| mandating devices provide a `NoAdult` setting, so so browsers could check it and then send something like a `x-NoAdult` header would give websites a reasonable method for distinguishing minors (or people that just don't want adult content). it's the old 80s/90s bead curtain separating the adult movies area from the rest of the video store. it keeps kids reasonably separated, and leans on parents making their kids mind. I think that's a reasonable target. it would work without forcing every internet user that wants to use a given service from having to submit government identification, go through interviews, or sign up to massive centralized identification systems that will inevitably track every movement people make online. if history is any indicator, those things will lead to breaches and abuse, and people's privacy will be violated. if there's a legally mandated way for parents to stop their kids from peeking through the internet's bead curtain, that should be sufficient for most purposes. if the argument is that bad or foreign websites might not implement it, it's not wrong, but that same problem exists with the mass-surveillance methods as well. if you keep going down the path of forcing everything, eventually you end up with a national firewall, vpns are illegal, anything that can provide anonymity or pseudo-anonymity online is illegal, no one has privacy, and busybodies will spend all their time hunting folks for liking things they don't want them to like when the inevitable breaches come. to your last point, sure, a 14 year old shouldn't be able to just wonder into a liquor store, but a 40 year old should. |