[Amezarak]

I've yet to meet an ordinary person who supports any of this, though they might agree if vaguely prompted about it without detail. They certainly aren't lobbying their politicians about it. This is top down, not bottom up.

> So now that parents have been blocked from parenting, who else is going to do it?

I'm a parent. Nobody has been blocked from parenting by tech companies.

[angiolillo]

A majority of the parents I know are extremely concerned about the internet and social media and want tech companies to provide them with better parental controls. True, no one I know has lobbied for age verification specifically, but given how much politicians and tech companies want it, it's unsurprising that they're working hard redirect this parental concern towards their preferred solutions.

[ars]

We are in different circles, because everyone in my circle is desperate for a solution to unrestricted phone use by kids.

> I'm a parent. Nobody has been blocked from parenting by tech companies.

What age? Because they absolutely have. Wait till your kid has instragram and snapchat and WhatsApp and they can talk to random adults, or get bullied and you have no way to know. Wait till they lock their phone, and you have no way to check it. Wait till they get addicted to content that basically blocks them from doing any part of normal life and all they want to do all day is sit and watch a phone.

It's really bad out there. This is the first generation to test as less intelligent than their parents. Read some of the articles on how kids are cheating with AI, and it's not just that AI is available, I think the kids simply can't do the work, and that's because they spend most of their time on the phone.

This doesn't bode well for the future, and something to restrict kids from phone is desperately needed. What it should look like, I'm not sure. I don't care about proving a specific ID for anything, just an age range is enough: Either your above 18, or what's your age when under 18, nothing more is needed.

Then apps can tailor themselves accordingly.

[Amezarak]

> Because they absolutely have. Wait till your kid has instragram and snapchat and WhatsApp and they can talk to random adults

Why would they be allowed or even able to download Snapchat or WhatsApp if this is a concern?

> Wait till they lock their phone, and you have no way to check it.

OK, then their phone is taken away.

This is totally bizarre to me. You're talking about a world where parents have totally given up parenting already. There's nothing tech companies are going to be able to do to help.

[account42]

Your kid also will have to deal with all of that as an adult so prepare them to deal with it instead of sheltering them. Either trust the kid to make their own decisions because you have prepared them or only give the kid the device under the agreement that it can be inspected and take it away if the agreement is broken. It's also perfectly possible to enforce device time limits without any technical means. If the kids school undermines your values regarding tech use then find a better school. None of this requires an age verification panopticon. None of this even requires support from the device vendors for parental controls. All it requires is a backbone and, yes, effort.