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

Why ?

I have read it. Where does it say that?

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

I knew I should have invested in a vpn company

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.

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

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.

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.

🤔

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.

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

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?

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.

I’m at the point where I want to just ban all pornography and prostitution. It’s not just about children but the effects on women. Nobody has any self control, most people need more and more extreme versions to get the dopamine hit. Throttling your partner this week, eye gouging next?

Love how most posters just want to gloss over the ban on addiction support groups

"But won't someone think of the CHILDREN"

lucky for the kids who will end up addicted to drugs and drink it's as easy as clicking a button to launch the VPN

We don’t give unfettered access to the internet. We block at the router, with the ISP and the mobile phone provider. We have no devices in their rooms.

You know what, because there are constantly changing updates, apps, work around, the children are on to them faster than we are. It’s like wack-a-mole. It’s not just up to the parents, it’s up to the government and the tech companies to help, too.

Are you happy to sacrifice all rights to privacy and openness on the Internet, catastrophically compromise everyone's online security, prevent children being able to access the support they need (and adults, given that many of those groups are just shutting down because of the OSA), and give the government a blank cheque for surveillance in order to achieve that goal?

Because those are the trade-offs in the Online Safety Act.

There will plenty of "legal but harmful" content popping up in the future.

Remember how we bnow have "non crime" crimes ? You know, where your name goes on a list for doing something legal, but with bad intent. Just ask Harry the Owl.

As a result of a discussion on Mumsnet recently, I discovered scores of YoutTube channles devoted - in forensic detail - to growing cannabis. Which is legal in many US states and countries. I can't see them lasting.

Then there are sites that explain how VPNs work (plenty of YouTube tutorials about that too). I've already read that OFCOM is sniffing around the idea that instructional VPN content is harmful.

Ordinarily I am relaxed about technical ignorance in government. Probably because I have never known anything else. And the OSA doesn't have the feel of the usual Hanlonian fuck up. It feels far more contrived. Which many people have also noticed and asked "what are they really up to ?"

I had similar feelings about the ID card fiasco.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/07/uk-government-warns-promoting-the-use-of-vpns-could-attract-fines.html

“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.”

—please name the sites,

‘Same goes for mental health support sites etc.’

— again, name them, because Mind is freely available and the several that I frequent are freely available without identification requirements.

I don’t truly believe anything in life can ever be properly private. Even if you were online alcohol support, which I do, there is always some way of finding out who you are for the very dedicated. Naturally, we want to reduce that risk. That’s human.

However, I get rather suspicious of many highly technically able people saying that

1. parents need to supervise their children 💯

2. CSAM is already illegal, the government just needs to #do better

You do realise that CSAM isn’t just the awful stuff on peoples hard drives. It’s the children getting approached while playing games online with their friends, it’s 13 year old girls getting groomed on Snapchat and eventually asked for nudes. The government, police and judiciary are so swamped with all of that that they cannot cope.

It’s almost by victim blaming the parents, you’re diverting the attention away from your own activities. So why are men coming on here, mumsnet, a website setup for women to talk about issues effecting them, coming on here and down talking and minimising?

If the Legislation isn’t good enough, ok, it’s not good enough. I know people who were involved in drafting it and I know they were very frustrated with all the carveouts. What is the solution.

You do realise that CSAM isn’t just the awful stuff on peoples hard drives. It’s the children getting approached while playing games online with their friends, it’s 13 year old girls getting groomed on Snapchat and eventually asked for nudes. The government, police and judiciary are so swamped with all of that that they cannot cope.

Not quite sure you have heard yourself. Unless I am mistaken, you appear to be saying we need more laws, because the laws we have can't be enforced ?

Am I missing anything ?

So let me get this straight. You are quite happy with the increase in exploitation and abuse of women and children so that you have all the online privacy you want? I don't trust any company led by Mark Zuckerberg and loathe Google, I detest the stranglehold they have on the tech industry.

The legislation is imperfect, I have asked what dissenters would do instead. I believe your lack of concern and even mocking blithe disregard is even somewhat suspicious.

I am a porn and prostitution abolitionist after coming from a very liberal, pro sex upbringing. Naturally, if laws aren't working then they need to be reworked, changed and possibly strengthened if needed, that is the nature of Parliament.

The legislation is imperfect, I have asked what dissenters would do instead. I believe your lack of concern and even mocking blithe disregard is even somewhat suspicious.

You can believe what you want. I'm old enough to remember red triangles on my screen.

Rather than ask dissenters what they would do instead, here's an exercise for you. Why don't you go and find the various solutions that were proposed and evaluated and discussed and voted on and explain how what we now have came into existence. Should be easy enough as all that work has been done.

If you can't then I will assume that the push for imperfect legislation (by your admission) has impure motives. And that people who support it uncritically are seeking to place restrictions on the dissemination of information under a cloak of faux virtue of concern for children. A concern that falls short of making sure children are free from hunger homelessness as well as abuse.

DARVO. Tapping out

The instances of children trying to get support and being age-gated are being widely reported. If you were remotely as interested in the details of what's going on instead of doggedly sticking to your "think of the children" one-track, you'd have seen them.

Yes, there are information sites around, but they don't give the visitor the opportunity to directly interact with many individuals at once. I'm talking about the in-scope services - that's user-to-user sites, like forums.

I've run a pretty large forum for the last 12 years, and I've had to familiarise myself in-depth with the Online Safety Act. I'm totally aware of the online risks, and I'm not minimising that at all. What I'm saying is that this law does the exact opposite of its purported goal. The police are completely uninterested in investigating any of it - that's been consistent for the last decade. The OSA does these things:

1 - Shifts responsibility for enforcing laws online to service providers.
2 - Puts service providers at the beginning of the chain of custody for evidence (which, essentially, breaks the chain of evidence due to lack of training, authority and tools).
3 - Gives service providers an £18m+ incentive to remove evidence from public view, meaning that the police will find nothing when they try to investigate a complaint, without a lengthy and expensive legal exercise.
4 - Moves an increasingly large portion of the population to VPNs (including the bad actors), where they're largely untraceable so making it even more difficult for the police to investigate, and moves the majority of illegal content further out of reach of the authorities.
5 - Hands a ton of business to identity-verification companies, the directors of whom form a who's-who of ex-Ofcom employees.

#1 is just stupid. #2 is going to be a field day for defence barristers, so there will be fewer successful prosecutions. #3 means that there will be fewer investigations in the first place. #4 was obvious right from the start, and will be used to try to ban encryption (another thing the government has wanted to do for a couple of decades now, no matter how stupid it is). #5 is just the way we've come to expect government departments to work.

So, where is the positive we've been told is there, in return for the removal of privacy and age-gating of completely legal content?

You might want to look up the history of GOSRN. This has been their plan for a long time - and Ofcom are right at the centre of it.

Incidentally, are you trying to imply that I'm a man, just because I can see the problems inherent in this ridiculous overreach? That's pretty damn offensive to just about everybody.