Comment on UK Official Calls for Age Verification on VPNs to Prevent Porn Loophole

• ErmahgherdDavid@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  In the UK we already have a law where isps block porn by default (blacklisting) the person who took out the contract (who has to be 18 or older because they signed legal contract) can contact the isp and ask them to opt out of these blocks. That’s been a thing for about 10 years. You can own a Pay-as-you-go sim as a minor but you have to send government id to prove you are over 18 to get the adult content filtering turned off.

  That’s one of the things that made it clear to me that the new law is an authoritarian data mining operatiok and blatant power grab. Like… We already have these tools in place. If you don’t want your kid accessing porn, don’t opt out of the filters provided by your isp.

  You could argue that putting the onus on the platform is more effective at “protecting kids” than having the isps maintain blacklists but there will always be small sites that don’t comply and enterprising kids who find a way around any block. Just like the law requires you to be 18 to buy alcohol or tobacco here but there are always dodgy shops who sell tobacco to underage kids. There are brothers, uncles or heck just straight up parents willing to buy cigarettes and alcohol for underage teens.

  This was never about protecting the children. That was the Trojan horse used to justify these laws to the technically uninformed.

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