The harm hasn't been adequately demonstrated though. Whereas we know cigarettes are harmful to everyone.

Alcohol in the UK can be consumed in the house from 5 years old. Which is the point. That societal norms at work. Everyone knows it's not ok to let your young kids get drunk, but we trust society to let parents decide what is appropriate and when.

Following the same analogy, they can use parent’s phones to access social media under supervision.

A VPN can't get around a cigarette and alcohol ban.

Perhaps children should be given locked down phones, with fines for parents who buy non child safe phones for their kids. It would take time for this to take effect but a social media ban would actually be effective at the end.

Just like you can't get around a random adult buying for kids. It's just a imperfect deterrent.

Although I agree- hardware level control would be so much better. Apple's on-device age checks can be a good compromise.

> Just like you can't get around a random adult buying for kids. It's just an imperfect deterrent.

This argument feels really weak. Convincing an adult to buy alcohol for kids is dramatically more difficult on average than setting up a VPN.

If you’re on this tech website you should know that it’s not hard to get VPN access even with cash by buying cards at retail. You can also use one of the various free (ad supported or spyware) VPN products.

It’s nothing like trying to involve another adult and asking them to take on the legal liability of that action.

Is it though? Do you actually live in the UK? Do you want to know how often it happens in London?

I live in the UK, though not in London. I can count on one hand the number of times a group of children asked me to buy alcohol for them. So it's not that it doesn't happen, but it almost never happens.

Compare standing outside a supermarket, repeatedly begging passers by to commit a crime for you every time you want alcohol, with the one time action of installing a VPN client on your device and it's obvious one law is enforceable while the other is not.

What? - I live in London, if you walk through a high street where there is both a secondary school and a corner store (if you say you don't know what that is, I will assume you are Trump) at around 3-4pm - you either get asked to buy cigarettes; or, refusing to do so you will get asked if you have any cigarettes. Without fail.

You are trying to make it dramatic by saying it is a crime - in this context installing a VPN is as much a crime (arguably with more traces / evidence) as buying cigarettes for teenagers.

>and a corner store

You mean corner shop. We usually say shop in the UK. When you said you live in London, I didn't realise you meant London, Kentucky.

>You are trying to make it dramatic by saying it is a crime

It is literally a crime. https://www.gov.uk/alcohol-young-people-law

>installing a VPN is as much a crime

It is not. There is no law against circumventing age gates by means of a VPN. It is illegal to promote VPN services to children as a means of circumventing age gates, but the act itself is not illegal.