Mandatory Age Verification + Lack of Account Memorialization = Horrific Insensitivity by Substack (& others?)

This, from Mark Nottingham; it’s easy to throw mud at Substack for implementing age verification in this way / for not implementing out of band account memorialization, but this underscores how age verification is a proxy for state mandated identity checks in systems that have no other reason to perform them & are not (should not?) be required to have them:

My father-in-law passed recently, and so I was helping my mother-in-law clean up the digital leftovers today. It turns out he had subscribed to a few substacks. They had a shared e-mail address, so I went to unsubscribe him and delete the account. Substack has decided to handle Australia's age

Mark Nottingham (@mnot.net) 2026-05-23T05:06:37.229Z
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