But think of the children they must be protected we can't possibly expect parents to be responsible so the government must step in to ensure their safety.
What about we introduce more control from teachers and parents about what devices kids have access to, and give them some supervision too while we're at it?
I propose we take all parents, line them up, and start slapping them in the face until they stop being so fucking stupid.
Alternatively, and more realistically, we accept that gen z and gen alpha are just lost causes and massively invest in schools so maybe in a couple of generations we can break the cycle of stupidity.
Lol as if these generations are doing anything different than they were doing before. Kids have always lied about their age to do adult things. Not saying it's healthy, just like it wasn't healthy for kids to get their older brother to buy cigs, but it's not a unique problem and these generations are far from a "lost cause".
I care less about whether kids are doing stupid things to their bodies. It's a problem when they do, of course. But when their sheer intellectual capacity is permanently crippled, that's a much worse thing for society.
You could very easily build the system to perform the age check without logging it to the user's ID since the check only needs to be performed once to create an account and just block anyone without one from seeing any of the content.
Estonia has digital ID based services and they aren't China. In fact China despises them because they've made the cutting edge in digital public services without having to compromise citizen privacy, which makes China look even worse for going out of their way to invade citizen privacy when it isn't even necessary to offer the same safety measures and services.
Would you give your kids blank plane tickets for them to go anywhere in the world alone ?
I guess not, then don't give them a internet connected device without surveillance. It's YOUR responsibility to keep YOUR kids safe not mine. I don't want to be forced to give MY ID online for YOUR kids to be loose on the internet as much as I don't want to see your kids roaming alone anywhere they feel like.