it really difficult to take this polling at face value. average people typically hear only one side of the argument: "age verification will stop kids from accessing harmful sites".

they don't hear about all of the potential downsides, knock-on effects, chilling effects, etc. unless they are part of niche groups like HN. and even if they do, in passing, they often lack the technical knowledge to really understand the implications.

i.e., they are consenting, but it isn't informed consent.

i imagine there would be an interesting picture if these numbers were presented in buckets by occupation, or by results in tech competency test, etc.

(similarly, as an example, my opinion in a poll about some complex medical procedure would not be very informed. i would be relying solely on what i hear on the news or read in a quick article, with no fundamentals to really assess and form an opinion of my own)

This is a problem with current implementations of democracy. It's free elections, but it's not informed elections. The average voter has very little clue about what they are voting for. Arguably it's impossible to know in a representative democracy.

Not that I know how to do it better, but it's definitely an issue, possibly one that could be solved somehow.