If This Were Any Other Product, We Would Demand Better: Why Age-Gating Does Little To Hold Big Tech Accountable
- The White Hatter
- 6 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Caveat - Some parents and caregivers have asked why we are so firm in questioning age-gating legislation like the model introduced in Australia and now being discussed here in Canada. The answer is not that we oppose protecting kids, in fact it is the opposite. We want Canada to get this right the first time, and lead with legislation that actually produces meaningful results. Age gates focus on access. They feel decisive, but they do little to address the design choices, incentives, and business models that create risk in the first place. If Canada simply follows the same path, we risk passing laws that look strong on paper but have limited real-world impact as technology continues to evolve. Our goal is to create and amplify discussions surrounding legislation that holds large technology companies accountable for building safer products by design, while still respecting the reality that children develop differently and families need the autonomy to make access decisions based on the needs of their own child. This article explains why that distinction matters, and why doing it right here in Canada matters more than doing it fast.
Before a product ever reaches a shelf, government legislates that manufacturers must prove it meets basic safety requirements. Materials are tested, construction is examined, age suitability is considered, and clear warnings are required if necessary. If those standards are not met, the product does not get sold and their are significant financial consequences to the vendor. That is safety by design protection by legislation!
We do not ban youth and teen based products because some can be misused. We require safer materials, safer construction, age appropriate design, and clear labelling before children ever interact with them. They exist to reduce foreseeable risk for users whose brains, bodies, judgment, and impulse control are still developing.
So, we believe that Canadian parents and caregivers should pause and ask themselves this question, “Why do we hold physical products to rigorous safety standards, but treat major digital platforms as if they are exempt?”
Our belief is that digital platform are “products” and not “playgrounds”. Social media platforms, apps, and AI driven tools are not neutral spaces, they are engineered products. They are designed, tested, optimized, and monetized. They shape attention, emotion, behaviour, and identity. Yet many of these products are launched and used by youth and teens without having to demonstrate that child-safety design standards are in place first.
Instead of focusing on whether we should ban phones or social media for under 16s, a product liability lens leads us to a more effective question, “What safety standards should digital products be required to meet before they are considered appropriate for children at all?” This matters even more because we are no longer just talking about traditional legacy social media such as TikTok, Snapchat, or Instagram.
Parents and caregivers are increasingly being told that age-gating social media is the solution to keeping kids safe online, and this idea feels reassuring. Delay access long enough and harm can be avoided. Wait for the right birthday and readiness will appear. However, that belief does not hold up in a world where artificial intelligence is now no longer confined to a handful of legacy apps that the age-gating laws target.
We are entering the era of social AI. AI is now embedded in messaging platforms, games, search engines, education tools, productivity software, operating systems, and even devices themselves. It is becoming ambient and unavoidable. Traditional age gating assumes that social interaction happens on clearly defined platforms, social AI breaks that assumption.
AI companions exist inside messaging apps. Recommendation systems shape what children see in games, streaming services, and learning platforms. Generative AI responds to questions, emotions, and curiosity across tools that were never designed or labeled as social media.
From a legal and practical standpoint, broad bans function like a hammer looking for a nail. Age gating laws are built around identifying specific platforms, drawing a hard age line, and striking them out of reach. The problem is that the “nail” never stays the same. Yesterday it was Facebook, then Instagram, then Snapchat , and then TikTok. We are presently seeing this in other countries that have implemented age gating, teens are migrating to platforms to stay connected that are not covered by the age gate.
More importantly, we are now entering a world of social AI where interaction is no longer tied to a single platform at all. AI is embedded in messaging, gaming, search, education tools, operating systems, and devices themselves. Social interaction has become diffuse, ambient, and constantly evolving.
Each time lawmakers swing the hammer of an age gate, the nail has already moved. A new app appears, a feature migrates inside a different product, and a social function becomes a background system rather than a destination. Age gating regulation chases the last version of the problem while the next one quietly takes its place.
That is why age gate bans feel decisive but rarely stay effective. They create an endless game of whack-a-mole where yesterday’s platform is restricted while today’s technology slips through untouched.
From a product liability and safety perspective, this is the wrong tool for the job. Bans focus on where children go. Product safety focuses on how products are designed, regardless of what they are called or how they evolve.
When we regulate toys, medicine, or vehicles, we do not rewrite the law every time a new model appears. We establish safety standards that apply across the entire category. Materials must be safe, risks must be mitigated, warnings must be clear, and design must account for foreseeable misuse and risk.
That framework does not care whether the product is red, blue, plastic, digital, legacy based, or AI driven. If it is used by youth and teens, it must meet the standard.
Applying a product liability and safety by deign lens to digital platforms and social AI does the same thing. It captures legacy social media, future apps, embedded AI features, and technologies that have not yet been named. Instead of asking which platform to ban next, it asks, “What safety obligations must any digital product meet before it is acceptable for children?”
That approach does not require a new hammer every year. It replaces the hammer with a rulebook that holds no matter how the technology shifts. For parents and caregivers, this distinction matters. Bans offer temporary relief, where as safety by design offers durable protection over time. One chases the problem, while the other addresses the cause.
We argue that in an onlife world that changes faster than laws can be rewritten, regulating design, not destinations, is the only approach that keeps up.
Our argument has been and will continue to be that even if a government restricts access to a short list of named platforms, AI driven social interaction continues everywhere else, and the gate becomes symbolic, not protective. Parents and caregivers are left with a false sense of security while the digital environment quietly evolves around the rule.
One of the most serious flaws that we continue to see for those pushing the age based ban discussion, the idea that readiness appears overnight. However, a child does not wake up on their sixteenth birthday with stronger emotional regulation, better judgment, or improved critical thinking. These skills develop gradually through experience, guidance, and conversation.
If youth and teens are fully shielded until access is legally allowed, they enter that space without practice. They have not learned how algorithms work. They have not explored social dynamics with adult support. They have not built confidence to pause, question, or disengage when something feels wrong. Delaying exposure without education does not build resilience. It delays learning and from both a legal and developmental perspective, that is a risky strategy.
We believe that age gating often shifts responsibility away from families and toward government or platforms, and that impulse is understandable given that we recognize that parenting in an onlife world can be exhausting for some.
However, no law can replace daily guidance, modelling, and conversation at home. An age ban may feel like decisive action, but it does not remove the need for parenting, it increases it. When restrictions eventually lift, children enter complex digital environments without the skills they should have been building all along. In a world shaped by social AI, parenting does not become optional, it becomes more important.
Many parents and caregivers equate safety with abstinence. In reality, safety often comes from supported presence. Exploring digital spaces with children allows parents and caregivers to talk about what they are seeing in real time. It creates opportunities to explain how algorithms amplify emotion, how AI shapes recommendations, and why certain content spreads.
This mirrors how we teach children in the physical world. We do not wait until sixteen to explain traffic rules. We walk with them, explain risks, and gradually increase independence as skills grow. The same principle should apply online.
We also believe that social AI raises questions age gates cannot answer. AI systems are increasingly conversational, persuasive, and personalized. They do not just deliver content, they respond, adapt, and sometimes emotionally engage. Age-gating does nothing to teach children how to:
Recognize when they are interacting with AI rather than a person
Understand emotional manipulation or dependency
Question AI accuracy and bias
Protect their data, prompts, and digital identity
• Maintain boundaries with tools designed to be engaging
These are literacy issues, not access issues. No birthday unlocks those skills, they must be taught and compounded over time.
From a product liability and safety perspective, and if we truly want to hold “all” big tech accountable, the conversation should not begin with bans, it should begin with responsibility. If digital products are widely used by children, they should be required to demonstrate safety by design before harm occurs, not after. That includes default privacy protections, limits on data collection, meaningful friction around harmful content, safeguards against exploitation, age gates in some cases such as adult centric sites (pornography, tobacco, Vaping) and transparent systems that reduce predictable risk rather than amplify it.
When platforms are built with appropriate scaffolded guardrails, the pressure to rely on blanket bans decreases. Youth and teens are better protected. Parents and caregivers are not forced into all or nothing decisions. Youth and teens retain opportunities to develop judgment, autonomy, and digital literacy in the world they actually inhabit.
Age gating may change the timing of access, but it does not prepare children for the reality they will face. In a world where AI is embedded into nearly everything, safety cannot be achieved through exclusion alone.
We cannot outsource parenting to the state, but the state should be regulating big tech and the products they push. We cannot rely on birthdays to create readiness, and we cannot assume fewer apps automatically means fewer risks. This is why we say, “ It’s not an age problem, it’s a content problem, and content, not youth and teens, is what should be regulated.”
What we can do, is hold big tech accountable to product liability and safety by design legislations, and raise youth and teens who understand the onlife world they are growing into. Youth and teens who have practiced navigating it with trusted adults, and who can think critically, set boundaries, and ask good questions. That is how we have approached safety in every other industry, tech products and services should be no different.
For any Canadian legislators who may be reading this article, we have also included a link to a separate article that outlines the core principles we believe should be part of any serious legislative discussion about youth, teens, and their use of technology.(1)
For parents and caregivers in Canada, and for those in other countries considering similar legislation, our call to action is simple. Please share this article with your local member of parliament so these considerations are part of the conversation.
Digital Food For Thought
The White Hatter
Facts Not Fear, Facts Not Emotions, Enlighten Not Frighten, Know Tech Not No Tech
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