> Governments all over the world have started pushing for ways to collect ID on social media users, often under the guise of providing a safe space for kids online.

Does anyone know how these work on a technical level? Are they actually verifying these IDs with some sort of government API? What's preventing people from just sending fake IDs?

I'm also curious how non-tech giants are going to implement this. It's a big ask for small websites run by single or small groups of people. If they face consequences too, it seems like a win for the social media sites to keep their market positions.

Finally, what's preventing the children from just using non-tech giant sites to get at adult content? If it's literally just for Facebook, Youtube and the like, it'll be about as useless as the "Click here to confirm you're 18+!" verifications since they'll just search elsewhere, on one of the millions of other adult content sites...