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Online Pornography Age Checks To Be Mandatory in UK From 15 July (theguardian.com)
The UK's age verification system for online pornography will become mandatory on 15 July, the government has confirmed. From a report: From that date, commercial providers of online pornography will be required to carry out "robust" age verification checks on users, in order to keep children from accessing adult content. Websites that refuse to implement the checks face being blocked by UK internet service providers or having their access to payment services withdrawn.The digital minister, Margot James, welcomed the introduction of the rules, saying: "Adult content is currently far too easy for children to access online."
She added, "The introduction of mandatory age verification is a world first, and we've taken the time to balance privacy concerns with the need to protect children from inappropriate content. We want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online, and these new laws will help us achieve this." Will Gardner, the chief executive of Childnet, said: "We hope that the introduction of this age verification will help in protecting children, making it harder for young people to accidentally come across online pornography, as well as bringing in the same protections that we use offline to protect children from age-restricted goods or services."
She added, "The introduction of mandatory age verification is a world first, and we've taken the time to balance privacy concerns with the need to protect children from inappropriate content. We want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online, and these new laws will help us achieve this." Will Gardner, the chief executive of Childnet, said: "We hope that the introduction of this age verification will help in protecting children, making it harder for young people to accidentally come across online pornography, as well as bringing in the same protections that we use offline to protect children from age-restricted goods or services."
How are they going to implement this? With credit card verification?
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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Soon, all the kids will use TOR browsers to show that they're anywhere but in the UK. It shouldn't take long for them to beat the system designed by people that don't understand technology beyond using a power button.
all the members of parliament? other government officials? law enforcement? clergy?
they do realize that this essentially becomes pornography user tracking? and it WILL come back to bite someone with a significant position within the government, perhaps someone who is at least partially responsible for this new legal requirement in the first place, right in the ass (and not in a good way)
making it harder for young people to accidentally come across online pornography
Is this really such a common occurrence?
The vast majority of accidental porn I've come across was from folks intentionally posting it to public forums, like the ever-popular goatse on here. Do we now consider that all discourse is pornographic? I'll note there are also a few look-alike domains that are easy to stumble across, but I think those are adequately blocked with client-side filters.
In all, this seems utterly unnecessary.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Teens get their porn via paid subscription. Yeah right! Who are those who think commercial porn websites are the only way to access porn. I imagine they are the same ones who wight click to chose "Copy" and "Paste" from the context menu and type Google in the Google search engine to find Google.
I guess the UK doesn't need the EU. They seem perfectly capable of creating their own internet-destroying regulations.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
The introduction of mandatory age verification is a world first, and we've taken the time to balance privacy concerns with the need to protect children from inappropriate content.
Very good. They thought about balance. Now they just need to think about how it is possible to enforce this on the global internet and how it won't fail hard furthering the UK's position as the laughing stock of the internet. After all they basically banned BDSM online. Look how well that worked. (Spoiler Alert: It didn't)
... the kids will still be free to watch people being murdered, tortured, blown up, stabbed, shot etc etc on various forums and sites. But thats ok. Just so long as they don't get to see any tits or arse then they'll be fine.
Sex - its monstrous! Should be outlawed! Hopefully in the year of our Lord 1819 in which the UK government lives will see the end of these vile online fornicators!
The internet is an enabler; it's an incredible amount of information at your finger tips. Almost by definition, it's supposed to be dangerous via providing the means by which people can become critical thinkers.....
Oh, I get it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
AC's look upon this bill and despair! It will become a framework for verifying your ID in other sectors as well. I don't know that this law will actually protect kids from seeing the pr0n they so desparately want to surf but maybe a good solution will come out of it and we can free the world of bot accounts and anonymous cowards
One can find this content easily by disabling Safe Search in Google search. Or opening Incognito tab in Chrome. So will this option be Enabled by default and require a person to prove they are an adult before turning it off?
Or is Google restricted from indexing this content in the UK?
This is but one of the consequences of demographic changes in the UK, where a vocal and militant minority has disproportionate effect on policies and social climate. The massive curtailing of free speech is another sad consequences. And to think this is the country that gave us some of the greatest advances in civics and science, and the most fertile ground of free discourse. It is almost unbelievable that less than half a century ago this country gave use Monty Python and movies such as Life of Brian.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Time to go all in. Just region lock ... everything.
People from RegionX, can only see content from RegionX.
Forever cementing the most powerful companies and organisations, in each RegionX.
No share space. No common Internet. Small, walled, guard-towered, soulless gardens.
For Safety. And think of the Children.
This is the future ... balkanization of ... Everything.
Does anyone believe that this is the end of Regulation?
All traffic tracked.
All users identified.
READING Content and downloading "bad words" criminalised.
All copyright of "authorised" (sanctioned) media protected harshly.
No free speech.
No allowance to create or use your own comment solution (Dissenter).
Wonderful? Well, they are not finished.
"Internet Tax". "Internet Privilege Suspension". "Lifelong Block".
Oh! What a brave new world!
(R)ule in Hell or (S)erve in Heaven [R]?
https://assets.amuniversal.com...
Usually this is the start and then other online activities will follow - time to revolt England fox?
Yanks shouldn't go around giving lessons on freedom since with all your second amendment love you have been fucked front and back by the TSA for the last decade and more. And have done nothing about it.
So you're nothing but hot air balloons. You talk the talk but don't walk the walk even with hundreds of milions of firearms freely available.
My answer to any proponent of "hate speech" legislation or "free" healthcare is to go to Europe where there are fewer freedoms and more free things which you are obgligated to pay for in the socialist caste prisons of many of those European states. Feudalism was never entirely extinguished there.
1) You pay more per capita into the health care system compared to Europeans with taxes alone. Then you pay privately on top of that.
2) You probably mean something else than feudalism because the main characteristic of feudalism is that you have an upper class that acquires more wealth from land ownership and a lower class that have no other option than to rent. That is exactly the way the US is going right now.
Stick to the "hate speech" answer and leave the other things out of it.
Except, most European nations doesn't have English as a primary language and "hate speech" doesn't translate very well. More often the laws are along the lines of "you aren't allowed to instigate murder against groups of people". (AKA anti-terrorist laws.)
Hate speech as such is more of an anglophile notion.
It gives young people an unhealthy and unreasonable idea of how fast a plumber will come to your house.
Have gnu, will travel.
"We want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online"
Says a lot when they consider information something the public needs to be kept "safe" from.
And forget scams and computer viruses. No, it's genitals (and pugs) that are the real danger!
Nevermind all those kids who grew up around livestock for the thousands of years that humans have been farming, fully exposed to sights of the reproductive cycle. They have all proven to be serious threat to humanity!
In other news, UK kids suddenly became very tech-savvy regarding VPNs, torrent (as if they didn't already) and how to spell "pornography" in various foreign language slang.
That escalated quickly.
Hey, UK: You do know this will only stop the most casual and unintelligent of underage kids from seeing porn, right?
They'll use TOR, or a VPN, or a proxy, or get access to someone else's 'porn license', and that'll just cover the actual out-and-out porn sites, it won't cover all the other sites that can have porn on them, or Torrenting porn, and so on, and so on.
Meanwhile, where are UK parents, whose job it really is supposed to be to monitor their kids' accessing of the Internet in the first place?
Let's just be frank about this, UK legislators: what you're really doing here, is trying to legislate morality. Your 'age verification' requirement is really just a 'shame factor', to discourage people from accessing pornography entirely, regardless of age, by requiring them to reveal themselves in a public setting. You're just hiding this effort behind the age-old 'think of the children!' tactic.
Then, of course, there's the age-old problem of defining what is and is not 'pornography': basically, you can't. It's literally in the eye of the beholder. So then your 'protect the children from pornography' law will be used for censorship of any number of things on the Internet that you Torries find 'objectionable'. Wonder how long it'll be, before that turns into censoring any and all criticism of the Government?
But I digress. Enjoy your wasted Taxpayer money and wasted effort. Things like this flavor of censorship have been tried before, and they never work.
Funny, I can be naked in public parks and drink beer in the streets here in Germany. Can you do that in USA?
On top of that, Internet providers are not colluded, and I have multiple decent options. The same with cellphone providers, cheap and good.
Of course, other things are more expensive, but when I broke my collar bone biking, I didn't have to pay anything for the surgery nor the physiotherapy, so you get what you pay for.
And if the VPN doesn't block the "unsuitable" content from being accessed by minors, then the UK will in turn block payments to the VPN if they refuse to institute age-check measures, regardless of the otherwise legal use case for VPN's.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
CC verification is just a "shaming" tactic.... while it may not make a difference to some people, many adults who routinely surf for porn would rather not have anyone else knowing about it.
Whether that is their own problem is irrelevant. One cannot reasonably be dismissive of that group of people without also being dismissive of privacy in general.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'