Comment by frumplestlatz

I actually can see an argument for age verification, if it could be truly guaranteed to apply only to porn.

The constitutionality of the current laws was upheld on the basis of treating age verification for access to porn as an incidental burden, and thus warranted only intermediate scrutiny.

My (naïve?) hope is that any future mission creep will be rejected by the Supreme Court under strict scrutiny, especially as it extends into general and political speech.

However, once you have the legal and technical frameworks in place, mission creep is almost inevitable, and it could easily take years of litigation to resolve.

“Think of the children” has always been the thin end of a wedge used by those looking to incrementally dismantle inconvenient civil liberties.

All that said, we’re in a much better position in the US under the first amendment. The UK’s “online safety bill” is already targeting a myriad of forms of political speech, and is just the latest example of the significant shift towards the curtailment of free speech across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.