I don't think the problem is that young people are finding porn on the internet. There is a problem, though, and it has to deal with psychological warfare on attention
Formats like shorts or news feeds to you algorithmically with zero lag are the problem. It makes for the zombification of decision making. Endless content breaks people down precisely because it's endless. I think if you add age verification but don't root out the endless nature, you will not really help any young person or adult.
When you look at people with unhealthy content addiction, it is always a case of excess and not necessarily type of content. There are pedophiles but honestly, we have had that throughout all time, with and without the internet. But the endless feeding of the next video robs people of the ability to stop by mentally addiciting them to see just one more. And because content is not really infinite, endless feeds invariably will feed people with porn, eating disorders, and other "crap" in quantities that slowly erode people.
There was just another article on HN about how Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale. Not just giving them access to drugs, violence, pedophiles, and extortionists, but actively connecting them with those accounts. Kids have died from fentanyl or committed suicide from bullying and harassment.
Porn addiction is bad but it seems there are even worse things happening.
minor correction, it was about tiktok. and although it's a long read it's worth understanding just how absurd things have gotten.
https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-harm-tiktok
By the time I got there, dang updated the link to the same publication's article on Snapchat, since the TikTok one had been discussed already.
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> 2 straight generations of porn addicts
Different types of pornography have different dangers and all of it has been broadly available since before the internet.
> And then you have shit like watchpeopledie.tv.
I think there's a broad gulf between these activities and I don't think they impact the brain in the same way as pornography. This type of violence can be found in movies and video games which also clearly predate the internet.
> Children should have been banned from the internet a decade ago
I'd rather pornography be banned.
> I'm completely willing to give up some privacy to make it happen.
Why? It should be incumbent on the people profiting from this activity to police it not on me to give up constitutional rights to protect their margins.
>Different types of pornography have different dangers and all of it has been broadly available since before the internet.
A child couldn't get hardcore porn as easily as they can now, one google search away. Or just on their reddit/X feed.
>This type of violence can be found in movies and video games
Yeah but those aren't real. Videos of real death and violence being available to kids is worse than video games where fake characters die.
>I'd rather pornography be banned.
Adults are free to fuck themselves up, kids are not. We don't say "well I'd rather alcohol be banned" when it comes to kids not being allowed alcohol.
>Why?
Because I'd rather live in a society with less privacy than a degenerate society full of mentally ill shutins that don't have sex.
>to protect their margins.
Fuck margins, I care about the overall wellbeing of society.