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Comment by jhallenworld | Hacker News Reader

>Some heads up in the UK Bureaucracy created this regulation out of the desire to protect children

More likely: Ofcom is seeing traditional media dying, so the bureaucrats needed to come up with something to remain relevant and employed.

Ofcom is supposed to be funded by fees charged to the companies that it regulates. There are no hints of social media having to pay them yet, but in the future?

Think of all the work that OSA is creating: age verification companies, regulation compliance consultants, certifications, etc.

Once private companies in the US figure out how much profit they can make off this, they surely will follow..

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These laws weren't created by Ofcom. They were passed as primary legislation by the previous government (and enthusiatically implemented by the current one).

While you are correct in the literal sense, I think the point is still valid. The powers that be decided they need to expand Ofcom's scope. For them this is one of the many ways they exert control and thus are interested in maintaining or expanding Ofcom.

Already underway in several states. Bills in Texas and Utah have already been approved, with several other states entertaining such proposals, although none have moved out of committee as yet.

It's all so tiresome.

If this were really about protecting the children they could've solved the matter with the equivalent of a mandate on device manufacturers and website operators to respect a DO-NOT-SERVICE-I-AM-A-CHILD (or whatever) header in HTTP. Hell, if it were really about protecting children, parents would get access to dumbed down versions of the kind of tools corporate IT has for managing business phones ... so they can lock them down, limit how they're used, right down to what apps can be installed.... but that would deprive advertisers of a golden ticket for knowing what views are legit, put parents back in control, and actually work... so can't have that. :D

I imagine they would counterargument your proposal along the lines of: "the most endangered children cannot rely on their families to protect them online"

If that is so then that is a problem to be solved by the local equivalent of child protective services by removing them to a safe environment, not by imposing tyranny on everyone else. See how easy it is to dismantle statist arguments if you just stand your ground?

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