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 give it less than twelve months before there's a major data breach/hacking attack and everyone's personal data is all over the internet.
All sorts of people from organised state sponsored hacking groups in Russia, China, and the Middle East to malevolent individuals will be all over this like a rash.
At the bare minimum there is going to be a massive rise in scam emails "We've hacked your Pornhub account and will send details of what you've been watching to everyone on your email list unless you give is £XXX".

I know PornHub is blocked in 17 US states, including Texas, because it won’t comply with their age verification requirements.

Wish our government would be as forceful.

We already have those emails "I hacked your webcam and saw what you were watching and I'm going to release the video to all your friends and family if you don't pay X"

This will just make it more plausible to be real

On the plus side, I haven’t verified on X, and probably won’t because now I won’t get all the porn when on GC Twitter. Win win!

I am still getting porn amd hentai popups.

I think it's a good thing that should have been done ages ago.

Something was done ages ago, through your internet provider.
Posters were told then that it wouldn't work and it didn't
So here we are with another system that won't work.
We already have posters telling you how your DC will get around it, and MPs now putting forward ideas to ban VPNs.
So that everybody's freedoms are curtailed "for the sake of the children".
But this won't stop parents from buying their children smart phones.
or not putting blocks on systems at home or watching their children whilst on the internet.

@PersephoneSeethes so yes it is down to the parents all of them. Did you report the boy to the school for showing your DS porn?
Do his parents know or even care?

It's. Not. Just. About. Porn.

Read that again. Slowly.

This is much more wide-ranging than just porn sites. If it was just porn sites with age checks, nobody would have a problem with it. This puts service providers - not just Facebook/X/Reddit/etc, but volunteers running small sites too - right at the beginning of the chain of evidence for every single UK law. It's a defence lawyer's wet dream, because they're unqualified and using tools that aren't fit for that purpose.

Not only that, but providers are incentivised to over-correct and remove content even if there's a chance of it being deemed harmful whether legal or not, on pain of an £18m+ fine. So what do you think will happen when the police respond to a complaint? Yep, they'll find nothing to investigate.

This is going to have the exact opposite of its intended effect. Half the population will be using VPNs, all the kids will be using fake IDs generated for the purpose of (trivially) defeating the age checks, fewer actual bad actors will be investigated and even fewer will be successfully prosecuted.

That's why it's a bad thing.

Tbh, I'm not massively fussed about this either way.

It would be nice if more parents actually parented, rather than giving their kids unfettered access to the internet and acting surprised with what that results in.

I have no interest in verifying my age on these sites, because it's a time-consuming nuisance and handing over that sort of data to all and sundry is asking for trouble. But then again, it literally took me a couple of minutes to install a VPN on my phone, so it's not exactly the massive the end-of-the-world inconvenience some people are making it out to be, either.

This legislation won't make a jot of difference to protecting kids though, so really should be confined to the dustbin asap.

It is not just about porn though. I can no longer access an anonymous alcohol support subReddit (and also one about self harm) as I would have to waive my anonymity. Defeats the point, don't you think.

I’ve done the Reddit verification and it’s still anonymous!

No, it just looks like it's anonymous. The list of exceptions where data is retained is so long and ill-defined that they can justify hanging on to the data in the majority of cases. And, because the exceptions are all to do with suspecting a breach of the law, they have no duty to inform you of exactly what they've retained.

This is one of those circumstances where you really, really need to read the terms of service.

That's a choice made by these fitness forums, isn't it? The OSA doesn't ban children from seeing warning about steroid abuse.

That's a positive for the OSA then, those websites should be age-gated.

That's like saying speed limits "don't work" because some people still speed.

In theory it’s a half decent idea. My issue is it’s yet another thing where people assume part of their job as parents is being done for them. There’s also other potential risks such as increased dark web usage (which happened straight away) and that can expose people to far more.

You cannot be anonymous if you prove your ID

But it's not JUST those websites

Keep drinking the "it bans porn so it's good" Koop Aid though

The corresponding argument is, "Too many people are speeding, so we're going to add an internal camera to every car and take a photo of the driver every time it goes within 3mph of a speed limit and record the GPS data with the photo. We pinky promise we won't use it to map where you've been going (except under specific circumstances, but if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear), and we're going to strongly suggest that our third party providers store it so securely (for statistics, you understand) that it will definitely not be leaked anywhere, and they really definitely won't use that information for themselves because we asked them nicely".

If they are worried they might just potentially be in breach then they will implement the extra measures rather than risk a very hefty fine

Presumably their concern is the "showing bodies" being called porn

Not just dark web usage. Whole ID verification datasets started appearing for sale on the dark web on day two.

Seems a bit pointless, a free vpn app can be downloaded within 30 seconds. Most primary aged kids know this by now, they are a lot more tech savvy than alot of adults.
Id love to see tighter restrictions on porn and adult content but this isn’t it.

It really isn't see ntmdino's post Today 21:26.

See also black box usage by insurance companies and how tightly regulated they are.

How is this like an internal camera for your car? The OSA isn't making phone companies put monitoring apps on your phone.

It doesn't ban it, it compels website owners to put an age gate in front.