Jesse Kline/National Post: In Britain, for example, similar legislation allows the government regulator to block entire websites, impose fines on foreign companies that fail to implement the U.K.’s failed age-verification regimen, which prevents people without personal devices or IDs from accessing large swaths of the internet, places undue hardship on non-profits and community projects, and causes risk-averse platforms to take down or restrict more content than they should.
And that’s ultimately the point: governments have been trying for years to bring cyberspace under their boots and regulate all aspects of our digital existence, as they do in the physical world. Protecting children is the perfect excuse to do just that…