> I really wish we could leave these types of decisions up to parents and parents only.

I am strongly sympathetic of this point. But, also, children with shitty parents deserve as much safety and support as they can get too.

This is an extremely difficult balancing act. Various laws and organizations get it wrong all the time, but it does require balance because there is no simple solution here that just works. There is a fundamental, unsolvable tension between:

* In a just society, your opportunity in life should not depend on being lucky with who your parents are.

* In a free society, parents should be able to support their children as they see fit.

(Stephen Pinker was the first one I've seen to point out this problem.)

> I really wish we could leave these types of decisions up to parents and parents only. Leave the companies and governments out of it.

If you'd like to advocate for this position for a living, the tobacco, alcohol, and gambling industries will all be happy to pay you.

We already tried that. The companies had the option not to exploit kids and chose exploitation, and given trillion-dollar companies they can massively out-resource any parent's individual action - no amount of parental controls will stop a teenager saving up their pocket money and buying an inexpensive second-hand device themselves - the parents' only option to fight back is the ballot box.

> I really wish we could leave these types of decisions up to parents and parents only. Leave the companies and governments out of it.

This is the way!

> I really wish we could leave these types of decisions up to parents and parents only.

And if your parents suck? (Mine did.)

I think the power for parents to have free reign over everything in a child's life should be reduced if the parents are abusive, but of course there is no way to do this short of infallible and invasive surveillance. All to say, there is no easy solution here.

Abusive parents are not going to "think of the children" either way, no matter what arguments the well-meaning parents give. They will not see a problem with their own behavior. So assuming the parent is a sacrosanct figure that always knows what's best is unworkable.

I understand that no parent wants to be accused of being abusive, but just because it is taboo to say it out loud, does not mean these people do not exist. They're out there. They will fuck up their child's minds and cause long-lasting damage, Internet access or not.

It's no wonder children react poorly to the Internet when the two people they have to depend on for their literal survival don't support them at a good enough level. They seek out comfort when they can't get it elsewhere and now it's supposedly a tech CEO's fault they're addicted. My life could have been different if one single adult I could trust had supported me, but I didn't get one. Not all children will, either.

They at least have some sort of a take a selfie and some app guesses your age based on the photo option that I had not heard of.

> Accepted age verification methods

> Yoti offers several ways to confirm you're 18 or over. You can choose whichever works best for you:

> * Facial age estimation: Take a selfie and Yoti's technology estimates your age. No ID document needed.

> * ID verification: Take a photo of your ID (such as a passport, driving license, or national ID card) and upload it from your device. See Yoti's full list of supported documents for country-specific options.

> * Yoti’s Digital ID app: If you already have the Yoti app, share a verified "over 18" attribute from it.

Admittedly it's not as if the government is immune to massive data leaks either

Unfortunately we live in a litigious society. The more you observe, you'll see that companies and government make decisions to reduce culpability and offload risk.

> I really wish we could leave these types of decisions up to parents and parents only. Leave the companies and governments out of it.

You do understand that in order to do that, something or somebody has (a) know that the person being decided about is a minor, (b) know who that minor's parents are, and (c) have some way to get input from the parents.

You get that, right? Right?

"Make it the parents' decision" doesn't solve the privacy problem. It's also probably wrong as a universal answer to anything; parents aren't infallible, incorruptible oracles.