The Attempt of the Censorship of the Digital World.
In today's society that we live in, we are now constantly reminded of works such as "1984" by Eric Blair, also known as George Orwell, or for those who are extremely concerned - "WE" by Evgeny Zamyatin; all because of the current situation of what is occuring to the online world in the form of governments censoring / trying to control the digital space. A particular examples in question are the United Kingdom and Australia, but they are the most extreme. The thing is, a majority of the world's governments are slowly heading the same pathway.
To start off, there is a re-occuring pattern with the current examples. Children. Children are being used as an excuse for particular governments, specfically ones such as the United Kingdom and Australia. There is a genuine concern, as the Internet is too free, and young people have been exposed to many things that they probably shouldn't be. However, the reason why is because of the Internet becoming such an important part of everyday life thanks to Web 2.0, aswell as the current trend of parents leaving their children with devices, sometimes so young that they can't walk at all. The concerns are valid; the issue is the method.
So far the current issue is not about the issue of child safety, but about how to make them safe. Later I will explain a good solution, but I will explain the "solution" planned up by the governments in the West. For one, if the website, company, application, or whatever is forced to do age verification: No matter what age you are, all people are required to age verify, even if they have paid for a product, or used many other things that would prove they are above age, they will need to hand their personal data to a third party company and in their database. Not even in the database of the governments themselves... whom are the ones already storing the exact same data perfectly fine *(Because somehow taxes need to be collected. Obviously this isn't the only reason, but governments keep entire databases of their own citizens.) * So therefore, these third parties have no reason to have the data. Logically, this data is sent to be confirmed with government databases. While still flawed, it is less flawed than a middleman having your personal information.
However, it can always get worse, for there are always proposals for even more authoritarian ideas. Take for example Digital ID. Not only do you have again, having to trust a third party to keep your information safe, but also that you will be forced to remove all of your privacy from the internet to even apply to job, knowing said job will know everything about you, and all aliases will be pointless. This is very bad, as one of the sole incentives for the useage of the internet is the anonymity of the internet. Sure, for malicious actors; but also for many people who just want to do things without using their real identity, without harming anyone or anything. There is also the option of banning and deleting VPNs. A Virtual Private Network allows a person to access things that can't be accessed elsewhere. Infact the sole reason why governments and insitutional bodies want to remove them is because they allow the bypassing of their nation's censorship of the internet.
Now there is a question to ask: How do we keep the Internet both safe for children and still censorship free. The answer comes by not using the macro (governments) to try and enforce the micro (the people themselves) but finding a way to keep the micro to keep itself in check. Most people don't know they can regulate the internet for their children via their internet router. Whilst I myself think this isn't the greatest solution that is guranteed, but it is a better solution than everything else being attempted. Therefore there is only one conclusion. Children are being used almost as a reverse scapegoat for governments such as the UK, Australia, and others, to implement internet censorship.
While this is an obvious conclusion, one that many people already know about, it is still important to mention. This is because many people still do not understand the full implications. Look over to China, where the internet is extremely monitored and ruled by agents, pratically having spyware installed on everything, tracking what the Chinese public are saying, talking about, and more. Their ruthless efficency has inspired the West to try and attempt something similar, as their governments also want power and influence over the internet. Our modern age's main source of information and entertainment, education, etc. is the internet and like theatres, radio, TV and more mediums, the governments wants influence in the mediums of information and entertainment, education, etc. due to it being able to be a massive net benefit to said governments. Therefore we need to resist against government action to fully censor the internet, and instead make sure our own people, whom should not view certain content on the internet, can't via putting restrictions on their routers - thus making the safety of the internet atleast slightly better.