If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is an advocate of a range of controversial policies he these days promotes through his foundation – from much-scrutinized agriculture practices, aggressive vaccination, and digital ID crusades, to now endorsing online age verification. We learn this from the “Books to keep you warm this holiday season” – a blog post, published along with a photo of a smirking Gates and a Christmas tree in the background. Related: The 2024 Digital ID and Online Age Verification Agenda The message might look cheesy and in stark contrast with Gates’ reputation, but things get serious since once of the stack of books he is holding is that of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s, The Anxious Generation. Gates likes Haidt’s stance that children shouldn’t be allowed to use smartphones “until they’re older.” One possible reason for this endorsement is that Gates is behind the idea of age verification, which would be the only way to know how old an online user is. Every online user, that is – the only schemes known to be effective so far are the extremely invasive ones where “everyone is treated as a minor until they prove otherwise.” Gates opens up his recommendation of Haidt’s book by appealing to most adults’ rose-tinted view of their youth, filled with real-life games, reading books, etc. (as if those could not be dangerous/contain harmful content – not to mention that Gates speaks fondly of isolating himself from the rest of world in a cabin for a week at a time during the 90s.) But, Gates (who sneakily, with no apparent evidence, links this practice with his “success later on”) thinks it was a healthy one, and Haidt’s book made him wonder if the technology available today (the proliferation of which resulted in his “success later on”) would have been too distracting at the time. Distracting from what, though – from becoming better equipped to become a tech billionaire? The argument is a bit of a “snake that bites its own tail” – but that’s also irrelevant. It’s simply a stage being set for advancing the policy of online age verification, as supposedly the way to counter modern technology-related harms. “The solutions Haidt proposes aren’t simple, but I think they’re needed. He makes a strong case for better age verification on social media platforms and delaying smartphone access until kids are older,” writes Gates, noting that the author would like to see “coordination between parents, schools, tech companies, and policymakers.” And clearly, so would Gates. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Bill Gates Pushes for Age Verification Digital ID appeared first on Reclaim The Net.