I wonder if there are people who really didn't see this stuff coming?
It's right on time considering historical precedent
It took 30 years for the UK to come up with drivers licensing. Another 30 and theyll make you write a test to use email!
This all seems to be a ploy to link IP addresses and online activity directly to an identifiable person to make them easier to catch and track down. The government falsely assumed that everyone watches porn and they thought they would get everyone that way. It obviously did not work as well as they were hoping so they are now expanding it. (I have always said that initial laws are just a foot in the door, those laws will always be expanding after the fact into their true original intended purpose).
So their plan now is if you want to use any social media or much of the internet in any way, you will need to prove that you are over 18 which means submitting an ID. This will require far far more ID submissions which will massively expand the government database, which was the real plan all along, not the safety of children.
The funniest thing about this is after all the fuss about the Online Safety Act, this blanket ban on kids using social media pretty much renders the entire act pointless and made it a giant waste of time. Which to be honest, proves that the act was never about protecting children but was really about building a giant database that links all online activity directly to a person.
This database would then be constantly poured over by AI to flag "citizens of concern" to the government who may be potential political dissidents, saying naughty anti-government things etc so the government can pre-emptively act against them.
Minority Report. This is literally the plot of Minority Report.