[iron_pi]

Alcohol is a great comparison to access to the internet.

Firstly lets be honest to ourselves, who gives kids access to alcohol? It is the parents ultimately. You cannot freely access alcohol in public without a venue offering it, but at home a parent can choose if and how much alcohol their kids have access to. Typically kids who have alcohol in public had taken it from home. There are societal morals that rightfully we consider reckless depending on how much access you give your kids to alcohol.

Now replace the word alcohol with 'the internet' in the last paragraph. The internet is already moderated for kids, they cannot buy access to it, and it is the parents responsibility to manage that. Since when did this change to being the governments job to dictate this moral and its implementation.

Parents just need the right tools to properly moderate their kids access, some of us had this from our parents decades ago with software managing content and time on the internet, I doubt these tools disappeared. The government should be facilitating programs like this. The cost would be substantially less and entirely opt-in, as it should be.

I as a parent should be able to put my kids device into a parental mode that allows me to manage what they have access to and for how long, the same way the Nintendo Switch works. I should be able to control the content my kids sees, not the government. The government can help me enable this across industry without forcing the world into an authoritarian regime using the vile of keeping kids safe.

[jonhohle]

Tell me you don’t have children without telling me you don’t have children.

What happens when your child’s school or library doesn’t restrict the devices they give your child when outside of your home? What happens when predators infest children’s games and platforms you expected to be safe? What happens when your idea of safety doesn’t align with the platform holder?

[greycol]

You're out here advocating for draconian restrictions on all adults because you don't want to have to deal with placing similar restrictions on either your kids or yourself.

You just listed multiple places where you could be applying targeted restrictions to get the effect you espouse but instead are advocating for tracking on any art or conversations that could be deemed offensive to the most reactionary busy body.

The worst part is this age gating won't actually work, 18 year olds know 17 year olds know 16 year olds... No age verification is going to stop kids accessing whatever most offends your sensibilities, the point of being a good parent is being involved enough in a kids life that you can notice and stop excesses in bad behaviour early and encourage doing positive actions and forming good habits constantly because you and they can't succeed all the time, but you don't need to.

Arguing for these restrictions is the same logic that arguing that burkas should be mandatory because clearly if woman don't appear attractive there would be less sexual crime against woman rather than putting the impetus on the ones committing the crime. You may be right in that it occasionally achieves the goal but it's a horrendous way to do it and you make the world a worse place for those you're claiming you want to help.

Also "What happens when your idea of safety doesn’t align with the platform holder?" You seem to be arguing against yourself as you're saying that individual's preferences don't align with other groups but want to align standards based on distinct age groups mandated by the government.