Slashdot Mirror
UK Proposes Mandatory Age Verification For Porn Sites (mirror.co.uk)
A proposed bill read in the House of Commons, "suggests that by next year websites will require visitors to prove they are of legal age before entering..." reports the Mirror. Britain's prime minister "says none of Britain's top 10 porn sites -- which account for 52% of all views -- have a 'robust' process to verify users' age," citing figures that 10% of the site's viewers are below the age of 18. The Independent adds that "the issue has alarmed privacy campaigners, since it could mean having to register a credit card with a porn website."
U.K. lawyer Neil Brown contacted Slashdot with more on the age-verification requirement:
Sites which failed to do so could face fines of up to 250,000 pounds or 5% of annual turnover. Their URLs could also be given to ISPs and payment processing providers, to consider voluntary blocking/service suspension, although no mandatory blocking regime is planned currently.
This is the same bill that proposes jail terms up to 10 years for those found guilty of copyright infringement. According to the article, one 2013 study found that 7% of the world's porn was hosted in the UK, with 60% in America and 26% in the Netherlands.
This is the same bill that proposes jail terms up to 10 years for those found guilty of copyright infringement. According to the article, one 2013 study found that 7% of the world's porn was hosted in the UK, with 60% in America and 26% in the Netherlands.
Great, another reason for businesses to abandon the sinking ship that is the UK economy.
Unless I'm missing something, how exactly do they plan to enforce this for overseas sites?
Or is this going to end up with some braindead ISP filter saying: "I see you're trying to access a porn site, I've logged that for you, now confirm who you are so I can log that too (under the guise of letting you have access once verified)"
Privacy invasion, much.
It's the job of the parents to control access to the internet from their house, not the state. If the state has to do this, then perhaps the parents should be held more responsible?
every time i see some weird killswitch legislation proposed in the UK im boggled as to how this gets implemented...I mean, if I were a UK sysadmin would I just be handed a list of network routes I had to drop? or is there a python script i write that scrapes emails from my boss to figure out who I send nastygrams to after shutting down their server?
What if the server is a virtual host? do i have to shut everything down then? a single route? all routes? Just because little catherine saw her first penis, does it mean I have to suspend an account that controls the website for a favourite tea brand?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Yes.
The other 99%: "what's a proxy?"
It's sick how the politicians are using their usual excuse of "think of the children" to attack the free internet via porn, while they let paedophile (pedophile) gangs roam UK's treats for decades, even police and social services helping these gangs commit their crimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
But just as bad, while politicians have a fetish over banning porn, they have no problem having 24/7 violence on TV. How many people are killed with sex, and how many people killed because TV gives impression to people that violence is ok?
It's all a smokescreen to control the internet, most people too stupid to see it, they are just fixated on the control porn argument.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
This is the brainchild of Andrea Leadsom, one of the two final contestants for leadership of the Tory party (and hence the post of PM until the next general election). According to a comment on this story on The Register, she already has a reputation around Westminster as a "self-serving simpleton". Theresa May (the other contestant) is generally expected to win.
Perhaps if David Cameron had internet porn he would have known that there are better places to put your manhood than a pigs head.
Britain's prime minister "says none of Britain's top 10 porn sites -- which account for 52% of all views...
Ok... lost me right there... where can I find that list?
Unless I'm missing something, how exactly do they plan to enforce this for overseas sites?
Or is this going to end up with some braindead ISP filter saying: "I see you're trying to access a porn site, I've logged that for you, now confirm who you are so I can log that too (under the guise of letting you have access once verified)"
Privacy invasion, much.
It's the job of the parents to control access to the internet from their house, not the state. If the state has to do this, then perhaps the parents should be held more responsible?
I find it amusing how conservatives, who are usually the most energetic at raging against regulations and the mommy state, are the most eager to impose mountains of regulations, draconian censorship and generally the mommy state on the public in order to regulate other people's sexual behaviour. In fact it is downright creepy how obsessed they are over who other people might be having sex with in the privacy of their bedrooms and how they are doing it, or in this case what they are using their laptops or tablet computers and tissue dispensers for in the privacy of their bedrooms.
Yes.
The other 99%: "what's a proxy?"
The 80%: "oh, you mean that thingamajig my friend / neighbour / youtube-video-instructions did to my internet connection so I could watch US-Netflix / pirate movies / porn ?"
"This is the brainchild of Andrea Leadsom, one of the two final contestants for leadership of the Tory party..."
Who by current indications will be eating a boiled kangaroo's anus on I'm A Celebrity in about 12 month's time. This, however, is only a tiny compensation for the fact that Teresa May will become PM.
On a general note, what can be done about the policy ratchets that these people advocate? That is, the belief that things are bad because the policies that brought them about (eg financialisation, under investment in social infrastructure, wealth concentration, mass surveillance, censorship, etc.) were simply not implemented hard enough.
This is the essence of what people like May and Leadsom believe: like a sort of Taliban approach to politics. Corporation tax in the UK is lower than almost anywhere in the EU and we have intense austerity policies partly as a result. So what do we do - we lower it some more because *obviously* the economy isn't getting better as a result of the previous lowering. What happens if we lower corporation tax to zero then? Where is the evidence that these policies are working as they are right now, let alone that they will work better for being all the more extreme?
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
If you're implying this is a dupe, well, it isn't.
Ratings for websites != Age verification for websites.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I find modern economics, which is what leads to the disaster we have when it comes to government and the actual economy, to be an absurd house of cards. Most of their basic concepts are ok as abstract concepts, but then they apply math on the basis of 'if everything else is the same'. With a blissful ignorance that the factors they chose to look at may not be the only factors in question.
Even 'simple' concepts like 'supply and demand' have some exterior items that can mean more than price (which is all the concept looks at). So you've made a product, what if no one cares about your product and has no use for it? Well S&D says a low enough price and lots of people should want to buy it, but if your 'audience' is so small that even at cost you can't get more than a handful of people to buy them then your going out of business.
The same holds true for the idea that somehow not taxing corporations (where the majority of money is 'owned') will somehow magically make them stop hording money and instead spend more. A corporation will always hold to it's own interests as a collective entity and that interest is in ways to make more money, not so much to spend it. While spending some money to make more money is also a basic principle, a corporation that is successful will minimize expenses any way it can. If we already understand they will spend as little as possible, then how in the world can this idea ever ever ever work?
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
study found that 60% of the world's porn was hosted in America
I knew America was still number 1 at something.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Yeah, where's the verification bill requiring that car companies prove people have a driver's licence before operating their vehicles? One of these leads to wanking, the other leads to death....
I work at a school. Every now and then, a new game site is suddenly cropping up on our monitoring - usually being played by five students at once, until we block it. Word travels very quickly. From discovery to common knowledge in a day. I don't see why unblocked porn sites would be any different.
Somewhat surprisingly, we very rarely find anyone trying to look for porn. I can only assume no-one wants to look at porn in school, where there is no privacy and lots of people potentially peeking.
I find it amusing how conservatives, who are usually the most energetic at raging against regulations and the mommy state, are the most eager to impose mountains of regulations, draconian censorship and generally the mommy state on the public in order to regulate other people's sexual behaviour. I
This goes for conservatives (Republicans) in the US as well. They're against regulation of businesses, but they sure are happy about regulating people's personal life..