EFF launches Age Verification Hub

What they should do instead is invest in technology that can do age verification while protecting privacy. This is obviously a required piece of technology. It is not acceptable for children to grow up on the Internet and easily access pornography by simply going to a website. Imagine letting your children loose in a city where they can wander in and out of peep shows without friction.

While the "required piece of technology" aspect is debatable, there is certainly enough demand for it that it is going to happen in one way or another.

So I agree that instead of fighting some change that I think is inevitable, they should make it so that it works in the most privacy-conscious way possible. And I mean with real technical solutions, like an open-source app or browser extension you can download, a proof-of-concept server for age verification, etc... using the best crypto has to offer.

It's funny to me that porn does not have more age verification than just "Yes, I promise I'm 18+" (or whatever).

If I go to the liquor store, I can't just promise "I'm 21+"

If I go to vote, I can't just promise I'm 16+

If I go to buy a lottery ticket I cant just promise...

I think I made my point.

And yet this has been the system for the last 35 years and somehow the sky didn't fall.

Either you're old enough to understand what porn is and have desires to consume it in which case you won't be scarred by it and don't need protection from it, or your not in which case you won't seek it out. You need id checks for alcohol because people too young to consume it want it, and given how much teens drink and how not a problem lower drinking ages are in other countries even that claim is somewhat dubious.

Not true; kids too young to understand porn can stumble across it, or find it because they searched for it simply because they heard about it from their friends. I'm not saying they'll be harmed by it (most of them won't be), but there will always be a small percentage of people who find a certain thing and then go on to get harmed by that thing. That doesn't mean the rest of us should have to jump through hoops to responsibly use that thing.