The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

The problem is private companies being extensions of what the government wants to do, like all of the surveillance tech in the US right now basically eviscerating the fourth amendment since they willingly hand over their data to the government without even a court order in many cases.

> The thing is, what are the parents to do beyond restricting things?

Well, I can't speak for parents (as in all parents). I can, however, tell you what we did.

When two of my kids were young we gave them iPods. The idea was to load a few fun educational applications (I had written and published around 10 at the time). Very soon they asked for Clash of Clans to play for a couple of hours on Saturdays. We said that was OK provided they stuck to that rule.

Fast forward to maybe a couple of months later. After repeated warnings that they were not sticking to the plan and promises to do so, I found them playing CoC under the blankets at 11 PM, when they were supposed to be sleeping and had school the next day.

I did not react and gave no indication of having witnessed that.

A couple of days later I asked each of them to their room and asked them to place their top ten favorite toys on the floor.

I then produced a pair of huge garbage bags and we put the toys in them, one bag for each of the kids.

I also asked for their iPods.

No anger, no scolding, just a conversation at a normal tone.

I asked them to grab the bags and follow me.

We went outside, I opened the garbage bin and told them to throw away their toys. It got emotional very quickly. I also gave them the iPods and told them to toss them into the bin.

After the crying subsided I explained that trust is one of the most delicate things in the world and that this was a consequence of them attempting to deceive us by secretly playing CoC when they knew the rules. This was followed by daily talks around the dinner table to explain just how harmful and addictive this stuff could be, how it made them behave and how important it was to honor promises.

Another week later I asked them to come into the garage with me and showed them that I had rescued their favorite toys from the garbage bin. The iPods were gone forever. And now there was a new rule: They could earn one toy per month by bringing top grades from school, helping around the house, keeping their rooms clean and organized and, in general, being well behaved.

That was followed by ten months of absolutely perfect kids learning about earning something they cherished every month. Of course, the behavior and dedication to their school work persisted well beyond having earned their last toy. Lots of talks, going out to do things and positive feedback of course.

They never got the iPods back. They never got social media accounts. They did not get smart phones until much older.

To this day, now well into university, they thank me for having taken away their iPods.

So, again, I don't know about parents in the aggregate, but I don't think being a good parent is difficult.

You are not there to be an all-enabling friend, you are there to guide a new human through life and into adulthood. You are there to teach them everything and, as I still tell them all the time, aim for them to be better than you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99j0zLuNhi8

> A government could implement the equivalent of China's great firewall. Even if it doesn't stop everyone, it would stop most people.

Porn is not just political information about human right abuses, government overreach or heavily censored overview of concentration camps for "group X". People can live just fine with government censorship buying into any kind of propaganda.

Kids would find a way to access porn though. Whatever it VPNs, tor or USB stick black market. Government cant even win war on drugs and you expect them to successfully ban porn. What a joke.

I like to believe that, even with the amount of kids vaping, there aren't nearly as many as kids on social media.

To give perspective: in my high school, there were a few kids who vaped in bathrooms, but the majority (including me) did not; we were told many times that it was unhealthy, and anyone caught vaping would be suspended. Everyone I know (including me) had social media, we were not told it was unhealthy (only to not use it too much, not give out PII, avoid bullying, etc.), and it wasn't even policed in some classrooms.

> We'll try everything, it seems, other than holding parents accountable for what their children consume.

You've missed the point. No legislator or politician cares about what the parents are doing.

What they care about is gaining greater control of people's data to then coerce them endlessly (with the assitance of technology) into acting as they would liike. To do that, they need all that info.

"The children" is the sugar on the pill of de-anonymised internet.