[furyofantares]

I'm the same age as you, started when I was maybe 15 on BBSes. The porn was certainly a lot harder to come by, still images that took a while to download, had to do it when family was out of sight on the family computer and clean up history after. Kids have personal devices and can go down a rabbit hole of content in their room. It seems fairly different. Age ranges are different too, 10 year olds have phones and have maybe been using an iPad their whole life.

But even then, I think if adults knew what we were up to, maybe they would have lobbied for stuff then too.

For my 10 year old, we don't allow youtube or any other algorithm doomscrolling feed. And no voice chat in online gaming. We plan on waiting until 13 for a phone, or behind-closed-doors internet, and we use parental controls.

I'm not presenting this as an argument for age verification, I think it's a naive solution that comes with major drawbacks and won't work anyway.

But the landscape is very different and I think we should try to understand where parents who support this are coming from, because lobbying from Meta or whatever isn't the only issue.

There are parents who have been making choices for their young kids and have to start letting go at some point as the kids age, and maybe, at whatever point parents stop monitoring, they would like the kids to not be fully in the deep end. I think we should acknowledge that and explain why age verification isn't a solution, rather than pretend the world is the same and pretend don't have any legitimate concerns by saying "well we turned out okay".

(edit: reworked the tone in response to feedback)

[devmor]

> at whatever point parents stop monitoring, they would like the kids to not be fully in the deep end

Parents want to stop monitoring their kids, but still want their kids' experiences to be catered to their ideals, so the rest of society must now bend towards what you want for your kids specifically?

What about parents who want a different set of guardrails for their kids - more limited or less limited than you? What about people who aren't kids - does their privacy or freedom not matter, just because you don't want to handle it yourselves anymore?

That sounds to me (a non-parent) like a very selfish and naive worldview. I'm assuming from your tone that you are in support of this, so would you explain to me why you think its not?

[furyofantares]

You assume from my tone I'm in support of it when I literally said I'm not presenting any such argument?

I agree with everything you said.

I just think "we turned out fine" is always a garbage argument, and worse, fails to understand what drives people to want stuff like this.

I think it's better to acknowledge the real issues parents have, and then explain why age verification is an extremely naive solution that won't solve the problems and comes with a host of other problems.

[devmor]

Apologies for the misunderstanding, your post read to me like you supported this type of gating, just not age verification in its current state.

I think the solution has to start and end before the internet is even involved in the equation, anything less is harm by shifting the burden.

[furyofantares]

No problem, I updated my post to make it clearer in response.