> Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring baked into every OS

To be honest, I worry that the framing of this legislation and ZKP generally presents a false dichotomy, where second-option bias[1] prevails because of the draconian first option.

There's always another option: don't implement age verification laws at all.

App and website developers shouldn't be burdened with extra costly liability to make sure someone's kids don't read a curse word, parents can use the plethora of parental controls on the market if they're that worried.

[1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_minority#Second-...

Yes! This is the way, give parents the ABILITY to advertise the users age to browsers, apps and everything in between. Only target cooperations, do not target open source projects. Fine websites for not using this API (ex: porn sites). Assume an adult if not present.

that is correct the parents are meant to pass on morals and parent the child. If the parents fall through, there is the community such as church, neighbors, schools etc. The absolute last resort is government or law enforcement intervention, and this should be considered an extreme situation. But as John Adams noted, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people" -- in other words, all these laws start to rip at the seams when the fabric of society, the people who make up the society no longer have morals. But I appreciate this article in general, we need to fight against mass surveilance at all costs.

"mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices."

Meh, I use it, but it's super annoying and I think that with my Daughter I'll take a different approach (but it will be some years before that is relevant).

On Android: The kid can easily go on Snapchat (after approval of install of course, and then you can just see their "friends") before Pokemon Go (just a pain to get working, it keeps presenting some borked version which led to a lot of confusion at first). I just lied about his age in a bunch of places at some point. Snapchat is horrible and sick from our experiences in the first week.

On Windows: It's a curated set of websites (and no FireFox) or access to everything. It's not even workable for just school. Granting kids access to our own minercraft servers: My god, I felt dirty about what the other parents had to go through to enable that.

> My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online

As a parent, sure, that is my stance as well. What... what other stances are there even? How would they work?

You could make the same case for parental control as evil.

"You‘re reading about evolution! Not in my house"

> My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices.

Imho there is a place for regulation in that, actually. Devices that parents are managing as child devices could include an OS API and browser HTTP header for "hey is this a child?" These devices are functionally adminned by the parent so the owner of the device is still in control, just not the user.

Just like the cookie thing - these things should all be HTTP headers.

"This site is requesting your something, do you want to send it?

Y/N [X] remember my choice."

Do that for GPS, browser fingerprint, off-domain tracking cookies (not the stupid cookie banner), adulthood information, etc.

It would be perfectly reasonable for the EU to legislate that. "OS and browsers are required to offer an API to expose age verification status of the client, and the device is required to let an administrative user set it, and provide instructions to parents on how to lock down a device such that their child user's device will be marked as a child without the ability for the child to change it".

Either way, though, I'm far more worried about children being radicalized online by political extremists than I am about them occasionally seeing a penis. And a lot of radicalizing content is not considered "adult".

Same here, EU citizen who thinks parents should do some parenting, after all. However, try to confront "modern" parents with your position. Many of them will fight you immediately, because they think the state is supposed to do their work... Its a very concerning development.

I'll go further. As a human being, I am responsible for myself. I grew up in an extremely abusive, impoverished, cult-like religious home where anything not approved by White Jesus was disallowed.

I owe everything about who I am today to learning how to circumvent firewalls and other forms of restriction. I would almost certainly be dead if I hadn't learned to socialize and program on the web despite it being strictly forbidden at home. Most of my interests, politics and personality were forged at 2am, as quiet as possible, browsing the web on live discs. I now support myself through those interests.

We're so quick to forget that kids are people, too. And today, they often know how to safely navigate the internet better than their aging caretakers who have allowed editorial "news" and social media to warp their minds.

Even for people who think they're really doing a good thing by supporting these kinds of insane laws that are designed to restrict our 1A rights: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.