Mississippi may require age verification, Supreme Court says (opens in new tab)

>Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a member of the court’s conservative wing, wrote a brief concurrence asserting that the Mississippi law is “likely unconstitutional” but said that the internet companies who sued had not “sufficiently demonstrated” that they would be harmed by a temporary order in favor of the state.

That seems important.

More so on the topic:

> an effort the state said is intended to protect children from online predators

I wonder with all this effort, are kids safer with these laws? I believe most abuse situations like this occur where the abuser is someone the child already knows right, not some internet ramdo?

I also think about the internet rando cases I see on my local news and honestly it appears in those cases the parents sit there and say "Watch your kids online, I didn't ... at all.". I'm not sure an unattended child is being saved by these laws.

Seems like a lot of these efforts are futile efforts to shield children FROM the internet, rather than equip them to make good choices.

The article refers to a different case involving Texas in which Clarence Thomas wrote"

>>“The statute advances the state’s important interest in shielding children from sexually explicit content,” Thomas wrote. “And, it is appropriately tailored because it permits users to verify their ages through the established methods of providing government-issued identification and sharing transactional data.”

Once government-issued identification is required, sites are going to start charging money for accounts. This is nothing but a money grab - and since I believe Thomas is in the business of taking money for his vote, it is no surprise he is in favor of government-issued identification cards.

I began my journey in the Internet at 9, I had a Google acc at 8, a discord acc at 11, and insta at 12 lol