In an effort to protect children online, regulators around the country and the world are enacting laws that compel Internet publishers to age-authenticate every reader (minors and adults alike) and then require publishers to restrict minors’ access to online content or resources. This Article calls these measures “segregate-and-suppress” laws.
Legally mandating differential treatment between minors and adults superficially sounds like common sense, but implementing this principle online leads to surprising and counterproductive outcomes. Requiring readers to authenticate their age exposes minors (and adults) to significant privacy and security risks, and it dramatically reshapes the Internet’s functioning to the detriment of almost everyone. Further, due to the inherent tradeoffs involved, segregate-and-suppress laws inevitably harm some minors.
In other words, segregate-and-suppress laws seek to protect minors online by harming minors online. To avoid this paradox, regulators should deprioritize segregate-and-suppress laws and, instead, develop a wider and more thoughtful toolkit of online child safety measures.