New York Bill Would Require Age Verification for All Online Chats Including Games and Social Media

[etfs]

New York State is considering legislation that would require social media platforms and online games to disable open chat functions by default, with users only able to communicate after verifying their age. The Children's Online Safety Act, currently in the Senate Committee, is aimed at preventing adults from accessing and interacting with minors online and would affect platforms including Facebook, Snapchat, Roblox, and gaming platforms like Steam. The bill goes significantly beyond simple age gates. Parental approval would be required for friend requests sent to children's accounts, parents would be notified whenever a child attempts to change privacy settings, adult users would be blocked from viewing the profiles of underage users they are not connected with, and digital currency transfers to minor accounts would be prohibited. Financial transactions on platforms like Steam would require parental authorization for accounts identified as belonging to children.

The proposed legislation follows a broader wave of age verification requirements across the online space. Sony confirmed PlayStation 5 age verification is coming in 2026 in response to requirements from the UK and other jurisdictions. Steam added its own credit card-based age verification in August 2025. California's Digital Age Assurance Act is set to require operating systems themselves to ask users for their ages at startup from January 1, 2027. Despite these efforts, enforcement has already proven difficult. Users found ways around Discord's age verification using the photo mode in Death Stranding 2, and Steam's system produced awkward results for long-standing account holders being asked to re-verify after nearly two decades. If the New York bill passes, it would represent one of the most comprehensive state-level online safety frameworks in the US, though the ongoing gap between regulation and technical circumvention remains the central challenge for any age verification system attempting to operate at internet scale.

[mendez]

Users bypassed Discord's age verification using the photo mode in Death Stranding 2 which is the most specific sentence about online safety enforcement that has ever been written.