We can. Not because the goal is wrong, but because the execution is a privacy nightmare dressed up as child safety.

Here's the problem nobody in Sacramento seems eager to talk about: how exactly do you enforce an age ban on the internet? The answer is age verification — which means every user on every platform has to prove who they are. That means handing over IDs, biometric data, or other personal information to tech companies that already have a spotty track record of keeping our data safe. As one Bay Area resident put it bluntly: "This is asking for massive data breaches to happen."

They're not wrong. We've seen this movie before. Government mandates a data collection scheme in the name of safety, companies comply with the bare minimum, hackers have a field day, and millions of people's information ends up for sale on the dark web. Congratulations, you've made the internet worse for everyone in order to do what parents should be doing themselves.

And that's the uncomfortable truth at the center of this debate. As one local parent noted: "Some people want to keep their kids sealed from the world until they're 18 simply because doing actual parenting is too much work." Harsh? Maybe. But there's something deeply troubling about a society that increasingly defaults to government intervention for problems that start at the dinner table.

Look — social media is genuinely terrible for developing brains. The research is clear, and the platforms themselves know it. But the answer isn't building a surveillance apparatus that strips online anonymity from every Californian. The answer is holding platforms accountable for predatory design practices and empowering parents with better tools — not outsourcing parenthood to Sacramento.

This bill is a bipartisan feel-good measure that trades everyone's privacy for the illusion of safety. California legislators should go back to the drawing board and find a solution that doesn't require torching the Fourth Amendment to save the children.