Porn age checks - Surely a good thing?

[Vimtolady]

Just read a ‘debate’ on the BBC News website about the pros and cons of age verification of porn websites. Weirdly I was verified for the first time myself last night (I am a porn user but not all the time) so was interested to read it.

j get that it was a debate but I honestly don’t see how anyone could object. Last night I wasn’t expecting to be verified but the process was simple, took about a minute and I don’t think I’d have easily been able to circumvent it. Obviously there are security concerns but no more so than with any other website.

I think these checks are great! My eldest DC is 13 so probably getting to (or at) the age when porn might become interesting to her, and this would make it much more difficult to access which would doubtless be a good thing, no?

Does anyone disagree?! I’d be interested to hear arguments against because I can’t really think of any and that makes me suspicious I’m being narrow minded.

I think that it’s important that children and younger teens in particular as protected from porn - particularly given how easily accessible hardcore porn is including extreme acts etc. There should be no way of accessing this for these age groups, it’s deeply disturbing that it’s even a problem they might see it.

For older teens - and this is something I’ve only been pondering this morning - is a total ban on all porn also the right answer? I’m not sure - I assume at this age they’ll be better at finding other ways to seek it out (VPN? Via social channels?). Long before the advent of the internet teens this age were buying naughty mags and saucy novels!

One other thought is - while this is good progress is limiting exposure to pornography, it is also so visible in mainstream society / press / media - and if query if that doesn’t need to be challenged too. Eg Bonnie Blue seems to appear in my feed at least once a week, so presumably would for a young teen with internet access too.

I agree with that. It’s not perfect, and obviously there are ways round it. But it’s definitely big progress no?

Totally agree with the general normalisation of porn-adjacent stuff though. Things like Mail Online and social media have tons of stuff about porn even if it’s not actual porn. That clearly will spark interest and thus should stop. People don’t need encouragement to view porn when the natural desire exists already and is bad enough.

Totally misconceived idea, impossible to meaningly implement and puts a restriction on people accessing a wide definition of legal content on the internet.

Also a great way for hackers to gather millions of credit card details with address details.

Expect similar insanity with AI legislation in the coming years.

Am Interested as to why you think it’s misconceived. Last night I was asked for age verification. Had I not been able to provide it I’d have not been able to access the content. That’s obviously going to prevent a lot of under 18s accessing it, isn’t it?

Obviously it’s not fool proof. And yes the content is legal. But it’s harmful. So surely age verification is good as it is for other harmful but legal things like cigarettes? Will it do any harm? I don’t see how it would. And it has the potential to do a lot of good.

I know less about the security concerns but figure they’re the same as any other secure website.

How did you verify your age?

Tested it now, took me 2 minutes to find abd download a free VPN for Android and bypass. 🤷‍♀️

I think it will stop 8 year old inadvertently accessing these sites. Which is good.

But 15 yo? Will take them minutes.

With a card number, the same information I’ve given to dozens of other websites.

Not hard to bypass. Complete waste of time and the beginning of censorship.

Any half intelligent teen will just download opera and turn on its inbuilt VPN...

The next step will be banning any content the government doesn't want you to see without an ID check, then what happens if these firms handling the ID checks get hacked and publish your details online or hold you to Ransome?

Its up to parents to censor their children from porn, and all you have to do is ring your ISP/MSP to block adult content...

The government is stepping in to help lazy parents again.

It will lead to uninformed parents thinking that porn is inaccessible online.

Whereas bypassing the block using a VPN or fake/borrowed ID is trivially easy.

It's asking the state to parent children by blocking the sites rather than encouraging parents to have those difficult conversations about the harm porn causes.

Teenagers will still watch it. And their parents could be completely ignorant of this.

To mitigate the harm, talk to your children about it, educate them, don't just assume it's blocked and they won't watch

I predict the vote will agree with you OP but there will be lots of posts from porn apologists.
It won’t be a perfect system but it’s better than nothing.

Obviously it’s not an either/or - parents should still take appropriate measures to protect their kids from online harms, both porn they may still find ways to access and other stuff.

This sounds a bit conspiracy theory-ish to me. Obviously wider range censorship would potentially be bad. But this isn’t that, so I ask again what harm this particular measure does?

Parentsl responsibility is of course important but I struggle to see how this isn’t a tool to help that (albeit an imperfect one).

Your argument is the same as someone who says ‘We shouldn’t have a law stopping kids from buying cigarettes because parents should prevent it, you could just buy them illegally anyway, and it’s a step towards government controlling. What we can and can’t buy from shops’. Do you think that?

I don't mind the principle, but do worry it will spread to other areas of the Internet. Looking up mental health support services? Yeah, we'll store that on your id-verified internet file.

I think I just feel a bit depressed at how futile the new law is. DH has bought a vpn this morning that all of our devices can use, so we can both continue watching porn.
People are already finding easy ways around the rules on Reddit, where most fetish porn can be accessed and where most kids get their porn from.

It's a law made by people who mean well, but don't understand the internet.

The porn providers are perfectly capable of blocking VPNs, and if governments such as the UK and France require them to, then they will.

It's also not so easy to block porn as a parent. A VPN can get round the ISP's porn-blocking too.

When a US state introduced this, traffic dropped by 80%.. a good thing?

No, they just used VPN & unregulated sites, there are millions of platforms where porn can be viewed, its not just Pornhub, going to alternatives for porn just means even more violent extreme porn is available to young people.

Enforcement? these sites are primarily American, atm fining US companies and enforcement is a no no, Trump is protecting US firms, hence the new law isn't as tough on X or Meta.

There is a reason no other country in the world has laws like this, unintended consequences.

Totally agree. I was unable to access a thread on pelvic floor health on a fitness forum because apparently, they're (who the fuck are they) gonna have to see some ID.

Bollocks to that.

Personally I wouldn't feel safe sharing my card details with a porn site, especially as it's likely many will be set-up to precisely to harvest card details.

When you buy cigarettes you have the option to pay cash and not leave a digital footprint. Unfortunately everything you do on the internet is traceable.

Why are you attacking people who think that the bill is an unworkable mess as porn apologists. Are you trying to stifle debate?

Being critical of this law does not make someone a porn apologist.

It doesn’t just necessarily apply to porn though. Reddit have blocked anything deemed as nsfw. Some very innocuous subs have been blocked - one was a support sub for quitting drinking for example

I don’t buy these arguments at all:

• It’s imperfect therefore it’s bad
• It’s the thin end of a government censorship wedge
• It’s unreasonably risky to verify your age.

But I get what people are saying about things that aren’t actually porn or harmful being caught up in this. I remember a while back putting an adult content block on my own phone (to try to stop my porn usage) and it blocked all kinds of things that were nothing to do with anything NSFW at all. In the end I removed it for that exact reason.

I didn’t say everyone who has objections is a porn apologist, merely predicted that there will be posts from such people. No need to be so defensive if the cap doesn’t fit.

It smacks of legislation that's been written by well intentioned people who have little understanding how the internet works.

We need perfect laws to protect children, bad law just gives parents a false sense of security, so, as almost all children will be using Android/IOS phones and ISPs from UK based internet providers, a better way would be age verification on the ISP, by device, inc using/downloading VPNs.

Public wifi networks too.

These companies know exactly what is being downloaded & viewed, the default is that all blocked at the network level, then AV used to access.

I don't access porn and never have. Also in my 60s, so maybe not as tech savvy as some. Ten minutes ago I had never heard of a VPN.
I have now set one up- Go me!
No idea if the law is good or bad, but it is certainly easy to circumnavigate.