[Tech Thoughts] Meta’s age verification lobbying may hurt app stores… and everyone else

2026-03-22 - 03:10

Over on Reddit, a user released an open-source intelligence investigation looking into how age verification bills were made and lobbied for in the United States. It is detailed, long, and fascinating, though difficult to read, but the basics are all there, with the data and citations available to be verified by other readers. In the investigation available on this website, the user, who goes by Upper Up on GitHub, wrote, “Meta spent a record $26.3 million on federal lobbying in 2025, deployed 86+ lobbyists across 45 states, and covertly funded a group called the Digital Childhood Alliance to advocate for the App Store Accountability Act.” The lobbying, while focused on Meta, extends beyond Meta itself and the United States, as a mix of different groups have also lobbied for age verification checks in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. Age verification and the App Store Accountability Act In the US, the App Store Accountability Act seeks to make age verification of accounts standard, with minors needing to jump through some hoops with their parents to go ahead and use app stores, like those of Apple and Google, if they want to buy or download apps, including social media platforms. The regulation seems sane enough, but the investigation pointed out that Meta is lobbying for this. According to Upper Up, the $26.3 million spent by Meta for this lobbying in 2025 in the US was higher than the spending of Lockheed Martin or Boeing. The problem In effect, Meta is lobbying for bills that benefit it and hurt potential or existing competition while fighting bills that would harm it. Meanwhile, Meta stands to benefit because it eats none of the costs associated with setting up an age verification mechanism, since it’s a social media platform and not an app store. In theory, since most of the problems of social media happen ON social media, you’d expect more stringent requirements to use social media and not on the various systems — such as mobile or desktop operating systems and app stores — that allow people to download and use social media. Questions needing answers Based on the investigation, Upper Up even went ahead and posed questions that beg to be answered. Meta, which stands to profit from collecting user data, is drafting legislation requiring operating systems to gather this age data and send it to installed applications so they can act accordingly. Why is Meta drafting this legislation and funding advocacy groups to push this legislation through? Why do the various bills require age verification using biometric data to be specific about ages when the European equivalent is to simply verify if someone is over or under 18? What happens to this data once collected, and why is the legislation mandating data collection infrastructure at a level that doesn’t require Meta to do anything? As Upper Up said, “If the goal is child safety, why regulate the operating system, which has no direct contact with children, instead of the social media platforms where the documented harm occurs?” Surveillance normalization? Now, aside from app stores, other operating systems, such as Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s Mac OS, could also be affected by such lobbying. While it isn’t widespread yet, the pain points are starting to show as folks fear an overreach that would allow for surveillance culture and surveillance infrastructure to be normalized in this fashion. Meta does the lobbying and benefits while making life harder for other companies and, potentially, everyone using an operating system. If you’re in the US and don’t like this sort of lobbying, make your hackles known to your local lawmakers. If you’re in a country that isn’t directly affected by it yet, such as the Philippines, stay vigilant to prevent such issues from popping up in the future. Pursue more common-sense proposals, like convincing lawmakers to make social media platforms institute changes that might benefit users, even if it costs them money. Further, make your governments follow laws, too, instead of threatening and forcing unilateral actions without any laws backing them. Unless, of course, you don’t mind seeing yourself on the receiving end of such surveillance overreach in the future. – Rappler.com