To think we should block porn as they do in France...

[jobhunter7]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10349501/Major-porn-sites-BLOCKED-France-unless-ensure-users-18.html

I cannot see a downside to this? If people are truly comfortable that what they are watching isn’t a problem, then what possible objection can they have to proving their age?

How can they put in verification that can’t be cheated by teens?

I mean technically, things like Facebook are supposed to be age rated, but younger people put in a fake birth year and voila. They can join

It's not hard to use a VPN to fake your location and pretend you're in say Germany instead.

Better than nothing but sites where people are obviously over 18 will still be accessible as usual.

@Floydthebarber

Well done France. There might be easy ways to evade it but the Government are willing to try do something about it. It will at least bring about more conversations about the damage porn can do to young people.

Quite. Rather than just shrug and say "what's the point?" as so many have said on Mumsnet historically and are continuing to do so today I see.

I’m not sure it does bring about those conversations. The only thing it’s likely to do is to give parents a false sense of security about what their children are accessing. In many ways it could lead to parents having fewer conversations with their children if they genuinely believe their children are blocked from using the sites.

It’s the same reason we keep having this debate here in the U.K. and nothing ever happens.

I think 18 is too young. I would set the limit at 88!

The downside is that it offers only the illusion that porn has become less available, rather than making it so.

And how would a private company verify age anyhow?

I wish it would all be banned. As in totally illegal to post sexual images or video on the internet, a punishable crime. Let it all go back to dirty videos and magazines that people have to get mail-order or from a bloke down the pub. As a society we have allowed this filth to infiltrate all our lives and rot young people’s minds. It is so disgusting.

Laws that aren't enforceable are pointless. Just virtue signalling that will have absolutely zero effect. People who want to watch will find alternative ways of doing so within a few seconds.

Just like pre internet when porn magazines freely circulated around schools. They were illegal for under 18s to buy, but teenagers just "borrowed" their elder siblings' copies and passed them around their friends. And we're not just talking the "top shelf" soft stuff, we're also talking about hardcore mags that included rape fantasies, animal sex etc. My school was full of it back in the late 70s and early 80s.

Porn hasn't changed over the years, it's only the delivery of it that has changed.

@A580Hojas because it's a sop which achieves nothing and doesn't actually address the real problems. It looks good but it's like papering over a wall which isn't just cracked but totally collapsed.

This would be an excellent move. To answer earlier points, yes a teen could get round it were they so inclined, but it would take a lot of effort. and access to a credit card. Most of us would be quite shocked at how easy it is to access some shocking porn with no checks whatsoever. Sites such as xhamster and pornhub do not have any controls at all and are deeply anti women. IMV a lot of male teen issues start with very strong porn accessed without any costs.

The LGBTQ+ groups actively campaign against porn blockers etc - as they have so much influence at present, it isn't surprising that the realities of porn / effect on women etc doesn't seem to worry people.

'LGBT+ Liberal Democrats are the sexual and gender identity minorities group within the Liberal Democrats. We exist to campaign for LGBT+ equality both within the party and externally, and to promote the party within the LGBT+ communities. As a "Specified Associated Organisation" of the party, all our full members are also members of the party, and we gain the rights to be consulted on LGBT+-related party policy and to put policy motions forward to the federal party.
Topics the group and its members have campaigned on have been diverse and include not just LGB and T but also non-binary gender, intersex rights, polyamory, decriminalisation of sex work and civil-liberties issues that disproportionately affect the LGBT+ community such as internet "porn blocks" and criminalisation of BDSM-related activities.'

If you want to stop your teen watching porn, then rather than wishing fpr a unicorn (a tech solution that actually makes a difference, rather than stuff like this that looks good but will make bugger all difference to sctual availability) then two things are needed

a) education on therealities of the porn industry to reduce the chance that your u18 DC will want to look in the first place
b) proper use of device based filters - not foolproof, but will make a heck of a bigger difference than this chocolate fireguard

@Motherdare

I wish it would all be banned. As in totally illegal to post sexual images or video on the internet, a punishable crime. Let it all go back to dirty videos and magazines that people have to get mail-order or from a bloke down the pub. As a society we have allowed this filth to infiltrate all our lives and rot young people’s minds. It is so disgusting.

Easy to ban it. Much harder to enforce the ban. A law has to be enforceable otherwise it's pointless. We're in a global connected World now, and no single country can dictate what laws/enforcements should be in other countries.

As we see with tax avoidance/evasion, money laundering, arms/drugs, etc., when multiple countries are involved, and some are less keen on law/enforcement than others, people can get away with pretty much anything, if they know which countries are more "sympathetic" to their needs, such as tax havens, countries known for drugs/arms, etc.

Porn is destroying healthy relationships between men and women. Teenage boys are learning to see girls and women as holes to be filled and bodies to be choked, not as actual humans they can have loving relationships with. I'm so sad at all of it. It is time for real action to be taken.

@Brainwave89

This would be an excellent move. To answer earlier points, yes a teen could get round it were they so inclined, but it would take a lot of effort. and access to a credit card. Most of us would be quite shocked at how easy it is to access some shocking porn with no checks whatsoever. Sites such as xhamster and pornhub do not have any controls at all and are deeply anti women. IMV a lot of male teen issues start with very strong porn accessed without any costs.

It would probably take under 5 minutes and virtually no effort at all to get round the ban.

Horse - stable door.
Porn is everywhere, not just on standard porn sites.

Porn isn't even against Twitters terms of use.

I think that there should be a civil right for anyone to charge £100 per day while naked images/porn videos of themselves are on-line, unless the web site in question can prove the persons displayed have given permission for the use of the images/videos. While any judgement remains unenforced, perhaps because the site is in another jurisdicition, there should be a requirement for UK ISP to block the site completely.

That would probably shut down pornhub.

This thread is old, but it contains @empusa 's brilliant 'unicorn' post and explains why tech 'solutions' are anything but

@Brainwave89

This would be an excellent move. To answer earlier points, yes a teen could get round it were they so inclined, but it would take a lot of effort. and access to a credit card. Most of us would be quite shocked at how easy it is to access some shocking porn with no checks whatsoever. Sites such as xhamster and pornhub do not have any controls at all and are deeply anti women. IMV a lot of male teen issues start with very strong porn accessed without any costs.

No, it wouldn't take "a lot of effort". VPNs are easy to set up. A few seconds on Google will tell you how. As for access to a credit card, lots of teens do "have access" to elder siblings or parent's credit cards and sadly, a lot of adults don't seem to bother checking their credit card statements often enough to notice especially if it was just a credit card check with no money being taken, or for a nominal sum taken of a pound or less. There are also plenty of cases of children engaged in online gambling which is illegal and regulated and needs a credit card, but the illegality and regulation doesn't stop them. Likewise, children buy age restricted products.

Teenagers talk to eachother, both online and in person, so they tell eachother the "tricks" to get around restrictions. My son was watching live premier league football matches (which were restricted in the UK due to the Sky/BT contracts) via a VPN and foreign websites at the age of 11 - his best friend told him how to do it!

Might help if I linked the thread!!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1551182-UK-seriously-considering-opt-in-policy-for-online-pornography

@SpacePotato

I'd love to know exactly what these 'safeguards' pornhub claims to have in place are.

So what if pornsick men adults have to confirm who they are to watch porn if it helps protect children.
Perhaps it would be helpful to know exactly who is accessing what, especially with so much rape, child abuse and violence against women being watched now.

What about the women that watch porn? Are they also "pornsick"?

Laws that aren't enforceable are pointless

That's not true. Lots of people obey the law just because it's the law, even when they don't agree with it. The law setting the tone for what's acceptable can make a big difference.

If laws were only obeyed because of enforcement, we would be living in the wild west. The police would need a hundred times the manpower they currently have. The law is mostly complied with because there is a social consensus that it's mostly fair and that not obeying it is wrong.

I’m with the 27% who say YABU. It is a meaningless and unenforceable any teenager can likely circumvent and divert attention for tbe real issues of entrenched misogyny and normalising violence against and commoditisation of women

@RandomLondoner

Laws that aren't enforceable are pointless

That's not true. Lots of people obey the law just because it's the law, even when they don't agree with it. The law setting the tone for what's acceptable can make a big difference.

If laws were only obeyed because of enforcement, we would be living in the wild west. The police would need a hundred times the manpower they currently have. The law is mostly complied with because there is a social consensus that it's mostly fair and that not obeying it is wrong.

Thanks for this - I'm always stumped by this argument but you're right, it's absolute bollocks!