[Ajedi32]

Correct. The problem here is two-fold:

1. Sites have no reliable way to determine a user's age without massive privacy violations. (E.g. To access this site, upload a copy of your driver's license.)

2. Making the government the final authority on who is allowed to access the adult internet would enable way too much authoritarian abuse. (E.g. Sorry citizen, you have been deemed a dissident, and will therefore now be treated like a child by every website you visit.)

The solution to 1 is to handle the age verification part on the client side, so sites don't need to know anything about the user except whether they're old enough to access the content in question. And the solution for 2 is for parents to enforce access at the household level rather than governments doing it at the national level. (E.g. Don't let your kids use devices/software that lies to sites about their age, unless you're there to supervise.)

The exact details of how that gets implemented at the protocol level aren't as important as the overall principle. (Though I have a few ideas.)