There is a sudden concerted international push for online age verification, and we do not know where this push originates from. That is the scariest thing about it.

It's not _completely_ shrouded in mystery - it started after Facebook got slapped by the EU for irresponsible handling of underage users, and since began a heavily funded lobbying push to drag competitors down with them. https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings...

Of course, it's probably also been coopted by the neverending stream of nanny-state political power grabs in both the US and EU.

Politicians looks to each other. There’s nothing new in that.

It's true for a lot of things in Western countries.

Evident when the fight against "hate" was suddenly everywhere, and also during covid.