[jraby3]

Why? Isn't your age verified when you renew your drivers license? Purchase something on Amazon?

When I was a kid, child programming and commercials were heavily scrutinized. Now any kid can access porn, violence, and scams on the internet. That's a blight. Not age verification.

[zeroonetwothree]

I don’t understand, did broadcast TV or cable do age verification? Surely kids could watch content that was for adults very easily.

[xg15]

Broadcast TV had a very simple solution to this problem: Only air the not-for-kids stuff at times of the day when the kids are already asleep, i.e. late in the evening or at night.

It was still the job of the parents to set the bed times etc, but at least this was something the parents could actually control.

And for pay-per-view stations with actual heavily violent or pornographic content: Yes, they were absolutely age-gated, usually via a PIN.

[chii]

and who sets that pin? It's the parents, not the cable company.

[xg15]

This is correct. I think the difference is that the PIN actually is an effective tool that parents can use to keep their kids from watching this stuff. It's also default-deny as the PIN is pre-set, and the parents would have to make a conscious efforts to allow viewing.

Im contrast, the internet is default-permit: Everyone can access everything, unless the device is specifically set up to block it. Setting up such a block has the risk of causing massive drama with your kids, and they fill probably quickly find ways to circumvent it anyway.

This is why I find the "it's the parent's responsibility" calls so hypocritical: The whole idea behind the internet is to make it as hard as possible to block things. But suddenly we expect the parents to do exactly that? How?

(All that independent of the point that the current push for age verification really seems like a disguised push for control. But that doesn't mean there isn't a real problem. Both things can be true at the same time)

[tmjwid]

As a kid, you never found a stack of porno magazines in the woods did you?

[oneshtein]

> Now any kid can access porn, violence, and scams on the internet.

Before Internet they used paper.

[bigstrat2003]

Before the Internet you had to work fairly hard to get a Playboy centerfold where the model just had her breasts out. Now you can effortlessly find endless depictions of anything, including the most depraved sex acts you can possibly imagine. The ease of access and breadth of content available to kids today makes it qualitatively different than when we were kids.

That does not, of course, mean that age verification laws are the appropriate solution. You could even argue that it's not a problem that kids have access to all this stuff (though I don't think I would agree with that). But you can't just hand wave it away by saying "we looked at porn on paper when we were kids". The situations are not at all the same.

[eloisant]

The ease of access, quantity and diversity of internet porn is in no common measure with magazines that existed in the 20th century.

[kaliqt]

That’s the job of parents. No exceptions. OP is right, it needs to be outlawed.

[pibaker]

And yet juvenile crime rate is down. Bullying is down. Teenage pregnancy is way down. Even underage smoking and drinking is down.

Maybe porn and violence is making today's teenager behave better than those 30 years ago after all!