A layman interpretation of Brazilian age verification law

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 01:54:00 +0000

This cartoon never gets old. A 2005 cartoon by John Jonik showing internet speech control was already a topic back then. Hmm, I was thinking, the corporate media guy looks like Mark Fuckerberg…

I know, bad timing to return with this site. After 5 years of the last post, I am back here discussing the heated topic of the moment, and it is not only in technology circles.

Internet age verification and similar laws are popping all over the world. In no specific order, Australia started with banning people under 16 from social media[1, 2] (we can discuss if this is good or not, I have my opinions but maybe for another time), then UK had the dystopian Online Safety Act [3, 4] (“““Safety”””, many quotes), the EU is discussing a bloc wide similar thing[5], some US states passed some similars laws, like California and Colorado[6], and the ~~shithole~~ ~~banana’s republic~~ Brazilian republic decided to introduce its own version.

I would argue these are not coincidences, and I even argue these are not just politicians imitating each others like monkey see monkey do. Well, I may not need to argue when recently some internet anonymous[7] (almost always them, because the Big News not only don’t give a fuck for these kind of things, they support) (update while reviewing this text: the Tbote Project from the anonymous above released some investigation on the Brazilian laws, I will take a look later) using public records was able to point to finger to Meta (and others) as main proponent of internet age verification laws. I need to delve more (“delve”, do I look like a LLM?) on these findings, specially regarding the law in Brazil, but for now the shit is done and we need to live with it.

All these age verification laws are similar but not equal. Californa law[8], for exemple, request age indication at operating system level, when setting up a device, i.e., you can input any number you want. While I disagree with the concept of even giving my fake birthday date to Big Tech in overall (I disagree with the very own principle, not the method), at least it is a reasonable expectation. Adults are the one to buy and set up the devices, so I think it is fair to be on them to apropriately set the device and give to their children. New York’s bill[10], on the opposite, requires age verification, and although wasn’t approved yet, there is a risk of this fuckery to pass. Well, the same New York wants to force 3D printers to spy on you and block weapons parts printing[11, § 837-AA] snucking in a budget bill, so you can see the clear tendency of politicians to jump on to dumb ideas.

Back to Brazil. The law approved just last year, in September, requires age verification at operating system level on top of require age verification on websites. Don’t ask me why this double requirement, but you know, the average Brazilian politician IQ is lower than a rat (sorry, rats, you don’t deserve this comparision), so don’t try to make too much sense.

If you don’t care about the background of this law skip to the (il)legal analysis section. But I think you may be interested that, banana’s republic being banana’s republic, the trigger for this bill to pass was a well-intentioned youtuber getting the wrong kind of attention. Yes, a youtuber. Jesus!

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A layman interpretation of Brazilian age verification law