> Are you arguing that we should not regulate porn, alcohol, and cigarettes?
Most of the important regulations around these things have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Requiring bourbon not to contain methanol and adult performers to be tested for STDs aren't related to the internet.
And once we're talking about the internet, those things are in a different category because alcohol and cigarettes are physical objects. You can't download vodka from Russia.
Whereas if you want to stop kids from downloading porn from other parts of the world, the police state that would require is the thing wars have been fought against and righteously so. Not because of the porn but because of what it would take to actually make those laws effective, and what it would be used for as soon as it's in place.
But ineffective laws aren't worth having, because they're all costs with no benefits, not least because then people will keep trying to make them effective and the only means to do that is the police state.
> Society has grown up and we’re not comfortable giving the internet a pass because digital identity is hard.
I feel like this kind of language is designed to make people angry. As if you're not an adult if you can look at a trade off against privacy and free speech and say "that's not worth having" instead of implementing every creeping authoritarian proposal specifically because the last one didn't solve the problem.