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> I'm not sure I fully grok the hypothesis that Meta is materially advantaged by pushing for OS-level age verification.

These laws, that attempt to move "age verification" into the OS, 100% absolve Meta (and all the Meta owned "properties") from any legal liability so long as all of Meta's app's follow the law's required "ask the OS for the age signal of the user".

Any "bad stuff" which then gets shown to "underage users" then becomes "not Meta's fault, they followed the legally proscribed way to check the age of the user, and the OS said this user was 'old enough'" and Apple/Google then get to shoulder the liability (and pay out for the class action lawsuits) for failing to provide a proper age signal.

That's the "material advantage" gained by Meta by pushing these laws.

by 827a4 minutes ago|

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My point is that they already know how old you are, within some confidence interval, even if you never tell them or you lie to them, because they actively watch what you do and classify your behaviors with your age cohort. So why do they care so much that they gain another signal that only says "the user is over 18" rather than a much more valuable signal like "the user is 36 and lives in Albany" that they'd gain by doing the KYC internally?

I don't think absolution of legal liability has ever crossed any of these fools' empty heads. The threat of being fined & punished by the USG for doing something bad hasn't been a factor in corporate decision-making for decades.