Part of me wants every website to do this. The UK just gets blocked from majority of the internet then people in the UK can get angry and rebel.
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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So of all the fucking things to restrict, why this? Facebook is a hundred times more dangerous than any porn. Ban that shit instead.
Because it’s something where the current government can claim they’re “doing something” or “addressing a real problem” but it also doesn’t threaten the rich and powerful.
Going after Facebook would threaten the rich and powerful, for who it is an important tool for manipulating people, who think they can use it to mold culture to what they want it to be my breaking the minds of children.
The current UK government is desperate to say to the public that they’re governing and fixing problems, but they also really don’t want to piss off the rich and powerful.
because Facebook is an abstract danger, porn is (relatively) well defined
I don't understand how this is a controversial opinion, but maybe parents should actually parent their children instead of expecting the Internet or the government to decide what their kids should see for them? Maybe talk to your kid about safe and ethical sex, the dangers of porn addiction, and not to take anything away from pornographic content instead? Maybe we shouldn't be giving children smartphones and tablets with unfettered internet access in the first place instead of spending time with them? Wild concepts I know.
because these laws aren't about protecting children they're about elimination of access to things the government doesn't like... like queer spaces
This, right here. It's like Nixon's "war on drugs" that went on, and on, and on... The goal was not drugs, per-se, but to use drugs as a pretense to police people of color.
And giving them sweeping ability to track everybody via their identity papers, to see what websites and services they're using, what all their online identities are, etc.
They claim the info isn't being saved or passed on to the government to form a big surveillance database to one day use against people - sure, it's legal to, say, be gay or a socialist or of a particular religion today, but societies and regimes change, and the info they collect on you today may become ammunition against you in 10, 20, 40 years time.
But I don't for a moment believe their obvious lies.
This is nothing but authoritarian police state monitoring and control. It's extremely obvious. Yet, who are we to vote for in the next election? Not Labour, thanks to this (and a few other big reasons perhaps), not the Tories because, well, you've seen what they're like.
It's not impossible for a third party to be elected of course, not as impossible as places like the USA that have a very worryingly solidified two party system, it's just very unlikely.
Knowing the British people and their seeming apathy and poor judgement at scale these days I wouldn't be surprised if they elect the racist bigots at Reform - who ironically would be even more authoritarian and evil than what we have now.
As usual, there's no hope for the future and no possibility of good outcomes.
Humanity is doomed to repeat it's failures for all of history again and again, and we're just along for the miserable ride.
The general apathy and disdain for noncomformity (the hatred protestors get is absurd) really does let their government stomp all over them. IIRC BBC goes out of their way to not cover protests in their own back yard, or anything that may be critical of the crown
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I've been saying this a couple places recently, but why not pass legislation requiring every site to provide a content rating. Then parents can choose if they want to restrict content by ratings or not. Yeah, you could have malicious actors, but it makes it easier and simpler for everyone to work than having ID laws.
But that would actually solve the problem and not enable massive government overreach. We can't have that.
I imagine it would work about as well as YouTube Kids would.
Which is to say not at all
My 5 year old son does have access to an android tablet, but i restrict, selectively, what he can do on it and time limit his usage so it locks down after a few hours. I curate his youtube and frequently spend time watching kids content to decide if i want him watching it. If its good and educational i will share it to his kids youtube account. He cant browse the web, he cant buy things on the play stores. He has to get me to approve any app install and i will always install first and play to ensure it safe.
Its hard work, but its worth it to protect him online. And this has lead to it just being another one of his toys, it doesnt absorb his whole existence. He can take it or leave it. Which i am chuffed about.
When he is older and i can help him understand for himself how to be safe, i will help him however i can. Rather than restric, i will help him understand what the internet is, the good the bad and the ugly.
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This is the second time in my life that Labour have gained power after a long Conservative tenure, only to dive straight into enacting policies that were more right-wing than their predecessors.
if i had a nickel for everytime a labour government came into power after a prolonged tory government and immediately started governing further right id have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice in a row
It's less of a left - right thing (that's mainly economics). It paternalism Vs liberty thing. Labour have always had a very strong "we must protect the populace" theme to their policies. Conservatives have it too, but they want to do it in a different way.
Sadly it's a really difficult thing to stand against. Who wants to be labelled the person enabling paedophiles, when all you want is the right to private communication.
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The OSA was brought in by the tories. Labour agree with it as well. Both of them are authoritarian bastards.
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It's yet another step in seeing the Internet becoming owned by big corporations. Only big corporations can implement these things.
Art, creativity, people doing internet things as a hobby, that is dying more and more everyday.
I miss the 90s internet :(
Me too, so much!
A big reason why I've come to like Lemmy communities so much is really because they give me some old internet feeling. It's not super crowded, it's an app that isn't design for brain rot, it allows interesting online discussion etc.
I think projects like this can continue to exist, even in a bleak corporate owned internet.
There was a site I found in highschool around 1998 - the paradigm of pessimism.
Full of dark humor and anti-jokes, in glorious web 1.0 - that site had a huge impact on my humor. I've never been able to find it again. Just a random site someone hosted somewhere on the Internet - no scams, no paywalls, just a bunch of weird humor.
Nowadays, if there's something you like online, remember to plug it into archive.org so it gets added to the wayback machine. You'll still need to remember the URL to access it, but at least it will be archived somewhere
We also desperately need a non-US archive.
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That's what everyone should be doing.
Have to agree with you. If every site just blocked the country with a stupid law like this, then the regular (regarded) folk that are gonna send over their ID the first chance they get will maybe log off their wank station and idk join the cause.
Saying that, at least ppl will be forced to use a vpn instead of sending their id through the internet if they dont comply and just block.
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Perfect response. This gets the message across, "governments of the world, the Internet doesn't need you, you need the Internet".
hand wringing over objectionable video games is why queer artists are now having their platforms removed. if you dont want to see certain kinds of fictional porn, then either avoid the website it is hosted on, or make an account and edit your blacklist. also, if youre worried about your children having access to gay yiff, then restrict their access
This is sadly the way to handle it, users of these places need to learn how to vpn instead of giving their private information for age verification online.
VPNs aren’t going to be a practical solution going forward. You are creating dependancies that governments can target, spying on traffic and enforcing censorship for these relays is something any country can and likely will implement at some point. The clearnet is dying because the evangelicals are killing it.
There's a UK Parliament petition to repeal the Online Safety act. There's no guarantee it'll do anything but might be worth a try for anyone in the UK.
Don't forget to write to your MP - being polite but angry helps. Explain the issues, shortcomings and why you feel this should be repealed and a better user-friendly and privacy respecting alternative needs to be found BEFORE implementing stupid asinine knee-jerk legislation like this.
My poor MP is getting it in the jugular because they boasted about working in data security and I'm exploiting the hell out of that statement so they can't easily weasel their way out of it.
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Oh no, what ever will I, resident of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, do.
Boots up Tor.
Yeah, it's a lot of admin for most small providers to be bothered with. Less of a hit to just block the whole UK.
Which is why big tech is actively lobbying for these laws because they know that they will be the only ones who can comply and therefore exist.
At this point Dark-web tech needs an upgrade, we might just need a "2nd internet"
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fuck the UK
I sort of don't understand why these places which are hosted somewhere else would even bother?
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Fuck off with your device based verification system. That's just the same service, but as a more invasive app installed on your phone.
Instead of scanning a face or ID and uploading it to a service, we're expected to run unverified closed source code on the device we carry everywhere in our pockets?!
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Yeah, we're all mad, fuck the suits and all that.
But why does the distinction between "real-world adult material" and "creative, non-realistic", "artistic, animated works" that "do no harm" matter? Last time I checked, realistic adult material can be just as artistic, and the harm done by negligently letting children watch it seems comparable.
Are they in favour of age verification for "uncreative, realistic" pornography, or is the real distinction just between real-life and online?
I interpreted it as "can't possibly be doing harm to the people in the video" - eg as much of mainstream porn can do - since there are none if everything is animated fiction
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