I don't think it's about recreating a world that doesn't exist anymore. It's about limiting exposure of stuff to minds that simply aren't ready for it. The implementation falls short in a number of ways but I kinda get it and I think it's something we as a society will have to take seriously in coming years.

For example, Australia blocks Youtube (like you say) but doesn't block Roblox. That's wild.

For Youtube in particular, I think it'd be sufficient to have child accounts under their parents (as they did and still have elsewhere) that limited certain videos but also, disallowing commenting and probably even reading comments.

A big thing we need to do is shut down Internet gambling and, more importantly, the precursors to gambling, which is anything that promotes the same addictive behavior. That includes all those "free" gotcha games that aren't really games. They're daily chores with random rewards and paid boosts to induce addictive behavior.

Apps like Stake need to be completely removed from the App stores.

I also think Fanduel and DraftKings should be illegal. I'm even leery on young people playing fantasy draft games, even for no money, because it's a gambling pipeline.

Oh and putting your children on the Internet as like a Youtube family? That should be illegal.

Algorithmic feeds in general I think are bad but particularly for young people. Because they're designed to induce addiction and "engagement".

I think phones will soon be good enough (if they're not already) to do background age verifications to make sure the user is of appropriate age via the camera and processed locally (to avoid uploading pictures of minors). At some point I think we'll see that integrated into major platforms.

The point of restrictions isn't to be perfect. It's to create a barrier that makes things more difficult. In years past we did this by, say, only showing more adult content on TV after certain times. Could kids stay up late to watch it? Or tape it once VCRs became coomon? Of course. But it helped.

Just like gambling. Requiring someone to physically go to a casino reduced harm compared to just opening their phone wherever they are. It's a bit like having to go to the store to get ice cream or alcohol or whatever your vice vs just having it in your house or even getting it delivered.

I think we as a society need more barriers.