Age Verification Is Reaching a Global Tipping Point. Is TikTok's Strategy a Good Compromise?

TikTok’s new age-detection tech seems like a better solution than automatically banning youth accounts. But experts say it still requires social platforms to surveil users more closely.

Governments worldwide are moving to limit children’s access to social media as lawmakers question whether platforms are capable of enforcing their own minimum age requirements. TikTok recently became the latest tech giant to give into regulatory pressure when it announced that it would implement a new age-detection system across Europe to keep kids under the age of 13 off the platform.

The system, which follows a year-long pilot in the UK meant to proactively identify and remove underage users, relies on a combination of profile data, content analysis, and behavioral signals to evaluate if an account possibly belongs to a minor. (TikTok requires users to be at least 13 to sign up). According to a statement from the company, its age-detection ...