"The think tank warns that no age verification system, however technically secure, can prevent a motivated user from bypassing age restrictions.

The Tor Network, which is widely used by journalists, whistleblowers, NGOs, security researchers and dissidents in repressive countries to protect their privacy and security, makes blocking or age-gating virtual private networks (VPNs) a pointless and harmful exercise, FIPR argued."

If true, then how do we explain comments on HN that oppose age restrictions if these commenters are supposedly "technical" (cf. "non-technical") and understand how to use Tor

Another possibility is the opposition to age verification is not based on the opponent's own social media use, it's based on the effect that age restrictions would have on a social media _audiences_ comprised of "non-technical" people, "normies", that are the _targets_ of the opponent's activities

The arguments made by this "think tank" (read: advocacy group), similar to aforementioned HN comments, lack originality and insight and are thus not persuasive

Perhaps there are entities and/or individuals that stand to lose from age verification who not mentioned in this "study" nor in HN comments that oppose age verification who are not necessarily social media users but are engaged in _exploiting social media users_ for profit, e.g., targeting them with surveillance and ads, and taking a percentage of any revenue derived from users' work ("content creation")

Those entities and/or individuals, namely the entities running oversized "social media" websites to attract large audiences for advertising, and others who profit from this flawed "business model", must be considered in any analysis of the _potential_ effects of age restrictions