7 ms·

UK government could force ISPs to block adult sites without age verification

58 points by jsingleton 10y ago

fredley 10y ago
This is not just about porn sites, this is about any site with 'adult' material. For example, if Reddit refused to strongly identify (via a credit-card check) UK users, it too would be banned according to these rules.
- pjc50 10y ago
  And Tumblr. And various image hosts including imgur. And, of course the wellspring, 4chan. I'd like to see them try blocking Reddit. I know "accelerationism" is seldom a great idea, but I think it might actually wake people up.
  - lgieron 10y ago
    How about blocking Google search? You can easily stumble upon some nudity/porn in the image search.
  - fredley 10y ago
    Reddit could probably comply relatively easily if it chose to - by requiring AV for NSFW subreddits. Tumblr though? I doubt many of the people who wrote this bill have any idea how the internet is used these days, sadly.
    - pjc50 10y ago
      > requiring AV for NSFW subreddits Just for UK geolocated users? I dunno, it would be even more unpopular with the user base than the last round of cleanup. And it would cost them money.
      - Crespyl 10y ago
        They already implemented "quarantine" for "controversial" subreddits, such that users have to provide a valid email address to read or subscribe to them. I seem to recall some level of geoblocking for German users as well, so it's not as if it's unprecedented.
    - falcolas 10y ago
      I've seen NSFW posts show up on /r/fountainpens - which I'm sure would be enough to cause problems for Reddit under this law. How is the internet used? By Adults, by a broad majority. And adults have been drawing penises and breasts on cave walls since the beginning.
  - scholia 10y ago
    And Twitter. All the main porn companies and a lot of porn stars have Twitter accounts, and regularly post clips from porn videos.
antihero 10y ago
This is utter, utter insanity.
markharris99 10y ago
I live in the UK. I think it's really only a matter of time before they outlaw VPN or at the very least, they break the encryption so that if you do use it. They can still see what you are doing. ------- First they came for the Porn Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I didn't watch Porn. Then they came for the Torrent Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I didn't torrent. Then they came for the Bitcoin Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I didn't pay with bitcoin. Then they came for me for using VPN and there was no one left to speak for me.
- fredley 10y ago
  According to other parts of the Digital Economy Bill, it's not actually ISPs that bear the burden, it's Connection service providers, i.e. any service that provides you with a connection - including VPNs. What they'll do to VPN providers that don't comply I don't know - probably they'll find their powers rather limited.
  - jdavis703 10y ago
    How will they enforce this against foreign VPNs? Especially if those VPNs allow for payment via things like Bitcoin.
    - fredley 10y ago
      They probably won't, making this all an exercise in futility.
    - ionised 10y ago
      Yup. My VPN takes cash in the post.
  - petepete 10y ago
    So VPN providers based outside of the UK will have to be blocked and those inside the UK will suffer (or go out of business).
- witty_username 10y ago
datamoshr 10y ago
Limiting access to porn is a parents job, not a governments. As long as we keep allowing an Orwellian government to do things like this, then things won't change.
- fredley 10y ago
  Sadly this is the current UK Government's approach to many things. Drugs are bad, so must be banned (no chance of following the rest of the Western World's route to legalisation any time soon). Porn is bad, so must be banned. Never mind anyone who wants to access either of those things can get them easily, and banning them is hugely expensive and criminalises people who would probably benefit much more from some form of help or counselling. Such is our way.
  - elcct 10y ago
    It is more along the line "we like drugs, let's not plebs have it. we like porn, let's not plebs have it" and so on...
  - vixen99 10y ago
    Any possible considerations of the substantial arguments against your view seem to escape you. Moreover you pull the straw man trick by putting arguments in the mouth of dissenters to your view. This is an immensely difficult issue with strong arguments on either side; please don't trivialize it with airy condescension towards those seriously taking on board the consequences of decriminalization (for instance: http://www.dea.gov/pr/multimedia-library/publications/speaking_out.pdf http://www.dea.gov/pr/multimedia-library/publications/speaki... and there's tons more). They are not idiots.
    - jdietrich 10y ago
      Our government's drug policy is not informed, it is not considered and it is not reasonable. Exhibit A is the sacking of Professor David Nutt, who was the most senior government advisor on drugs. His scientific advice contradicted government policy, so he was replaced with someone who would toe the party line. The Home Secretary did not consult the Science Minister on this decision. After Nutt's sacking, five other members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs resigned in protest. The government has shown utter contempt for evidence on the harms of drugs. They have consistently rejected scientific evidence when it contradicts their political ideology. Their reasoning for criminalisation is facile and circular. An examination of the relationship between the Home Office and the ACMD shows this with absolute clarity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt
visarga 10y ago
Is this how democracy works? Amazing! You can override private lives by collective will.
- jdavis703 10y ago
  Democracy is just another form of tyranny. It's just the best we've found so far. Instead of a group of hundreds dictating the lives of everyone else, we at least have a plurality of the population dictating how the rest of us live, and every once in a while the people receiving the dictates get to become the dictators. There's gotta be something better out there. Perhaps having thousands of nation states with freedom of movement between them all? That ways you can pick and choose what rules you want to live under?
  - wav-part 10y ago
    > Perhaps having thousands of nation states with freedom of movement between them all? We will have Private Cities [1] before that. [1] https://fee.org/articles/private-cities-a-path-to-liberty/ https://fee.org/articles/private-cities-a-path-to-liberty/
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - visarga 10y ago
    That would be great if the nation states were well integrated together, but still separate enough to maintain their specificity. "Integration in differentiation, and differentiation in integration" - is the best way to go in order to counter the pernicious effects of cumulative power. The human brain does the same - maintain a huge population of individually differentiated neurons that are tightly integrated together.
meirelles 10y ago
Good luck on the mission of keep internet child safe. There aren't so many websites out there.
Mahn 10y ago
Yes, let's crack down on porn and make it a taboo again, that way when kids grow up into young adults they can have no idea what they're doing and catch their STDs they way it's meant to. In fact, let's protect kids from anything minimally shocking on the internet so they can grow up super sensitive to anything people do.
- dozzie 10y ago
  It's not like porn educates about sex or STDs. Your argument is invalid, even though I agree with your standpoint in general.
  - stinos 10y ago
    This. As far as I can judge it, there's way more unprotected sex then protected sex in porn so it's not going to teach anything about STDs. Apart from that: there's imo way too many porn out there which has nothing to do with realistic sex. But I agree with the sentiment: this stuff shouldn't get hidden (well, not above a certain age maybe), but kids/teens should be educated to be critical so they know what you see on the net is not exactly the way it goes in normal life.
- pluma 10y ago
  Facials are neither a way to prevent unwanted pregnancies (compared to condoms or the pill) nor does it protect against STDs. Hour-long penetration marathons are not an accurate portrayal of typical intercourse. There are many good arguments against online censorship but "porn is sex ed" isn't one of them. I'm aware that there are porn sites that are more "realistic" but it's still the wrong argument. The correct argument is: that something exists doesn't mean children will be exposed to it and that something is harder to seek out intentionally doesn't mean children won't be exposed to it. Of course the real argument is: stop trying to pass laws based on tabloid newspaper headlines.
anexprogrammer 10y ago
What's more concerning is the proposed route (via the BBFC) seems likely to return the UK to obscenity rules of the 80s. That means uncontroversial legal acts could be blocked too. From the rather more in depth Guardian piece[1] on the topic "A spokeswoman for the BBFC said it would also check whether sites host “pornographic content that we would refuse to classify”. “In making this assessment, we will apply the standards that we apply to pornography that is distributed offline,” she said. “If a website fails on either of these [age verification or obscene content] tests then a notification of non-compliance will be sent to the site.” [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/censor-non-conventional-sex-acts-online-internet-pornography https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/censor-no...
- fredley 10y ago
  Here are some of the things that will not be classified by the BBFC (resulting in a total ban/censorship): > Pictures and videos that show spanking, whipping or caning that leaves marks, and sex acts involving urination, female ejaculation or menstruation as well as sex in public, or showing more than four digits inserted into an orifice for sexual stimulation.
richmarr 10y ago
A few commenters are already saying this is the thin end of the wedge, or that any sites that don't strongly identify UK users will be effected. Realistically this isn't going to happen. The UK government often come out with annoucements like this; and pretty rapidly retreat when they realise that their proposals are impractical, or just let the idea die quietly. ISPs don't want to do this, and the BBFC (a not particularly high-tech organisation of less than a hundred people) don't have the capability to issue these notices on any significant scale, either manually or using machine learning. Does anyone know how much extra funding they're being offered to do this job? (edited to add the obviously missing word "don't" in the first sentence)
- welly 10y ago
  You took the words right out of my mouth.
  - richmarr 10y ago
    Sorry about that. My guess is that this is a poison chalice... someone lining the BBFC up to look bad, for some reason incidental to online porn.
therealidiot 10y ago
It's this kind of shit that makes me hate living here. The UK feels so backwards, I often want to leave - maybe I will? It just gets me so frustrated. But, I know that anywhere I would go will probably already (or soon) have similar policies. I don't even want to be on this damned planet, argh! Just far away from the "people in power" who keep coming up with these things. It's not even about porn, it's just the idea of age verification being required to access _any_ kind of site.
johndoe4589 10y ago
I understand the concerns but on the other hand, why is it so hard to make "defaults" while still allowing people freedom to browse whatever they want? I'd be perfectly happy for major porn sites to be blocked by default, as long as ISP customers can just go to their account online and toggle a checkbox and be done with it. Google images blocks "adult" pictures by default doesn't it? Why aren't we having the same conversation and upset with Google images? Perhaps because all it takes is toggle the filter off in the menu. Their proposal to block sites without age verification is pretty dumb though. Any kids can get through that, and it doesn't give any power to the parents to block these sites. edit: I guess as usual the difficulty is in having rules that can be clearly defined, so "age verification" just fulfills that. But if they already have laws to categorize pronography I don't see why they couldn't apply to setting up "default" filters. Especially if looking at commercial pornography sites. I think commercial ones are the most damaging because their drive for money is what pushes them to create the most extreme and dehumanizing content.
- fredley 10y ago
  In the UK, this is already the default: adult content is blocked by ISPs, unless you check a box. The percentage of people who have the box ticked roughly correlates with the percentage of households with children. This bill goes further in requiring age-verification to be run by every site serving adult content, or be blocked in the UK altogether. The reasoning is that children can still browse pornography if they are not connected to their home network, and this will stop that happening.
  - johndoe4589 10y ago
    Oh I see good point. I was thinking most public wifi networks would also leave the filter on. But then again, how does the age verification protect children? I guess they are looking at the initial "impression" (in web semantics, the initial page load and what is shown without age verification).
    - fredley 10y ago
      It protects children in households where the setting is not enabled? I have no idea. Maybe there's another motive behind this bill.
welly 10y ago
Every few months, the UK government pipes up with threats to ban porn sites or threaten to force ISPs to do this, that or the other and with almost as much regularity, those threats soon fade to nothing when they realise the magnitude of the task of doing so. I suspect this latest threat will soon fall by the wayside.
- buro9 10y ago
  You missed the bit where the IP Bill has been approved by all Houses and awaits Royal Assent: https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/investigatorypowers.html https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/investigatorypo... It's done. Pervasive surveillance is in. We have already achieved "forced ISPs to do this, that or the other".
  - welly 10y ago
    I did miss that bit. Well, how about that then. They finally put their money where their mouth is, sadly.
satysin 10y ago
So I am guessing they will also be banning all the porn on TV, in magazines, books and such as well? I mean 50 Shades of Gray is pure filth and only a depraved mind would choose to read something so disgusting and degrading to women. And to think children can buy this book at their local super market!! HORRENDOUS </sarcasm> for those who didn't get it. I am all for protecting kids from the extreme sides of porn but that is something a parent should be doing. You know like how they protect their children from drugs, alcohol, violent movies and games, the stuff kids shouldn't be exposed too. There are plenty of parental control systems available for computers to prevent accidental exposure (not perfect but good enough) should a parent want a more automated solution. But putting the government in control of picking what is acceptable porn for consenting adults and what is not is not the solution. I am a 30-something male. I have a wife. I look at porn. Big deal. People act like they don't care about porn but if that were true it wouldn't be such a huge business. Enough people pay for the crappy porn you get on TV for it to be a profitable business for god sake. Literally everybody looks at porn and I would be more worried about those who don't than those who do. This is a terrible step down a dangerous path and of course it is wrapped up in a "think of the children!" spin.
- EliRivers 10y ago
  I would actually be in favour of banning Fifty Shades. It was awful. The only good thing about it were some of the reviews that went to town on it :)
  - stratosphere 10y ago
    I'm for banning whatever you like then.
    - EliRivers 10y ago
      Fittingly, your inability to partake in conversations beyond the strictly literal, combined with your kneejerk Daily Mail style reactions, renders you exactly the target audience for "literature" on the level of Fifty Shades.
  - 10y ago
dest 10y ago
Despite all the concerns about freedom of speech, it could be a good opportunity for the offline porn market, with relatively higher margins because of the artificial scarcity.
- martin-adams 10y ago
  I see you have your entrepreneur hat on
junto 10y ago
The problem of children accessing adult content either on purpose or by accident is a challenging one. The UK government sees this as a "sex shop" problem, where adult material is hidden behind a door where under 18's are not showed to enter. Most of us would agree that the responsibility for our children's internet access falls on the parents shoulders, but since the vast majority of children are much more tech savvy than their parents, and they have smartphones that are difficult to lock down, parents are failing to protect their children. The NSPCC study that was linked illustrates that point. The question is, how do we solve the problem? My preference would be to opt in with service provider to block known porn content, but blacklists are flimsy. Also, there are websites like reddit that offer a variety of content that spans various subjects, including porn subreddits. Can my child access the Minecraft subreddit? It's a pretty easy jump to NSFW material. OpenDNS used to have some pretty good content blocking tools, but a smart kid is going to figure out how to switch their DNS settings to use Google instead. It's a whack a mole problem where established websites will suffer, and we'll new porn sites popping up even more frequently than they do now, with ISP's playing a constant game of catch up.
- notgood 10y ago
  Protect their children? Has there been any study that children need this "protection" you speak of? I was able to get hold on porn videos when I was a teenager, despite not having internet at home or somewhere else. At the end, the only way forward is to speak with your children, it has nothing to do with firewalls.
  - junto 10y ago
    >Protect their children? Has there been any study that children need this "protection" you speak of? I was able to get hold on porn videos when I was a teenager, despite not having internet at home or somewhere else. At the end, the only way forward is to speak with your children, it has nothing to do with firewalls. I was referring to this part of the article: >The government said its new rules were based on studies that suggest viewing pornography at a young age can have detrimental effects on future adult relationships. A survey from the NSPCC found that nearly half of 11-16-year-olds had accessed an adult site and one in five 11-17-year-olds said that they had seen images that had shocked or upset them. The reality is that even younger children are now regularly accessing the internet and they are able to access pornographic content by accident. When it comes to young children, what exactly are you expecting parents to talk to them about? These are children who haven't reached the age where they have had any education regarding sexual activity, but they can still use an iPad or a laptop. Here is a classic example of inappropriate advertising in a children's iOS application: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/advertising/explicit-porn-advert-banned-after-appearing-in-talking-tom-app-used-by-children-10310701.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/advertising/explicit... As a parent of young children I do want to be able to restrict their access to the certain parts of the internet, in exactly the same way that I wouldn't let them watch an age-inappropriate movie. It's an entirely different scenario to you as a teenager seeking out pornographic videos. The point is that young children can stumble into a "virtual sex shop" or a "virtual strip club", whilst in real life they can't - they are barred from entry.
a_imho 10y ago
Maybe that is because I was a child once, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with children accessing adult sites, even if it is a self contradictory sentence. I hope the Lovejoys will censor youtube too, I see too much swearing by top youtubers nowadays.
yup123 10y ago
Why is anyone surprised, Governments have the power to do this, if you don't like it, take that power back. On one side you have people asking Governments to ban Games like GTA, on the other you have people who are surprised Governments use the power they have to "protect the children". Only solution to this i think is to limit Govt's power and The majority of people using a constitution.
iuewwiu 10y ago
I've seen images on the Netflix front page I wish I hadn't! Back in the early days of the web it was a funny game for colleagues to email links to "hilariously" revolting images. This is a "know it when you see it" problem. What about art ? Bosch for instance...is that suitable for kids ? I think it's a healthy satirical commentary on human nature. It's what we read too. I've read things in forums, out of nowhere, and suddenly I know something I wish I didn't know. That's life. Maybe AI's can help ?
throwaway2016a 10y ago
Logistically this is a difficult problem to solve. I know when I was a kid I had absolutely no problem getting into websites I wasn't supposed to be in. Most of them were as simple as just lying and saying I was born twenty years earlier. I also had no problem finding people's stash of Playboy magazines (oh? You think I can't reach that shelf?). So do you use something that has your name attached to it like a national ID or credit card? One, credit cards can be stolen, and secondly having to give your real name to these websites will have a cooling effect even among legal adults (although that might be part of the idea). And then, what about websites that aren't hosted in the UK? Does UK have something similar to the great firewall of China or are they just planning on building one for this?

58 points by jsingleton 10y ago

This is not just about porn sites, this is about any site with 'adult' material. For example, if Reddit refused to strongly identify (via a credit-card check) UK users, it too would be banned according to these rules.

pjc50 10y ago
And Tumblr. And various image hosts including imgur. And, of course the wellspring, 4chan. I'd like to see them try blocking Reddit. I know "accelerationism" is seldom a great idea, but I think it might actually wake people up.
- lgieron 10y ago
  How about blocking Google search? You can easily stumble upon some nudity/porn in the image search.
- fredley 10y ago
  Reddit could probably comply relatively easily if it chose to - by requiring AV for NSFW subreddits. Tumblr though? I doubt many of the people who wrote this bill have any idea how the internet is used these days, sadly.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    > requiring AV for NSFW subreddits Just for UK geolocated users? I dunno, it would be even more unpopular with the user base than the last round of cleanup. And it would cost them money.
    - Crespyl 10y ago
      They already implemented "quarantine" for "controversial" subreddits, such that users have to provide a valid email address to read or subscribe to them. I seem to recall some level of geoblocking for German users as well, so it's not as if it's unprecedented.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    I've seen NSFW posts show up on /r/fountainpens - which I'm sure would be enough to cause problems for Reddit under this law. How is the internet used? By Adults, by a broad majority. And adults have been drawing penises and breasts on cave walls since the beginning.
- scholia 10y ago
  And Twitter. All the main porn companies and a lot of porn stars have Twitter accounts, and regularly post clips from porn videos.

antihero 10y ago

This is utter, utter insanity.

markharris99 10y ago

I live in the UK. I think it's really only a matter of time before they outlaw VPN or at the very least, they break the encryption so that if you do use it. They can still see what you are doing. ------- First they came for the Porn Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I didn't watch Porn. Then they came for the Torrent Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I didn't torrent. Then they came for the Bitcoin Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I didn't pay with bitcoin. Then they came for me for using VPN and there was no one left to speak for me.

fredley 10y ago
According to other parts of the Digital Economy Bill, it's not actually ISPs that bear the burden, it's Connection service providers, i.e. any service that provides you with a connection - including VPNs. What they'll do to VPN providers that don't comply I don't know - probably they'll find their powers rather limited.
- jdavis703 10y ago
  How will they enforce this against foreign VPNs? Especially if those VPNs allow for payment via things like Bitcoin.
  - fredley 10y ago
    They probably won't, making this all an exercise in futility.
  - ionised 10y ago
    Yup. My VPN takes cash in the post.
- petepete 10y ago
  So VPN providers based outside of the UK will have to be blocked and those inside the UK will suffer (or go out of business).
witty_username 10y ago

datamoshr 10y ago

Limiting access to porn is a parents job, not a governments. As long as we keep allowing an Orwellian government to do things like this, then things won't change.

fredley 10y ago
Sadly this is the current UK Government's approach to many things. Drugs are bad, so must be banned (no chance of following the rest of the Western World's route to legalisation any time soon). Porn is bad, so must be banned. Never mind anyone who wants to access either of those things can get them easily, and banning them is hugely expensive and criminalises people who would probably benefit much more from some form of help or counselling. Such is our way.
- elcct 10y ago
  It is more along the line "we like drugs, let's not plebs have it. we like porn, let's not plebs have it" and so on...
- vixen99 10y ago
  Any possible considerations of the substantial arguments against your view seem to escape you. Moreover you pull the straw man trick by putting arguments in the mouth of dissenters to your view. This is an immensely difficult issue with strong arguments on either side; please don't trivialize it with airy condescension towards those seriously taking on board the consequences of decriminalization (for instance: http://www.dea.gov/pr/multimedia-library/publications/speaking_out.pdf http://www.dea.gov/pr/multimedia-library/publications/speaki... and there's tons more). They are not idiots.
  - jdietrich 10y ago
    Our government's drug policy is not informed, it is not considered and it is not reasonable. Exhibit A is the sacking of Professor David Nutt, who was the most senior government advisor on drugs. His scientific advice contradicted government policy, so he was replaced with someone who would toe the party line. The Home Secretary did not consult the Science Minister on this decision. After Nutt's sacking, five other members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs resigned in protest. The government has shown utter contempt for evidence on the harms of drugs. They have consistently rejected scientific evidence when it contradicts their political ideology. Their reasoning for criminalisation is facile and circular. An examination of the relationship between the Home Office and the ACMD shows this with absolute clarity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt

visarga 10y ago

Is this how democracy works? Amazing! You can override private lives by collective will.

jdavis703 10y ago
Democracy is just another form of tyranny. It's just the best we've found so far. Instead of a group of hundreds dictating the lives of everyone else, we at least have a plurality of the population dictating how the rest of us live, and every once in a while the people receiving the dictates get to become the dictators. There's gotta be something better out there. Perhaps having thousands of nation states with freedom of movement between them all? That ways you can pick and choose what rules you want to live under?
- wav-part 10y ago
  > Perhaps having thousands of nation states with freedom of movement between them all? We will have Private Cities [1] before that. [1] https://fee.org/articles/private-cities-a-path-to-liberty/ https://fee.org/articles/private-cities-a-path-to-liberty/
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- visarga 10y ago
  That would be great if the nation states were well integrated together, but still separate enough to maintain their specificity. "Integration in differentiation, and differentiation in integration" - is the best way to go in order to counter the pernicious effects of cumulative power. The human brain does the same - maintain a huge population of individually differentiated neurons that are tightly integrated together.

meirelles 10y ago

Good luck on the mission of keep internet child safe. There aren't so many websites out there.

Mahn 10y ago

Yes, let's crack down on porn and make it a taboo again, that way when kids grow up into young adults they can have no idea what they're doing and catch their STDs they way it's meant to. In fact, let's protect kids from anything minimally shocking on the internet so they can grow up super sensitive to anything people do.

dozzie 10y ago
It's not like porn educates about sex or STDs. Your argument is invalid, even though I agree with your standpoint in general.
- stinos 10y ago
  This. As far as I can judge it, there's way more unprotected sex then protected sex in porn so it's not going to teach anything about STDs. Apart from that: there's imo way too many porn out there which has nothing to do with realistic sex. But I agree with the sentiment: this stuff shouldn't get hidden (well, not above a certain age maybe), but kids/teens should be educated to be critical so they know what you see on the net is not exactly the way it goes in normal life.
pluma 10y ago
Facials are neither a way to prevent unwanted pregnancies (compared to condoms or the pill) nor does it protect against STDs. Hour-long penetration marathons are not an accurate portrayal of typical intercourse. There are many good arguments against online censorship but "porn is sex ed" isn't one of them. I'm aware that there are porn sites that are more "realistic" but it's still the wrong argument. The correct argument is: that something exists doesn't mean children will be exposed to it and that something is harder to seek out intentionally doesn't mean children won't be exposed to it. Of course the real argument is: stop trying to pass laws based on tabloid newspaper headlines.

anexprogrammer 10y ago

What's more concerning is the proposed route (via the BBFC) seems likely to return the UK to obscenity rules of the 80s. That means uncontroversial legal acts could be blocked too. From the rather more in depth Guardian piece[1] on the topic "A spokeswoman for the BBFC said it would also check whether sites host “pornographic content that we would refuse to classify”. “In making this assessment, we will apply the standards that we apply to pornography that is distributed offline,” she said. “If a website fails on either of these [age verification or obscene content] tests then a notification of non-compliance will be sent to the site.” [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/censor-non-conventional-sex-acts-online-internet-pornography https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/censor-no...

fredley 10y ago
Here are some of the things that will not be classified by the BBFC (resulting in a total ban/censorship): > Pictures and videos that show spanking, whipping or caning that leaves marks, and sex acts involving urination, female ejaculation or menstruation as well as sex in public, or showing more than four digits inserted into an orifice for sexual stimulation.

richmarr 10y ago

A few commenters are already saying this is the thin end of the wedge, or that any sites that don't strongly identify UK users will be effected. Realistically this isn't going to happen. The UK government often come out with annoucements like this; and pretty rapidly retreat when they realise that their proposals are impractical, or just let the idea die quietly. ISPs don't want to do this, and the BBFC (a not particularly high-tech organisation of less than a hundred people) don't have the capability to issue these notices on any significant scale, either manually or using machine learning. Does anyone know how much extra funding they're being offered to do this job? (edited to add the obviously missing word "don't" in the first sentence)

welly 10y ago
You took the words right out of my mouth.
- richmarr 10y ago
  Sorry about that. My guess is that this is a poison chalice... someone lining the BBFC up to look bad, for some reason incidental to online porn.

therealidiot 10y ago

It's this kind of shit that makes me hate living here. The UK feels so backwards, I often want to leave - maybe I will? It just gets me so frustrated. But, I know that anywhere I would go will probably already (or soon) have similar policies. I don't even want to be on this damned planet, argh! Just far away from the "people in power" who keep coming up with these things. It's not even about porn, it's just the idea of age verification being required to access _any_ kind of site.

johndoe4589 10y ago

I understand the concerns but on the other hand, why is it so hard to make "defaults" while still allowing people freedom to browse whatever they want? I'd be perfectly happy for major porn sites to be blocked by default, as long as ISP customers can just go to their account online and toggle a checkbox and be done with it. Google images blocks "adult" pictures by default doesn't it? Why aren't we having the same conversation and upset with Google images? Perhaps because all it takes is toggle the filter off in the menu. Their proposal to block sites without age verification is pretty dumb though. Any kids can get through that, and it doesn't give any power to the parents to block these sites. edit: I guess as usual the difficulty is in having rules that can be clearly defined, so "age verification" just fulfills that. But if they already have laws to categorize pronography I don't see why they couldn't apply to setting up "default" filters. Especially if looking at commercial pornography sites. I think commercial ones are the most damaging because their drive for money is what pushes them to create the most extreme and dehumanizing content.

fredley 10y ago
In the UK, this is already the default: adult content is blocked by ISPs, unless you check a box. The percentage of people who have the box ticked roughly correlates with the percentage of households with children. This bill goes further in requiring age-verification to be run by every site serving adult content, or be blocked in the UK altogether. The reasoning is that children can still browse pornography if they are not connected to their home network, and this will stop that happening.
- johndoe4589 10y ago
  Oh I see good point. I was thinking most public wifi networks would also leave the filter on. But then again, how does the age verification protect children? I guess they are looking at the initial "impression" (in web semantics, the initial page load and what is shown without age verification).
  - fredley 10y ago
    It protects children in households where the setting is not enabled? I have no idea. Maybe there's another motive behind this bill.

welly 10y ago

Every few months, the UK government pipes up with threats to ban porn sites or threaten to force ISPs to do this, that or the other and with almost as much regularity, those threats soon fade to nothing when they realise the magnitude of the task of doing so. I suspect this latest threat will soon fall by the wayside.

buro9 10y ago
You missed the bit where the IP Bill has been approved by all Houses and awaits Royal Assent: https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/investigatorypowers.html https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/investigatorypo... It's done. Pervasive surveillance is in. We have already achieved "forced ISPs to do this, that or the other".
- welly 10y ago
  I did miss that bit. Well, how about that then. They finally put their money where their mouth is, sadly.

satysin 10y ago

So I am guessing they will also be banning all the porn on TV, in magazines, books and such as well? I mean 50 Shades of Gray is pure filth and only a depraved mind would choose to read something so disgusting and degrading to women. And to think children can buy this book at their local super market!! HORRENDOUS </sarcasm> for those who didn't get it. I am all for protecting kids from the extreme sides of porn but that is something a parent should be doing. You know like how they protect their children from drugs, alcohol, violent movies and games, the stuff kids shouldn't be exposed too. There are plenty of parental control systems available for computers to prevent accidental exposure (not perfect but good enough) should a parent want a more automated solution. But putting the government in control of picking what is acceptable porn for consenting adults and what is not is not the solution. I am a 30-something male. I have a wife. I look at porn. Big deal. People act like they don't care about porn but if that were true it wouldn't be such a huge business. Enough people pay for the crappy porn you get on TV for it to be a profitable business for god sake. Literally everybody looks at porn and I would be more worried about those who don't than those who do. This is a terrible step down a dangerous path and of course it is wrapped up in a "think of the children!" spin.

EliRivers 10y ago
I would actually be in favour of banning Fifty Shades. It was awful. The only good thing about it were some of the reviews that went to town on it :)
- stratosphere 10y ago
  I'm for banning whatever you like then.
  - EliRivers 10y ago
    Fittingly, your inability to partake in conversations beyond the strictly literal, combined with your kneejerk Daily Mail style reactions, renders you exactly the target audience for "literature" on the level of Fifty Shades.
- 10y ago

dest 10y ago

Despite all the concerns about freedom of speech, it could be a good opportunity for the offline porn market, with relatively higher margins because of the artificial scarcity.

martin-adams 10y ago
I see you have your entrepreneur hat on

junto 10y ago

The problem of children accessing adult content either on purpose or by accident is a challenging one. The UK government sees this as a "sex shop" problem, where adult material is hidden behind a door where under 18's are not showed to enter. Most of us would agree that the responsibility for our children's internet access falls on the parents shoulders, but since the vast majority of children are much more tech savvy than their parents, and they have smartphones that are difficult to lock down, parents are failing to protect their children. The NSPCC study that was linked illustrates that point. The question is, how do we solve the problem? My preference would be to opt in with service provider to block known porn content, but blacklists are flimsy. Also, there are websites like reddit that offer a variety of content that spans various subjects, including porn subreddits. Can my child access the Minecraft subreddit? It's a pretty easy jump to NSFW material. OpenDNS used to have some pretty good content blocking tools, but a smart kid is going to figure out how to switch their DNS settings to use Google instead. It's a whack a mole problem where established websites will suffer, and we'll new porn sites popping up even more frequently than they do now, with ISP's playing a constant game of catch up.

notgood 10y ago
Protect their children? Has there been any study that children need this "protection" you speak of? I was able to get hold on porn videos when I was a teenager, despite not having internet at home or somewhere else. At the end, the only way forward is to speak with your children, it has nothing to do with firewalls.
- junto 10y ago
  >Protect their children? Has there been any study that children need this "protection" you speak of? I was able to get hold on porn videos when I was a teenager, despite not having internet at home or somewhere else. At the end, the only way forward is to speak with your children, it has nothing to do with firewalls. I was referring to this part of the article: >The government said its new rules were based on studies that suggest viewing pornography at a young age can have detrimental effects on future adult relationships. A survey from the NSPCC found that nearly half of 11-16-year-olds had accessed an adult site and one in five 11-17-year-olds said that they had seen images that had shocked or upset them. The reality is that even younger children are now regularly accessing the internet and they are able to access pornographic content by accident. When it comes to young children, what exactly are you expecting parents to talk to them about? These are children who haven't reached the age where they have had any education regarding sexual activity, but they can still use an iPad or a laptop. Here is a classic example of inappropriate advertising in a children's iOS application: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/advertising/explicit-porn-advert-banned-after-appearing-in-talking-tom-app-used-by-children-10310701.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/advertising/explicit... As a parent of young children I do want to be able to restrict their access to the certain parts of the internet, in exactly the same way that I wouldn't let them watch an age-inappropriate movie. It's an entirely different scenario to you as a teenager seeking out pornographic videos. The point is that young children can stumble into a "virtual sex shop" or a "virtual strip club", whilst in real life they can't - they are barred from entry.

a_imho 10y ago

Maybe that is because I was a child once, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with children accessing adult sites, even if it is a self contradictory sentence. I hope the Lovejoys will censor youtube too, I see too much swearing by top youtubers nowadays.

yup123 10y ago

Why is anyone surprised, Governments have the power to do this, if you don't like it, take that power back. On one side you have people asking Governments to ban Games like GTA, on the other you have people who are surprised Governments use the power they have to "protect the children". Only solution to this i think is to limit Govt's power and The majority of people using a constitution.

iuewwiu 10y ago

I've seen images on the Netflix front page I wish I hadn't! Back in the early days of the web it was a funny game for colleagues to email links to "hilariously" revolting images. This is a "know it when you see it" problem. What about art ? Bosch for instance...is that suitable for kids ? I think it's a healthy satirical commentary on human nature. It's what we read too. I've read things in forums, out of nowhere, and suddenly I know something I wish I didn't know. That's life. Maybe AI's can help ?

throwaway2016a 10y ago

Logistically this is a difficult problem to solve. I know when I was a kid I had absolutely no problem getting into websites I wasn't supposed to be in. Most of them were as simple as just lying and saying I was born twenty years earlier. I also had no problem finding people's stash of Playboy magazines (oh? You think I can't reach that shelf?). So do you use something that has your name attached to it like a national ID or credit card? One, credit cards can be stolen, and secondly having to give your real name to these websites will have a cooling effect even among legal adults (although that might be part of the idea). And then, what about websites that aren't hosted in the UK? Does UK have something similar to the great firewall of China or are they just planning on building one for this?