[stormbeard]

This reasoning never made sense to me. What the hell are these kids' parents doing and why is this something that needs to inconvenience everyone else? If lazy parents don't want to monitor their children while they spend all day on their ipads, that's their problem--it shouldn't be made mine.

[tjpnz]

There is no world where hovering over your kid's shoulders 24/7 is practical. What would help would be robust parental controls, but tech companies would never implement those for obvious reasons.

[Klonoar]

It’s their problem until it’s the world’s problem. Kids grow up and carry the things that mess them up.

[bitwize]

Kids will find a way to sneak around their parents every time, esp. if their friends (or a groomer) introduce them to something "cool". Active parental monitoring alone isn't really a solution.

[goku12]

Automated access control is even worse. Kids explore technology a lot more than their parents do. They will find a work around and share it among their peers. The only real solution is to make them aware of the dangers and hope that it works when combined with parental attention.

[ytoawwhra92]

Liquor stores shouldn't have to check ID.

Parents should be aware of where their kids are at all times and physically prevent them from entering liquor stores.

[hmm37]

Showing your id at a liquor store doesn't have near the same issues of invasion of privacy, and big tech companies sucking down all your information, etc., while knowing your exact identity.

[shakna]

There is a difference between the liquor store checking your ID, and every store you even walk passed, checking your ID just in case you're on the way to try and buy liquor.

[goku12]

That's a disingenuous false equivalence comparison. Checking ID at a store comes with no extra burden. Not so for computing devices. You're talking about everything from fully locking down the boot loader to adding age verification interface on most of the applications. Why do you think people are so worried only about the latter?

Another difference is that internet access has potential advantages for children. There are ways in which they can derive immense value from it. On the contrary, there is no justifiable reason why a child should be allowed to drink.

Please don't rationalize such draconian measures and help them claim legitimacy.

[ytoawwhra92]

The comment I replied to said:

> If lazy parents don't want to monitor their children while they spend all day on their ipads, that's their problem--it shouldn't be made mine.

This comes up all the time when age verification laws (of any kind) are discussed. Notice that this comment is not concerned with the implementation details of age verification laws, it simply rejects them in principle because the poster believes it is solely the parent's responsibility to monitor their children's Internet usage.

Offline age/ID verification is not a false equivalence comparison. Parents have a responsibility to supervise and protect their children from harm, it's true. But as children get older (esp. in their teens) it's critical for their development to have unsupervised time to interact with the world on their own terms. And for this reason most countries have some form of codified social responsibility to supervise and protect children from harm when they are in public spaces. Liquor stores checking ID is one example of that, but there are many others.

Every thread on HN about this topic has people saying it's solely the parents' responsibility to control their children's access to harmful media. I replied to one with what I believe is a good counter-example of this. As of writing this, 3 of the 5 replies to my comment are shifting the goal posts (criticising implementation details, rather than the concept of age verification). 1 is saying ban all kids from the Internet (requires age verification) and 1 is saying allow kids to buy liquor.

Online public spaces are still public spaces, so they share the social responsibility that offline public spaces have to refuse children access and/or protect them from harm.

[inemesitaffia]

In some countries they don't.

[cowboylowrez]

this is the solution, make internet 21+ and all these problems go away. kids have no business on the internet, there is nothing useful on the internet for kids.