Apple is hitting back in the war over internet age-gating
1 min read
Summary
Apple CEO Tim Cook is said to have personally called the governor of Texas in a bid to stop the state passing a bill that would mandate that app store operators verify the age of users accessing their stores.
SB 2420 is part of a growing trend of legislation that seeks to enforce the gating of the internet to minors with some also seeking to ban minors from accessing social media without parental consent.
However, civil liberties campaigners are firmly opposed to such moves on the grounds that they will create significant privacy issues and may not be that effective.
The move puts Apple at odds with Meta which has supported making Apple and Google build age-checking systems into their products.
Apple instead called for legislation on a federal level in the form of the Kids Online Safety Act which would make web platforms liable for young users encountering harm.