"And I am sick of people constantly wanting every single aspect of life regulated by the government." We're carting that strawman out again? What folks mostly want is for private industry to collectively display something approximating business ethics and maybe self-regulate away from objectively harmful/predatory behavior. The last few decades have very clearly demonstrated that there is literally no bottom to private industry depravity unless one is literally forced in place by legislation.

The current form of government and the last administrations have allowed this environment to exist. We don't have antitrust regulation being enforced and citizens united is still in effect.

This is only going to cause things you describe to get worse and the U.S. government is complicit in this because we have a two party system that works directly or indirectly for the establishment.

I'm not sure if you are encouraging more government intervention, but its clear this is not working. Its like going to a criminal gang and asking for security while they ransack your community and charge you for it.

That's a problem with the politicians folks have chosen to elect, not an issue with the concept of governance. And while I agree with your analysis proposing we all wait patiently for "market forces" to resolve whatever ludicrously unethical bullshit industry is up to at any given time is also clearly a non-starter. So now what?

It's more than just politicians we elect. There is a systemic problem that needs to be adressed before we can elect candidates that represent our wishes. Citizens United needs to be abolished. Money needs to be removed from politics and we need enforcement of anti-trust laws.

Governance only works when it represents the people, that is not what this government does right now and no amount of electing the right candidates is going to fix that until we have those two issues addressed.

Enabling government spying under the guise of "protecting children" doesn't put private industry in check one bit.

It's like saying we should install Flock cameras everywhere so that we can protect consumers from buying harmful products. Corruption and mass-violation of human rights is all that's ever going to come out of it.

If the goal is to stop predatory companies, why not do so? Oh right, because that was never the goal.

Do you really believe that your computer asking you if you're over 18 is government spying? I don't believe that you really believe that.

And how exactly do you validate your age? Government-issued IDs. Attaching government-issued IDs to every digital activity is the surveillance apparatus's wet dream, and it's not like these motives are hidden. So between this and equating opponents of this policy with cryptobros in your other comment, I have a hard time believing your accusation of bad faith as anything other than good old DARVO.

It's also the tired old argument that's constantly raised by encryption ban/backdoor proponents too. How many times do they have to be debunked, ugh.

If you're against the EFF on these kind of issues, it's typically a good time to reevaluate your position.

https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification

... You don't. Did you actually read the law you're complaining about? It says the OS shall ask the person who creates an account what is the age bracket for that account. No verification is required. In fact the same law makes it illegal to verify this.

Even if true, that's an obvious farce. There's zero chance that these people will be satisfied at just asking for personal information and not checking. Next time, the rhetoric will be "we've already agreed to mandate age verification, why aren't we actually verifying?"

Furthermore, age verification is being pushed at multiple jurisdictions across the globe. They're trying multiple approaches to get this through and seeing what sticks.

Please don't engage in political/ideological battle on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't fulminate on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html