Parent have an obligation to loosen the restrictions, and, what, the government has obligations to tighten them and deprive them of the spaces where they can act independently?
I don't care to talk about the premise itself. This reasoning is absurd.
We have many place in real life where we already have to prove our age or identity but somehow the internet should be excluded
I actually don't have to show my ID when I buy alcohol because I'm old. There's a material difference between an electronic record being submitted, passed through and stored on several different servers, and somebody seeing you and seeing a grey beard and saying, yeah, you can buy that beer. The worst case scenario in real life is that the bouncer at the bar looks at your ID, seems real enough, checks the date, matches the picture, and that's it. There is no record being stored, there is no log. It's not equivalent to the vast majority of online age verification mechanisms in use today.
That is beside the point. I'm talking about the incoherent argument about a parent's supposed obligation to stop parenting and the government taking over. There are three premises here asserted by the author: 1) the child's need for independence, 2) a parent's duty to stop parenting, and 3) the government stepping in. Number 1 is contrary to 3, and I don't agree with either 2 or 3. What do you think?
The point is not if the access to the internet for children should be limited but how.
Given the number of cameras nowadays a zero knowledge age checks may be more privacy friendly than you personally buying something in a store
The government does not get to put child locks on my liquor cabinet, or even keep me from leaving booze out on the counter. They get to restrict businesses from selling to people without identification. Note that this has already always been the case on the internet, too.
Today I can walk into a shop and buy alcohol without showing my ID.
I can also walk into my local library and read any book I wish to, some with adult themes. I could do this as a teenage too. I also did this in my own school library.
Demanding to see ID to access online content is a terrible idea and it is the parent's responsibility to look after children. It should be an understanding between the parent and child on what they should be accessing online. If that breaks down then the parent should do their job of being a parent. Take the device away and punish the child.