The Microsoft co-founder argues that many parts of the Internet should be out of bounds to children.
Most people would agree with this notion as many corners of the Internet are not child-friendly.
However, Gates argues that the solution is for all Internet users to submit to age verification to prove they are “old enough.”
Conveniently, Gates’s plan involved using the system he’s been promoting for several years – digital IDs.
Gates is an advocate of a range of controversial policies he promotes through his foundation.
The practices include his much-scrutinized anti-farmer agriculture agenda, aggressive universal vaccinations, and digital ID.
His latest crusade now appears to be endorsing online age verification.
Of course, online age verification ties in nicely with Gates’s digital ID agenda.
Gates unveiled his plan in a Christmas-themed blog post titled: “Books to keep you warm this holiday season.”
The blog post included a photo of Gates standing in front of a Christmas tree holding a stack of books.
At a glance, the blog post may appear innocent.
However, the sinister undertone begins to become clear when you notice that one of the books he’s holding is “The Anxious Generation” by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt.
Haidt argues that children shouldn’t be allowed to use smartphones “until they’re older.”
Gates agrees with this sentiment.
One possible reason for this endorsement is that Gates is behind the idea of age verification.
For age verification to work, every online user must prove they are old enough.
Under such a scheme, “everyone is treated as a minor until they prove otherwise.”
While this plan wouldn’t necessarily mandate digital ID, anybody who wants to use the Internet – most people – would need to prove their age.
Gates opens up his recommendation of Haidt’s book by appealing to most adults’ rose-tinted view of their youth, filled with real-life games, reading books, etc.
But, Gates thinks it was a healthy one, and Haidt’s book made him wonder if the technology available today would have been too distracting at the time.
However, it’s simply a stage being set for advancing the policy of online age verification.
According to Gates, age verification is just an innocent way for globalists to counter modern technology-related harms.
“The solutions Haidt proposes aren’t simple, but I think they’re needed,” writes Gates.
“He makes a strong case for better age verification on social media platforms and delaying smartphone access until kids are older.”
Gates notes that the author would like to see “coordination between parents, schools, tech companies, and policymakers.”
And apparently, so would Gates.
Meanwhile, officials have just announced that a digital identification program, utilizing smartphones, will be deployed in the United Kingdom next year.
It is being marketed as a way for young people to buy alcohol and go to clubs utilizing facial recognition biometrics within an app.
It will also allow the payment of taxes, banking activities, state-issued benefit program disbursements, and, perhaps alarmingly, merely shopping at the store.
“Young people will be able to use government-backed digital ID cards to prove they are old enough to drink alcohol under legal changes to take effect next year,” the UK’s Telegraph said Sunday.
“They will be able to sign up to digital ID companies that are certified against government-set standards for security and reliability and then use the app on their smartphone to prove they are over 18 when visiting pubs, restaurants, and shops.
“It is part of a wider effort to move more state functions online so that people can prove their identity for everything from paying taxes to opening a bank account using the government-backed app.”
Over the summer former U.K. Home Secretary Lord Blunkett said that a digital ID is inevitable to combat illegal immigration.
“Digital ID cards are ‘inevitable’, Lord Blunkett has said as he became the latest New Labour ‘big beast’ to back their introduction to tackle immigration,” the Telegraph said in July.
“The former home secretary said the growth of digital records across all aspects of people’s lives meant the government would have to streamline them into a single ID.
“His intervention comes after Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, rejected calls for digital ID cards, which Sir Tony Blair said would enable the government to ‘know precisely who has a right’ to be in the UK’”
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