[uniq7]

The problem is when government's solutions go through identifying everyone and collaterally tracking their actions.

In the same way parents can be blamed for not keeping their children safe around guns/alcohol/drugs, they should also be blamed for not keeping the children out of digital dangers, and keep mandatory age verifications out of here.

[ares623]

Problem is that social media doesn’t have negative connotations like guns/alcohol/drugs do. That makes it hard or impossible for individual parents to restrict it. They are perceived as crazy or paranoid or controlling. Plus if their child does opt out of social media, they become a social outcast from their peers who are still on it, which is a worse outcome for the child.

It almost sounds like multiple parents from a large number of households need to collectively act in unison to address the problem effectively. Hmm collective action, that sounds familiar. I wonder if there’s a way to enforce such a collective action?

To be clear, I do agree that putting the ban on the software/platform side is the wrong approach. The ban should be on the physical hardware, similar to how guns/alcohol/tobacco which are all physical objects. But I don’t have the luxury to let perfect be the enemy of close enough.

[rightbyte]

> Plus if their child does opt out of social media, they become a social outcast from their peers who are still on it, which is a worse outcome for the child.

I don't think that is the case any more since social media isn't social like it used to be?

[sagacity]

This is like saying parents are at fault when a gun salesman sells a weapon to their 12 year old.

[ares623]

Not even “sell” but “give for free, constantly, every day, delivered directly to their house, disguised as a toy”

[uniq7]

More like saying parents are at fault when a gun salesman enters their home every day, talks for hours with their children, and sells them weapons.

Have these parents tried to not let the salesman in?

[akramachamarei]

Very shocking that you're being downvoted on HackerNews of all places, where I'd expect people to be tech-literate and aware of the harms of internet age verification law etc.

[mikkupikku]

I downvoted it because he invoked the analogy of alcohol and tobacco while simultaneously arguing that it should be totally on the parents. That's not how it's done for alcohol and tobacco! If that were true then any shop could sell booze and cigs to kids, and if that were the case then how could parents possibly hope to stop it?

The premise that parenting is wholly on the parents and society at large doesn't need to play any role in raising kids is a manifestation of the kind of libertarianism that appeals to techies on the spectrum who want to find the simplest possible ruleset for everything, but it just doesn't work that way in reality.