Age-Gating Isn't It, Fam

17 Apr, 2026

So. The Liberal party here in Canada - the party that now has a majority in the federal government - has adopted a motion to ban children under 16 from social media. This was a matter of time, seeing the recent developments in a similar direction in many other jurisdictions worldwide. ¹

I think we can all agree that we want the best outcomes for all children and youth in Canada. This includes their safety and mental well-being. However, the way to achieve these outcomes is not through age gating on social media.

A light, airy photo of an ID card in a holder on a lanyard. There is a small succulent visible near the top of the image. Photo by jim on Unsplash. Glitched.

Why Age Gating Isn't It

1. It's a Thinly-Veiled Surveillance Information Grab

Age gating is thinly-veiled surveillance of users of all ages that is:

insecure,
very often inaccurate, and
not to mention dystopian.

The process itself, by definition, requires handing over Canadians sensitive, private, and often immutable (in the case of biometrics) information to tech companies who we know cannot be trusted with our data. And this holds for everyone wishing to use social media, so, uh, pretty much everyone at this point.

It is not a question of whether, but when this data gets stolen through hacks or leaks. Two recent examples include the Discord hack, and the AU10TIX incident.

We're already seeing fine-grained location data harvested from ad surveillance being used against users - why layer this mess of more potential for data loss and data misuse on top of what's already there?

Plus: Biometrics. Your password gets leaked, you get yourself a new password. And hopefully you've been using unique passwords and 2FA, so nobody was able to access your account, or any other account with the same password.

Your biometrics get leaked? Good luck getting new fingerprints, a new face, or a new iris.

I don't know if you've ever had to deal with identity theft or fraud involving your person, but it is a headache and a half that drags on for years, and is potentially never-ending. This is not something you just shrug off and move on from without huge investments of time and effort.

2. It's a Digital Sovereignty Issue

Most of Big Tech and “age verification” service providers are not Canadian.

Given the strained relationship with the United States that we find ourselves in, and the fact that most of these companies are headquartered there, digital sovereignty should be top of mind.

I know that the government knows that this concept exists, because this is from their own web page on Digital Sovereignty:

Digital sovereignty means Canada stays in control of its own digital future—including its data, technology and essential online services—instead of relying on foreign companies, foreign systems or foreign laws.

3. There are Good Online Communities, Actually

For a lot of young people, the communities they are part of online provide a highly positive environment and social support, ² ³ often especially so for marginalized youth, and youth who feel like they don't "belong" in whatever current school or out-of-school environment they find themselves in.

This can be for all sorts of reasons - Niche hobbies that you don't have in common with people in your area or at your school. Identity exploration. You just moved away to a new place and don't see your old friends in person anymore. Difficulties in your home life that you'd like to talk to someone about, but not someone that knows the people at the heart of the difficulties. The list goes on.

We would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater by banning young people from accessing these supportive communities.

4. ... It's Probably Not Going to Work

There's "working" in the sense that "this will, on a technological basis, do the thing we want it to do, ie. keep children and youth away from social media." And then there is "this proposal will accomplish the overarching goal, which is to improve the lives of children and youth."

I'd argue this has a low likelihood of working in even just one of those two ways.

Prohibition, famously, had all sorts of unintended consequences, besides the fact that it didn't totally work, and also was later repealed.

Also, kids & youth will absolutely find ways around age gating. You've met teenagers with smarts, sufficient time on their hands, and a desire to be a part of a thing, yes?

This entire age-gating push the world over smacks of the "won't somebody please think of the children!" meme come to life. Which brings us back to the beginning of this post - age gating is predominantly a surveillance-based information grab that, at the face of it, pretends to be about online safety for children and youth - and anything that's done purportedly to keep children and youth safe of course has to be good, right?

It's not.

5. Why are we Dancing around the Real Issue?

And then there is the overall premise of age gating. “Here, kid – this was too horrible for you to see at 15, but now that you’re 16, please wade into the cesspool that is hate speech, looksmaxxing, and other questionable content specifically tailored to you so that you’ll spend more time on this platform!”

We know that these platforms are bad for us as individuals, and for us as a society, no matter our age. Why are we drawing this arbitrary line in the sand that is based on whether you've had 16 candles on your bday cake or not?

Why are we dancing around the real issue, which is that we have let Big Tech corporations build up platforms that make them millions/billions of dollars, that are hard to leave, and that we know are not good for our young people?

What would Actually be the Right Move

Instead of regulating users, we must regulate the platforms that make money off of pushing questionable content onto users of all ages. I'd say I cannot believe that that is not the issue being addressed, but sadly, I very much can.

We need to hold the Big Tech companies accountable for the mess they made, and address the real underlying issue:

Why do we let Big Tech run roughshod over our society with their questionable practices and extractive algorithms that produce addiction-adjacent behaviours, which we know are harmful to users? We should start by curbing that behaviour, and the influence these platforms have on our society, instead.

The only problem is... one of the groups at the potentially receiving end of new legislation has boatloads of money and power and armies of lawyers - and it's not Canadian youth.

Technically Good ✨