this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 159 points 6 months ago (15 children)

I hope this encourages children to learn an important life skill that will help them in numerous ways: Piracy.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 6 months ago

It's honestly stupid. They just go to less moderated sites, or if you're lucky, learn how to use a VPN and bypass all this nonsense anyway.

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Headlines next year: "VPN subscriptions in the UK up 42069% for some reason"

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago (5 children)

As a quote in the article states, porn is the canary in the coal mine - with some MPs apparently advocating for blocking VPNs to prevent work arounds.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Tell me the MPs don't understand VPN technology without telling me the MPs don't understand VPN technology.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Why listen to experts who can explain all this technology when I get it from Facebook!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

probably also haters of wfh.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Followed by headline: "Torries Criminalize VPN Use, Require Use of Torrie-Owned VPN"

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I mean, the government could tackle homelessness, or end child hunger, many appropriate subjects. But instead they want to regulate jerk-off material. Sad.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They are way more concerned with genitals than they should be.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Our genitals at that.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 6 months ago (2 children)

its always nice that they want your official id associated with your porn. i just want to see what happens when that database gets hacked.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

In case anybody needs a reminder, the UK Government's response to the Snowden Revelations that showed even more widespread surveillance of civil society in the UK than in the US was, unlike in the latter country, to pass laws that retroactivelly made the whole thing legal.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This might be a big nitpick, but "Child Protection Groups", vs "Privacy Warriors", sounds sleazy.

As positive connotations as possible on one side, vaguely negative on the other.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Didn't you know? The right to privacy somehow only protects adults and not children.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (2 children)

To conservatives, children don't have rights. You protect them like you would protect property, by putting it under lock and key.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Pretty positive this is going to end up being a DNS level block that will be as simple as setting a dns server outside of the UK to bypass.

Because anything else would create an unbelievable amount of administrative overhead.

Also imagine the spike in identity theft this is going to cause.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

China: “Hold my Tsing Tao

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago (7 children)

I'm an advocate of VPN but this is not the situation to recommend them but to chastise regulators and lawmakers for even allowing this. This is eroding our freedom of speech. I can see politicians expanding this and censoring terrorist speech and speech of certain political ideologies. It is the erosion our civil liberties we need to worry about.

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[–] otp 30 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Porn perusers will soon have to prove their age by uploading an identity document like a passport, registering a credit card, [...]

Ah, mandatory account creation with linked credit card being the most widely available and likely easiest option?

No wonder the porn sites aren't fighting this too hard!

(...or are they?)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

My guess is that some companies will greatly benefit from this regulation because they can somewhat monopolize the market. I also wouldn't be surprised if those were the ones who lobbied for this.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago

Oi yer got ye wankn loicense

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Discounting VPNs for a moment..

What if one person made an account with ID and then the entirety of the country just happened to know the login?

Usr: admin Pass: admin

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago

Ofcom wants porn consumers to "think of the children".

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

Not this shit again

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So the latest the UK can call an election and get Labor in charge is January 2025, the same month this goes into effect. Wonder if they will rush a repeal or get blamed for it starting?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Easy. Everything bad that happens before January 2025 is Gordon Brown's fault, and everything after it's Kier Starmer's. You know it's true because it says so in the Daily Mail.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Whilst I appreciate the satire of the Tories' one and only politican strategy, as the Snowden Revelations showed back then, New Labour wasn't any better in their "keeping a watchful eye on the plebes" ways.

Looking down on the rest as riff-raff that needs to be kept in place is a feature of both Tories and New Labour.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Porn perusers will soon have to prove their age by uploading an identity document like a passport, registering a credit card, presenting their face to AI-powered scanning technology, or using a handful of other methods outlined in draft guidance from the regime’s regulator, Ofcom.

Although initially missing from the U.K.’s next attempt at internet regulation, pressure from children’s charities, age verification providers and vocal parliamentarians persuaded the government to revamp the defunct regime through the Online Safety Act.

Many videos depict graphic and degrading abuse of women, sickening acts of rape and incest, and many underage participants,” Tory MP Miriam Cates, a strong advocate for the legislation, told the House of Commons in September.

Research indicates younger kids who stumble across porn accidentally can find it shocking and disturbing — although the majority of young people surveyed in a 2020 British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) report said this didn’t impact them in the long term.

But the issue is complicated: the BBFC report found that older teens said they watched porn for educational purposes, due to a lack of information about sex in schools, or for gratification, while half of the LGBTQ+ respondents said it had helped them understand and explore their sexual identity.

“The squeamishness associated with pornography has made it nearly impossible to have a mature discussion about the technical feasibility, trade-offs, and effectiveness of age verification mandates,” says Matthew Lesh, director of public policy and communications at the free-market think tank.


The original article contains 2,313 words, the summary contains 245 words. Saved 89%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Although initially missing from the U.K.’s next attempt at internet regulation, pressure from children’s charities, age verification providers and vocal parliamentarians persuaded the government to revamp the defunct regime through the Online Safety Act.

Ah, good ol' "think of the children," once again doing the heavy lifting for the morality police and state surveillance.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

pressure from [...] age verification providers

I think this is the tell that it's much stupider than any of that. It's just another corrupt Tory handout to their mates.

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