Porn age checks - Surely a good thing?

Oh, sod it, here we go, addressing the word salad in your second paragraph.

Has it occurred to you to ask why Google and Facebook aren't all over the headlines campaigning against this? Or why they weren't when the law was being debated and passed?

The answer is "federated identity". Those companies (and others, like the ones providing age estimation services at the moment, and whose director lists are a who's-who of ex-Ofcom employees) have a vested interest in the Online Safety Act being a success and copied all over the world. Why? Because as soon as you have to verify your age and identity for every website you visit, providing a service which instantly does that in a single click is a convenience most people won't be able to resist.

Google and Meta want to be that service, because it will dwarf any other revenue source they have. Both of them have huge projects devoted to it, with billions sunk into the effort. They just need willing marks to pass the laws everywhere responsible lawmakers to convince everybody it's for the good of the children.

Tell me you haven't read the material supporting the Online Safety Act, without telling me.

In any case, you're wrong. The majority of it is nothing to do with CSAM either.

But...there was no need for a law against that, because - just like everything else - there was already a law preventing it. Successive governments have just failed completely to enforce them.

The Online Safety Act is about two things: shifting responsibility for enforcing the laws of the UK online from the police and CPS to private companies and individuals running websites, and making legal content illegal to distribute. When you boil it down, that's all it does. The bit that people are seeing right now - the age checks - are just the tiny bit poking up above the water.

Of course, "all" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here; the government knows full-well that people and companies running in-scope services are going to over-correct and censor far more than is required. That's why they set the penalty so high - £18m or 10% of global revenue, whichever is greater. That way, the government figured they couldn't be accused of censorship because they're not the ones taking action.

That over-correction, for example, is why young girls can no longer access information about menstrual health in the places they'd normally look for it - it's age-gated to 18+ only in most places, because the companies running these sites are absolutely terrified of the massive fine that Ofcom have threatened them with. Same goes for mental health support sites etc.

The government, of course, are doing exactly what the previous administration planned to do - "It's not our fault, we're not making these companies do anything, we didn't tell them to do that". Why? Because Ofcom is exactly the same entity it was before the election, and the people behind the law (and the rules that Ofcom set independently of Parliament) are the same people. Everything is, as far as they're concerned, going to plan - including the widespread use of VPNs (something Ofcom has wanted to ban for over a decade now).

So....continue to support it if you like, but at least have the self-awareness to realise that the blast radius of this law goes way beyond the things you don't like, and that it barely affects your intended targets because it's trivial to evade.

EDIT: What on earth do you mean about Zuckerberg using a VPN to spy on Meta users' data? Why would he need a VPN for that, when his company is hosting the data in the first place? Do you have any idea what the words you used mean?

...the law in Texas is less restrictive than the UK one, and just as easy to circumnavigate.

They didn't break the enycryption they re-routed the analytics requests.

Either way the idea is a good one, the implementation is dreadful, people will just look elsewhere and sites that are even less controlled.

🤔

Texas did it, as did something like 15 other American states. I can’t see why we can’t equally ask the same of the pornographers.

The Govt should have been even stricter on all the sites, imo. Complete ban from the UK unless they come up with a working solution.

A little tip for you.

Never, ever make a threat you either cannot or will not follow through with.

No. It's not about that at all. That's illegal. This is about making it harder to access legal and legitimate sites without handing over personal information

Banning sites from the UK would do fuck all, just like this, because VPNs exist

You're even more indoctrinated into the "protect the children" rubbish

TBH It’s not just about porn, it’s about Child Sex Abuse Material, which isn’t pornography. So many companies are complicit in it.

Reddit is one of the biggest places that children went to for porn when their parents blocked in via the routers.

The Govt should have been even stricter on all the sites, imo. Complete ban from the UK unless they come up with a working solution. Put the bloody onerous on them and their huge capabilities. If Zuckerberg can figure out Snapchats encryption and break it by using a VPN to spy on all of Metas users data, then they have the ability to figure out which user is 18, what is pornography, what is harmful and what is CSAM. The fact is, they don’t want to and the Govt are either spineless or are users of it too.

I knew I should have invested in a vpn company

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/08/proxy_usage_jumps_in_uk/

I have read it. Where does it say that?

Why ?

I get your point there yes. I thought it was going to be for porn websites only.

I know exactly how accurate IP addresses are - this is a solution to that problem. Dynamic IPs don't give you any privacy, because ISPs have to keep a log of IP addresses against user accounts (for seven years, I think - this was part of Blair's anti-terror legislation).

And yes, you can verify in a coffee shop, and then that data is either stored as a cookie or against your user account on the site's data storage mechanism. When you subsequently access it from somewhere else, your new IP address is associated with that ID, so they can still identify you from that new information with a high enough probability of accuracy that they'll be able use it in court (especially if you're using a broadband connection, which a simple netblock lookup will confirm).

There are plenty of people on this thread pointing out sites that have age verification but don't necessarily need it

The owners are being cautious because the penalties are so high they don't want to risk what could be a crippling fine

You like vaguely similar comparisons so it's like shops/pubs don't have to ID for non-alcoholic drinks with less than 0.1% alcohol. Most of them will do because it's better to be extra cautious. You could try and argue they don't NEED to legally but it won't get you anywhere, they won't change their policies because they are protecting themselves just in case

There's no point though because you have clearly fell so hard for the "but it protects the children" even when it doesn't, when it actively is making it harder for them to access support they might need, when it's easy for them to bypass, when it might drive them to accessing worse via the dark Web... that you are unwilling to listen to any reason about.

Good little government drone.

Your face is the most uniquely identified part of you!

It's easy to track back via someone's photo to find their social media and then a list of people to threaten to "release" data to

But it's not linking you to every single website you visit, which includes perfectly legal, but sometimes socially unacceptable things

The speed camera catches you breaking the law

The age checker monitors you doing perfectly legal activities

Thanks for such a clear and insightful post.

Not if you use a dynamic IP, and even then IP addresses are still not as accurate as you might think. I work in content moderation (obviously not Reddit) but sensible topics come up.

also it ask you to identify once only. So if say you verified in a coffee shop while in a trip and the you get home and use it again, Reddit would be none the wiser.

Not if you use a dynamic IP, and even then IP addresses are still not as accurate as you might think. I work in content moderation (obviously not Reddit) but sensible topics come up.

also it ask you to identify once only. So if say you verified in a coffee shop while in a trip and the you get home and use it again, Reddit would be nonthewiser.

Not if you use a dynamic IP, and even then IP addresses are still not as accurate as you might think. I work in content moderation (obviously not Reddit) but sensible topics come up.

also it ask you to identify once only. So if say you verified in a coffee shop while in a trip and the you get home and use it again, Reddit would be nonthewiser.

You're missing the point. Never before has it been possible to identify a specific individual from an IP address, meaning that server activity logs don't identify the actual person browsing the site. Now they can. If you happened to look at or post something illegal while you were on there, whether accidentally or deliberately, you can be prosecuted.

If your husband had done it for you, he would be prosecuted.

It was just showing my face! No name/ address / real age given . It was literally some face scanner and my husband could have done it for me if I wanted to

Well-intentioned but potentially disastrous. The risk of identity theft and other huge privacy breaches seem extremely high - and the chances of it preventing a child that wants to, from accessing porn, seem very low.

Of course I support its aims but I'd be very unsurprised if this proves to be the worst piece of legislation of the century.