> Direct your anger at the geriatrics in government who don't understand the risks of these laws first.
No offence but I think you are being extremely naive if you think that the people in power and the lobbyists who have spent the last 10 years relentlessly pushing for ID verification online and mass content scanning in the US and in the EU do not know what they are doing.
Here is the thing, most people are increasingly unhappy about the way things are going whether they are on the right or the left of the political spectrum. Governments can see that and don't want to see what happened in Nepal recently repeat itself. So they are getting ahead of the curve.
First require everyone to ID themselves online, then tie everything you say to your ID then use that against you one day if you decide that enough is enough.
The western countries are looking at what China is doing and simply iterating on it. They wrap it in a nit little bow to either "fight terrorism" TM or "protect the children" TM.
This is a pure power play meant to save their asses and the people who have been warning that this was always going to be going in that direction have been ridiculed and called conspiracy nuts but here we are.
Look at OFCOM in the UK. First it was to protect children form porn. Now they are looking to expand their powers to moderate speech online based on what THEY think is acceptable. If the EU gets it's way, you'll have client scanning in all messaging apps across the EU. And it won't stop.
This sort of thing is never about protecting kids, reducing harm or whatever they call it. It's about control about what you see, what you write, all done with the purpose to determine if you as an individual will become a problem for them in the future.