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.

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.

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.

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!".

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

“Terrify everyone”. That’s a bit much. The internet (for most people) didn’t even exist 30 years ago so I think I’ll live with it being regulated by OFCOM (which is accountable to Parliament and whose Directors are appointed by the government).

People are acting as if we’re going to become North Korea. We’re really not. A bit more regulation to protect people from harmful content is a good thing. The restrictions to ‘free speech’ are actually restrictions on people ability to disseminate content, not to produce it. And regardless, any harms caused by regulation are vastly outweighed by the benefits of regulation.

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.

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"

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

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

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.

People’s conflicting attitudes always amuse me.

I reckon that the Venn diagram between people who want to kill paediatricians because they get confused between them and ‘prefixes’, and the people who are against this bill because they think it’s a giant government conspiracy to enslave them, is almost a circle.

Same with people who are free speech absolutists and think that the way to ensure that is to support authoritarian nationalist politicians.

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.

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.

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.

I welcome anything that keeps children safe online but this act is naive and flawed. You don't even need a VPN to circumvent this law me and DH simply typed "free porn" into Google and there were multiple sites on the first page with no restrictions (I don't recommend trying this yourself).

All this law has done has made non porn content harder to access for adults and made the internet even more unsafe for children who are now exposed to unregulated websites run buy the same criminals who run pirate streaming sites that don't care what they host.

The proverbial Pandora's box has already been opened and ofcom will now spend years playing wack a mole shutting down websites only for 10 more to pop up the same day.

I'm in no way pro porn but thinking age checks on a few sites will solve the problem when companies and governments can't even stop piracy is beyond silly

It's not a big deal to have to prove your age. If you've ever bought alcohol, tobacco, knives you likely had to do this, at least as a younger adult. If that's not a problem then this shouldn't be, it's basically the same thing.

It's basically not

When you hand over your driving license or passport or whatever to the shopkeeper/bartender/security guard then they look at it and hand it back. No record. No digital footprint. No data to potentially be hacked and leaked

When you upload a picture of the documents... well...

But the local shopkeeper doesn't leak all your details in a data breach.

I'm fine with children needing to prove their age, not sure how well that will work - but this implies everyone needs to prove their age across multiple platforms.

I used porn again this evening. Just gave my mobile number to receive a text. Job done.

https://blog.google/products/google-pay/google-wallet-age-identity-verifications

Google are putting age verification in their wallet app so you don't have to upload anything.

What if the shop's CCTV gets hacked or stolen? Same thing, just as unlikely.

Hardly the same. And there is a major data breach of some reputable large company that ought to have better systems in place pretty well every month.

That's not one of the ways listed though...

In fact one (not porn) site will only use face scans

We don't all use Google Wallet because we don't like having our cards uploaded like that either

The tiny chance that CCTV at a shop/bar gets stolen and the picture will clearly show the details on the ID shown is in no way comparable to uploading your details to the Internet 🤣