CTRL Agency: Age Verification Troubles
This week's digest on digital technology in the lives of young men.
CTRL Panel
Age verification is in vogue. Australia’s under-16 social media ban is just over five months old, and 25 US states have now enacted laws mandating age verification for adult content.
This week’s digest looks at some early evidence on how age verification is working in practice.
The Feed
Are teens bypassing Australia’s social media ban?
Just about one in four 14-15 year olds comply with Australia’s social media ban, finds a recent NBER working paper surveying 835 Australian teenagers. When asked why they continue to use banned platforms, 42% of non-compliant teens cited their friends still using the platforms and 27% cited fear of missing out. On average, they said two-thirds of their peers would need to stop using social media before they would stop themselves.
The authors summarized their takeaway in a New York Times opinion piece:
To succeed, a ban has to push compliance past a tipping point — staying off becomes the new normal and nonusers no longer suffer from FOMO. The Australian ban hasn’t done that, and under the current design it won’t…
When the value of a product comes from collective participation, a mandate alone might not be enough to change behavior.
Many teens would get off social media, but only if their friends got off too: in effect, a collective trap.
Effects of age verification on porn website traffic
Between June 2022 and July 2025, five states adopted age-verification laws for porn websites. In response, some websites adopted age gates (e.g. xHamster), some blocked access altogether (e.g. Pornhub), and others did not comply (e.g. XVideos).
A recent study examines the impact of these bans on web traffic. They find that:
Age-gate adopting platforms’ traffic dropped by 36%.
User-blocking platforms lost 55% of traffic.1
Non-adopting platforms saw little change overall, but traffic to large non-adopters XVideos and XNXX increased by roughly 35-40%.
The authors also found little increase in traffic to fringe porn sites.
UK teens bypass the Online Safety Act
A new Internet Matters offers early evidence on the UK Online Safety Act. In a survey of 1,270 UK children aged 9-16 and parents, 46% of children say age checks are easy to bypass, and 1 in 3 said they had done so. 1 in 4 parents say they have helped their child bypass age checks.
First-in-nation law targeting VPNs comes into effect in Utah
Utah’s SB 73, an amendment to Utah’s law requiring age checks for online adult content, is an unprecedented step for age verification laws. The amendment says a person counts as accessing a site “from Utah” so long as they are physically in the state, even if they use a VPN to mask their location. Critics say enforcing this requirement puts sites in a bind: because they cannot reliably identify whether a VPN user is physically in Utah, they may be pushed to block VPN traffic altogether, require age verification for far more visitors than just Utah residents, or face liability.
What else we’re reading
The Clip Economy - ProfG Markets
The Effects of School Phone Bans: National Evidence from Lockable Pouches - Allcott et al.
Scrolling to Financial Agency: How Gen Z Navigates Financial Advice on Social Media - New America
Health Benefits of Video Games in Adolescents and Young Adults - Nagata et al.
Report: Child, Adolescent and Youth Mental Health in the 21st Century - OECD
Global prevalence of internet gaming disorder in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis - Barboza et al.
Common Sense Media Launches Youth AI Safety Institute - Common Sense Media
Events & Funding Opportunities
Young Futures Express Yourself Grant | Supporting bold solutions that help girls, boys and trans- and gender-expansive young people build confidence, belonging, and agency in a digitally shaped world. | Proposals due May 19th, 2026, 8 PM ET.
*New* Commerce Committee Hearing — No Sure Bets: Protecting Sports Integrity in America | 10 AM, May 20th
International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking | Las Vegas, NV | May 26-28, 2026.
National Conference on Gambling Addiction & Responsible Gambling | Nashville, TN | July 22-24, 2026 | Call for presentations closed.
What did we miss this week? Do you have an upcoming conference or study we could feature in the next edition? What did we get wrong about making age verification work? Let us know at bmonline@substack.com, or shoot me a message here.
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Traffic did not fall to zero because users could still land on the page notifying users of the shutdown.