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UK Gov't Launches Public Consultation On Porn-Site Age Checks (bbc.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes with news from the BBC that the UK government has launched a publc consultation regarding plans to mandate age checks on pornographic websites. According to the article, The proposals follow a Conservative Party manifesto commitment that "all sites containing pornographic material" must check that users are over 18. Internet providers, charities, academics and others will be asked to contribute to the consultation. ... In the consultation document, the government proposes that the checks should apply to content that would receive — if formally classified — an 18 or R18 rating from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). "We are keen to hear from parents, schools, child protection experts, the pornography industry, internet service providers and online platforms that provide access to pornographic content," the consultation document explained. As part of the plans, the government intends to establish a new regulatory framework to enforce compliance with any rules that are made law.
You are responsible for the behaviour of your children in your own house. Allowing a minor unfiltered access to the Internet is not "confidence boosting", it's a tragedy waiting to happen. It's easily fixed with existing software too, just install a filter or set up a white list. Not much effort, so much reward.
In addition: the checks themselves will be an age check. How are you to prove your age online? Are they going to scan your passport or drivers license or are they going to ask you for your date of birth. Any person who is interested in looking at pornography is easily old enough to realize that a simple lie will get them to where they want to be.
The alternative of course, as you said, is to have some system of citizen registration. "Show an ID where the ID is not copied or recorded"... even before computers were prevalent (making forgeries a far more trivial matter) documents and papers have been faked... with ease. You seem to actually want the government to regulate what is accessible online via a registered database of individuals?!
You are clearly mad. I can't even begin to say how terrifying that willing submission of rights is. For your own sake read some Orwell.
Then, at the end of all this effort for dubious reward... what about the porn sites hosted outside of the UK? That's only most of them that won't have to comply with any of these laws.
So as we come full circle we realize: the only effective way to keep kids safe online is with with a little parental responsibility, since no law passed will ever affect all the porn sites and no system of identity proof will be anything short of privacy destroying. Instead of making demands from the powers that be to keep us safe how about we do it ourselves so it gets done properly?
...that your child will see something on the internet that you don't like, don't allow your child on the internet. It is not society's job to enforce your views, it is society's job to present alternative views.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
A bored, intoxicated biologist says:
Chemical castration has a distressing way of becoming permanent in a non-deterministic way. IE, sometimes you stop the pills/injections/implants/spice, and your endocrine system doesn't restart. Bodybuilders use a drug - nandralone? Fuck it's gone from late to early - to kick their system back into functioning after a while on the steroids, but it's not all that reliable, not all that legal, not all that available, and generally unpleasant. If you're going to castrate your kids, it's best to do it before puberty. That way, they don't suffer withdrawal effects, DNA methylation and acetylation patterns won't change to become dependent on sex hormones, and will tend to live 12 years longer than their un-neutered classmates.
Science, bitches! You'd be fucking amazed what it'll justify if misused, and I haven't even said anything that's technically incorrect.