I interpreted it as "can't possibly be doing harm to the people in the video" - eg as much of mainstream porn can do - since there are none if everything is animated fiction

Fuck off with your device based verification system. That's just the same service, but as a more invasive app installed on your phone.

not necessarily. you give a phone to your children. you partly lock it down by setting it up as a child account, with its age. you make sure to install a web browser that supports limiting access to age appropriate content according to the age set in the system, maybe taking a parent allowed whitelist. the website is legally obliged to set an appropriate age limit value in a standard HTTP header.

that way, the website does not know your age. the decision is on the web browser.
the web browser checks the configuration in the system, that only the parent can change. it does not send it anywhere, only does a yes/no decision. if the site is not ok, it'll show a thing like when the connection is not secure or it was put on the safebrowsing list, except that you can't skip it, only option is to request parent permission.
and finally the age is set in the operating system, without verifying its truthiness, but once again requesting lock screen authentication.
oh and app installs need parent approval for kid accounts, like it should almost always be.

this way it's as private as it can get. the only way a website can find out information about you from this, is to log if your browser loaded the html but not any other resources, because that means you were caught in the age filter. but that's it.

there's multiple pieces in this that is not yet implemented, but they should be possible with not too much work.
this is all possible with open source code, if you make sure the kid can't install anything without parent approval. stores like fdroid could have some badge or something if a browser supports this kind of limitation.

"snack food"

I'm not sure whether the readership for this article is primarily British ("crisps") or primarily North American ("chips"), so I compromised.

At this point Dark-web tech needs an upgrade, we might just need a "2nd internet"

What's Rule34?

There's a UK Parliament petition to repeal the Online Safety act. There's no guarantee it'll do anything but might be worth a try for anyone in the UK.

"snack food"

If it exists, there is porn of it.

Need the munchies for after puffing whatever they put in their vapes.

What's Rule34?

lol I’m just joking that teens in high school would probably trade weed for things rather than snacks. I’m not proud of it, but I got paid in weed junior year of high school for customizing MySpace accounts, which is why I laughed at “snacks” because if they are later age high school students they probably aren’t trading in sour cream and onion.

This is the second time in my life that Labour have gained power after a long Conservative tenure, only to dive straight into enacting policies that were more right-wing than their predecessors.

I admit, my information on what teens use for barter is even more out-of-date than yours (by about a decade, based on when MySpace was popular).

My sweet, sweet summer child.

Rule #34: There is porn of it. No exceptions.

See also:

Rule #35: If there is no porn of it, it will be made.

This is kinda genius

Yeah, we're all mad, fuck the suits and all that.

But why does the distinction between "real-world adult material" and "creative, non-realistic", "artistic, animated works" that "do no harm" matter? Last time I checked, realistic adult material can be just as artistic, and the harm done by negligently letting children watch it seems comparable.

Are they in favour of age verification for "uncreative, realistic" pornography, or is the real distinction just between real-life and online?

I agree with the message but making the argument that it's safe for kids to watch because it's cartoons is wrong. Kids can be fucked up by 2D furry porn, I've seen it happen. Still agree that age verification is a security nightmare, just think it's a weird argument.

It's less of a left - right thing (that's mainly economics). It paternalism Vs liberty thing. Labour have always had a very strong "we must protect the populace" theme to their policies. Conservatives have it too, but they want to do it in a different way.

Sadly it's a really difficult thing to stand against. Who wants to be labelled the person enabling paedophiles, when all you want is the right to private communication.