I hate to point out the obvious, but they didn't accidentally confuse the two..

It is possible to build an age verification system, where you use your actual ID with a cryptographic process without any personal data. The technology has existed for decades now.

Force the building of a light "honour based" age verification system (just enter your birthday, we trust you not to lie to us), then as more comply add more requirements to it til all accounts are linked and they know when you shit

Governments know about parental controls. They know it's the most effective, most efficient, and least destructive way to deal with this. They don't care. And they don't care about the children. If they cared, they'd develop their own parental control software, offer it for free, and encourage it's use.

If they really wanted to get draconian about it, as they are doing now with age verification, they would pass laws to prosecute parents who don't use parental controls for negligence.

But it's not about the children. At all. It's about preventing you and me, and all of us from talking to each other and entertaining ourselves. It's about turning the Internet into TV, a one way faucet of entertainment and information controlled by the wealthy .001% where us peons can't talk back.

These age verification laws are just the first step. They kill small forums and games like Urban Dead, and leave only sites controlled by megacorporations that can afford the age verification infrastructure and the massive corporate fines if a single kid sneaks in. Once you get used to this, it's easier for you to accept not being able to communicate online at all, or start your own forum, or YouTube channel.

People have been forgetting that home routers come with something called parental controls.

When my wife and I first signed up with Virgin as our ISP there was parental control turned on by default. Had to put in my credit card info to be able to flap.(Edit: Goddamn Autoassume! FAP not FLAP) This was 2021ish? So before the current stupidity.

Also, it's easy to feel like this is all being pushed by parents who just straight up refuse to properly parent their children...but it's mostly being championed by Puritan lobby/pressure groups. They think even totally consensual, CIS/HET amateur porn is disgusting and sinful. They don't want to see, so they're on a mission to make it so literally no one can see it.
With help from companies and people who have a vested interest in creating a panopticon-esque surveillance state. And the rest of the people involved in passing it are too old or ignorant or paid too well by the other two groups to stand in the way of it, or to have cut out the really egregious shit from these bills before they were passed.

These lists would effectively function as whitelists, blocking everything that’s not on the whitelist. Parents can then turn on a specific whitelist for their kids if they so choose, and they gain access to a curated list of age approved websites.

Yeah, i'd say if they were serious about "protecting children", they should provide a "child safe" DNS to log onto for your kids' devices.

Zero-knowledge proofs are a good concept. They've been possible for a long, long time, and allow age check without surveillance.

So why are they not being used? Because age check is just a cover. These people want to do surveillance, not protect kids.

So it's a good counter. Want age check? Do it like this. Oh, you don't want it that way? Why not, pray?

Whether it works (it has, previously) or not (as with the current bullshit from the US), it does bring to the public debate that this is unnecessary surveillance.

Maybe in alternate timeline where tech companies have historically acted ethically.

In this timeline where each new company and/or ceo is more slimey than the last, I know that any type of identification will be mismanaged at best or used maliciously at worst

All trust is gone between these companies.

Or — just make it easier for parents to install filters for their kids??

Your point of view: We have so many fascists in reality, why couldn't we tolerate some fascism on the internet?

Nice, same birthday

I'm born 1.1.1970

But they still ask for my DoB when I open a store page for a horror game.

I even have a problem with ID.me, it's a private company that the US government wants you to give your driver's license and other information to. I don't trust that.

Seriously. We need a functional government and world leaders who can manage id systems and verification with privacy and security in mind, and act reasonably in the public's interest, just like they do for driver's licenses, voting, taxes, etc.

looks outside

Oh no