I am pretty sure these laws have nothing to do with "protecting children"
It's the same rhetoric that the UK government are using to get a backdoor on messaging apps with E2EE.
The UK is trying to get the age verification for porn thing going as well.
They've been trying for years and never get anywhere.
They face an issue that introducing age verification requires an ID system and whilst age verification polls well (as did earlier silly ideas like a watershed for the internet . Unfortunately, timezones exist..) ID verification polls extremely badly
So I suspect trying and failing is their holding position where they satisfy both.
Yeah, anytime you see somebody making the "think of the children!" argument, look at what the possible end goal could be with that removed. Protecting kids is a favorite smokescreen because kids can't speak up for themselves in these cases.
I am pretty sure these laws have nothing to do with "protecting children"
It's the same rhetoric that the UK government are using to get a backdoor on messaging apps with E2EE.
The UK is trying to get the age verification for porn thing going as well.
They've been trying for years and never get anywhere.
They face an issue that introducing age verification requires an ID system and whilst age verification polls well (as did earlier silly ideas like a watershed for the internet . Unfortunately, timezones exist..) ID verification polls extremely badly
So I suspect trying and failing is their holding position where they satisfy both.
Yeah, anytime you see somebody making the "think of the children!" argument, look at what the possible end goal could be with that removed. Protecting kids is a favorite smokescreen because kids can't speak up for themselves in these cases.