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>I see a lot of comments here arguing age requirements are overreach and these decisions should be left to the parents. To those presenting such arguments, do you think that applies to other activities as well? What about smoking/drinking/firearms? Pornography? Driving?

Yes. The state has far, far too much involvement in everybody's lives.

This is a great stance to have if consequences have zero value.

Every time we shrug and say "let the parents decide," we gamble with the most vulnerable: the kids who don’t yet know how to refuse a cigarette, who don’t yet grasp the weight of a loaded weapon, who don’t yet understand that porn isn’t a harmless curiosity. We gamble with the soul of childhood—and when we lose, those children don’t get a second chance. They leave behind empty chairs at dinner tables, empty beds in houses that echo with what might have been. That’s the true cost of unfettered "parental freedom," and it’s a price that's easy to pay with someone else's life. But hey, Fuck those kids, right?

I can't express strongly enough that arguing about how to raise children is an incredibly deep, contentious topic. Over and over i see that the state terrifies me deep into my soul, as does the power that a parent has over shaping its children. You're gambling either way and there will always be disturbing consequences. You do not know the optimal way to raise a child - nobody does. It is subjective. Parents NEED to take on massive responsibility and raise their own children rather than leaving it up to the state or letting the state dictate how children are raised. Do you trust Donald Trump to shape your child? Who knows who could be elected next wherever you live

I've noticed the left, right, and center have all become more obsessed than ever these past few years with the idea the state and society aren't doing enough to forcibly protect people from themselves, that preventing potential self-inflicted harm due to a poor or risky decision is worth literally any cost; 1% aggregate harm reduction is now considered preferable to freedom of choice. No amount of risk is ever acceptable, and no one is allowed to perform their own risk calculus because they don't know better. And yes, as you said, abusive parenting is a major issue as well. Hard problems to solve.

A part of me thinks the opinion people have on this topic is partly mediated by whether or not the state or their parents abused them growing up. It's just dumb luck, and it is hard to imagine being in someone else's position since the consequences can only really be understood from lived experience.

For me it isn't either/or but I have a bias towards fixing abusive parenting. But I don't think even the government will have much luck with that, when so much "not good enough" parenting can be perceived as normal and forgotten about. Every dysfunctional family is broken in their own unique way, and there will never be a catch-all solution. Heck, it's so personal an issue the only way most people will even know it's a problem is if people bring it up themselves. It's too personal and individualized for people to randomly start talking about and unite under as opposed to issues of the state/politics, when it's likely that there is no solution to be found except cutting off the family and moving on.

Help me understand how we went from "Social media is bad for kids" to "optimal way to raise a child."

Avoiding a harm is not equivalent to optimal way in my mind, but it seems like it is in yours? How does that work?

The difference is that requiring ID for those activities doesn't generally drastically erode the privacy of other people.

Instead of destroying the concept of privacy and anonymity on the Internet... how about we just stop these companies from being as harmful as they are, regardless of your age?

> I see a lot of comments here arguing age requirements are overreach and these decisions should be left to the parents. To those presenting such arguments, do you think that applies to other activities as well? What about smoking/drinking/firearms? Pornography? Driving?

My gut feel here mostly has to do with how I view the activity overall. Smoking I see as a social ill that both adults and children would be better off without, so I don't particularly mind an ID check that inconveniences adults, and that can be opted-out from by simply not smoking. (Social media I see as pretty akin to smoking.)

Inconveniencing adults with ID checks is probably not actually a good way to create incentives though.

(Driving is a special case due to negative externalities and danger you cause to others.)

> My gut feel here mostly has to do with how I view the activity overall. Smoking I see as a social ill that both adults and children would be better off without, so I don't particularly mind an ID check that inconveniences adults, and that can be opted-out from by simply not smoking. (Social media I see as pretty akin to smoking.)

The big difference for me is, the person looking at my ID at the gas station isn't storing all the data on it in some database, which may or may not be properly secured.

If age verification can be done ephemerally, then I think it's largely a non-issue. But of course it won't, you'll have to submit some combo of personal info + a photo or face scan, and that information will be stored by any number of third parties, probably permanently, only to end up in the next data breach.

There's also an issue of anonymity, which is increasingly under attack on the web. Even in the gas station example, while I'm not truly anonymous when I buy alcohol, the gas station attendant likely isn't going to remember me or my name, and it's certainly not being stored along side an entire customer profile.

For services on the web, we need a similar level of privacy with the age verification, otherwise it's not just age verification it's identity verification as well (and by extension, the tying of all of your activity on that service directly to you) which I do have a big problem with.

If we want age verification online, we have to have a way to do it ephemerally and psuedo-anonymously.

> I see a lot of comments here arguing age requirements are overreach and these decisions should be left to the parents.

No you don't. The bulk of the comments at this point in time don't mention things being left to parents at all.

Clicking a box gives person a chance to decide whether they want to enter a website or not, without getting exposed to it immediately. It's not useless.

It also povides no useful information to the website operator, which is good. If the info is useful, it will be logged.

If it is logged, well, I've seen what morally derailed hightech state will do with any and all data they can get hold off. They'll put it all in a giant AI lottery machine to generate and "justify" targets for their genocide, to kill and burn entire families at once. It's happening now elsewhere in the world.

What should be scary to everyone is that it's being justified or at best ignored by supposedly morally "normal" western states (like mine) which are not engaged directly in such behavior, yet.

I do not trust "elites", who are able to ignore or justify this being done elsewhere, with making traceable any of my behavioral data directly to me, by forced provision of identity to services that don't need any for their function.

> I see a lot of comments here arguing age requirements are overreach and these decisions should be left to the parents. To those presenting such arguments, do you think that applies to other activities as well? What about smoking/drinking/firearms? Pornography? Driving?

All of the things on your list are primarily enforced by parents already.

This law is regulatory capture that's going to strengthen the monopolies of the exact social media sites that you allude to. It makes it harder for smaller, focused sites to exist. Instead the only option will be sites with algorithmic feeds that currently push right-wing nazi propaganda, anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, nihilist school shooting clubs for teenagers, or whatever fresh hell the internet came up with this morning.

If you think age verification is going to fix these problems on the big sites, I suggest watching YouTube Kids. Actually, don't. I wouldn't wish that trauma on anyone. Seriously.

> To those presenting such arguments, do you think that applies to other activities as well?

You’re acting like it’s not normal for parents to decide which activities a child can do, cannot do, and must do, and to make these decisions with appropriate ages in mind. I tend to lean towards allowing parents a long leash in their own home and other private places but to regulate behavior in schools and public places.