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This is somewhat self-serving — it takes the onus of age verification off of Meta and puts it onto its rivals. And yet in the end I find the idea that Apple and Google are in the best position to do age verification persuasive. Parents can input their children’s ages when they set up their devices; developers can rate their apps for age appropriateness; and kids can only download apps once they hit the required age. (Of course, if antitrust regulators require Apple and Google to let users sideload apps or install anything they want directly from the web, this all gets much more complicated!) Still, app store-level age verification seems to me to be the most practical solution to the current furor. It lets parents who are concerned about social networks block them at the device level, and it doesn’t require that Congress pass a law and withstand a court challenge. It might also buy Apple and Google some goodwill among regulators globally, which both companies could really use about now.