> educated adults were manipulated
Same as "educated adults went to the library, picked the loudest books and were manipulated". They must have not been educated well enough then.
> guardrails to protect our most vulnerable
Whatever you do, you have to do it properly. Of course guardrails that are defeatist and that impact on fundamental rights are unacceptable.
> It's the equivalent of going to see the Mona Lisa
Not really: visit the room where the Mona Lisa is and avoid the unwanted rooms. It is not sensible to impede access to the Mona Lisa because of the "knockoff spiderman" exhibits and performers.
> Social media has influenced
YouTube is the place where the Intellectuals debating critical matters are supposed to be found.
We have laws to combat the disinformation, its just we just stopped enforcing it because it was the political's best interests. Like we actually have fined (X for 120M).
So solution is gate it behind age? It doesnt fix disinformation problem, i refuse to belive that they cant just run transcription via AI and spot disinformation to delete. If EU thinks AI is good enough to invade our privacy via chat control. Why not use this to combat disinformation? or even easier just find repeating messages and block that (since lots campaigns work like this)
Theres so many solutions before having to resort age gate, the worst is. Putting it behind gate doesnt protect from people who can vote, so what they are even trying fix there?
People also seem forget, on household, we share devices with children. So user can share +18 flag easy as parents are lending tablet for them play games. Im referring the OS level age verification system which is happening around US.
> Social media has influenced at least one Presidential Election and the Brexit Campaign to the point where educated adults were manipulated into voting against their own interests.
The people voted wrong so we must censor or put a gate in front of social media. Next year, we'll simply retire voting entirely because we just can't trust people to make the right choice. This is democracy TM.
> If educated adults in possession of their full critical faculties can be hoodwinked to this extent
Of course if I asked you who you voted for or why you would probably say that you made the right choice based on solid evidence but the people who did not vote like you, no way, they were just hoodwinked or tricked. Condescending much?
> This is not an attempt to censor or otherwise diminish anyone's intellectual or cultural journey
Of course it is, you are simply justifying the censorship because it suits your purpose at this present time.
Protecting kids, stopping terrorism and keeping the population safe are always the same reasons given by governments on this planet to reduce the civil liberties of the population.
Today it's selfies and government ID to view social media and if you have something against that then maybe you are a terrorist or a child molester, tomorrow we''ll ask for the full access to your emails, text messages, browser history because we just can't trust that you are not either doing or planning something nefarious.
Slippery slope all the way but no worries, its for the kids.