> continuing the status quo with social media is a non starter for humanity. So tell me how we can help kids not get ruined by the internet without a mechanism specifically identifying that they're online

What if I told you it's very simple? We work at banning the harmful dynamics of corporate social media for everyone [0], rather than beating around the bush about kids. In fact, trying to avoid this is exactly why Faceboot et al are lobbying for this age verification crap in the first place - to escape the one tiny avenue of liability that has managed to exist, so they can keep kicking the can down the road.

Given how wholly top-down these proposals all are, frankly they would be better off being referred to as "give control of what your kids can see to the judgement of corporate attorneys.

[0] antitrust enforcement would go a long way here. Faceboot operates on online hosting service, so they should be prohibited from anticompetitively tying the client software used to access it (which necessarily includes "the algorithm").