> We could have used that time to have a sensible conversation about policy trade offs [of age verification]…

There is always a conversation, but it is often not the popular one and gets drown out by whatever everyone is excited about at the moment. You can find it if you seek it out.

Lawrence Lessig’s book “Code” (1999), for example, talks about how a completely unrelated internet is an anomaly, and that regulation will certainly be necessary, and advocates that it be done in a thoughtful manner.

>used that time to have a sensible conversation about policy trade offs,

On HN itself, no way. Too many people here make far too much money on ads to want that. It seems the other part that want freedom also want so much freedom it gives huge corporations the freedom to crush them.

>things than a digital age verification that doesn't track every time you use it.

The big companies that pay the politicians don't want that, therefore we won't get that.

Best time to plant a tree: 30 years ago.

Second best time to plant a tree: now.

we should be removing the harmful aspects of modern social, which are harmful for everyone not just minors, by making them unprofitable or even outright illegal.

Instead we are saying "only adults should use this" which, while technically regulating the industry, places the restriction on users.

We're treating it like tobacco or alcohol (2 industries who have similarly spent millions upon millions of dollars in lobbying efforts) but we should be treating it like asbestos.

Yep, your post and this comment were hidden. I vouched for them so they're visible now. Good luck!

This doesn’t paint the entire picture. Suicide rates peaked in 1990 and then declined to its lowest point in 2007 from there the rates started rising again.

You're arguing there's a conspiracy, but even if there is, what is the best action for governments to take given the devastating impact social media has been demonstrated to have on young people especially?

> The general public is being told they are faced with a crisis.

> This has been a problem for at least a decade.

I get you're point, but anyone that doesn't is asking "Which is it?"

I think everyone can see there is problems. Is there a crisis? I don't think so. Same problems we've always had, but on a computer.

People that know tech, know these laws cross a MAJOR line. Not a little slippery slope thing, this is off a cliff. But I don't think most people, that are already used to having to sign in with an online account on every device they use, even their TV, see it as that big a step. They don't even realize how predatory it is that they are required to sign in. What they need to see is that the sign in requirement was a choice by the vendor. These are LAWS, demanding no one ever be given the choice to not reveal personal information about themselves to use ANY computer. That's the point that needs to be driven home.

Oh hell no!

Its been decades of work to even get social media to court.

No one wants to talk about this or look at the issues when it’s not sexy.

$@&$$ - I’ve been at conferences and had safety teams cry on my shoulder about how THEY don’t get engineering resources if they ask for it.

Tech platforms suppress so much research and hold so much data hostage, that an entire research coalition based on independence from tech.

Zuck and tech as a whole pivoted to drop safety investments the moment this government came to power.

And this is for user in frikking America !

The shit that is going down in the rest of the world is a curse. The sheer amount of NCII that exists, with zero recourse for people whose lives are destroyed is insane.