related to this question of social media and its effects on kids and the need to verify the ages of who's

using social media, et cetera, just happened. One is that the state of Utah, which had passed a law

mandating age verification, pulled it after being challenged or threatened with lawsuits from a couple of

groups. And the other is there was just this spectacular

...