Melania Trump's top 7 fashion moments of 2025



Although she rarely takes center stage, Melania Trump's fashion always stands out.

The former model turned first lady is no stranger to a show-stopping look. Whether it's her signature six-inch stilettos or a regal black-tie gown, Melania has donned many memorable outfits throughout 2025. Here are seven of her best looks so far.

7. Commander in chic

White House Press Pool/Getty Images

Melania sported a classy pinstripe skirt suit at the military parade over the summer, paired with a gray satin pump. The pinstripe's color is inverted from black with white stripes to a subtle cream color with darker stripes, providing a summery twist on a beloved classic.

The choice of a skirt suit over a pant suit is a refreshing choice that contrasts with the professional attire of working women in Washington. The tailoring flatters her figure without overly exaggerating her contours, making for a simple yet stunning ensemble.

6. Burberry bound

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

En route to an oversees trip to the United Kingdom, Melania wore a gorgeous Burberry trench coat, undoubtedly a nod to British fashion and craftsmanship. The floor-length silhouette and popped collar add dramatic flair to a classic coat, paired with oversized sunglasses for a true model-off-duty look.

Melania's brushed-back, low ponytail softly frames her face while still letting the coat speak for itself. A stark contrast from the casual airport clothes most Americans are used to, Melania's travel outfit balances effortlessness with classic style.

5. Cheetah girl

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A true veteran of the fashion industry, Melania knows when to take a risk and how to pull it off. Melania flaunted a fabulous leopard coat during the 2025 International Women of Courage Award Ceremony, flawlessly utilizing a bold print as a sort of neutral.

The warm brown tones of the coat complement her hair color and complexion, making for a soft interpretation of an otherwise bold print. The print itself is also small enough to remain eye-catching without being distracting. Leopard print made a comeback in 2025, but it has arguably always been a fashion-forward classic, just like much of Melania's timeless wardrobe.

4. Lace and lawmakers

Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Melania is known for her elegant play on suit wear, and this black lace ensemble from the 2025 White House Congressional Ball is no exception. Melania's feminine take on a traditionally masculine suit features a soft velvet coat contrasted with satin lapels and an intricate yet modest lace undershirt (Lauren Sanchez, take notes).

Melania understands that the challenge is not just to find a fashionable outfit, but to find one that also flatters her features. The subtle but effective femininity of the suit pairs beautifully with her golden cascading hair, yet another indicator of Melania's impeccable fashion instincts.

3. Suede sisters

Photo by Yui Mik - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Melania knows how to dress for the occasion, perfectly complementing Kate Middleton, the princess of Wales, during an overseas visit in the English countryside. The neutral color palette and suede coat put on display the perfect balance between classic, Ralph Lauren-esque Americana and traditional British outerwear.

Once again taking into consideration her complexion, the camel-colored coat pairs beautifully with her warm-toned hair and creme-colored trousers, making for an incredibly chic ensemble.

2. Inaugural icon

Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Easily one of her most iconic looks was from one of her first public appearances in 2025 during her husband President Donald Trump's inauguration. The sleek navy skirt suit with matching stilettos were beautiful pieces on their own, but the star of the show was her eye-catching headwear that made several headlines.

Melania's wide-brimmed hat was often paired with a demure grin or a quick glance that dazzled photographers and attendees alike. This stylish showstopper is one of her many looks that simply speaks for itself.

1. Emerald alliance

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Melania's best look in 2025 was an emerald-green floor-length gown she wore while the White House hosted Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. The color choice is undeniably stunning as is the silhouette of the strapless gown.

The delicate ruching throughout the front of the gown elongates and flatters her figure beautifully without appearing too showy (again, Lauren Sanchez, take notes). The slight sheen of the fabric adds just the right glamorous touch to the jewel-toned dress and matching pumps. Melania's elegance and class shine most in this gown.

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Christian woman charged for thought crimes after investigation into silent prayers



A woman in the United Kingdom is in trouble with law enforcement yet again for daring to engage in silent prayers.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce learned in March that she had been under investigation by Midlands Police in the U.K. since January. She has now been criminally charged for praying in her head.

'You've said you're engaging in prayer, which is the offense.'

More specifically, Vaughan-Spruce was allegedly charged because she "stood outside" an abortion facility in Birmingham, England, to conduct her silent prayers and, therefore, tried to "influence" visitors, which is prohibited.

According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the charge against Vaughan-Spruce is under Section 9 of the U.K.'s Public Order Act 2023, which outlines "Safe Access Zones" around abortion clinics in England and Wales.

Discretion under the act is left to each individual officer, but all decisions must be made "on a case-by-case basis and must be balanced and proportionate to the circumstances," the document says.

The law states it is an offense to recklessly or intentionally "do an act" that:

  • Influences "any person's decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services at an abortion clinic";
  • Obstructs or impedes any person "accessing, providing, or facilitating the provision of abortion services at an abortion clinic"; or
  • Causes "harassment, alarm, or distress to any person in connection with a decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services at an abortion clinic."

Violators are subject to a fine.

RELATED: 'Your arrest is necessary': Woman arrested for silent prayer, 'anti-social behavior' outside abortion clinic

Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images

In 2022, Vaughan-Spruce made headlines for admitting to possibly engaging in silent prayer near an abortion clinic. She was asked by an officer to voluntarily go to a police station, and, upon declining, was informed that she was under arrest for failing to comply and would be charged with "anti-social behavior."

According to a city of Birmingham website, anti-social behavior "includes behavior which has caused or is likely to cause you harassment, alarm, or distress."

Vaughan-Spruce was later charged with "protesting and engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users" but was reportedly acquitted because the facility was actually closed at the time she was there.

She was arrested again in 2023 for praying in an excluded zone, this time on the corner of a road.

"You've said you're engaging in prayer, which is the offense," an officer told her.

Vaughan-Spruce claimed at the time that she assumed her acquittal meant she could now pray outside of the facility without causing offense.

RELATED: Real-life dystopia: Police arrest woman AGAIN after she silently prayed near abortion facility in UK

Similar charges were recently brought upon a retired pastor in Northern Ireland for preaching inside one of the protected zones.

According to the New York Post, the 76-year-old faces two charges and has pleaded not guilty to seeking to "influence" people accessing abortion services and for not immediately vacating the area when asked by police.

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The liberal myth of the 'first black Briton' just got blown out of the water



Liberals in the United Kingdom have worked desperately to paint white Britons uniquely as history's villains, erase them from British history, and/or programmatically undermine their unique claims to indigeneity in the isles.

The trouble for the institutional proponents of this vilification and revisionism campaign is that facts keep getting in the way.

Case in point: Recent DNA analysis confirms that the second-century skeleton gleefully identified by the BBC as the "first black Briton" was not a sub-Saharan African but rather a white woman.

'Her story has shifted over time and has sparked important debates about diversity.'

A skeleton was discovered in the 1950s in Beachy Head, England, which belonged to a young woman who lived in the second or third century. Her remains sat in storage for decades until 2012, when Jonathan Seaman, the heritage officer at the Eastbourne Borough council, and his team "came across two boxes, which said ‘Beachy Head, something to do with 1956 or 1959,’ and that was about it."

As there were virtually no records available about the remains, Seaman and his team worked to identify the Roman-era skeleton, sending it off for facial reconstruction, which was undertaken by Caroline Wilkinson, an academic then at Dundee University.

Seaman recalled, "Straight away on seeing this girl, [Wilkinson] said, 'Oh my, you realize you’ve got a sub-Saharan African here?’"

Seaman noted further:

Caroline subsequently had it looked at by two more experts who agreed, without being prompted, that this individual showed many traits of being a sub-Saharan African person. They were 100% sure that this was the origin of this lady. There are certain features of the skull that you can tell are Caucasian or African. We didn’t know her carbon date at that stage or anything about her, so again it just deepened the mystery. They reconstructed her, and as they did so, her African origins came out in the features of her face.

While the media made a big deal out of this supposed discovery, the BBC went further than most, hyping it both in its news coverage and in its 2016 "Black and British: A Forgotten History" documentary.

In the documentary, British-Nigerian host David Olusoga — overcome with delight at the sight of a facial reconstruction of the Beachy Head Woman with dark skin, dark eyes, and dark hair — tells Seaman, "So she's a black Briton? ... So she's the same as me — she's somebody who is both [British and African] but who spent their life in this country."

RELATED: No more stiff upper lip: My fellow Brits are fed up with 'diversity'

Coastline near Beachy Head. Photo by: Bill Allsopp/Loop Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

As part of the documentary series, the BBC installed a plaque where the remains of the Beachy Head Woman were found, stating, "The remains of the 'BEACHY HEAD WOMAN' were found near this site. Of African origin, she lived in East Sussex 2nd-3rd century AD."

The plaque was removed in 2023 after DNA testing by the Crick Institute determined that the Beachy Head Woman's origin was not Africa but possibly Cyprus.

More recently, a research team led by Drs. Selina Brace and William Marsh of London's Natural History Museum and Andy Walton of University College London re-examined the skeleton using state-of-the-art DNA analysis techniques. They determined that the Beachy Head Woman was neither an African nor a Cypriot but a white local from the south coast of England.

According to the researchers' findings, which were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, "she shows a close affinity to individuals from modern-day England and contemporary Roman-era Iron Age individuals in England and Northern continental Europe."

DNA results indicate that the Beachy Head Woman had blond hair, blue eyes, and "intermediate skin," with paleness weighted as more likely.

The researchers noted that "the decade-long investigation into Beachy Head Woman's origins has centered around how her story has shifted over time and has sparked important debates about diversity and how we portray individuals from our past. The results presented here will no doubt add to this."

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Christian Woman Charged Again For Silently Praying Outside Of UK Abortion Clinic

Isabel Vaughn-Spruce has been under investigation since January for the 'influence' she supposedly exhibited in her silent vigil for life.

Trump sues BBC for billions over 'deceptive and defamatory' edit of his Jan. 6 speech, blasts foreign election interference



President Donald Trump filed a massive defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation on Monday over an edit of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech that appeared in a BBC "Panorama" documentary.

The lawsuit claims that the BBC's "deceptive and defamatory distortion, doctoring, manipulation, and splicing damaged President Trump in his occupation, damaged his professional reputation, and portrayed him as engaging in supposed calls for rioting and violence that he never actually made."

'The FAKE NEWS "reporters" in the UK are just as dishonest and full of s**t as the ones here in America.'

The complaint notes further that the "aggressively anti-Trump" documentary, which aired shortly before the 2024 presidential election and painted Kamala Harris as an optimal candidate, constituted "a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election's outcome to President Trump's detriment."

A tale of two speeches

Trump originally said at 12:12 p.m. in his speech on Jan. 6, 2021:

Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down — and I’ll be there with you — we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down. Any one you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you'll never take back our country with weakness.

The president noted nearly an hour later after first raising concerns about voting irregularities and potential fraud in the 2020 election, "Most people would stand there at nine o'clock in the evening and say, 'I want to thank you very much,' and they go off to some other life, but I said, 'Something's wrong here, something's really wrong — can't have happened.' And we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country any more."

The "Panorama" documentary spliced and reorganized Trump's remarks to make it appear as though he said, "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country any more."

In addition to creating a false narrative by coupling two parts of the speech that were divided by over 50 minutes' worth of content and omitting Trump's call for supporters to behave "peacefully," the documentary showed flag-waving men descending on the Capitol after the president spoke — despite the video having been recorded before Trump's speech.

RELATED: 'Enemy of Europe': Liberal globalists attack Trump over recognizing 'civilizational erasure' in Europe

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The Telegraph obtained and reported on a whistleblower memo earlier this year revealing that there were concerns at the BBC over the apparently deceptive work.

The whistleblower memo noted that the "mangled" footage made Trump "'say' things [he] never actually said" and insinuated, with the help of the footage of men marching on the Capitol, that "Trump's supporters had taken up his 'call to arms.'"

Too little, too late

Last month, the BBC came under fire both in the United States and in the United Kingdom.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Telegraph, "Trust in the media is at an all-time low because of deceptive editing, misleading reporting, and outright lies. This is yet another example, of many, highlighting why countless Americans turn to alternative media sources to get their news."

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, "The FAKE NEWS 'reporters' in the UK are just as dishonest and full of s**t as the ones here in America!!!"

"This is a total disgrace. The BBC has doctored footage of Trump to make it look as though he incited a riot — when he in fact said no such thing," wrote former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. "We have Britain’s national broadcaster using a flagship programme to tell palpable untruths about Britain’s closest ally. Is anyone at the BBC going to take responsibility — and resign?"

In the face of mounting pressure, the BBC issued a retraction, and the director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, and Deborah Turness, the head of BBC News, both resigned in disgrace.

"Like all public organizations, the BBC is not perfect, and we must always be open, transparent, and accountable," Davie said in statement. "Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made, and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility."

Turness similarly assumed some responsibility for the fiasco, noting the controversy had "reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC" and adding that "the buck stops with me."

'The BBC had no regard for the truth.'

Turness suggested, however, that the broadcast corporation was not biased.

"In public life, leaders need to be fully accountable, and that is why I am stepping down," said Turness. "While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong."

Samir Shah, the chair of the BBC, subsequently sent a personal letter to the White House apologizing for the edit; however, the network refused to pay compensation, claiming that there was no basis for Trump's defamation claim.

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss encouraged Trump to take legal action against the BBC, suggesting in a Nov. 15 interview that the network's apology was insufficient "because they keep doing it again and again. They have painted a completely false picture of President Trump in Britain over a number of years. They've done the same thing about conservatives in our country."

Pay the piper

Trump's lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and demands judgment against the BBC for at least $5 billion in damages, states:

The lack of any effort by the BBC to publish content even remotely resembling objective journalism, or to maintain even a slight semblance of objectivity in the Panorama Documentary, demonstrates that the BBC had no regard for the truth about President Trump, and that the doctoring of his Speech was not inadvertent, but instead was an intentional component of the BBC's effort to craft as one-sided an impression and narrative against President Trump as possible.

A spokesperson for Trump's legal team told the Guardian that "President Trump’s powerhouse lawsuit is holding the BBC accountable for its defamation and reckless election interference just as he has held other fake news mainstream media responsible for their wrongdoing."

A spokesperson for the network said in a statement, "As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case."

A spokesperson for the prime minister's office noted that while Downing Street will always "defend the principle of a strong, independent BBC as a trusted and relied-upon national broadcaster reporting without fear or favor," the prime minister's office has "also consistently said it is vitally important that they act to maintain trust, correcting mistakes quickly when they occur."

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Pizza Hut Classic: Retro fun ruined by non-English-speaking staff, indifferent customer service



Pizza Hut Classic is evidence that even if a company gets its branding right, customer service is the oil that keeps the machine running.

Since 2019, Pizza Hut has been spreading its retro vibes across the continent by reintroducing its 1990s decor, design, and dining experience.

'The interior features cozy red booths and old-school Pizza Hut lamps.'

From Warren, Ohio to Hempstead, Texas, the iconic Pizza Hut chandeliers are being rehung, and the fantastic buffet is being put out once again. According to Chefs Resource, some locations have even brought back the beloved dessert bar.

Slice of life

With the return of the 1974 logo and nostalgic appeal, Pizza Hut did the inverse of Cracker Barrel. Instead of trying to modernize and simplify their decor, the pie-slingers retrofitted and cluttered theirs.

A page called the Retrologist dissected the formula and determined exactly what the word "Classic" in Pizza Hut Classic really means. To meet the new (old) standard, the writer pinpointed that each location must include the following:

1. The old logo is used in pole signage as well as at the top of the (usually but not always) red-roofed restaurant. The pole sign features the addition of the word "Classic."
2. The interior features cozy red booths and old-school Pizza Hut lamps.
3. Stickers featuring the long-discarded character Pizza Hut Pete are found on the door.
4. Posters feature classic photos from Pizza Huts of yore.
5. A plaque displays a quote from Pizza Hut co-founder Dan Carney, explaining the concept as a celebration of the brand’s heritage.

While many of the revamped locations have received rave reviews, there still exists a way to make such a fine dining experience awful, even if surrounded by everything that made customers flock to the buffet 30 years ago.

RELATED: The 'rebranding' brigade's war on beauty

Photo by Andrew Chapados/Blaze News

Word salad

For a Pizza Hut Classic ruined by modern belief systems, look no farther than north of the border, in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough.

While the restaurant did include the iconic chandeliers and some of the retro furnishings, it did not have old soda fountains or the memorable menus spotted at other locations. Instead, this unique eatery represented a new (low) standard of lackluster customer service, coupled with sprinklings of unfettered immigration policy.

These accommodations, or lack there of, will surely split customers down political lines. Yes, there are retro red Pepsi cups, but the waitress who literally speaks no English may fill that cup with Diet Pepsi with ice instead of "water with no ice."

Is there a salad bar? Yes. Is the salad bar limited to plain lettuce and croutons? Also yes. Were there pieces of lettuce dropped in the ranch dressing (the only available dressing) for the duration of the visit? Definitely.

RELATED: Cracker Barrel's logo lives — but like every digital-age public space, it now looks dead inside

Photo by Andrew Chapados/Blaze News

Meat and greet

A steady rotation of cheese, deluxe, and Hawaiian pizza was only broken up by one couple's complaints about the lack of variety. A manager — also largely unintelligible in her speech — replied first with a refusal to change the rotation. Strangely, about 10 minutes later, she eventually brought out two meat lovers' pizzas, in an apparent act of defiance.

The damaged seating in the restaurant combined with a chip out of the "Hut" portion of the building's exterior revealed years-old paint and, along with it, a yearning for more care to be given. A restaurant that could be so nostalgic, but ruined by the apparent comforts of a district that has voted Liberal in its last three federal elections for a woman from the U.K. who holds citizenship in three countries, including Pakistan.

"I wanted to go to a dine-in, because in most places, including the U.K., you can't do that now," said reporter Lewis Brackpool, who visited the location. He added, "I come to one, and what do you know — it sucks."

In at a massive discount due to the exchange rate, Brackpool could not help but feel like many who are from the area: that what had been promised was robbed.

The experience can be summed up in the words of an anonymous would-be customer who, upon seeing a commercial of what a Pizza Hut buffet looked like in the 1990s in comparison to the location in question, said, "They took this from us."

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'It's not fair': No. 1 women's tennis player states obvious truth about transgender athletes in women's sports



The top women's tennis player in the world was recently confronted with the idea that she might have a biological advantage over other women.

Aryna Sabalenka, the world's No. 1-ranked player in the Women's Tennis Association, is preparing for a "Battle of the Sexes" against Nick Kyrgios, who reached as high as No. 13 in the men's rankings in 2016.

To promote the event, the two appeared on "Piers Morgan Uncensored" where they were asked if they think it is fair when men, or transgender athletes, compete in women's sports.

'I feel like they still got a huge advantage over the women.'

Morgan prefaced his question by citing Martina Navratilova, a former tennis star who has been adamant about keeping men out of women's competitions.

"[Navratilova] says it's wrong for the Women's Tennis Association to allow trans women to compete in its events; do you agree with her?" Morgan asked.

"That's a tricky question," Sabalenka initially replied.

The Belarusian then stated the obvious biological reality.

"I have nothing to do against them. But I feel like they still got huge advantage over the woman, and I think it's just not fair to a woman to basically face, like, biologically man," she said.

The 27-year-old continued, "You know, it's not fair, like, the woman been working the whole life to reach her limit and then she has to face, like, a man, like, which biologically much stronger. So for me, I don't agree with this kind of stuff in sport."

Morgan then posed the question to Kyrgios, who quickly explained that he had "nothing to add" because he feels "the exact same way."

Sabalenka was not out of the woods yet because Morgan then brought up criticisms the athlete has faced from her competitors.

RELATED: 'XX XY': Tennis star Aryna Sabalenka's coach spotted wearing pro-biological women sports apparel during win over world No. 1

The British host referred to Marta Kostyuk, the No. 26-ranked women's tennis player. In October, the Ukrainian complained that Sabalenka is "bigger," "taller," and "stronger" than she is and that Sabalenka and another Polish player have biological advantages due to their testosterone levels.

"We all have our own biological structure. Some have a higher level of testosterone, some have lower. I know players who are good players who have higher levels of it," Kostyuk claimed, per Firstpost.

While Kostyuk said she's sure that her opponents aren't on drugs, the 23-year-old said it's "just the biology" of their bodies and that "definitely helps."

"I'm trying to see how I can beat these players with the tennis skills I have, but I have to work more than they have to win the points," she added.

Sabalenka laughed off these comments, telling Morgan that Kostyuk was just making "excuses."

"It's actually quite funny because she's a strong girl," she said. "She probably has more muscles than I do, and she looks fit and strong, and I think that's not the case in all of the matches she lost against our players."

RELATED: Tennis star stops match to make absurd demand about a baby in the crowd

Photo by Adam Hunger/Getty Images

In Britain, the governing Lawn Tennis Association essentially barred "transgender women" from playing in top women's tournaments in December 2024.

After conducting a formal review, the organization determined that the "average man" has an advantage when playing against the "average woman."

The new rules restrict "transgender women and nonbinary individuals assigned male at birth" from playing in top-tier and competitive women's tournaments.

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Nanny State Refuses To Care For Actual Children

British government has thoroughly exploited

Digital tyrants want your face, your ID … and your freedom



Thomas Sowell’s warning fits the digital age with brutal precision: There are no solutions, only trade-offs. When governments regulate technology, they seize your privacy first. Every “safety” mandate becomes an excuse to collect more personal data, and the result is always the same. Bureaucrats claim to protect you while making you more vulnerable.

Age-verification laws illustrate this perfectly. Discord’s recent breach — more than 70,000 stolen government ID photos taken from a third-party vendor — shows how quickly privacy collapses once platforms are forced to gather sensitive data.

Millions of citizens should not be forced to trade away privacy because policymakers refuse to acknowledge the risks.

To comply with the U.K.’s new Online Safety Act, Discord began collecting users’ documentation. That data became a target, and once breached, attackers reportedly demanded a multimillion-dollar ransom and threatened to publish the stolen IDs. Discord failed to monitor its vendor’s security practices, and thousands paid the price.

Age-verification mandates require digital platforms to confirm a user’s age before granting access to specific content or services. That means uploading government IDs or submitting to facial scans. The stated goal is child safety. The actual effect is compulsory data surrender. These laws normalize the idea that governments can force citizens to hand over sensitive information just to use the internet.

Centralized data collection creates a jackpot for cybercriminals. As the Discord breach proves, one compromise exposes thousands — or millions — of users. Criminals can sell this information, reuse it for identity theft, or weaponize it for blackmail. The problem isn’t a one-off failure. It is structural. Age verification mandates require platforms to create consolidated databases of personally identifying information, which become single points of catastrophic failure.

The libertarian Cato Institute captures the problem: “Requiring age verification creates a trove of attractive data for hackers that could put broader information about users, particularly young users, at risk.”

Governments may insist that the Discord breach was an outlier. It wasn’t. Breaches of sensitive information are predictable in systems designed to aggregate it. Even if the motives behind the U.K.’s age-verification regime were noble, undermining privacy to advance those aims is a trade-off free societies should reject. That is why the Online Safety Act triggered an outcry far beyond the U.K.

And, as usual, legislative mandates fail to achieve their stated goals. Days after the OSA took effect, VPN downloads surged as users — including children — bypassed verification systems. Laura Tyrylyte, Nord Security’s head of public relations, told Wired that “whenever a government announces an increase in surveillance, internet restrictions, or other types of constraints, people turn to privacy tools.” Predictably, age-verification laws encourage evasion instead of compliance.

RELATED: The UK wants to enforce its censorship laws in the US. The First Amendment begs to differ.

mikkelwilliam via iStock/Getty Images

The pattern is simple: Age-verification laws degrade privacy, heighten the risk of identity theft, and fail to keep minors off restricted platforms. They make the internet less safe for everyone.

Meanwhile, policymakers remain determined to spread these mandates in the name of protecting children. The U.K. pioneered the model. Many other governments followed. Twenty-five U.S. states have adopted similar laws. The list grows each month.

But governments cannot treat data breaches as acceptable collateral damage. Millions of citizens should not be forced to trade away privacy because policymakers refuse to acknowledge the risks. The result of this approach will be more surveillance, more breaches, more stolen personal data, and a steady erosion of civil liberties.

Privacy is the backbone of liberty in a digital world. Thomas Jefferson’s warning deserves repetition: “The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.”

Age-verification mandates accelerate that progress — and citizens pay the price.