> Other than suicide and that one incident with facebook, people do not die in appreciable numbers

Is your argument that "no one is dying other than those who are dying"?

I became radicalized against social media when I saw the statistics for suicide rates in teenage girls [1]. With Facebook having been found legally guilty of addicting teenagers, I can't in good conscience say "kids will figure it out" when there's clear evidence that the richest men alive are investing millions and armies of behavioral scientist to keep them addicted.

There are most definitely consequences for things that happen on the Internet, including depression and death. I don't like that age verification mechanism are raising so many problematic issues, but I also don't like that so far we've tried nothing and are running out of ideas.

[1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/05/03/suicide-... or https://archive.is/wY1OH

People die on roads anyway, even with government control. And if there were no official government control, most roads would still not be a free-for-all -- in most places, informal community standards for road use would have developed in their stead. It is only the difference between these two states of affairs that government control of roads buys us. (FWIW I certainly think the difference is likely very large and government control of roads is therefore warranted.)

One of the consequences of the government knowing who wrote or said everything on the Internet would be that it would be much harder for organised crime like drug and human trafficking to operate. Of course, another well known consequence is that the opportunity for government corruption is greatly magnified. My point is that the safety improvement is significant enough that the debate is worth having.

Attitudes to government involvement vary from place to place. In Germany, you need to register your home address with the local government; while most Americans would chafe at this level of government "surveillance", a majority of Germans are comforted by it.