Porn age checks - Surely a good thing?

You would think that Corbyn would take the position that the Online Safety Act is not fit for purpose, and pledge to replace it with something designed in consultation with the online industries it has affected (including the police and CPS, because they're going to find their jobs much more difficult after this).

Then those of us on the left/centre of the political divide would be jumping on board in droves.

Of course, what Corbyn's actually going to do is sit on the fence and stay silent, just like he did on Brexit.

The government are refusing to debate the topic even though there are enough signatures on the HoP petition site that they should be debating it. They've just gone "nope. Won't do that."

A video for the new Corbyn party has apparently been blocked

But sure, it's nothing to worry about. There's no censorship here.

See, that's where you have a problem - there are a lot of people like me who are naturally centrist/left voters, but who have been sucked into the web of this absolute mess of a bill both professionally and personally and can see all the problems with it.

You're still sitting there believing it's about protecting kids from porn, but if you actually took the time to read the 1000+ pages of Ofcom guidance like I've had to (and it is required to read it all for anybody running a site that's considered in-scope, which is most non-static sites, whether it's a small hobbyist site or a big social media monster), then you'd realise that only a tiny portion is about protecting kids from porn. Age checks are just the most visible part of it - it's the bit of the iceberg sticking up above the water.

If it was just age checks for porn, then almost nobody would have a problem with it. In fact, the way it's all designed, it will make it infinitely more difficult to a) investigate and b) prosecute the people it's designed to stop in the first place (as well as anyone else who commits any crimes online). This is because it fundamentally breaks the chain of custody for evidence by forcing service operators to be the first line of law enforcement online, when they are neither qualified to do so nor bound by any professional standards. Defence lawyers are going to have an absolute blast with it.

All of which you'd know (and more) if you paid attention to anything beyond "age checks for porn".

It's foolish to draw conclusions (and, frankly, be quite insulting about people) when you're basing it all on less than 1% of the available information.

The most annoying part is that Reform are the only one of the political parties actually taking a stand against it. That's why it's turning into an issue characterised as far-right wonks being wonks - because none of the other parties actually understand the fuckery that's going on here, least of all the one in power (because they didn't write it), or the one that created it (because most of the people responsible for it are no longer in Parliament). I will not vote Reform under any circumstances, but if almost any other party came out in opposition to this Act and proposed a sensible replacement, I would absolutely vote for them.

And I absolutely hate the idiots who voted for this rubbish, because they're turning me into a single-issue voter for the first time in my life.

How about because its not imperfect it doesn't work?

Card number
Your DS could take your card number and put the card back

Facial recognition
Any photo of you in the house will do, plus there have been reports in MSM about teenagers getting round it with pictures from google.

Its risky to verify your age.
Quite simply it is risky to put your details into an unknown website. and this goes for pictures of your face, DoB and IP addresses.
The government can't keep data safe MN has been hacked at least twice and several water companies have had data protection issues in the last month.

This can be used for censorship of political views.
And there is also talk about banning VPNs.

Surely if parents don't want their children to watch porn then the adult blocker that cause you some difficulty is surely worth the price to protect children.

And remember that this is the second attempt to do this as some years ago the government put restrictions on UK internet companies.

I run my own DNS server just to stop ads and tracking.

An update which will definitely harm small content creators who are sponsored at times by Nord VPN for example

Keep living with your head in the sand

See how it feels when you find sites getting blocked for you because you're views don't align with the party line

As I said before, rules like this already discriminate against certain content like LGBTQ+ under the guise of "following the rules"

Really?

The rules have already been changed on the fly by Ofcom. As soon as people started signing up for VPNs, they announce that it's suddenly illegal to discuss or instruct people on how to install a VPN, while on an in-scope site.

There you go - a perfectly legal activity, using perfectly legal technology, described by perfectly legal speech, but suddenly illegal to host because somebody spotted a hole in their plan and they've decided that shouldn't be allowed. And all done without Parliamentary input.

So, do tell me: in a developed democracy, does that sound right?

For example, I'm a network tech (among other things). Reddit is in-scope, and has plenty of technical subreddits. If I have a problem with the VPN at work, it's in Reddit's interest to prevent me from seeking solutions on their site otherwise they could be found in breach and could end up with an £18m fine depending on which way the discussion goes.

Same goes for Stack Overflow (lots of kids on there, learning tech), Discord, etc etc.

It's interesting the bit about "promoting VPNs"

That's going to cause problems for various YTers/Streamers who are often sponsored by Nord VPN for example

For those thinking that "blocking at ISP level" is the silver bullet...you need a reality check. Most ISP-level blocking is just done by blocking the DNS queries. In other words, if you don't use your ISP's DNS servers, then you're free and clear.

That's even easier to get around than installing a VPN. Takes about 30 seconds.

This is not about porn, either; it's about any content (legal or not) that Ofcom (not Parliament) deems "harmful", based on their interpretation of every law on the books in the UK.

An unelected agency with little oversight, given carte-blanche to decide what you are and are not allowed to see, who can change the rules at any point and who have stated that their goal is to "regulate the Internet". This should terrify everybody, but for some reason people are still saying "Yay! Our kids are safe!".

I've been asked twice for ages verification, neither time was it even porn or even 18+ related - they were both perfectly safe for work fan art. This was Bluesky and Discord. A pp said she was asked for age veriy for pelvic floor exercises. So it's definitely catching things it shouldn't.

My main issues are that anyone who gives their ID is just asking for this to be compromised. Government used to warn us about keeping our data safe online. Now they want to get us used to handing this over to any company who asks, for av purposes. It's normalising something that we should be questioning. And there are bound to be people who set up websites purely in order to harvest valid ID documents.

I've also read things from smaller companies who say that they simply aren't in a position to implement what the UK government is asking. That the legislation assumes everyone has the resources of big tech. Their solution was simply to block UK users.

And as many of you have said, it's so easy to circumvent with a VPN. That's what I did so as not to hand Discord and Bluesky my ID. And I'll keep doing that for as long as I am able.

I totally understand not wanting children to access porn, but think that this law is simply a bad way of attempting it.

No, it isn't. Less than 10% of the Act itself is to do with protecting children, and even less of Ofcom's guidelines are about protecting children.

Of course, 100% of the politicians' soundbites are about protecting children...because (almost) none of them actually understand the law they voted for.

Apart from anything, consider this: the Act cedes all authority for deciding what is and isn't "harmful content" to Ofcom, and Ofcom can change the definitions whenever it likes without any recourse to Parliament. This includes absolutely legal content, even protected content like freedom of expression - and when it does so, that content will be legal to read and write, but not legal to host.

If you think this was ever about protecting children, you're dreaming. That's just the way it was sold to parents who don't want to learn about the world that's left them behind.

Vibrators aren't blocked under the legislation though as far as I know (I didn't have an issue accessing Anne Summers earlier for example)

Neither is violence. Violence is apparent ok

Because the law is BS and not really intended to protect children but control adults.

And you're a fool if you think this won't be slowly used for censorship

It's well know that "anti porn" rules on places target LGBTQ+ content more harshly than actual porn, blocking SFW content as "inappropriate" because it's also labelled as LGBTQ+ for example

Drawings and art aren't supposed to be Age check hidden

I got asked to prove age to view a slightly NSFW artwork

MN states Mumsnet is intended for use by individuals aged 18 and over only in its T&C. So may be your parenting skills are not the best, if your allowing your kids to view it.

Also If you are getting adverts for vibrators on MN, obviously again you need to read MN T&C and see how they use digital footprinting. If you don't understand what that is and how it works then again its up to you as an adult to brush up on your technical knowledge, that's all on you.

PS digital footprinting follows you through all your browsers, web searchers and web usage with your digital ID, so again that's all on you.

If you don't understand all that then you should not be allowing your children to use electronic devices as you are not capable of monitoring them.

*Snooper's Charter

(Shopper's Charter sounds a lot less ominous)

I'm not keen on giving up my privacy because parents plonk their kids in front of devices, and then can't be arsed to keep an eye on them.

I have 2 connections at home, 1 from Virgin Media with parental controls on. My kids use that one. And 1 from Zen with no parental controls. That's for the adults.

All adult used devices have a VPN installed since 25th. So while I was always open with my internet use to my ISP (and therefore to the gov under the Shopper's Charter), i've now removed their ability to see any of it.

Not important really, I am a law abiding citizen. But assuming many others do the same, the intelligence services are definitely going to be lacking in intelligence.

What innocent websites have inappropriate adverts and pop ups all over them and how would this legislation prevent this.

Now your just going into the realms of hyperbole. Ill reiterate its a parents responsibility to ensure they do all they can preventing their kids from accessing inappropriate content that includes vetting who they play out with and learning some tech skills as a grown adult.

As I said bloody lazy parenting.

It was suggested under Boris, I don't think he was really into restricting civil liberties, covid aside.

People may be interested to know that similar rules apply in the EU, and have been implemented in Ireland in the last week: https://www.cnam.ie/coimisiun-na-mean-response-to-media-queries-about-implementation-of-online-safety-code/