It's a tale as old as time: Government's attacking our privacy rights because we should "think of the children". In their latest attempt, the appropriately named KIDS act does just that. As the EFF points out:
The package of cobbled-together bills is a mess, with different age-gating schemes for different services, using different standards. It’s a lot of complexity, and a lot of legal risk. Faced with that, many companies will conclude that the safest option is restrictive age-checking practices across their entire platforms.
Buried inside the KIDS Act are provisions that will push online services to verify all users’ ages, require government-directed moderation policies for online speech, and even create new rules about private and encrypted communications. While supporters continue to claim this bill protects minors online, its requirements come at the expense of privacy, free expression, and the ability of people of all ages to use the internet without revealing sensitive data.
Ultimately it asks the question of how a website can just ask for minors to show verification without also asking adults to show verification. And, like what we saw with the (ongoing) linux age verification drama, the intentionally vague wording leaves wildly different interpretations as to how this can play out; however from a liability perspective, it puts the burden on the website owners to determine the age of their users. And with smaller companies being less likely to handle litigation, we would expect them being forced to comply rather than deal with a headache.
For the Americans, check out this site to help contact your congress critters to tell them how outrageous these bills are.