@elricofmelnibone @tommorris so I can see why they want these verification laws, from two directions, and why it’d be seen as different from power tool warning labels. (to be crystal clear: I vehemently oppose age verification laws.)
for your power tool example… if you use a chainsaw irresponsibly, the danger is to yourself and people within a tree’s height radius of the chainsaw (and, if someone’s running a chainsaw, a “reasonable person” is going to stay well clear without PPE). if you use, say, a car irresponsibly, you could easily hurt dozens of people who can’t easily avoid the car, so drivers are required to be licensed. so, you could make the argument that using a computer irresponsibly could hurt billions of people.
(this is an incredibly weak argument, though, and it isn’t even what these people are actually arguing (although the speech case of this may be what they want). there’s basically two ways you can negligently harm someone with a computer: speech, or spreading malware. the speech case, in the US at least, requiring someone to get licensed to be able to speak to a large audience at all (outside of when it takes up a limited shared resource like street space or RF spectrum) would be seen as beyond the pale if it didn’t involve computers. the malware case… the equivalent laws would be ones allowing partial civil liability for being negligent in securing a car (leaving it unlocked with keys in the ignition, for instance) and a thief subsequently committing crimes with it, or allowing civil and criminal liability for a thief using an unsecured firearm to commit crimes. in both cases, they’re an after-the-fact thing, licensing isn’t used to prevent those (except in two US states where licensing is required to own any firearm).)
the other direction that I think is closer to what they’re claiming to want: meatspace businesses that sell “vices” (think alcohol, tobacco, sexual products/services, and things that could be abused as drugs), are regulated and are required to age-verify their customers, and in some cases are required to ban underage people from the premises entirely. however, the equivalent policy to that is requiring age verification to enter a porn site, not age verification to use a computer altogether. (and, of course, age verification at meatspace businesses often involves someone looking at you, looking at your physical ID, and handing it back, where age verification online has almost always involved some kind of surveillance capitalism practices with the information being stored, so even then it isn’t equivalent.) I don’t even know what the equivalent to age verification to use a computer at all would be, age verification to be allowed to go outside?!? (yes I know curfews are a thing, but those are time-limited)
