[Guthur]

The goal has nothing to do with children, this is control.

The UK has a long long history of over reach with all of theses initiatives.

The UK governments is desperate to keep a increasingly fragile society from boiling over and their natural inclination is to censor, it's what they have always done.

[jajuuka]

Unfortunately this isn't just a UK only issue. EU has passed similar rules and many US states have as well. Google is going to run it's age verification program in the US this month as well for everyone on Youtube. If the AI thinks you're 13 or younger then it will prevent many features until you send them government ID. So a lot of people are dealing with this dystopic idea of handing over personal information to third parties to use the internet.

I will say the UK has a history of really stupid laws like this though so it's not exactly surprising that it would happen. But it's more surprising how it's spread and succeeding in so many places.