There are two objectives that western regimes have for pushing these draconian measures: the first is to end the historically unprecedented era of free and anonymous political speech by ordinary people. The second is to prevent anti-imperialist arguments and perspectives from reaching the eyes and ears of young western people. Young people will only hear the perspectives taught in government school and on corporate media. No choosing a different perspective early in life.

On the idea that this is needed to “protect children” it is the job of parents not the state to decide what media their children consume. If you want to make that easier for parents then regulate and mandate parental controls and make sure parents always have the choice.

We shouldn't ban social media we should ban algorithmically curated feeds that push any specific type of content. Outrage sells and so platform curated feeds have curated outrage and extreme content.

In practice I haven't seen much useful political discourse by the average person, but as long as we don't selectively amplify voices through machine signals and they NATURALLY accrue followings then whatever I guess.

So you say, but I don't think social media companies are benign or have the best interest of visitors at heart. If anything they make it far easier to identify users who are susceptible to propaganda and feed it to them in bulk.

> the first is to end the historically unprecedented era of free and anonymous political speech by ordinary people. The second is to prevent anti-imperialist arguments and perspectives from reaching the eyes and ears of young western people. Young people will only hear the perspectives taught in government school and on corporate media. No choosing a different perspective early in life.

Yet my motherland, the nation with arguably the most liberal social media in the world and the least functional school system among "western regimes", is the most socially polarized, has voted in an insecure bully on a platform of hate and prejudice, and is about to plunge into imperialistic conquest, possibly against our allies for 70 years. I can't see how age-gating social media can do any more harm.

> The second is to prevent anti-imperialist arguments and perspectives from reaching the eyes and ears of young western people.

Sounds like you're complaining that these measures will make it hard for authoritarian governments to astroturf young western people so that they radicalize and hate each other more.

I don't think that social media has had that effect in practice.

We're all scrolling through algorithmic feeds on walled gardens owned by some of the greatest capitalists in history. Domestic and foreign disinformation campaigns are not uncommon, and have affected election results and fomented atrocities (as in Myanmar). The US, which birthed most of these technologies, has grown more imperialistic and conservative since their adoption.

EDIT: I saw your edit. I agree that enforcing an industry-wide standard for parental controls, preferable one that can be set per-device and must be respected by all social media services, is the right way to do this. Internet ID laws are dystopian insanity.

Or, you know, they actually want to protect the mental health of people.

You may argue that the approach is bad (I would agree) but it's not because of some evil mastermind plot.

There are a lot of problems with age verification schemes, but you are doing your position a disservice by suggesting that anybody that doesn't want their kid to be bullied on Snapchat is actually just a puppet of fascist regimes trying to stifle political speech.

You should learn to appreciate the nuance of opinions that differ from your own if you actually want to, you know, convince anyone of anything.