Even here in Australia now we're getting really poorly thought out age verification laws that are supposed to be targeting social media and now the government is fighting with Google over YouTube. These laws are ridiculous and I doubt they're actually solving the problem. At least much of my internet activity has already been happening over VPN now these days, including here on Newgrounds even when I'm not using my NSFW alt.
Between the age verification laws around the world, and the situation with Steam/Itch.io and the payment processors its been a stressful week for me and given Australia's roles in both, making me feel at least somewhat embarrassed to say I'm even from Australia at the moment (I swear we're not all like this, pinkie promise!) I also opened that New Statesman article linked and I won't lie, its depressing to see more smaller websites die off as a consequence of these out of touch, gift to big tech and big tech only laws. I don't even have a pet hamster and reading about that hamster forum shutting down is like, super depressing. Hopefully Newgrounds can weather these storms. All these things are going to do is bring us into Prohibition 2.0: The Porn Edition.
I am firmly of the opinion that the best solution to the internet existing and being free as it was intended to be is for parents to actually be good, responsible parents and actually teach their kids about the dangers of the internet like we used to, and for parents to actually learn to use the internet and app filtering tools which already come with a lot of modern devices anyway. No matter what, the internet is not a kid friendly place, and parents need to seriously stop assuming that it is.
