Summary

Under the UK’s Online Safety Act, all websites hosting pornography, including social media platforms, must implement “robust” age verification methods, such as photo ID or credit card checks, for UK users by July.

Regulator Ofcom claims this is to prevent children from accessing explicit content, as research shows many are exposed as young as nine.

Critics, including privacy groups and porn sites, warn the measures could drive users to less-regulated parts of the internet, raising safety and privacy concerns.

  • janNatan
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    15 hours ago

    This is why we need decentralized, open source porn websites.

    So, head on over to LemmyNSFW.com and upload a pic of your junk.

  • atro_city@fedia.io
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    14 hours ago

    I thought this was a USAmerican headline, but it’s the UK 🤣 There will be another spike in VPN purchases, won’t there? (Probably Proton VPN if people haven’t read about their pro-MAGA stance).

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      12 hours ago

      Germany had these kinds of laws since before the internet, that is, “are you 18?” questions simply weren’t judged adequate to fulfil the pre-existing requirements.

      Net result is that there’s no German porn sites, and the big search engines filter their results. Which doesn’t mean that you can’t get porn everywhere, it just means that kids are learning a particular subset of the English lexicon quite early once they seek it out which is perfectly fine under German law as with anything youth protection it’s not supposed to stop determined kids, once they’re determined they’re individually old enough, it’s supposed to limit casual exposure.

      The distinction Germany makes is “targeted at a German market/audience”. So if your domain isn’t on .de, if your payment options aren’t Germany-specific, ideally if you don’t even have a German UI translation, none of that stuff applies to you. Authorities will just ignore you.

      Unless the UK is going down the Saudi route of blocking foreign sites, the exact same thing will happen. There’s always going to be some jurisdiction with lax youth protection laws where porn sites can set up their legal headquarters.

    • filcuk@lemmy.zip
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      12 hours ago

      UK may be taking a slightly different path, but we’ll both end up in the same shithole at the end. Incredible.

  • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    We’re really globally going to return to the pre-WWII status quo, aren’t we?

    The past 50+ years were an anomaly in humanity’s development, but we all collectively fell for the idea that it was, and would remain, the norm.

    How wrong we were.

  • TommySoda@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Honestly I never understood this. I grew up with the internet so I’ve always had access to porn from a young age (If anything it was even easier back than). And pretty much everyone that’s 35 years or younger did as well and I’d say generally we all turned out fine. At least not any worse off than any other generation. And honestly the only negative side effect it had on me was having unrealistic expectations the first time I actually had sex.

    • lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 hours ago

      It makes a lot more sense when you look at it in context, particularly in regards to trans and all LGBTQ+ people. These transphobic governments consider simply existing as trans to be pornographic, so they are trying to block access to educational information on us, while also compiling a list of anyone who does. It’s the exact same shit America is trying to do with KOSA

    • galaskorz@discuss.online
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      17 hours ago

      I had the same expectations about love, so maybe we should ban romantic movies for giving people a false expectation of what romantic relationships are actually like.

      • TommySoda@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        Dude same. I fucked up a lot of potential relationships when I was younger because I expected it to “be like the movies.”

    • Yprum@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Yeah, and actually I would say with confidence we are actually better off. It’s true that unrealistic expectations is a big issue (well, might be more like, I think most realize that porn is not real after experiencing it so it’s not a big problem really for most), but at least we do have a good understanding of the possibilities and what is safe and what is not… At the very least we have a more openminded and informed point of view on sex and relationships. Which doesn’t mean either “let’s show porn to the kids” of course, but it’s such an overblown topic in society.

      Let parents be the responsible ones of what kids watch, not the webpages…

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      15 hours ago

      Every once in a while I hear boomers waxing poetic about the wholesome days of old nudie mags.

      Well, I happen know the boomer’s own parents were plenty outraged by them, actually. And, have you ever read one of those? The copy is pretty damn disrespectful about the women appearing therein, as were the men running the show.

  • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    so…why the sudden pressure to track porn usage to IDs?

    ohhh…the homosexuals.

    this is good news. it means they don’t already have a database of all the lgbtq+ communities.

    I wonder if there’s any crime committed if you sign up your local conservative politician for gay porn or monthly dildos. maybe even abortion drugs while you’re at it.

    • InFerNo
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      11 hours ago

      Majority of people are like that Hank Hill meme about jpegs, they don’t know what the hell a VPN is.

  • Luckiesock@lemm.ee
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    18 hours ago

    Okay chief. How bout you verify the ID’S of UK politicians who visit Asia for kids?

  • LNRDrone@sopuli.xyz
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    16 hours ago

    I expect this to go just as well as for the US states that implemented similar laws. So basically anyone in the UK is blocked access and will just have to use a VPN for porn. Any kind of recording of IDs is obviously a huge security risk for everyone involved, and it doesn’t really make sense for porn sites to open themselves for that.

  • RangerJosie@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    What is it with western countries thinking they can bureaucracy their way through any issue.

    This won’t stop anything. Won’t even slow it down. Just teach people how to navigate the net better.

    • galaskorz@discuss.online
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      17 hours ago

      You mean like Eastern countries that right out ban and arrest people for making porn, like erotic fiction stories? Such freedom. Such navigation. Such teaching.

  • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Would this be an appropriate cultural moment to pimp FUTO ID or something similar for (I think?) legitimate human online verification?