Online Pornography Age Checks To Be Mandatory in UK From 15 July (theguardian.com) 295
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to implement the checks face being blocked by UK internet service providers or having their access to payment services withdrawn.The digital minister, Margot James, welcomed the introduction of the rules, saying: "Adult content is currently far too easy for children to access online."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."
Credit card? (Score:5, Interesting)
How are they going to implement this? With credit card verification?
Re:Credit card? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's going to be implemented by moving everybody onto VPN or Tor, you know the "dark web"; one of those unforeseen consequences that is foreseen by everybody except our smooth-brained, moronic politicians.
Another unforeseen consequence - sexting selfies (Score:2)
.. unforeseen consequences ...
Another unforeseen consequences is that high school kids will find that the easiest way to get porn will be to have their classmates send sexting selfies to each other through facebook and snapchat.
Probably not what the lawmakers hoped.
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As if the spy agencies don't want people using VPNs. Guess what this is EXACTLY what they DO WANT. Get everyone routing their traffic thru some VPN or tor node in a foreign country so they can hack it or otherwise intercept the traffic somehow, all while having plausible deniability they were attempting domestic spying enjoy a nice shield against any due process or similar legal complaints or restraints that might be made on them.
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They already intercept and read every single packet that touches a router in any western nation. AT&T has a massive building dedicated to NSA taps.
Re:Credit card? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Credit card? (Score:5, Funny)
It's important to put Big Brother back into the ecosystem. In the old days you had to pay someone's Big Brother to get you this material, then the internet cut out that particular middle man.
Big Brother is back, and he's not just for booze and cigarettes!
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Basically yes. You will have to sign up to a third party verification service (like the one owned by MindGeek, no conflict of interest there...) which will require photo id.
I foresee a business opportunity. A free ad-supported porn proxy service with an endless series of domain permutations, like The Pirate Bay, running out of the commercial cloud providers all over the world (like The Pirate Bay). It's practically free money. The ads will of course be for porn.
Come to think of it, given the Great Firewalls in China and countries in the Middle East, that service probably already exists.
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Oh that's easy: just ask verification questions such as
- What's the capital of Yugoslavia?
- Difference between a pound sterling and a ruble? [1/ one is a dead currency, the other soon to be] [2/ One quid]
- What's TRON? [1/ a great movie starring Jeff Bridges from 1982] [2/ a shitty movie starring Jeff Bridges from 1982 with an unexpectedly cool sequel in 2010]
and you have your robust age verification right there.
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A couple of other things...
Nobody but your employer and government agencies have any business knowing that number, so there's plenty of people who are of age that wouldn't want to give that information out.
Two, I'm not sure how it is in the UK, but here in Canada, minors usually also have such numbers, and you aren't going to be able to correlate a such a number to anything resembling an exact enough age to know if they are a minor or not.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
The same way any sane person would (Score:2)
Oh, you mean how the gov't would implement it. Does anyone really care?
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Even a VPN overestimates the effectiveness of the block. A VPN requires a minimum level of knowledge. The first thing most people would do is look for another porn site*, of which there are sure to be a few orders of magnitude more than the block can keep up with. If that fails, then it's on to the places which are not porn sites, but which still have a ton of porn - social media sites and forums, Telegram channels, torrent sites. Finally, if that doesn't work**, then they start learning how VPNs and proxy
Re:Credit card? (Score:5, Funny)
Just like the police look for people watching TV without paying their BBC tax, a new breed of detector trucks will soon roam the streets of England.
*Knock knock knock* ..."
"Sir, we spotted you wanking without a wanker's license."
"But, but
"Don't try to deny it sir, we saw you clearly on the infrared."
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Last time it happened to me, it was the Cat Detector Van....
I never seen so many bleedin' aerials !!!!
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Re:Credit card? (Score:4, Funny)
Just say you were wanking over your hot friend on Facebook or over something posted to DeviantArt. Those sites are all exempted because they contain less than 30% porn content.
It will be interesting to see how they determine the porn content of a site, or even what content is porn. Will Victoria's Secret get blocked for using models? Is it 30% of the site content by the byte, by the page, or by how much a 13 year old could wank over?
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Categories:
Asian
BBW
Blonde
Library of Congress Archive 1
Library of Congress Archive 2
Library of Congress Archive 3
Library of Congress Archive 4
Library of Congress Archive 5
Library of Congress Archive 6
Library of Congress Archive 7
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Some authoritarian prude got trolled by this??
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I think they will notice the mistake of using automatic filters when the third or fourth fursuit wearing minister get elected.
Re:Credit card? (Score:4, Funny)
DeviantArt contains less than 30% porn content?
[Citation Needed]
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Re:Credit card? (Score:4, Funny)
I would like to apply for a wanker's license. I always aspired to become a professionally licensed wanker.
This way if there is ever an emergency, I can part the crowd and authoritatively state: "Step aside, I am a wanker. I can help".
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I always aspired to become a professionally licensed wanker.
Some of the people I work with have got awfully close.
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Re:Credit card? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, let me see if I understand this:
No one has a definition of what constitutes pornography. Like pictures in the clouds it is in the ye of the beholder.
Pornography is not illegal, per se.
Some pornography is illegal and some pornography that is legal may become illegal in the future.
The UK Government wants to sell a "license" to look at a web page based on the idea that it may contain a thing which no one can apply a concrete definition to and which, at any given time, may or may not be illegal?
SIGN ME UP!
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what an awkward montage, watch humanity go bald all over....
Re: Credit card? (Score:2)
Fuck, I've just shaved my prune sack.
Age Captcha (Score:5, Funny)
Click on all the squares that contain:
80's pop stars
Original Star-Wars trilogy special effect
Pogs
Kurt Cobain Girlfriend
Re:Age Captcha (Score:4, Funny)
That's like the age gate in the original Leisure Suit Larry game.
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You're old if you remember that.
You're ancient if you managed to actually answer the questions.
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Answers? We just kracked/cracked the game ad removed those stupid questions. :-)
Or if we were really lazy would just write down all the correct answers.
Dam kids. Now get off my LAN^H^H^H Wifi. /s
Re:Age Captcha (Score:4, Funny)
13 year old me was thwarted by the questions initially
13 year old me then asked my dad and mom "random" questions and successfully defeated the age verification lol
plus I think there was some four key combo that let you skip it anyway...how did I figure these things out without the internet? I don't even remember.
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Trial and error... It was a limited set of multiple choice answers. I'd just keep exiting and restarting the game if I got a question wrong until I could answer all of the presented questions correctly.
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It be funnier still to subvert the captcha system:
Click on all the squares that contain:
- big black cocks
- hardcore lesbian fisting
- creampies
- genital mutilation
TOR doesn't exist in the UK? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: TOR doesn't exist in the UK? (Score:2)
It'll be like the old days again. Loading one line at a time and chugging in anticipation.
so.. everybody is OK with this? (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
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I am sure the politicians are exempt from tracking.
Out of touch (Score:3)
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.
Re:Out of touch (Score:4, Funny)
It's a common occurence for kids to say that it was an accident.
Re:Out of touch (Score:4, Insightful)
As always look one step beyond. This isn't about pornography, it's a wedge to gain control over internet communication. You start, of course, by "protecting the children from pornography". You end by making people confirm their real ID before they post on, say, slashdot. The goal here is to remove anonymity. Of course it's impossible but our politicians are so thick they won't realise it's impossible until they've forced everybody into the criminal underworld.
Pervasive criminality (Score:2)
This is just another example of how you can implement tyrannical rule, in a nominally "democratic" system. Make nearly everything illegal, and everything prosecutable, to the point it is nearly impossible to go through a day without breaking some law, somehow.
Then - decide which ones to enforce, and which ones to not enforce, based on "prosecutorial discretion". Voila' - now individuals in power hold a Sword of Damocles and can mold the system to favor or discourage any sort of behavior they choose.
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You're on the same page as feminist theorists who say that rape isn't about sex, it's about violence and domination.
On the other hand, maybe rape is about sex, for some of the rapists, some of the time.
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Of course rape is about sex. It's rape. How could it not be about sex? They are not exclusive options: It can be about violence and domination and sex, all at once. Exact proportions vary.
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Giant conspiracies are stupid. I'm not a conspiracy nutter, and hate them when I see them.
But it's pretty obvious what's going on here. We have a long and varied history, at least in the US, of trying to put as many blocks and trackers on pornography as we can -- stop shops from being able to operate anywhere. Use public shaming of anyone who partakes. The absolute worst of the many over-reaching, eventually struck down laws here were sold under the "think of the children" banner, because it's a lot easier
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It's not just the US. The UK has good ground to be considered the inventors of the media-driven moral panic. We've had government attempts to crack down on porn before - and other things too. Before the internet was the fear of satellite TV, before that was the 'video nasties' panic which lead to the government going so far as to ban the sale of any and all movies that had not been classified by the national censoring authority, the BBFC. Before that there was panic over films in cinemas - and even back in
Politicians are cynical yet so naive (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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That's 'Sir Jimmy Saville OBE'.
Show your 'respect for the peerage'. _Always_ refer to him by his correct title, don't let the bastards forget. We're not done until people routinely turn down knighthoods, not wanting to be associated with such a bunch of scumbags.
BTW anybody know the letters for 'knight of Malta'? Those should be in there too. He was, at least, a 'double knight'.
The Brexit-ers were right. (Score:5, Funny)
Level headed thinking from a politician (Score:3)
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)
Re:Level headed thinking from a politician (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile... (Score:5, Insightful)
... 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!
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Yes, I thought Europeans were supposed to have more progressive ideas about the natural human form and sex. It seems you guys are just as bad as everyone here in the US.
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That escalated quickly.
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That doesn't mean he is wrong.
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Not the Christians this time. I'd love to blame them if it were, but for once, not them. They don't have much influence in British politics.
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Just the fucking Prime Minister that's imposing this puritanical bullshit.
Yes, she's a fucking superstitious fuckwit. Yes, she's doing this to impose her superstitious idiocy on the rest of us.
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The last time a Utah DA tried to claim 'community standards' the lawyer used it as a reason to supeona anonomized pron watching data from DirectTV.
They will _never_ do that again. The only parts of the USA that come close to Utah's DirectTV porn watching is the deep bible belt.
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Kids can look at tits and arse, just as long as it's not commercial, or if it is commercial it's not more than 33.3% of the site content.
I predict xHamster will implement a 2:1 ratio of lolcat and the other kind of pussy videos for UK viewers. Or how about changing the typical porn music to the British national anthem and covering half the screen with a Union Jack? Then the porn is surely less than 1/3rd of the content.
The internet isn't supposed to be "safe" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Betting... (Score:2)
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Can you buy porn passes on Ali Express yet?
How about... (Score:2)
I have an idea. Just put a credit card verification in and all those pesky teens that wanted to pay for their porn can't get it anymore.
Case closed. Let's get back to bashing each other's head in in an attempt to find out how to get out of the EU without leaving it.
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I have an idea. Just put a credit card verification in and all those pesky teens that wanted to pay for their porn can't get it anymore.
Who still pays for porn?
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The sound you hear is a Playboy magazine moving past you overhead.
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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.
You know, i really didn't call it (Score:2)
As a kid and a teenager it seemed like things were progressing. I expected that by this time we'd have rolled back our puritan attitudes and be more like Europe. Now Europe is apparently more of a puritan state than the US was and the US is worse than ever.
Re: You know, i really didn't call it (Score:2)
What's wrong with the lingerie section of the shopping catalog? That and the shower scene in Stripes was good enough for me.
End of the Anonymous Age? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You should post your real name and age when you shit on people being anonymous online, "cordova con 83"
It must be nice (Score:2)
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Au contraire!
We're living in a country with a bunch of incompetents in charge who are desperate to seek out any distraction they can find/engineer to divert attention from the chaos they've caused.
Just like almost any other country really (sigh) - though our parliament does seem to be aiming for the gold medal in stupidity and incompetence
The Chans (Score:2)
The UK think they can ban every "Chan" on the internet?
RIGHT.........
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An idea being utterly stupid, disconnected from reality and dangerous, does not stop politicians from wanting to implement it. These people think they shape reality and they all think they need more control and restrictions in place.
Google Safe Search? (Score:3)
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?
One of the consequences of demographics (Score:3)
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.
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This is the most insightful response so far.
The reasons behind this initiative have little or nothing to do with a desire to curtail free speech or start on a slippery slope to fascism or similar aims --if you just look at the UK government's track record you'd soon see it's not a beacon of planning, execution, efficiency or effectiveness -- their incompetence is a [very expensive] safety feature.
No, this is driven by the politicians' number one (only?) priority and that's re-election.
Given the state of t
Geo Block UK & EU IP Addresses (Score:4, Interesting)
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!
People trust the British government around kids? (Score:2)
Ob. Dilbert (Score:4, Funny)
https://assets.amuniversal.com... [amuniversal.com]
Porn is bad (Score:4, Funny)
It gives young people an unhealthy and unreasonable idea of how fast a plumber will come to your house.
Information is dangerous (Score:2)
"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 t
Yet more Whack-a-Mole, UK edition (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Want to bet that "robust" isn't defined anywhere? (Score:2)
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Re: Simply ways around this with VPN (Score:2)
Or, you know, reddit, twitter, instagram, underwear catalogue.
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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.
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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 nati
Re: Yey Free Speech Great Britain (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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You can drink beer basically _anywhere_, you just have to pour it into a plastic cup.
The problem with naked people in public is the people that choose to do so. (Argh, my eyes.) True on both sides of the pond.
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Not if you have good aim.
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What about a boot password and physical case lock?