This process could have easily been avoided by simply requiring websites to add the RTA header to any part of the site that could contain adult material or user created content.

It looks like this:

    rating "RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-RTA"

It is trivial to configure in all web servers and most reverse proxies. Then simply put the requirement on parents to enable parental controls on their devices. Each parent should be able to decide what is appropriate for their progeny.

Instead, people must submit more PII to governments and websites. I can imagine this going horribly sideways. Or perhaps side-stepped? Perhaps usenet and small chan boards will make a come-back.

The whole point of this legislation is to create tools to control the internet more and more. Protecting children is just an excuse, like it almost always is.

Whilst I tend to agree, it's pretty shocking how easy it is to access high fidelity extreme content.

I grew up with dialup modems, so accessing this content wasn't particularly easy or quick. Today, 2 clicks and you have children (and adults) terrified at what they have seen.

The internet has changed a lot, the speed, popularity and economic prospects make it very popular for everyone. Because of this more standardized pornography controls are needed. Not only to protect children, but also to stop human trafficking and abuse.

> Whilst I tend to agree, it's pretty shocking how easy it is to access high fidelity extreme content.

It's a lot less easy to do so accidentally than it was 20 or so years ago, unless you are just defining “high fidelity” narrowly and are more concerned about comparatively mild but high production value content than, say, 240p video or 800x600 still bestiality, child porn, etc.

Yeah you used to be able to just stumble onto some pretty sick stuff. These days even vanilla pornography is harder to accidentally see from innocent google searches but when I was a kid that kind of thing happened at least sometimes.