A lot of us who grew up pre-social-media agree in principle.

What it fails to account for is that today's internet is qualitatively different from the pre-social-media, pre-smartphone internet. The vast majority of the internet audience, too, is qualitatively different. Incentives are misaligned for an average parent who might want to keep a tight leash on smartphone internet access for their kids, when attempting to do so will generate fierce opposition from their kids and leave them socially out of the loop.

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reddalo 2 hours ago | parent [-]

People also wanted to smoke cigarettes but they got fierce opposition from their parents. That's what parents should do.

Maybe we should teach parents how to be parents instead of imposing draconian age checks (read: mass surveillance).

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infinitezest an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Aren't there laws against selling tobacco to minors? And advertising to them? Your analogy is supporting the opposite conclusion.

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iamalizard an hour ago | parent | next [-]

In some countries they scan you ID and likely keep it some database when you buy drugs or enter bars or clubs. In others they just look at your ID card if you don't look old enough.

The first example is bad, the second is tolerable.

But the reason most kids don't smoke is that the parents and the teachers instilled in them that it was bad. If a kid wants to smoke or drink, they can surely get an older friend or a friend of a friend to sell them the cigarettes or alcohol. Anyone can buy 20 bottles of hard liquor and 50 packs of cigarettes, sell them to a 15 year old who can then sell them to their friends. That doesn't happen often not because a surprise police raid will show up and bust the seller but because there isn't enough demand. If there is demand from the kids and the parents don't care, kids will get their hands on drugs. Maybe not 9 year olds but certainly the teens.

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wizzwizz4 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Laws like that are sensible – and, in fact, already apply to the internet, too. Age verification doesn't help with that.

	▲	forgetfreeman an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Well lack of age verification definitely isn't fixing anything either so what's they play here? We all just collectively as a society just shrug like oh well, no fixing any of that?

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RHSeeger an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

This seems like a poor example, because we _also_ made it illegal for minors to buy (and smoke?) cigarettes.