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.

This isn’t about protecting children though

True. As can be seen over the last 20 years as our kids have had their rights not to be exposed to sex, violence and racism online gradually eroded in the name of free speech. Look how happy and cohesive a society it’s made us, and how kids’ mental health has improved 🙄

The online safety act is specifically about that.

You realise your colleagues and friends will be able to see what porn floats your boat when the data breaches start?

The last 20 years has shown that many parents have become far too lazy and expect the government to step in and do parenting for them.

Older generations would have just removed the devices from their kids and made sure they were supervised correctly. Now days mummy and daddy stick their kids in front of a laptop tablet or a phone in their hands and leave them too it.

This new legislation is a complete joke and if parents are not tech savvy enough to monitor their own kids then they either need to learn of take these devices off them.

Kids are only exposed if you allow them too.

Utter tripe, every tech savvy kid will be around this in seconds, its just another block in the wall aimed at removed freedoms and controlling society.

What next block political opposition and speech you disagree with online or lock it beyond paywalls and keep hiking the cost of so called free speech.

No, it's about restricting our civil liberties

Right. The harmful stuff I am most anxious to keep my children from isn't porn anyway. It's diet culture, pro-ana, pro-suicide headfuckery- all perfectly legal. So I keep a firm eye on their Internet usage rather than chucking a phone at them as a proxy parent.

Of course. But given the fact that the majority of people are porn users it’d be just as likely that I’d be able to see what floats their boat too! I’m not embarrassed. I’d be much more ashamed of preferring unfettered access to porn for all over an age check than I am over occasionally having a wank.

This is such conspiracy theory bullshit. From the same school as ‘mRNA vaccines have been sent to kill us all’.

Given that any form of access to any internet site requires handing over oodles of personal information to whatever internet company or phone company you’re contracted to, it seems mad to me that people object to putting a little hurdle in the way of my kids seeing women getting abused.

Not when you want a quick fiddle before sleep and get confused with all this complicated crap 😑
Had to find another website.
I doesn't help that the camera on my phone is crap, so I just get failure on my ID age check thing. Load of bollocks as I expect all those under 20 will wizz through or bypass all these 🙄

There are genuine moves to block political speech you disagree with. Like banning journalists from the White House for using the term ‘Gulf of Mexico’ or banning reporters from Gaza or suing the Wall Street Journal. And there are plenty of news sites locked behind paywalls (like The Telegraph and The Spectator, unlike The Guardian). This Act is none of those things.

Nobody is in favour of entirely unfettered free speech. Not even you. So it’s about degrees of restriction. If you want there to be no restrictions at all on kids accessing porn, then OK. But we disagree.

Not sure it’s possible to argue about whether previous generations would have been harder on an invention that hadn’t at the time been invented.

But if you’re concerned about parental responsibility I’d suggest that saying that ‘Kids are only exposed if you allow them to’ is a very dangerous thing to think in a world where all their mates have phones and where even innocent websites have inappropriate adverts and pop ups all over them.

Interestingly the government has felt the need to publish this today:https://www.gov.uk/government/news/keeping-children-safe-online-changes-to-the-online-safety-act-explained

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/

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.

Well this one for starters. I often get adverts for vibrators on here. If they age-restricted access I’d be fine with it. I also often see adult-oriented adverts on Mail Online, and there is completely unregulated access to violent and misogynistic music on streaming sites.

Of course it’s a parent’s responsibility to do all they can. But this will add to that. You seem to think it will replace that, but as the parent of a teenager I haven’t felt that this replaces my responsibility at all. It just helps with it. There is no way that any parent can reasonably control who their child comes into contact with all the time. They’re in school for most of their waking hours for a start. We can do what we can do. I don’t begrudge putting my details into a porn site every few days if it helps restrictions kids’ access. Do you?

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.

Oh sure, sure. People love having their private side exposed. Microsoft invented private browsing so men could buy their wives diamond jewellery in secret, yeah? Yeah. I mean, and that's why the 100000th Porn Customer outside the sex shop was so keen to accept the applause and fanfare. Because everyone does it.

What utter BS.

*Snooper's Charter

(Shopper's Charter sounds a lot less ominous)

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.

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

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

I understand all of that. I also understand that my kids have access to the internet all the time on devices that aren’t mine and that I have zero control over. As do everyone else’s kids including any you may have.

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

Obviously nobody would love their internet usage to be revealed. But the point is that it’s about the balance of harms. Any data leak (if there is one) won’t say ‘Vimtolady used Pornhub on the 31st July for 8 minutes at 22.45 and this is what she searched for…’ It’ll say ‘These 17 million people used Pornhub’, and if someone picks me out of that line up then whilst I’d be embarrassed I could point to the other 16.999 million people. I don’t mind that level of embarrassment if it helps keep kids safe.

Your sex shop example is interesting. I think it kind of proves my point. Sex shops genuinely are embarrassing because they are used by far fewer people. I never went into one, because my urges were nothing compared to the embarrassment of going into one. The internet now means that there’s no need, so porn use has massively increased (and almost all the sex shops have shut). As a result there is much less stigma around porn. It’s become normalised including, sadly, for kids.

As a free speech champion, by the way, I presume that you strongly object to sex shops having to black out their windows. No?