Technologies

Online Age Verification Rules Are Popping Up Everywhere. Here’s What You Need to Know

Most states across the US are considering or introducing age verification laws. The result right now is a mishmash of rules.

The internet is full of perils — this we know.

Among the rich trove of content we have at our fingertips is a combination of legal material, illegal material and material that falls into a gray area — often referred to in vague terms as «harmful.» This is the kind of content that might be appropriate for anyone with a fully developed prefrontal cortex to view but that you wouldn’t necessarily want your kids stumbling across.

In the past, accessing such content has been easy, regardless of age. You’ve been able to tick a box declaring yourself older than 18 or 21, or input a false birth date with no hassle. But that’s beginning to change.

Last month the UK became one of the first countries to mandate that tech companies verify the age of people using online services where they might be exposed to harmful content, including pornography. I’m a British citizen, and within the first few days of the rules coming into force, I was required to verify my age on Bluesky and Reddit. And it’s just the start.

Age verification is coming for you no matter where you live. Most states across the US are considering or introducing age verification laws. The result right now is a mishmash of rules, some fully cooked, others half-baked, with a lot currently unknown.

One thing you can be sure about is that age verification will impact your internet use at some point in the near future, if it hasn’t already happened. Here’s what you need to know.

What are the pros and cons of age verification?

The obvious, straightforward argument in favor of age verification is that we need to make the internet a safer place for kids.

The arguments against are more complex and varied.

Concerns about privacy encompass doubts about how securely your data will be stored and processed during the verification process (see the Tea App data breach), and extend to whether the systems being put in place could potentially be used to track people’s internet use.

Questions remain about whether the classification of «harmful content» could lead to people being restricted from accessing important information, such as sex education, health and political content. This could potentially amount to free speech violations.

Critics argue as well that by making legal adult content harder to access, people, including children, might go in search of illegal content instead — potentially pushing them into even more dangerous corners of the internet.

Online rights organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Open Rights Groups have been vocal about the potential perils of age verification legislation and are closely tracking the impact of laws as they come into force.

How does age verification work?

There are various methods by which you might be asked to verify your age on the internet. This could involve showing a government ID; running banking, mobile carrier or credit card checks; or using a digital identity service where your verified age is stored in a wallet.

You could also be asked to use tech that estimates your age, such as email address verification that can link you to utility companies you may be signed up with. More commonly, you may be asked to submit a selfie, which will be analyzed to predict your likely age. This tech isn’t foolproof — after it was introduced in the UK, reports circulated of people spoofing the technology by showing it characters from video games.

Some tech platforms are introducing their own proprietary technology to verify people’s ages but the more common approach is to rely on third-party services specializing in digital age verification.

In most cases, verification is used to age-gate certain features — direct messages, for example — to limit access among children, rather than to exclude them entirely. In others, especially for pornography and adult content sites, it could be used to block access entirely.

Is my state introducing age verification rules?

At least 41 age verification bills have been discussed, introduced, rejected or passed at state level in the US. Some states have made multiple attempts to introduce legislation, so this figure does not reflect the number of states engaging with the issue.

Leading the way was Louisiana, which in 2022 required sites that classified more than 33.33% of its content as adult to verify people’s ages. This opened the floodgates for more bills to follow. If you want to see if your state is taking action, you can check out the Free Speech Coalition’s Age Verification Bill Tracker.

One especially notable moment during the influx of age verification legislation occurred in June of this year. Following two years of legal challenges, the Supreme Court upheld a 2023 Texas law requiring pornography sites to verify people’s ages. The ruling, which said that minors do not have a First Amendment right to access sexual material, will likely pave the way for other states to follow suit.

There also have been two attempts to bring in legislation at the federal level, through bills introduced by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Rep. Greg Steube of Florida, both in 2023. Neither has yet progressed beyond that early stage.

Arguably federal level laws would be easier for people to understand and tech companies to comply with than the array of rules coming in at state level.

How are tech companies responding?

For tech companies, age verification presents a complex challenge. After years of pressure to protect younger people using their services, they are in some cases now legally obligated to do so — and risk penalties if they fail to comply.

In the UK, the law allows companies to choose their own verification technique and services are largely provided by third-party companies, such as Yoti. The law extends beyond pornography sites to social media — that’s why I had to verify my age to use Bluesky and Reddit, so I could use DMs on the former and access certain subreddits on the latter.

In the US, Bluesky isn’t finding it so easy to comply with local laws. Last week, the company said it would be blocking access to the platform for people with Mississippi IP addresses because of the state’s age assurance law.

«Mississippi’s approach would fundamentally change how users access Bluesky,» it said in a blog post. «We know this is disappointing for our users in Mississippi, but we believe this is a necessary measure while the courts review the legal arguments.»

It’s not the only online service that’s been deterred from operating in specific jurisdictions because of age assurance rules. Pornhub is currently blocked in 21 US states because of various local laws it feels it can’t comply with.

That’s not to say age assurance laws automatically preclude these services from operating. Bluesky is still able to operate in the UK, for example. Meanwhile Pornhub can still be accessed in Louisiana, the first state to introduce age verification rules, because of the state’s reliance on third-party system LA Wallet to verify people’s ages, rather than requiring Pornhub to introduce its own system.

Some tech companies are also getting ahead of regulation by proactively introducing age assurance methods across their entire services.

Last month, gaming platform Roblox, which has come under fire for not doing enough to keep kids safe, introduced age verification for teens who want to chat with one another. Also in July, YouTube rolled out its AI-powered age-estimation technology to determine whether viewers are younger than 18, and restrict certain types of content accordingly. On a Facebook support page, information about age verification techniques suggests that Meta is also preparing to introduce more concrete efforts to determine the ages of people using its platforms.

Is it possible to bypass age verification?

Like death and taxes, online age verification is quickly becoming one of life’s inevitabilities. That doesn’t mean everyone is complying.

The primary method people are using to bypass verification is via VPNs. The week the UK’s Online Safety Act came into force, free VPNs shot up Apple’s App Store rankings, suggesting many people were attempting to avoid verifying their ages.

We don’t recommend using free VPNs, as they tend to offer slower speeds and collect your data, but a paid alternative could be an option for you if you’re determined to prioritize your privacy at all costs.

Technologies

I Tested United’s Starlink In-Flight Wi-Fi. Finally, We Have Real Internet in the Skies

United Airlines is expanding its Starlink Wi-Fi service to mainline aircraft on some flights. I went along for the first ride in a Boeing 737-800.

United Airlines is now beginning to offer in-flight Starlink Wi-Fi on its mainline aircraft covering the US and international flights to Canada and Mexico.

It started with a jaunt today that carried a planeload of journalists from Chicago to Milwaukee and back on a demonstration flight. I packed my bag and headed to the Windy City to learn firsthand if the satellite Wi-Fi provider makes a difference.

At a time when our phones and smartwatches have satellite connectivity options — helping us reach emergency responders or send text messages when we’re out of range of a cell signal — Starlink and United are providing travelers with an upgraded convenience. What’s more, we’re getting in-flight Wi-Fi with speeds and connectivity that rival what we experience at home or the office.

Air travel presents a conundrum: If you need Wi-Fi in the air and it’s not working, you’re cooked. There’s no stepping out to a coffee shop hotspot or rebooting your home router. In-flight Wi-Fi has improved over the years, but it still feels risky whether it will work well or at all. And you don’t discover that until you’re already in the air.

The plane I traveled on isn’t the first United aircraft carrying Starlink’s satellite Wi-Fi equipment. United began outfitting many of its regional Embraer E175 jets in March after signing a deal with Starlink’s parent company, SpaceX, last year. Although it’s the inaugural United mainline aircraft, Hawaiian Airlines got the jump late last year when it outfitted its Airbus planes with the technology.

The Boeing 737-800 I flew on goes into active service on Oct. 15, starting with a leg from Houston to Fort Lauderdale. Over the coming months, United expects to outfit approximately 15 mainline Boeing 737-800 planes per month with Starlink antennas.

United is offering Starlink Wi-Fi access free to United MileagePlus members. The Standard Wi-Fi option costs $8 or 1,600 miles for MileagePlus members, or $10 for everybody else. Subscriptions for frequent travelers start at $49 a month (or 7,500 miles).

In-flight Wi-Fi is all about the experience

Believe me, I want to talk about speeds and bandwidth and what a Starlink connection could mean for getting work done or being entertained in the air. But it all starts with getting connected, and too often, that experience sucks.

On my flight from Seattle to Chicago the day before my demo, United’s Standard Wi-Fi took nearly an hour to connect to any of my devices. (United uses different internet providers depending on the aircraft and operating area, and this flight was connected by satellite internet provider ViaSat.) Once the main menu page loaded, selecting most options, including «sign in» and «free messaging,» timed out with an error that there was no network connection.

That cut into my work time, but more importantly, it was incredibly frustrating. Many of us look forward to focused time on a flight to get things done without interruptions, and more frustration is the last thing we want to add to our air travel experience.

Two experiences stood out when I was on the Starlink-equipped plane. First, it operates gate-to-gate, so you can connect on your phone or tablet (laptops still need to be put away during takeoff) as soon as you get settled in your seat. After we’d landed and were taxiing back to the gate, I forgot that I was still connected through Starlink.

For almost as long as I’ve owned a cellphone, wheels-down meant it’s time to switch off Airplane mode and embrace the familiar connection of local cellular.

Second, the few sign-on steps I had to go through weren’t any more onerous than getting on a public cafe or hotel Wi-Fi network. After connecting to the United Wi-FI network, a portal window opened with a trio of screens explaining how great the new service is (you can skip them) and a field to enter my United MileagePlus account and password.

Oh, and then there’s a video ad, which is 15 seconds or less. (If you’ve been reading so far and thinking, «Wait, it can’t really be free, can it?» there’s your answer.) That ad turns out to be important: You aren’t connected until the video completes.

I was impatient and dismissed the ad on my laptop, which led to some trouble getting connected. Another journalist on the flight mentioned that he encountered the same situation, and the friendly United tech staff on the flight were curious whether the ad had played when they helped me diagnose the issue. I also emptied my browser caches and told the computer to forget the Wi-Fi network, essentially starting me from scratch.

As far as I can tell, no one else on the flight experienced this problem, but it’s safe to say there could still be some prelaunch bugs being worked out. United’s tech support won’t be on hand for regular flights, which is why one of them mentioned they’re trying to iron out any points where flyers might run into difficulty.

Once connected, I could concentrate on trying to use as much bandwidth as possible and look outside occasionally since United scheduled this flight on a beautiful autumn day (instead of bringing everyone to Chicago in the dead of winter).

How Starlink Wi-Fi performed

The hardware that makes this happen is a pair of low-profile 500Mbps antennas mounted on the top of the fuselage. Unlike current units on planes offering standard Wi-Fi, the antennas are essentially exposed to communicate with the network of nearly 8,000 Starlink satellites operating in low Earth orbit (LEO), or about 350 miles in altitude.

To compare, the antenna module on a non-Starlink-equipped United plane parked at the next gate was much larger to shield its antennas, which need to adjust their angles during flight to talk to high-altitude satellites about 22,000 miles up.

In the time it takes a signal to go from a plane to high-altitude satellites, the signal can round-trip the distance between an aircraft and the Starlink satellites 70 times, according to Mara Palcisco, United Airlines vice president of engineering and reliability.

(This is also different from T-Satellite, the Starlink-powered satellite technology offered by T-Mobile. T-Satellite uses a separate collection of satellites to work with phones using a portion of the cellular spectrum.)

What does that mean in terms of the internet experience? Honestly, I’d think I was at home on my high-speed fiber internet if not for the cabin noise and the occasional tight banking turn. I streamed the movie Cowboys & Aliens over Netflix on my iPad, played one of United’s available videos in a window on my MacBook Pro and watched YouTube videos on my iPhone.

Also, because this was a special flight for the press and several United employees, I initiated a video call with two colleagues. Usually, video and voice calls are not allowed — in fact, they’re illegal — and United makes a point of telling customers that they shouldn’t engage in any behavior that disturbs the people around them, including calls, listening to audio without headphones or watching media that would make others uncomfortable. You can watch a live call, but technically not talk on one, and that’s behavior flight attendants will have to enforce.

In this instance, we were encouraged to go ahead, so I had a hard-to-hear video conference with CNET managing editor Patrick Holland and senior reporter David Lumb (maybe it’s time to invest in a pair of AirPods Pro 3). The video quality was stellar — no, I’m not making a Starlink pun, I promise — even better than a few recent calls we’ve had in our respective offices. A FaceTime call with a friend was similar: clear, sharp video with no telltale streaming artifacts.

But let’s get to numbers. It’s always a nerd joy to go to SpeedTest.net or run the SpeedTest app and be surprised at the numbers it sends back. I consistently got around 250Mbps of download speed and anywhere from 25Mbps to 65Mbps upload speed. I saw that on all of my devices: iPhone 17 Pro, M1 iPad Pro and a 2021 MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip.

To put that into perspective, SpaceX says that Starlink residential internet gets up to 350Mbps download speeds, depending on location. According to an Ookla report, Starlink’s median performance is 105Mbps download, 15Mbps upload and 45ms latency. CNET senior writer Joe Supan saw similar performance when recently testing the Starlink Mini in Washington’s North Cascades mountains. (Disclosure: CNET’s parent company, Ziff Davis, also owns Ookla.)

To make what now looks like an unfair comparison, when I did get United’s standard Wi-Fi access the night before (which I paid $8 for), my speeds were 9.65Mbps down and 1.03Mbps up. Yes, those decimal points are in the correct places.

Streaming video, whether watching in-flight movies, catching up on a series on Netflix or Apple TV or watching live sports, will undoubtedly become more prevalent on flights when this level of bandwidth is available. In fact, when I chatted during the flight with Grant Milstead, United vice president of digital technology, I asked whether the in-flight videos available via United’s portal were cached on a server aboard the plane. (On my flight the previous night, I could view those even when an internet connection was elusive.)

He said that for mainline flights, which carry roughly 170 passengers, the company would still maintain those local servers for redundancy. But the regional Embraer E175 jets, the first of United’s fleet to be outfitted with the Starlink technology, rely on streamed content with no local backup. Given that the video and audio quality, from my perspective, was indistinguishable from broadband at home, that doesn’t come as a surprise.

While waiting for my trip back home (on a plane not equipped with Starlink Wi-Fi), I pondered my lasting impression of this assignment, which had me fly to Chicago, circle above Wisconsin for a couple of hours and then fly back to Seattle.

On my flight with Starlink Wi-Fi, I had uncompromised internet access. I wasn’t thinking about latency, artifacts or whether I was getting my $8 worth. I could work, watch videos, play live video games and just be bothered with any of the usual complications. And that was the best experience.

Technologies

You’ll Soon Be Able to Buy Walmart Products Through ChatGPT

OpenAI’s chatbot already connects to Etsy and Shopify. Now you can buy bananas too.

OpenAI and Walmart will soon offer shopping via AI through ChatGPT, the retail giant said in a press release on Tuesday.

While using ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout feature, customers can buy groceries, electronics or other essentials within the chatbot interface.

Walmart has its own AI assistant in its app named Sparky. With Sparky, customers can ask questions about products and get summaries of reviews to find the best item.

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«For many years now, e-commerce shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of item responses. That is about to change,» Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a statement. «There is a native AI experience coming that is multi-media, personalized and contextual. We are running towards that more enjoyable and convenient future with Sparky and through partnerships including this important step with OpenAI.»

When asked for comment, Walmart referred to its press release. Walmart also said it wouldn’t discuss the financial terms of the agreement at this time.

«We’re excited to partner with Walmart to make everyday purchases a little simpler. It’s just one way AI will help people every day under our work together,» OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a press release.

OpenAI referred to Walmart’s press release when asked for comment.

The latest deal with Walmart comes as OpenAI tries to make ChatGPT an all-in-one shopping experience. AI chatbots are increasingly being used as vehicles for online shopping. They can synthesize reviews from across the internet and give people direct answers to shopping questions. Already, ChatGPT connects with Etsy and Shopify with its Instant Checkout feature, allowing people to buy directly. OpenAI also added more shopping features in ChatGPT Search earlier this year.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Technologies

OpenAI Will Loosen ChatGPT’s Mental Health Guardrails and Allow Erotica for Adult Users

Sam Altman said the company will ease limits for adults after rolling out age verification.

ChatGPT is treading cautiously right now, but the chatbot may become more risqué by the end of the year.

In recent weeks, the generative AI chatbot has been operating under somewhat stringent limitations, as OpenAI tried to address concerns that it was not handling sensitive mental health issues well. But CEO Sam Altman said in a post on X Tuesday that the company would ease some of those restrictions because it’s «been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues.»

Though Altman didn’t elaborate on what tools are being used to address the problem, OpenAI recently announced new parental controls in ChatGPT.

CNET reached out to OpenAI for details, but the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Other changes are also expected. Altman said the company could allow «erotica» for verified adult users as it implements an «age-gating» system, or age-restricted content, in December. The mature content is part of the company’s «treat adult users like adults» principle, Altman said.

Altman’s post also announced a new version of ChatGPT in the next few weeks, with a personality that behaves more like the company’s GPT-4o model. Chatbot users had complained after the company replaced 4o with the impersonal GPT-5 earlier this year, saying the new version lacked the engaging and fun personality of previous chatbot models.

«If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing),» Altman wrote.

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After OpenAI was sued by parents who alleged ChatGPT contributed to their teen son’s suicide, the company imposed an array of new restrictions and changes, including parental controls, alerts for risky behavior and a teen-friendly version of the chatbot. In the summer, OpenAI implemented break reminders that encourage people to occasionally stop chatting with the bot.

On Tuesday, the company also announced the creation of a council of experts on AI and well-being, including some with expertise in psychology and human behavior.

This comes as lawmakers and regulators are ringing the alarm on the risks AI tools pose to people, especially children. On Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed new restrictions on AI companion chatbots into law. Last month, the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into several AI companies, including OpenAI.