> On the other end parents let their guard down because they believe everyone else their kid can interact with is verified.

This is the biggest problem even today with online safety is parents who don’t take accountability for protecting their kids. With the current state of the internet, it needs to be treated a lot like a public place. Would you let your young children just free roam in public and interact with whoever with no supervision?

It’s challenging because I see both sides of that conversation, I’ve been a minor who often felt monitored, and who escaped into online communities, and it is important that kids can have some sense of privacy. In a broad sense though, I think parents still need to be aware of roughly how their children spend their time online and roughly who they are interacting with.

I’ve seen a few different stories lately about parents suing major tech companies because their children got hurt by people online or through an online platform. I understand the desire to lash out in a challenging situation but the truth is as a parent you need to be responsible for protecting your children online, because the world won’t do it for you.

This is the biggest problem, and this is entirely why I’m against it. Either A.) Your age cannot be rigidly/effectively verified, because it’s a gameable system, or B.) Your age is directly tied to information that is far too personal to disclose in this way.

As an aside, a big problem with this proposed system is that exposing minors online as minors makes them even bigger targets for exploitation, all while someone who manages to impersonate a young person is given the perfect sheep’s-clothing to do it in. It is an extremely dangerous concept.