Comment by thomastjeffery

The surrounding context is that. Why else would you participate with a government in an age verification system?

Maybe your argument is that it's not a surveillance state because it is implemented with a 0 knowledge proof. Sure, the age verification is, but that is only part of the system we are talking about. The rest of the system is the demand that every adult play keep-away with their verification, and every host on the internet (that can be adequately threatened) play, too.

The only way for this to be anything else is if every participant can individually decide what should and should not be kept away from children. Such a premise is fundamentally incompatible.