<
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/20/rep-finke-was-right-age-gating-isnt-about-kids-its-about-control/>
"When Rep. Leigh Finke spoke last month before the Minnesota House Commerce
Finance and Policy Committee to testify against HF1434, a broad-sweeping
proposal to age-gate the internet, she began with something disarming:
agreement.
“I want to support the basic part of this,” she said, the shared goal of
protecting young people online. Because that is not controversial: everyone
wants kids to be safe. But HF1434, Minnesota’s proposed age-verification bill,
simply won’t “protect children.” It mandates that websites hosting speech that
is protected by the First Amendment for both adults and young people to verify
users’ identities, often through government IDs or biometric data. As we’ve
discussed before, the bill’s definition of speech that lawmakers deem “harmful
to minors” is notoriously broad—broad enough to sweep in lawful,
non-pornographic speech about sexual orientation, sexual health, and gender
identity.
Rep. Finke, an openly transgender lawmaker, next raised a point that her
critics have since tried to distort: age-verification laws like the Minnesota
bill are already being used to block young LGBTQ+ people from exercising their
First Amendment rights to access information that may be educational,
affirming, or life-saving. Referencing the Supreme Court case
Free Speech
Coalition v. Paxton, she noted that state attorneys general have been “almost
jubilant” about the ability to use these laws to restrict queer youth from
accessing content. “We know that ‘prurient interest’ could be for many people,
the very existence of transgender kids,” she added, referring to the malleable
legal standard that would govern what content must be age-gated under the law.
But despite years’ worth of evidence to back her up, Finke has faced a wave of
attacks from countless media outlets and religious advocacy groups for her
statements. Rep. Finke’s testimony was repeatedly mischaracterized as not
having young people’s best interests in mind, when really she was accurately
describing the lived reality of LGBTQ+ youth and advocating in support of their
access to vital resources and community.
In fact, this backlash proves her point. Beyond attempting to silence queer
voices and to scare other legislators from speaking up against these laws, it
reveals how age-verification mandates are part of a larger effort to give the
government much greater control of what young people are allowed to say, read,
or see online.
Rep. Finke was also right that these proposals are bad policy; they prevent all
young people from finding community online, and that they violate young people
and adults’ First Amendment rights."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
