>China or Russia, freedom is also lost shortly after.

This may come as a shock but neither China or Russia had their first encounter with losses of individual freedom in the 1990s. This is what the OP is talking about, this is the kind of shibboleth of online libertarianism that has little to do with real world policy outcomes. You'll find many similar laws concerning child safety in Norway that you find in China, different political systems and cultures can value the same things, even implement similar laws, without converging on the same political system.

In most countries on earth protecting children is a collective job, not a parents private business. A functioning and safe social fabric is a condition for successful families.

Just worth mentioning one data point. In the US 50% of young men (aged 18-49) now participate in online betting or gambling, likely as a consequence of the saturation of ads on social media and gaming platforms. Good luck with your parental responsibility when an entire country operates like this.

I mean, you're cutting off the qualifier with your selected quote. They are clearly talking about online freedom:

> this takes a sledgehammer to the core of internet privacy. In all cases in the world where this has been done before like China or Russia, freedom is also lost shortly after.

Russia's first online censorship was for truly abhorrent things. It moved on to become a ban on things the government didn't like. The book "The Red Web" does an excellent job detailing how this downward slide took place. It wasn't overnight, but it was a constant effort by those in power to erode privacy and freedom, and the first step was putting in place a basic censorship apparatus.

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/andrei-soldatov/the...