[marcus_holmes]

Except that it creates a market for circumvention tech that would also cut Big Tech out from understanding what its users are saying to each other.

Age restriction laws don't stop underage folks from doing anything, they just increase the market demand for VPNs, and improve VPNs so they get less easily detected. The net result is that platforms can't use IP addresses to meaningfully infer anything about their users.

Same with this. This legislation will create a demand for private encryption tech that isn't part of the platform. Someone is going to provide that and make money, and in the process may remove the demand for the platform in the first place.

I get the logic you're talking about, and agree that they must be thinking this, but it's very short-sighted.