Lots of US states, European countries, and Australia have introduced "age verification" regulations. They present it as the classic "save the children" talking point, but it's really just a precursor to attribution of speech, particularly attributing your words to your real identity.
This is the state's dream; your words, undeniably tied to your real life identity. Law enforcement generally needs two things to take meaningful action: What happened? and Who did it? so lets go over them, I promise it's relevant.
- What happened? - Maybe you dislike datacenters, illegal immigration, or taxes. Whatever it is, the police want to know. If you're posting on social media, they probably already know.
- Who did it? - They can't prosecute PickleDog52, they rely on some sort of identifier and a lot of investigative work to figure out who to harass or jail. Traditionally this has been achieved with OSINT (looking for clues in your posts, speech pattern, etc..) or subpoenaing the service provider to get your IP or other identifiers like email or phone.
Doing #2 takes a lot of effort and doesn't scale. Sometimes there's no probable cause that a crime has been or will be committed. Sometimes the target uses a VPN or Tor. Sometimes the platform doesn't have reliable metrics on the target. Whatever the reason, it usually requires humans clicking buttons, sending emails, or deciding things.
These "age verification" laws are - by design - identity attribution systems. They attribute digital identities (accounts) to physical identities (SSN, ID, etc..). This is government's ideal situation, the ability to quickly (automatically?) get identifying information about inconvenient people regardless if they're a criminal or not.
There's also something creepily ironic about select corporate elite, politicians, and government officials pushing age verification to "save the children"... Maybe go check their flight logs or hard drives or something... Yikes!
Anyways, I have no doubts that this will become automated once enough of the population has verified their identities. Post an inconvenient message about a politician, or get a little too rowdy in a group chat, and you'll get a letter in the mail or a knock at the door. Similar to the "love letters" sent by ISPs on behalf of the RIAA and MPAA when you enjoy a DRM-free media file.
Don't let them win. Don't verify your age. Don't give up your identity. If you absolutely must, find one of the numerous age verification services and pay in Monero.