AI Summary
5 min read🎙️ The Voices & The Context
- The Format: This interview on Free Speech Friday dives into the technical pitfalls of online age verification laws, framing them as threats to privacy and free speech under the guise of child protection, delivered in a cautionary, analytical tone that builds urgency through expert dissection.
- The Format: An interview between host and guest dissecting policy threats to the open internet.
- The Key Players:
- Guest: Eric Goldman – Associate Dean for Research at Santa Clara University School of Law and co-director of the High Tech Law Institute, renowned for his upcoming Stanford Technology Law Review paper critiquing age verification as a gateway to surveillance.
- Host: Taylor Lorenz – Tech journalist and author of Extremist Online, bringing insider anecdotes from White House events and fierce advocacy for an open web.
🗝️ Key Themes & Topics
The episode unpacks age verification (or "age authentication") mandates as a seemingly benign push to protect kids online, but reveals them as a Trojan horse for broader control, privacy erosion, and internet shrinkage through five core problems, while proposing education-focused alternatives.
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What you'll learn
- 1 **(00:00) 🎙️ Introduction: Eric Goldman**
- 2 **(01:54) What is Age Verification (Age Authentication)?**
- 3 **(04:20) Why Age Verification Seems Reasonable (But Isn't)**
- 4 **(04:52) Problem 1: Privacy Invasions**
- 5 **(11:35) Problem 2: Security Risks**
- 6 **(16:47) Problem 3: Speed Bumps (Roadblocks to Access)**
- 7 **(21:55) Problem 4: Massive Costs**
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
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>>> Free Speech Friday <<<Â
Across the U.S. parents and lawmakers are calling for tech companies to verify users' ages online. They frame these efforts as a smart, reasonable, and harmless way to keep kids safe. But that's not what age verification does!!!
Age verification efforts are a massive threat to privacy, freedom, and the very idea of an open web. No one knows this better than Eric Goldman. He is the associate dean for research at Santa Clara University School of Law and co-Director of the High Tech Law Institute.
He recently wrote a fantastic paper on age verification, soon to be published in the Stanford Technology Law Review. Today he's joining me for Free Speech Friday to talk about how age verification works online and how it's all ultimately a trojan horse for government control, surveillance, and censorship.
(This episode originally ran in June)
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