June 23, 2026
Stranger Pings
Spying on kids to save kids from spying is stupid
Parents want kids safe, commenters say this plan spies on literally everybody
TLDR: Doctorow argues that online age checks would force everyone, not just kids, into widespread identity checks and tracking. Commenters were mostly furious, with the big split between people calling it mass spying and a smaller group insisting it doesn’t have to be that extreme.
Cory Doctorow’s latest rant on Pluralistic lit a match under one of the internet’s favorite arguments: how do you protect kids online without turning the whole web into a digital ID checkpoint? His answer is blunt: so-called age checks don’t just target children, they pressure everyone to prove who they are, every time, everywhere. And the comments? Oh, they came in swinging.
The loudest reaction was pure alarm. One commenter basically translated the whole debate into one brutal line: you can’t spy on kids without spying on everyone. That set the tone fast. People piled on with fears of face scans, biometric checks, and a future where only “approved” gadgets can go online. It’s the kind of comment-section mood that starts at “bad idea” and ends at “welcome to the robot hall monitor apocalypse.”
But not everyone bought the full doomsday script. One skeptic pushed back, saying age checks don’t have to become a 24/7 tracking nightmare unless lawmakers demand near-perfect enforcement. That was the main mini-drama: is this policy automatically dystopian, or just dangerously easy to abuse? Then came the sharpest crowd-pleaser of all: why not ban the addictive, slot-machine-style apps for everyone instead of building a giant spying system? That got the biggest “finally, someone said it” energy. Even the shortest comments had bite, with one person coolly reminding everyone that security and privacy are not the same thing.
Key Points
- •The article says evidence about online harms to children is mixed and often overstated in public debate.
- •The piece identifies anti-Big Tech campaigners and Heritage Foundation-backed activists as groups that both support minimum ages for some internet use.
- •It argues that online age verification is not a simple verification tool but a form of mass surveillance affecting all users.
- •The article states that such systems would require detailed tracking and recording of users’ online activity.
- •It further claims age-verification mandates would drive VPN use and could be followed by efforts to ban VPNs.