Spying on children to avoid wasting children from spying may be very, very silly: First they got here for the VPNs.
Hey take a look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: RIP Darwin’s tortoise; ISPs conspire to create copyright jail; Waxy v honest use; Damaged Home windows is BS; Google is a machine-learning firm; “Writing the Different”; Canadian wealth-tax.
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The literature on harms to children from on-line platforms is advanced and nuanced, rife with individuals citing small, ambiguous research as iron-clad proof that children are being destroyed by the web:
It is a bizarre coalition of anti-Huge Tech campaigners (who’re rightly indignant on the platforms’ callous disregard for consumer welfare) and Heritage Basis-backed tradition warriors (who assume that if their children aren’t uncovered to LGBTQ content material they will not come out as queer). Whereas there’s lots these teams disagree about, they share one consensus: there ought to be a “minimal age” for sure sorts of web use.
The issue is, there is no such factor as “age verification” for the web. What we name “age verification” is definitely mass surveillance, so invasive and pervasive that it makes the ad-tech trade’s industrial surveillance seem like some sort of cypherpunk darknet pirate utopia:
https://pluralistic.web/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers
“Age verification” signifies that everybody who does something on-line should undergo fine-grained monitoring and recording of all their on-line actions. This nightmare is the surveillance promoting trade’s fondest dream, a world the place it is actually unlawful to keep away from their monitoring, all within the title of saving children…from them!
So it is not only a bizarre alliance of anti-Huge Tech crusaders and the conspiratorial proper that is pushing for age verification – they’re unwitting allies of the very tech trade they assume they’re preventing. These tech trade insiders are absolutely conscious that an “age verification” mandate is known as a means for the federal government to show each baby find out how to use a VPN. They’re additionally absolutely conscious that the following transfer is to ban VPNs:
https://www.categorical.co.uk/information/uk/2217934/vpn-ban-table-july-labour
Tech bosses are those sitting on our shoulders saying, “Go forward, swallow that fly – it will be tremendous. And in case you do need to swallow a spider afterward, properly, that’ll absolutely be the top of it”:
https://pluralistic.web/2026/05/19/shes-dead-of-course/#consensus-hallucination
Behind them is a protracted line of caliper-wielding grifters who declare they’ll use your cellphone’s digital camera to tell apart a toddler who’s 17 years, 364 days outdated from an grownup who’s simply turned 18:
https://www.gov.uk/authorities/publications/facial-age-estimation
It is past farce. In spite of everything, no matter harms you consider the web is inflicting on children – and there is completely some children who’re being harmed by their web use – these harms all begin with surveillance. Your children cannot be focused by algorithms with out the surveillance information that is getting used to focus on them. They can not be funneled into pro-anorexia content material or excessive misogyny boards with out that funnel being primed by industrial spying.
Why do tech corporations spy in your children? The identical cause your canine licks its balls: as a result of they’ll, and nobody stops them:
https://pluralistic.web/2026/03/10/ice-tech/#foreseeable-outcomes
America hasn’t up to date its client privateness legal guidelines since 1988 (when Congress banned the disclosure of your VHS leases). The EU has the GDPR, nevertheless it additionally has Eire, the nation the place all GDPR instances in opposition to Huge Tech go to die, as a result of any tax haven inevitably turns into against the law haven:
https://pluralistic.web/2025/10/31/losing-the-crypto-wars/#surveillance-monopolism
Different nations have privateness legal guidelines to various levels, however are grossly outmatched by US tech giants, who’ve fused with the Trump regime, to the extent that Trump will impose penalties in your nation in case you try to manage his tech corporations – he’ll even have your high officers reduce off from the web in retaliation:
https://pluralistic.web/2026/04/04/digital-subjugation/#greenlands-next
Any try to avoid wasting children from on-line harms ought to begin with saving children from on-line surveillance, however that is the alternative of what we’re doing in the present day. After many years of failing to move and implement privateness controls for the web, those self same governments are breaking all land-speed data to move “age verification” legal guidelines that make privateness unlawful:
https://bsky.app/profile/rebeccawilliams.data/submit/3moviqzdit22z
The truth that these payments have the agency backing of the tech trade’s most controlling, most spying corporations tells you every part it is advisable learn about them:
https://internet.archive.org/internet/20260315022337/https://tboteproject.com/
Youngsters are being harmed by on-line spying, and so are the remainder of us. Whether or not you assume that the algorithm made Grampy go Qanon otherwise you’re suspicious that on-line surveillance information was used to disclaim you a mortgage, a job, or a lease, it’s best to need privateness:
https://pluralistic.web/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy
On-line surveillance is getting used to boost the costs you pay and decrease the wages you are supplied:
https://pluralistic.web/2026/04/06/empiricism-washing/#veena-dubal
And the identical information that is getting used to “confirm age” in the present day might be utilized by ICE tomorrow to determine who to spherical up for a focus camp:
https://www.wired.com/story/ice-asks-companies-about-ad-tech-and-big-data-tools/
You may’t defend children from on-line surveillance by spying on them. You simply cannot. Anybody who tells you in any other case is attempting to get you to swallow a fly to allow them to promote you a spider, a hen, a cat, and an ICE chud in a gaiter, Oakleys and plate provider (beneath which lurks a stick-and-poke Totenkopf tattoo).
#20yrsago Darwin’s tortoise lifeless at 176https://internet.archive.org/internet/20060704143750/http://information.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060623/od_afp/australiaanimal_060623102146;_ylt=Ave_b4Ps2r9TGXqs5nZIVIoFO7gF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA–zoo
#15yrsago Main US ISPs set to restrict repeat infringers with throttling, limiting entry to 200 web sites, and copyright reeducation college https://internet.archive.org/internet/20111105225114/http://information.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20073522-261/exclusive-top-isps-poised-to-adopt-graduated-response-to-piracy/
#15yrsago Why honest use doesn’t work except you’ve received an enormous war-chest for paying legal professionals https://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/
#15yrsago Mannequin web neutrality rule for municipalities https://internet.archive.org/internet/20110626114610/http://envisionseattle.org/2011/06/model-net-neutrality-ordinance-for-seattle.html
#15yrsago Campus hookups: school intercourse isn’t new, however hookups are completely different https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/06/21/the-promise-and-perils-of-hook-up-culture/
#15yrsago A Temporary Historical past of the Company: understanding what an consideration economic system is and the place it comes from https://ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/08/a-brief-history-of-the-corporation-1600-to-2100/
#15yrsago Eliza: what makes you assume I’m a psychotherapeutic chatbot? https://www.filfre.web/2011/06/eliza-part-1/
#10yrsago Damaged Home windows policing is nonsense https://www.nyc.gov/belongings/oignypd/downloads/pdf/High quality-of-Life-Report-2010-2015.pdf
#10yrsago The way it feels to be below DDoS assault https://www.oreilly.com/radar/ddos-emotions/
#10yrsago 2016: the primary presidential election in 50 years with out Voting Rights Act protections https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/welcome-to-the-first-presidential-election-since-voting-rights-act-gutted-179737/3/
#10yrsago Google is restructuring to place machine studying on the core of all it does https://internet.archive.org/internet/20180530051703/https://www.wired.com/2016/06/how-google-is-remaking-itself-as-a-machine-learning-first-company/
#10yrsago Misconfigured database exposes delicate information for 154 million US voters https://dailydot.com/politics/154-million-voter-files-exposed-l2
#10yrsago To grasp the Trump marketing campaign, examine real-estate developer hustle https://internet.archive.org/internet/20161028030522/https://storify.com/KC_EDM/trump-is-running-his-campaign-like-a-real-estate-d
#10yrsago Writing the Different: intensely sensible recommendation for representing different cultures in fiction https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/23/writing-the-other-intensely-practical-advice-for-representing-other-cultures-in-fiction/
#1yrago The case for a Canadian wealth tax https://pluralistic.web/2025/06/23/billionaires-eh/#galen-weston-is-a-rat
Toronto: The Sovereignty Debate (IAB Canada’s State of the Nation), Jun 23https://iabcanada.com/state-of-the-nation-2026
Toronto: The Reverse Centaur’s Information to Life After AI (Osler Information/Sort Books), Jun 23https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-launch-and-talk-tickets-1991501299998
NYC: The Reverse Centaur’s Information to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html
Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur’s Information to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Membership/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559
Chicago: The Reverse Centaur’s Information to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26https://exileinbookville.com/occasions/50628
London: Loafer Competition, Jul 11https://www.loafer.co.uk/competition/
Edinburgh Worldwide E book Competition with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/occasions/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales
Sydney: The Competition of Harmful Concepts, Aug 23-24https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/
Melbourne: Enshittification on the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification
Brighton: The Reverse Centaur’s Information to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/
London: The Reverse Centaur’s Information to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle’s Picadilly), Sep 9https://www.foyles.co.uk/occasions/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn
South Bend: An Night With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6https://franco.nd.edu/occasions/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/
“Canny Valley”: A restricted version assortment of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.web/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce
“Enshittification: Why All the things Abruptly Received Worse and What to Do About It,” Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
“Picks and Shovels”: a sequel to “Purple Group Blues,” in regards to the heroic period of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
“The Bezzle”: a sequel to “Purple Group Blues,” about prison-tech and different grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).
“The Misplaced Trigger:” a solarpunk novel of hope within the local weather emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).
“The Web Con”: A nonfiction e-book about interoperability and Huge Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at E book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/e-book/9781804291245).
“Purple Group Blues”: “A grabby, compulsive thriller that can go away you realizing extra about how the world works than you probably did earlier than.” Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.
“Chokepoint Capitalism: Find out how to Beat Huge Tech, Tame Huge Content material, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin”, on find out how to unrig the markets for artistic labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
“The Reverse-Centaur’s Information to AI,” a brief e-book about being a greater AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)
“Enshittification, Why All the things Abruptly Received Worse and What to Do About It” (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026
“The Submit-American Web,” a geopolitical sequel of kinds to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027
“Unauthorized Bread”: a middle-grades graphic novel tailored from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027
“The Memex Technique,” Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027
Immediately’s high sources:
At present writing: “The Submit-American Web,” a sequel to “Enshittification,” in regards to the higher world the remainder of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft accomplished. Submitted to editor.
“The Reverse Centaur’s Information to AI,” a brief e-book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an efficient AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.
“The Submit-American Web,” a brief e-book about web coverage within the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.
A Little Brother brief story about DIY insulin PLANNING
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