According to engadget, a new Freedom House report shows 2025 marked the 15th straight year of global internet freedom decline, with the United States seeing one of the biggest drops. The report blames age verification laws, with 25 states now requiring checks for adult content and 16 states imposing age-based rules on social media. The Supreme Court recently upheld a Texas adult content law, and a federal bill to ban kids under 13 from social media has bipartisan support. These laws are already fragmenting the web: Dreamwidth and Bluesky left Mississippi to avoid fines, and Pornhub has blocked access in 23 states. Meanwhile, a UK law has led to age checks on Spotify and Xbox, and even threatens to force Wikipedia to verify its UK contributors.
The blunt instrument problem
Here’s the thing: these laws are a classic case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Lawmakers, after failing for years to pass comprehensive data privacy or Section 230 reform, have found a politically palatable target in “protecting the children.” And they’re having way more success. But the approach is incredibly blunt. Want to stop minors from seeing porn? You have to verify everyone’s age. That means either handing over a government ID or letting an app scan your face. Both are huge privacy invasions, and we’re already seeing the risks. Discord just admitted a third-party vendor may have leaked 70,000 government IDs used for age checks. Last year, a provider for TikTok and Uber exposed drivers’ licenses. This is the new normal, and it’s only going to get worse as more platforms become de facto ID collectors.
Your face is not private data
And about those face scans. They seem less invasive than giving your ID number, right? Wrong. The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns it’s a trap. A company could use the same scan to guess your name, gender, or other demographics. A poorly designed system might store that data and link it to what you read or watch online. In the wrong hands, that’s a goldmine. So we’re trading a sliver of perceived safety for a massive, irreversible loss of biometric privacy. Basically, we’re building a surveillance system to guess if someone is 17 or 18.
The VPN crackdown looms
Now, people aren’t just taking this lying down. In the UK, after their Online Safety Act kicked in, sign-ups for ProtonVPN surged by 1,400%. Users got creative, circumventing checks with AI-generated IDs or selfies of video game characters. But this has sparked a terrifying next phase: governments are now eyeing VPN restrictions. The UK regulator is “monitoring” VPN use, and a Wisconsin bill wants to force sites to block VPNs. Think about that. VPNs are essential tools for activists, students, and workers at companies like Yahoo (Engadget’s parent). Banning them is a move straight out of the authoritarian playbook, used in China and Russia. Are we really heading there?
A fragmented future
The fallout is a splintered internet. Smaller sites like Dreamwidth call age verification fines an “existential threat” and simply leave. Pornhub blocks states. In the UK, Reddit users are locked out of support forums for addiction recovery because they’re marked NSFW. Wikipedia might have to verify editors. This isn’t just about porn anymore; it’s about access to information, community, and help. The goal of protecting kids is legitimate, but the method is creating a clunky, privacy-hostile, and fragmented web. And once we normalize handing over our IDs or our faces to browse, can we ever go back? The open internet’s 15-year decline isn’t slowing down—it’s accelerating, one age check at a time.
