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A Kashmiri man browses the internet on his mobile phone outside a shop in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. [AP Photo/Dar Yasin]Four months ago, the World Socialist Web Site analyzed the coordinated international offensive to abolish online anonymity and impose universal systems of digital identification under the cynical pretext of “child safety.” Since that report, the assault has entered a far more dangerous stage, spreading across every pillar of online life.<br>What is unfolding is not a collection of disconnected regulatory disputes or well-meaning policy overreach. It is a coordinated offensive by the ruling classes of the major imperialist powers—the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia—against the democratic rights of the working class. The objective is a permanent, identity-verified system of mass surveillance in which every act of communication, association and political expression is tethered to a state-issued identity record, visible to governments, corporations and employers in real time.<br>The dangers that online platforms pose to young people are real, and socialists are not indifferent to them. AI chatbots that have coached children toward suicide, the documented links between excessive social media usage and a deepening mental health crisis among youth, the predatory data-harvesting business models of the technology giants—these are genuine social problems, the bitter fruit of the subordination of technology to private profit.<br>But the governments now invoking these dangers are the same ones arming the Israeli military’s slaughter of children in Gaza, gutting school funding, dismantling child welfare programs and conscripting youth for imperialist wars. Their supposed concern for the wellbeing of minors is a fraud. The real target is the independent political organization of the working class, which the ruling class is desperate to suppress before it can develop outside official control. Since 2011, from the Arab Spring to the Yellow Vests and the mass movement against the Gaza genocide, encrypted communication and online anonymity have proven indispensable tools of class struggle, and it is precisely this capacity that the surveillance drive aims to destroy.<br>The “child safety” Trojan horse<br>The most direct expression of this agenda in the United States is the GUARD Act, which the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced on April 30, 2026, in a unanimous 22-0 vote. The bill, sponsored by fascist Republican Senator Josh Hawley with bipartisan support, would require every American user of an AI chatbot—including search assistants, homework helpers and customer service systems—to upload a government-issued identification document, submit a facial scan or provide financial records before being permitted to interact with the system.

Senator Josh Hawley raises his fist in support of insurrectionists who attacked the US Capitol on January 6 [Photo: January 6 Committee]Presented as a measure to stop AI platforms from encouraging self-harm among the young, it would in practice establish a universal national identity check for the entire digital sphere, with criminal penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment for providers whose systems solicit sexual content or self-harm from minors.<br>The committee’s unanimous vote reflects the consensus of the American ruling class that online anonymity must be abolished. There is no meaningful wing of the political establishment, Democratic or Republican, that opposes the principle of identity verification as a precondition for digital participation.<br>At the state level, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, leveraging a lawsuit against an AI company following the suicide of a teenager, has proposed what amounts to an “ID-to-chat” regime. His plan would require digital identification before conversations could take place and mandate that companies scan every message sent by a minor, with “flagged” content automatically reported to law enforcement without human review. Algorithmic filters cannot grasp the nuances of human speech; they are blunt instruments designed not to protect vulnerable young people but to place an entire generation under permanent monitoring.<br>Australia’s under-16 social media ban, which took effect in late 2025 and was analyzed by the World Socialist Web Site, has now produced concrete results that expose its fraudulent character. A study from the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute found that 73 percent of targeted teenagers are simply ignoring it, with compliance lowest among isolated, “less popular” youth—precisely...