alt Hacker News> You use law and regulation?
I mean, 'papers please' mechanisms are a type of law and regulation, we're arguing over what sort of law and regulation should be used, no?
In Australia, platforms are being regulated, the regulation says they must not allow under 16s to have accounts. How they achieve this is up to them to a large extent. "Papers-please" then is their doing. It's certainly not the only way things can be done - see anonymous credentials, verifiable credentials and other such schemes that don't involve showing your identification documents to everyone that asks.
> You mention nothing in your subsequent paragraphs that a "Papers, Please!" mechanism will prevent that a "Beefed-up and difficult-to-bypass Parent Controls" mechanism will not.
An arms race to work around the controls, which seems likely to me unless there is some sort of regulation on the service providers.
But either way, look at this! We're discussing how things might work, rather than dismissing things out of hand and impugning each others' motives. Going to the "Papers please" governments and parents in those populations, saying "Look, we understand there is concern and we think there's a better way", or even "We understand the concern but here's why acting on it in any way is a bad idea" is a lot better than "You're all evil and probably stupid".
> I mean, 'papers please' mechanisms are a type of law and regulation...
Yes, they are. I still have no idea how laws of the form "You must honor the signals you get from Beefed-Up Parental Controls and we fine or jail you if you do not" fails to constrain the behavior of US-based businesses. You seem to have an understanding of how it won't, so do let me know what I'm missing?
> An arms race to work around the controls,
Whether the arms race is server-side or client-side is irrelevant. If anything, I'd expect a client-side implementation to be far more robust... if for no other reason than because the private company that is contracted to implement and run a server-side implementation will cut every corner to improve their profit margins.
> In Australia...
Speaking from a civil-liberties perspective, Australia has been a shithole for a long time now. They can very safely be ignored by US parents and US lawmakers.
> "You're all evil and probably stupid".
The people who are pushing for these "Papers Please!" regs are evil. The lawmakers (and parents) who aren't asking "Wait, what about the existing Parental Controls mechanisms built into every major OS?" are stupid and -if that stupidity is willful- also evil. Those are plain facts. One is not obligated to be all niceys to people who are invested in tearing yet another chunk out of the vial organs of civic life.