Age Verification Is Reaching a Global Tipping Point. Is TikTok's Strategy a Good Compromise?

"TikTok recently became the latest tech giant to give into regulatory pressure when it announced that it would implement a new age-detection system across Europe to keep kids under the age of 13 off the platform. The system, which follows a year-long pilot in the UK meant to proactively identify and remove underage users, relies on a combination of profile data, content analysis, and behavioral signals to evaluate if an account possibly belongs to a minor."

"The European rollout comes amid global conversation around the negative effects of social media on children, and as governments debate stricter age-based regulatory approaches. Australia last year became the first country to ban social media for children under 16, including the use of Instagram, YouTube, Snap, and TikTok. The European Parliament is also advocating for mandatory age limits, while Denmark and Malaysia are considering a ban for children under 16."

""We are in the middle of an experiment where American and Chinese tech giants have unlimited access to the attention of our children and young people for hours every single day almost entirely without oversight," Christel Schaldemose, a Danish lawmaker and vice president of the European Parliament, said in November during parliamentary session that, according to Reuters, "called for an EU-wide ban on access for children under 16 to online platforms, video-sharing sites and AI companions without parental consent and an outright ban for those younger"

Governments worldwide are imposing stricter limits on children's access to social media and questioning platforms' ability to enforce minimum age rules. TikTok will deploy an age-detection system across Europe after a year-long UK pilot to identify and remove users under 13. The system uses profile data, content analysis, and behavioral signals to flag suspected underage accounts and forwards those accounts to human moderators instead of automatically banning them. Australia has banned social media for children under 16, while the European Parliament, Denmark, and Malaysia are considering mandatory age limits or bans. Regulators cite concerns about extensive, largely unregulated exposure of children to tech platforms.

Read at WIRED