> No connection between the individual agents and actors.

This is obviously untrue. They all know each other and communicate. This would be true even if it were something more anodyne like antismoking regulation (that governments maybe don't have a particular stake in.) They coordinate their messaging, they use the same publicity agencies, they apply for the same financing, they cosponsor and circulate the same studies and thinktank output. Why would you just say that there is no connection between them?

What I think you've done is silently dismissed the open connections as harmless. It's really a "no true connection." The evidence would have to be a bunch of connected organizations with Snidely Whiplash mustaches, or an explicit declaration of conspiratorial intent written down, signed, and published in a newspaper that you approve of.

Although I can't imagine what they could possibly confess to: "We coordinated with national governments to generate studies and messaging, were funded by them directly and indirectly, through foundation grants, lobbied politicians who would support the bans and gave them statements to make, and attacked politicians who were against the bans."

What's wrong with that? You make it sound like some sort of conspiracy.

If we try to argue this case on the merits we've already lost. There's no technical reason to root everyone's computer to keep kids offline. Just put age statements in the protocol, legally make people serving adult material require them, and give people the tools to strip those statements or put them behind passwords at the workstation, server, or even ISP level. Kids would get around it, but they'll certainly get around this, too, unless you're going to require cameras on computers to identify their users at all times.

It's a pretense.