I've heard a lot of negative talk about Californian politicians, but compared to how the discussion is going on in Norway about the same issue, this is great. It's very refreshing to see politicians actually understand the problem at hand instead of just throwing age checks at it.

For reference, in Norway, you basically have 3 camps:

* Age verification is a detriment to democracy if implemented at a large scale as a requirement to speak in public. Well documented (activists and subject matter experts generally agree on this)

* We will solve the problem of kids online and we will solve it now. The solution must be age verification. Experts loud protest, and even committee findings that warn against are completely ignored (usually people who want a quick and easy solution, politicians who want the bragging rights of having saved the kids)

* We want to solve the problem, but the only obvious solution is age verification so I guess it can't be helped (not really educated on the topic. Just like most of us when it comes to a random political question. Not really a matter of intelligence)

Absolute circus.

I think most people here used the internet as a kid to learn about things and talk to adults in the field there were interested in. For today's kids this happens mostly on the few big sites like twitter and discord.

I'm more than happy to sacrifice endless scroll and recommendation algorithms (at least the type that is thrown at you without consent) to not have to verify my age to speak online.