The issue is that unfiltered access to the internet is dangerous to kids - and at a certain age, kids do want to discover that side without any parental interference.

Limiting what they can access is not an unhealthy approach. It's protective, especially nowadays when certain companies (looking at you, Roblox and Meta) will shelter paedos because it's a financially viable thing to do, repercussions and hurt children be damned.

And there HAS to be a balance between adults having unfettered access to the entirety of the internet, without having to take a selfie every time they want to have a wank or approach any remotely adult topic. It literally takes a single penstroke from the government to categorise a mundane topic "adult" and start listing people - because ID-ing yourself in a "trust us, your data is safe" (except ignore all the data breaches that have already happened!) environment will TOTALLY not lead to issues. I mean what could go wrong when you start collecting the IDs of trans kids reaching out for help because of abuse, gay/bi/lesbian/etc. kids similarly seeking help, suicidal people seeking help, and the list goes on? What problem could there be from that data leaking, right?

This bullshit WILL get reversed the moment a prominent politician's weird porn browsing habits leak, and I do hope that happens sooner than later. But even when that happens, we need a SANE option to protect children - and that's by giving the tools to parents, parents whom are mostly overloaded with work, and can't afford to spend hours a day not interacting with their children but reviewing what they do on the internet.

Yes, being a better parent to your child IS part of that, but so is setting up virtual boundaries.