And when this measure fails to protect children and, instead, becomes a data security nightmare, another scheme will be proposed to further erode the freedoms the web brings.
I look forward to hearing about the workarounds kids find.
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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I look forward to hearing about the workarounds kids find.
Look no further, the workaround is the humble VPN. The kids that found that work around are 50+ now lmao
You don't even need a VPN. Only the legit sites will play ball. Porn will still be there.
So all of the mainstream porn will be blocked, leaving all of the niche and special-interest stuff available? Excellent, excellent...
Interestingly there are noticeable absences from that list.
Perhaps that's by design, there's no reason the politicians would make their own lives more difficult.
If UK really wanted to protect the kids, they would've jailed Transphobe JK Rowings for hate crime
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Oh no. Some hackers hacked out database and released all the ID information on high profile people. Oh such whoopsie, we made.
- Adult Websites
I'm sure the most rigorous of data safety standards will be followed. After all they're being forced to do this I'm sure they won't take the cheapest possible route. Oh definitely not.
Depends entirely on how it's implemented, because the website doesn't need to know who you are, only verify that you are over 18. Which can be done reasonably securely - you generate a random ID on a secure service (e.g here in Finland, we use our online banking stuff for official verification purposes), give that ID to the website, and the only communication between the two of them is "Is id 123 valid and an adult? Yes/No".
Now, if that "secure service", most likely a government contract done as cheaply as possible turns out not to be, and they keep logs linking those IDs to the URLs requesting verification, then the entire thing goes belly up.
Zero Knowledge is more secure. Government signs a credential confirming date of birth and gives that to the citizen.
Citizen can then use that to create a proof they were born before date X. Verifier only sees the proof and the Government signature.
No need to trust 3rd party websites.
The problem there is that requires the government to do some of the work, and they don't want to. They want to sell this to the public as them being tough, but they definitely don't want it to cost any money.
This will be implemented in the most sketchy short-sighted way possible, I guarantee it
I would never touch any of these telemetry websites anymore because this is definitely going to be used to fingerprint you.
The dob credential could verified and issued by anyone. But you may have more confidence in a government signature than a private company or known individual.
I was basically after that same concept - create that credential, and have the website only verify it's legit and nothing else.
I think my example of how it's currently done for basically everything in Finland just confused people, I wasn't suggesting every country implements adult age checks with their banks.
So your bank now knows you accessed certain websites. And likely one or more middleware services. And you are okay with that?
Was an example of the security, not who is running the service. But I mean, guess who knows if you pay for OnlyFans or stuff like that?
Your bank.
And like I said, it's only really secure if the service doesn't keep a database of logs connecting the two.
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This feel strangely like it has little to do with actually protecting kids...
It's more about penetrating your privacy but think of the children is the go-to argument to sugar-coat that.
Someone should be asking what the sentence will be for kids who commit identity fraud and use someone else's ID to set up an account. It may flip the narrative to point out they are intentionally creating more criminal acts that will get kids in trouble with the law and possibly ruin lives.
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Well they should at least give me a reach around if they are going to penetrate my privacy.
It's about making LGBTQ content "adult only" and using this same mechanism to enforce ID law on that content. They've been doing it in some USA states for a few years now. No one wants to be the Porn Politician that votes against it.
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mastodon has porn and you don't even need an account to use search. also, this will just drive people to use sketchy sites that won't follow the rules.
You can literally find porn on search engines. Google images is a bit restrictive but Bing, Duckduckgo etc will straight up show porn in the image or video searches.
“PrOtEcT ThE ChiLdReN! 👆🏻🥴”
I can not hear that anymore!
Children need awareness, rather than shielding, concealment and tabooing.
silver lining, the kinks of the future are gonna be sooo fucked up.
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I'm disappointed that Pornhub is apparently capitulating instead of blocking access entirely in protest, like they've done in other jurisdictions.
I think they realized that they won't get the jurisdiction to bend on this one, and the general response from UK government will be "good riddance to bad rubbish".
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If your kid has half a brain he'll do what we did as kids when porn sites were blocked on the home WiFi: He'll just get a VPN.
And when VPN websites were blocked on the home WiFi, we'd just download their apps on mobile data.
Where there's a will, there's a way.
Better to educate your kids on their natural urges and letting them use the more moderated sites than have them go down the more dodgy rabbitholes. No kink shaming but some of the things people do are nasty.
Garbage. This info will be weaponized by anyone who is willing to buy it.
So much for being better than the US. Welcome to the downfall of modern society UK.
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VPN subs will be up and UK viewership will be nonexistent
So people too young or too privacy conscious to use those major platforms will move to nicher porn sites. Doesn't sound like a bad idea at all... /s
I wonder what a fake beard or mustache does as far as fooling the machine goes?
don't the uk have a history of straight up putting porn in print magazines and on free television every day?
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Are they going to add a box to enter your age like on Steam that you immediately roll back to 1st January 1901?
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