Sure here's one example of decentralizing it -- it's going to be overly simple just as a toy example to show how easy it could be:
Whenever you want to prove your adult you go to "am I an adult.gov" and you use your credit card or whatever to prove you are an adult. At which point you get a 1-time 5-digit code that is UNIVERSAL TO EVERY SINGLE HUMAN and good for 1 hour (everybody who uses the site gets the same code that hour).
Then when you want to look at porn or something, you use this code. Boom simple and done.
There are even much better much more private techniques that use cryptography, and AI is happy to explain these graduate-degree level topics to you at your own pace.
Of course there are situations where people steal things, and use deep-fakes, etc, but those exist in every model.
Headline news: children infiltrate the universal adult one time password scheme for porn, parents panic! Turns out the 18 year olds started selling access to their younger friends, who resold it to their younger friends.
this happens with alcohol and tobacco every day. i cant think of the last time it reached headline news.
My point is that the entire check is bypassed easily and instantly, and in the meantime the government gets data that someone _will_ figure out how to make personally identifying for adults, or will argue for changes to make it so. Alcohol age limits are a simple physical check for a vice that everyone accepts those who want it can get at. I’d rather demand that device manufacturers give parents effective controls before we try solving this problem by identifying internet users wholesale.
It does not reach headline news because everyone just accepts that the "filter" is imperfect.
But, for some reason, little twelve year old Jimmy obtaining access to porn evokes some kind of far more visceral reaction in Jimmy's parents (or if not Jimmy's parents, some "busybody" who wants to "protect all the children") than Jimmy managing to get himself a pack of Salem's or a Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboy.
right, that's exactly what i was getting at with my original comment. none of the laws we have are 100% effective. so i find it weird that this specific topic always devolves into "well some kid will be able to get access, so your proposal sucks".
> little twelve year old Jimmy obtaining access to porn evokes some kind of far more visceral reaction in Jimmy's parents
Because right now there's next to no barrier to access compared to Jimmy getting himself a beer. If you keep saying "Your proposal sucks because it isn't perfect and we should do nothing" then you're essentially surrendering to the people who really want facial scans.
are you kidding? there will always be a million porn sites not hosted in the US that everybody will have access too.
This sort of pedantry is really just supporting the opposition.
Hopefully it would be less of a criticism of the system, and more spurring people to ask questions like "Wait, why did you leave a hunting knife on the coffee table?"
Design a scheme that equips parents with better tools to be better parents, rather than one that reduces the scope of parenting responsibilities.
Same code for all people for 1 hour and you don't think we'd immediately have rotating codes to pass the gate?
I'd setup the .onion in a heartbeat. Take crypto donations, cash out in Monero
I sure hope so.
I think the only thing I actually have any concern about is phones and social media use for kids, and I think that has a much easier solution than any sorting of tracking-BS.