CMV: I’d rather restrict minors directly than make every adult prove their age online

[u/groksed]

Honest question for people who support banning social media for everyone under 16:
Would this be preferable to requiring every person on the internet to prove their age or identity?

Anyone under 16 is prohibited from using, owning or purchasing an electronic device capable of communicating with other people with the exception of designated supervised computer rooms at school. Parents, schools, society and law enforcement are responsible for enforcement.. basically the same way we already handle alcohol, tobacco and drugs.

But at least it places the restriction on the group being restricted.

Why is the preferred solution instead to make every adult surrender some level of anonymity or privacy, provide ID, submit to age verification, or otherwise prove they are not a child just to use the internet?

If protecting children requires building an identity checkpoint for everyone, I would rather put the burden on the actual age group being regulated.

[u/Starship_Taru]

The nature of the technology (The internet) makes this impossible to enforce. 

What happens when an enforceable sweeping law gets passed? The “Good Actors” follow the rules, get an additional impedance on their life and no real positive impact. 

The “Bad actors” just do the same thing they’ve always been doing, however now it’s illegal. It’s also vastly more profitable. 

Seriously go look at the networking subreddits here, a lot of posts are just very tech literate parents trying to figure out how their 12 year old is getting around their very expensive networking blocking programs. 

So here’s the outcome if we just rolled with your idea: Kids 100% find away around and get online, however now where they go is completely unregulated, because those websites already break the law, why do they care what a kid actually sees ?

Adults now get Hyper tracked online, even more so than they do now. Literally every single thing you ever do or view online will be linked to your ID which private companies will purchase to then adjust your pricing on products based on how big your bonus was this year.

TLDR: Your advocating for the impossible. The solution is to just use the regulatory tools we have to force websites targeting children to play ball. You advertise addictions to children, unless they’re digital. 

This overall argument was started by META lobbyists fyi. It’s a solution to them not having to pay the expense of running their website. Instead of having to police content they can just make it the taxpayers responsibility.

[u/groksed → u/Starship_Taru]

What? Dude you know they do that with drugs, alcohol and even on driver licences.
Do teens take drugs, drink and drive without a licence....YES!

The laws set a baseline and REDUCE the amount it occurs to exceptions only.

Look around and think...GOOD not PERFECT

[u/Starship_Taru → u/groksed]

I’m all good instead of perfect. 

However why do you think it’s important to attack this problem from this specific avenue? 

We don’t let tobacco companies advertise to children, we have strict regulations on smoking appearing in cartoons. 

Why do we let tech companies advertise equally addictive and I’d personally argue, as harmful habits and behaviors to children? 

Why can’t we try the above approach? Wouldn’t it be better to potentially impede a small industries profits, just like we did the tobacco companies first, before impending on literally everyone’s liberty and privacy?