“In fact, it’s not clear how preventing one mere website from publishing age information could meaningfully combat discrimination at all. And even if restricting publication on this one website could confer some marginal antidiscrimination benefit, there are likely more direct, more effective, and less speech-restrictive ways of achieving the same end.”

Judge Pauses Enforcement of IMDb Age Censorship Law
www.hollywoodreporter.com

Judge Chhabria is right. It’s a slippery slope from censoring birthdays on IMDb to censoring the press from reporting on allegations about President Trump’s ties with Russia. To paraphrase Jeff Jarvis, judges cannot decree what must not be known. Censorship of age won’t solve age discrimination, just as censorship of sexual orientation won’t solve sexual orientation discrimination or censorship of race won’t solve racial discrimination. An employer who discriminates based on age won’t be stopped by censorship of the IMDb. The internet is a vast ocean of information and they will seek it elsewhere. What is the next step? To create a China-style internet firewall to prevent information on forbidden subjects from being accessed from elsewhere? The problem of age discrimination must be addressed with those that would discriminate, not by suppressing factual sources of information.