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Comment by azhdanova | Hacker News Reader

The court reasoned sensibly: it's wrong to violate the rights of all citizens just to weed out a small group of violators. This is contrary to data protection regulations. The controversial Chat Control law follows the same logic: to find criminals, they propose monitoring everyone.

The problem is that any age verification system effectively becomes an identity verification system. And such tools rarely remain "just for kids"—they quickly become used for other purposes. The only secure way is to verify not the person's identity, but the device's status (for example, that it's a children's device). This is called age assurance: we confirm age without knowing who exactly is in front of us.

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> The problem is that any age verification system effectively becomes an identity verification system. And such tools rarely remain "just for kids"—they quickly become used for other purposes. The only secure way is to verify not the person's identity, but the device's status (for example, that it's a children's device). This is called age assurance: we confirm age without knowing who exactly is in front of us.

Age assurance is still treating the symptom. If the platform is designed to addict and radicalize, a children's device getting in doesn't help the child, it just means the harmful design now has a younger victim. The only fix that actually works is making the platform safe for everyone, which means regulating what these services are allowed to do to users in the first place, not building better gates around them.

What is “harmful behavior” when it comes to words? You may have your own definition, but I guarantee that you can’t get a supermajority to agree with it.

(There are some basic things like fraud and such that are already illegal.)

Most people don’t actually want to ban “harmful” speech except for the speech of their political enemies.

Nobody mentioned speech. Infinite scroll isn't speech. Engagement-maximizing algorithms that push increasingly extreme content to keep you on the app longer ain't speech. The business model that makes outrage more profitable than accuracy isn't speech. You can have complete freedom of expression and still regulate that a platform isn't designed to psychologically exploit the people using it. These are not the same thing

> You can have complete freedom of expression

Not if you must ID before accessing information on the world wide web.

What are you talking about? I'm against that. I'm saying to remake Facebook so that you don't have the cesspool anymore. Did you read the post?

I’m fine with regulating some aspects of the business model, particularly targeted advertising (which should fall under interstate commerce). I’m less comfortable with the idea of legislating UX, which does seem to be an issue of speech, equivalent to legislating the layout of books. But if you destroy the engagement farming business model, none of that other stuff matters anyway.

> Engagement-maximizing algorithms that push increasingly extreme content to keep you on the app longer ain't speech

Who decides what makes an algorithm engagement maximizing instead of you know, user satisfaction maximizing (because satisfied users stay around for longer, right?)

And who decides what is extremist and what is acceptable? Was Rush Limbaugh reading the names of patients who died of AIDS on a hundred year old media more or less extreme than someone praising mao zedong for killing all landlords on social media?

> Who decides what makes an algorithm engagement maximizing instead of you know, user satisfaction maximizing (because satisfied users stay around for longer, right?)

Let the user decide. The evil algorithms require the "algorithms" such as "all my subscriptions, completely, in chronological order" to be removed. If "all ragebait" or "maximize profits for facebook" are just other buttons, I have no objection, but I do not think they will be popular.

You do they visit or not. Should hackernews be forced to presenting their content a million ways? They present based on decisions made by the people who created the site.

Ok. What about a "Viewpoint Diversity" tab that lets you read the dumbest opinions from the other side of politics so that you stay in touch with what your fellow countrymen actually thinks. Not rage bait, I promise.

> Who decide

The law already concerns itself with determining intent (hence murder vs. manslaughter). I don’t see why similar criteria and methods cannot be applied here. We can assess the objectively bad psychological consequences of social media and look for evidence that establishes moral certainty about the intent.

I am not impressed with manufactured skepticism.

> Who decides what makes an algorithm engagement maximizing

We can look at the intention of the developers? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498

Infinite scrolling is now evil? But pagination is fine?

The form you use is part of expression.

Engagement maximizing is a buzzword that translates to content people are interested in viewing. Why would you want to regulate content to be uninteresting? I can't see that benefiting anyone.

> and radicalize

It always beautiful how single-word choices like this can reveal the actual intent behind seemingly "reasonable" words.

So social networks dont benefit from radicalizing people? Abusing their own human nature against them? Thats your argument, really?

I may be off here, but I believe that they are referring to the political aspect of the word “radicalize”. In a standard democracy, it’s not really appropriate for the government to attempt to halt the spread of competing philosophies that may result in electoral changes. (This doesn’t apply to so-called “defensive democracies” as well as “guided democracies” which IMO aren’t really democracies.)

The problem in these discussions is that radicalize is an overloaded term. It could mean convincing someone of your non-mainstream political view, or it could mean inspiring someone to commit an act of terror. The former seems perfectly fine to me and well within freedom of speech and association.

You might be reading this through your own filter. It's an overloaded term right now but I took the parent to be referring to actual violent radicalization which is a real online threat: https://rcmp.ca/en/corporate-information/publications-and-ma...

(Forgive the link source - I can see in hindsight how that might not be perceived as the most objective source - but there are many other sources for those who care to look.)

Here's a better fix: If a parent continuously allows their child to go to a known unsafe place, they are negligent and should no longer be a parent. The exception is if the operator of said unsafe place specifically enticed children. I haven't been following closely but weren't there internal emails showing Facebook was specifically trying to addict and hook teens? That's definitely wrong and a bad thing Facebook did, and they should be held accountable for sure.

However, if my platform says on the outside that it's for 18+, identifies itself as such using machine-readable signals, and I don't take specific action to entice children into the service, it's your failure to parent if they access it, and you should shoulder most or all the liability for it.

The slipperly slope here to avoid is this: do you really want to adopt a model where the state is the one who "owns" your child (except financially, of course, you still have to pay everything) and can unilaterally do things to you and your child in the same of child safety without your input or consent? This exists currently to some extent, it can get much worse.

A government body may review a service and determine it is addictive and radicalizing. This is fine, and helpful. Even requiring the service to display a warning is OK. Then, parents who ignore the clear warning and repeatedly fail to control their children from accessing it should lose parental rights.

Why does your "better solution" shift responsibility from the people who built the unsafe environment to the parents? A platform labeling itself 18+ doesn't make it safe, it just moves the blame. Adult content isn't where the supposed "harms" we are trying to protect children from are coming from. They're from how the platform is designed to keep people on it. That's fixable. Infinite scroll, algorithmic radicalization, engagement mechanics, etc. None of that requires an age label, it requires a different product. I want every platform to be safe no matter who uses them and a warning sticker on the door is not a substitute for that. We don't allow arsenic in bread just because people got used to eating it

Parents can decide what their children view. It's literally their decision to allow them on platforms or decide what movies they can see or what friends they are allowed.

Those who say how can I tell my child they can't have what others in school have. Then yoi are letting other parents raise your child.

> I want every platform to be safe

> We don't allow arsenic in bread

I'm curious what work the verbiage of "safety" is doing throughout these posts. It's particularly interesting to me because I'd also like to consign things like infinite scrolling and adversarial algorithmic recommendations to the dustbin of history. I'm simply not sure how we describe this as being a question of "safety" in any appreciable sense, much less compare looking at things to eating things. That's really not a useful analogy here.

I've had the pleasure of working in work safety, kids safety and food safety, so I'm familiar with concepts such as "safe to use", "safe to consume", "safe by design". That's why harm tolerance is in the "it's unnecessary and it's avoidable" territory, as we know how and why it's causing harm in these products

Unfortunately, for this to be an answer to my question, it would actually have to elaborate. Bare assertions aren't an explanation, and as it stands this message communicates nothing to me.

> should no longer be a parent

Do you seriously think looking at websites, no matter what kind of websites, is more damaging than separating a children from his or her god damn parents and throwing them into the pit of neglect and abuse called the foster care system?

Get serious. This is not a suggestion on how to protect kids. The kids have everything to lose and nothing to earn under your system.

Parents are not professional when it comes to raising children. If we care about children being raised correctly shouldn't we defer to those who have a certification and an education in raising children.

In the future the state will raise children giving all children an equal chance of a good future. Poor children are less likely to get into good schools and careers where rich families can buy a better future.

Think of the children.

> I haven't been following closely but weren't there internal emails showing Facebook was specifically trying to addict and hook teens? That's definitely wrong and a bad thing Facebook did, and they should be held accountable for sure.

> ... and I don't take specific action to entice children into the service

What part of these services have been designed to be inherently addictive do you have a hard time understanding?

It's very strange that you can be aware of the fact that Facebook et. al. have been trying to get kids addicted and then pretend that there's no "specific action" to entice them.

> The slipperly slope here to avoid is this: do you really want to adopt a model where the state is the one who "owns" your child (except financially, of course, you still have to pay everything) and can unilaterally do things to you and your child in the same of child safety without your input or consent?

So you're okay with a model where private companies intentionally get your kids addicted to digital crack and can unilaterally sell all their personal information, advertise all sorts of harmful products and services to them, let predators target and contact them, etc.?

> What part of these services have been designed to be inherently addictive do you have a hard time understanding?

None whatsoever. Parents that allow/enable their children to access such things when they are clearly in adults-only conduits should be held responsible. Attempting to preemptively eliminate everything addictive from life for adults does not reduce the amount of addiction and only enables profiteering via moral panics. At some point you have to MYOB.

> It's very strange that you can be aware of the fact that Facebook et. al. have been trying to get kids addicted and then pretend that there's no "specific action" to entice them.

> So you're okay with a model where private companies intentionally get your kids addicted to digital crack and can unilaterally sell all their personal information, advertise all sorts of harmful products and services to them, let predators target and contact them, etc.?

The model isn't affecting me because I'm not a bad parent who is letting my kids get on platforms without watching them. If we're going to allow basically any rights/norms/freedoms to be bypassed in the name of "think of the children," let's nip the problem in the bud and permanently separate them from bad parents who are committing negligence.

Whatever specific action(s) Facebook did to entice children using addictive techniques, they should stop doing that and be held accountable. But, if a parent is suing Facebook because of this situation, I find it hard to believe they didn't know Facebook was addictive for their child beforehand. Did the parent remove Facebook from their child's phone the moment they recognized harm? This doesn't place Facebook in the right. But the parents shouldn't get a free pass either if they were in any way part of it.

The selling of personal data and advertising ruins things for both kids and adults, and sensible regulation there would be great. Regarding predators, parents can and should restrict their children from using platforms that aren't trustable, like Facebook.

> The model isn't affecting me because I'm not a bad parent who is letting my kids get on platforms without watching them

In my opinion, being an arrogantly confident parent is only modestly better than being an ignorant or lackadaisical one.

Your children can be harmed by social media even if you (try to) monitor and regulate their use of it, or prevent it entirely.

If you got a call tomorrow that your child had taken his or her life because bullies had posted abusive content about them online, resulting in real-life ostracization, you might have a different perspective about how insidious these platforms can be, even when people aren't active users.

Note that, unless you're with your children 24/7/365, you can't fully regulate your children's' behavior. You might think your children aren't using social media, or don't even have a phone, only to learn that they had a second life you didn't know about. Because there is so much pressure on young people to be present on these apps.

Civilized society frequently regulates products and services that are known to be harmful to society and a threat to human health. The refusal to acknowledge that social platforms have been engineered to be addictive and their operators negligent moderators of abuse ironically only ensures that the measures proposed to deal with their wanton disregard for human well-being will be more and more dystopian.

> If you got a call tomorrow that your child had taken his or her life because bullies had posted abusive content about them online

This doesn't happen without clear signs beforehand or if you don't interact with your child at all. Competent parents pay attention to their children and these signs and provide a safe space for them to talk about these types of things. Negligent parents who don't are dangerous.

> Note that, unless you're with your children 24/7/365, you can't fully regulate your children's' behavior.

Maybe not, but parents are still fully responsible for their children's actions. I can't fully regulate my dog's behavior but I'm the one getting sued if he escapes and bites someone.

> Because there is so much pressure on young people to be present on these apps.

Until they pay for their own housing and food, the only pressure that should matter is what I as a parent put on them. Other children creating this pressure is a result of their parents failure to parent, and they also should be held accountable.

> Civilized society frequently regulates products and services that are known to be harmful to society and a threat to human health.

Regulate the product then, not the adult person. Products can be regulated via accurate labeling. Then, it is on you as a responsible to read the labeling and behave accordingly and keep your kids away from them. This works for dangerous chemical products like cleaning solutions. The products I buy in the supermarket that are restricted to 18+ don't require my ID to be stored in a database, I simply show the clerk. Even then it would be far better if 18s and under just weren't allowed in stores. Labeling works best for 18+ content. If you can't handle it, keep your kids away from phones and computers.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

It's angels and saviors like you who make the world a living hell.

> making the platform safe for everyone

No. I don't want to be treated like a child.

Since I can't edit the top post, a response to all of the above: the solution is platforms with sane defaults. Honest by default. No content discovery unless you go looking for it. The feed shows what you chose to follow, in order and stops there. The platform behaves how you configured it, not how it's most profitable for them. Right now the default is whatever keeps you on longest, that's the only thing that needs to change

Strongly agree. I even wrote about this myself recently.

I offered a solution in either being a publisher (where companies show what they choose), or a distributor (where they show only what users created, in order).

A loud and clear distinction would assist in establishing what to expect, and how to reduce harm online.

https://blog.bix.computer/pick-a-lane/

You take it for granted that everyone agrees with you that what you regard as addictive or radical should be restricted by the government. These are not facts-of-the-matter, but opinions, and opinions for which there is disagreement, and for which people deserve the opportunity to decide for themselves and make a decision. You want to make that decision for them. You are a disguised dictator and fascist. Simple-as.

That's still treating the symptom. Regulating the entire Internet's platforms would end up creating a surveillance state. And the big companies would find some way to worm out of it, or simply treat the financial consequences of breaking the laws as a cost of doing business.

Parental supervision and content filtering can and should be solved on the client-side at the OS/app-level, entirely locally. No user info like age ever needs to be sent anywhere, and it doesn't even need to be collected. The reason smartphones can't do this right now is because these companies are deliberately making the client-side filtering solutions difficult to implement and use, as explained in a past comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49118578

What? Nobody is asking someone to collect more information, in fact the solution is to collect even less information. How can you survey if you collect less?

I was agreeing with you that age verification is not the way to go, but your solution to "make the platform safe for everyone" would centralize the power to determine what is/isn't safe in the hands of the government and the tech companies. It's a legal excuse they could use to justify checking everything sent online and censor whatever they don't like.

Bingo. This is meta pulling a page from Green Washing book, i.e. how big corp made regular people be responsible for all the waste and recycling instead of being liable of it themselves.

Parents already have the ability to control what their children can do on their personal devices.

It would be better to use public resources to educate parents on how to use those existing controls, if that is something those parents choose to do with their own children.

This comes up in every discussion but the argument rests on pretending that we live in a fantasy world.

1. Parents can't monitor their children 24/7.

2. The evidence leaves little doubt: social media platforms have been designed to be ridiculously addictive, with the companies running them choosing to ignore the harms they know they cause.

3. Because these platforms are highly addictive, many parents themselves are addicts and probably ignorant to or in denial about the harms they and their children are being exposed to.

4. Even children who don't use social media can be bullied on social platforms by their peers, and not being allowed to have a phone or social media is itself a characteristic on which children might be bullied.

Both Android and iOS allow parents to block social media apps and web access to individual websites or the entire web, if they choose to do so.

That's not a fantasy.

It's also a much less restrictive option than forcing EVERYONE to give up their privacy.

> Both Android and iOS allow parents to block social media apps and web access to individual websites or the entire web, if they choose to do so.

You ignored three of my points:

1. These platforms are highly addictive, and designed to be highly addictive. Just because these are digital services doesn't mean they can't and shouldn't be regulated like, say, addictive substances.

2. Many parents are themselves addicted and don't understand the harms or choose to ignore them. There are numerous areas where society decides that regulation is appropriate because a product or service is so detrimental and/or being offered predatorily.

3. Even children who don't use social media can be harmed by these platforms. Very few people want to acknowledge that these platforms are being abused in ways that allow users to cause immense harm to non-users.

> It's also a much less restrictive option than forcing EVERYONE to give up their privacy.

You already have no privacy online and these social platforms are among the biggest privacy violators. Why do so many people pretend this isn't the case?

Facebook, for instance, has "shadow profiles" of non-users created based on the collection of data from tracking tools (like Meta Pixel) that the vast majority of people don't even know exist. If you're pro-privacy, would you support laws that ban companies from doing this?

> 1. These platforms are highly addictive

So block them.

> 2. Many parents are themselves addicted and don't understand the harms or choose to ignore them

People are allowed to make choices others find objectionable.

> 3. Even children who don't use social media can be harmed by these platforms.

Bullying predates social networking and happens even without internet access.

> You already have no privacy online

If EVERYONE has to submit an ID before they are allowed to communicate on the internet, it becomes a much more dystopian world.

Stop trying to control EVERYONE and educate parents on existing tools that are available to protect their own children, if they choose to use them.

Children not on social media can be bullied by those on social media? No they can't because they are not there.

Kids can talk about other kids when they are not in the room but can't bully them.

That's like saying you can bully Brad Pitt because you and your wife are talking about them.

Kids can bully kids in real life for not being on <app>.

They are bullying in real life. People are bullied over anything you don't have the right app, shoes are the wrong brand, wrong skin color. I don't see how not being on twitter or facebook is going change bullying. You could make the point that not being online means less bully and wider social circles.

Clearly, you didn't even look up what I suggested.

I don't know how old you are but one of the many things you seem to be missing is this simple fact: the internet, and social media in particular, provides more opportunity for bullying and amplifies the effects.

It has never been easier to target someone for abuse and execute various forms of abuse online, at scale, and to even do so without having to put your name on it.

If you were born before the internet, you didn't have to worry about pictures of you being taken without your consent and posted for all posterity. You didn't have to worry about insults and abuse directed at you reaching potentially thousands upon thousands of people in an instant. You didn't have to worry about people turning you into a meme or creating AI content using your likeness. You didn't have to worry about people setting up fake accounts under your name and with stolen photos. And so on.

> You could make the point that not being online means less bully and wider social circles.

Not being online does not stop people from posting things about you, working to turn your friends, acquaintances and colleagues against you, and causing you to be isolated from friends, family and social groups.

Again, read Olweus's work on bullying and then you'd at least have an informed perspective on which to make an argument because the widely-accepted definition of "bullying" doesn't require you to be present in the room. "Bullying" isn't just the actions people take against you, it's the effects those actions have on you.

You could have no internet and wake up one morning to discover that your friends are distancing themselves from you, your classmates think you did something you didn't do, social groups are now excluding you, etc. all because of things that were posted about you online when you weren't even there to see them. That is bullying.

Rumors can happen online or offline and provides the same effect. Tell a group of 4 people in a school a lie can spread to the entire school population in an hour.

Your saying social media and the internet in general makes this effect worse. I agree it can speed up the messaging but it always starts from those same 4 people. And the same people turning on you because of an online post are the same group who will turn there backs on you for an offline rumor.

In both cases its bullying.

On the other hand the same internet and social media allows you to connect with other kids from outside of your local groups enabling a wider social net.

If you don't want to acknowledge how social platforms allow this type of abuse to be accelerated, scaled and amplified, directed in ways not possible offline, and recorded permanently (with no possibility of deletion), I can only conclude that you're being intellectually disingenuous.

> Children not on social media can be bullied by those on social media? No they can't because they are not there.

You should read up on the work of Dan Olweus.

You do not need to be present for aggressive behavior directed at you to be considered a form of bullying.

Things like spreading rumors, turning friends and acquaintances against you, and deliberate exclusion can all meet the definition of "bullying" and they don't require you to be in the room.

The only people living in a fantasy world are the ones that want mandatory online age verification for social media, adult content, private messaging, video games, and things of that nature.

Or realize that there is no way to know who is using a device without looking at the device holders for all the time they use the device. It's like ordering alcoholics or cigarettes: the seller looks at you see the white hairs (OK) or see a 16yo face (documents please.) A device registered to an adult can be used by a child. I know, it's a failure of parental control, but how many teenagers managed to get adult magazines in the last 100 years? They will get adult devices too. So there is no way to create a 100% effective system. Kids and teenagers will find workarounds, everybody else will live a worse life.

This logic is sus. Just because we cannot have a oerfect system doesn't mean we shouldn't have it at all. Like alcohol age limitations, they can be worked around and wont ever be 100 percent perfect but I see regularly teens bouncing off the register at my local store.

So the metric should be case by case for each proposed solution. Most of things proposed are no good, but that doesn't mean there is not a sensible solution out there to limit net for teens.

1990s: ~%36 of all teens smoked

2020s: >%2 of all teens smoke

Kinda suggests that putting limitations in place actually produces results. Crazy innit?

It also means we don't need identity verification. Anonymous scratch-off cards sold in stores to adults, just like cigarettes, can be used to verify age. Or alternatively, device-only attestation. There's no reason to verify age upon every use of the product; only when it's sold.

Nah, we definitely need identity and age verification, if for no other reason than it strips tech companies and data brokers of plausible deniability. They already know who you are and by extension your age, this fight is very much about tech companies avoiding consequences.

> we definitely need identity and age verification...it strips tech companies and data brokers of plausible deniability

> this fight is very much about tech companies avoiding consequences.

If I follow your logic, you seem to be saying: tech companies could easily not target kids if they wanted to, but they don't. That may be true, but I don't see why violating everyone's privacy is the only way to prove it.

As Stated Elsewhere you have to have a thing before it can be violated. Given the comprehensive scope of digital surveillance performed by tech companies, you can't claim to have privacy online. And before you "but but the government" they can already subpoena your entire digital existence at will, assuming Palantir or some data broker hasn't already sold it to them. So yeah, may as well make life more difficult for the companies that make all of this possible, that would at least present a modest improvement on the status quo.

Absolutely we do not. You just ASSUME anyone needs that other than the big mega-corporations dreaming up of identifying everyone at all times, without a warrant.

They all use Zyn now.

and vapes

Cigarettes have been age restricted for around 100 years. Not related to your 1990 to 2020 time period at all.

If you weren't aware, smoking became uncool a long time ago. Teens who consume tobacco use vapes or Zyn now.

That doesn't mean it was enforced.

Was it? Are you just saying throwing manure, or do you think that children were regularly buying cigarettes in stores until just a decade ago?

Do you think that pornographers and social networks are desperate for child users, and that they provide a significant amount of income? Do you think that rooting everyone's computer so the sites can comply by flipping a switch and never have to hear about this again will bother them in the slightest, except for pornographers being afraid that adults afraid to lose their anonymity will stop visiting?

Social media has been trying to deanonymize users since Facebook's real name policy and G+. Deanonymized users are worth more. They love this idea, and don't give a shit about losing 17 year olds. It's proof that governments will do anything, even reinterpret their constitutions, in order to preserve the right of online multinationals to algorithmically manipulate adults for money.

Yes. Child porn was commercially sold in Europe and Japan until the late 2000s. There is no line that people won't cross for money.

I think that by "Child users" parent meant children buying porn or selling porn to children. It probably happened but I think that it was much less common than children getting a porn magazine from an older brother that got it from an older friend and again and again until a legit sale to some adult.

Smoking is becoming cool again because lets face it, vaping makes you look like a bit of a nonce. Nicotine pouches are good too, but I think it's mostly men who use them.

But yeah, smoking is on the rise. I'm a youngish person and whenever I go out and meet others, it's quite rare for someone to turn down a cig.

> Kinda suggests that putting limitations in place actually produces results.

Are you sure this doesn't have more to do with social stigma?

Amen.

And hey if social media is bad for everyone ... put that on social media companies. Not everyone else.

Stupid cookie banners is my favorite example. I don't need to make a legal agreement with every website... if they wanted websites to not do a bad thing, make them, or a mechanism in browsers or something.

This user is known to the state of California to post LLM text.

> The problem is that any age verification system effectively becomes an identity verification system. And such tools rarely remain "just for kids"—they quickly become used for other purposes.

source?

Source for this ever not being the case?

XKEYSCORE, the UK system brought in to allow warrantless surveillance for national security purposes and child abuse prevention, ended up being used for such minor offences as catching people dumping rubbish in other people's bin, or parents lying about their child's address to get into a better school district. In the United States, the same system was used for low-level offences like cannabis possession.

That name looks 100% like an X11 based snooping tool.

No source but a possible counter-example: SIM card carries the date-of-birth of the user (because, really, part of the problem is that you cannot supervise what a kid does with their phone 24/7), age-restricted websites have a flag in their HTTP headers, browser get age from SIM card through the OS. Same goes with app stores etc.

Like copy-protection there's always a way to circumvent it, the name of the game is to make it difficult enough. And for parents, to make it very easy to set-up.

> age verification system effectively becomes an identity verification system.

this is fundamentally wrong and accepting this as an industry will only lead to required identity verification becoming the norm sooner or later

the important realization is age verification is in the end "just" a form of parenting tool

this means

- it doesn't need to be a "perfect", glancing at the age of a passport when buying adult products isn't perfect either, but it's good enough. And it doesn't require seeing the address, name, (in most cases) day and month, gender etc. on a id, nor any form of "noting them down".

- it doesn't need to be attestation based, unhackable or anything like that. It complements parenting, not replaces it.

- in turn it also shouldn't need anyones id, in most places children below 18 don't need any id but 16+ is still a age barrier

or to lay it out in rough design

- require multimedia devices sold to have a child "mode" functionality

- allow setting a age category or age (to auto determine and update the category), require a age set for this purpose to be kept private on the device and not shared, analyzed etc.

- require web sites and apps to have voluntary min age limits, similar to other products, block access _client side_ based on this information. The standard should allow region/country specific limits and reason tags.

- There are a bunch of edge cases omitted, like sites serving dynamic content/platforms in general. Requirements for parents to be allowed to define exceptions (in both directions) and handling of sides not having your countries age gating. Etc.

- properly educate parent about it

this provides sufficient functionality to support parents in parenting without requiring any identity verification or overriding the parents right to parent

yes, it's not perfect in many ways. But it doesn't need to perfect, it's "just fine" for what it tries to archive.

If you don't verify identity it's easy to fake.

Giving parents control of child mode is much better than the state deciding. If Parents want to fake the ages of their child, that sounds good to me.

it doesn't matter!!!

it's a parenting tool, not an online banking system

EDIT: Also the most relevant devices are not laptops, but phones, tablets, gaming consoles. Some of them have such a system already working "good enough" for the use cases of "games"/"game stores" and similar. Yes not browser. But very much extensible to that.

Mandatory online age/ID verification is an unacceptable violation of privacy. It doesn't matter how its implemented. There's no such thing as privacy protecting or anonymous age verification.

Parental controls and self-declaration of age are the only acceptable solutions.

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