Starting today, UK adults will have to prove their age to access porn online. Experts warn that a global wave of age-check laws threatens to chill speech and ultimately harm children and adults alike.
Sucks, because it’s going global and we can’t seem to stop it. I’m fine with laws to age gate in terms of a button you click. If some kid is willing to say they’re 15… well, let’s make sure people are treating them as a 15 year old. But… making everyone deal with real verification is at best going to further entrench big business, and at worst, destroy the internet we love. And it raises the question: are trans teenagers talking to each other now creating adult content because the UK hates trans people?
Canada currently has a bill looking to do the same thing. AFAIK, Australia’s already passed one, many US states are looking at them individually. The EU is looking at frameworks for it. I suppose there will be some places that won’t, but this is increasingly looking like what governments have decided to do, and rather than geofencing, once a large number of money-making territories want this, I think most corporations will do it globally, and smaller sites simply won’t be able to run.
For porn and games etc. that should be enough yes, but for online gambling, opening stock market accounts etc we do need actual verification, but there are tons of methods of doing it so that the site only gets a true or false (18 or above) and the government gets obfuscated URL’s so that the government doesn’t know what you visited.
If I’m opening a stock market account, I’m trusting them with generating my tax receipts! If I don’t feel comfortable trusting them to hold my personal data directly, I probably should choose a different brokerage…
Edit: Anyways, I’m annoyed enough that everyone has gone to phone based 2 factor that requires me to buy a phone and keep it on a cell network, so you can imagine how much I despise even an easier version of this.
Sucks, because it’s going global and we can’t seem to stop it. I’m fine with laws to age gate in terms of a button you click. If some kid is willing to say they’re 15… well, let’s make sure people are treating them as a 15 year old. But… making everyone deal with real verification is at best going to further entrench big business, and at worst, destroy the internet we love. And it raises the question: are trans teenagers talking to each other now creating adult content because the UK hates trans people?
how do you know it’s going to be global?
Canada currently has a bill looking to do the same thing. AFAIK, Australia’s already passed one, many US states are looking at them individually. The EU is looking at frameworks for it. I suppose there will be some places that won’t, but this is increasingly looking like what governments have decided to do, and rather than geofencing, once a large number of money-making territories want this, I think most corporations will do it globally, and smaller sites simply won’t be able to run.
🇨🇦 Pretty messed up that the NDP voted yea. :(
For porn and games etc. that should be enough yes, but for online gambling, opening stock market accounts etc we do need actual verification, but there are tons of methods of doing it so that the site only gets a true or false (18 or above) and the government gets obfuscated URL’s so that the government doesn’t know what you visited.
If I’m opening a stock market account, I’m trusting them with generating my tax receipts! If I don’t feel comfortable trusting them to hold my personal data directly, I probably should choose a different brokerage…
Edit: Anyways, I’m annoyed enough that everyone has gone to phone based 2 factor that requires me to buy a phone and keep it on a cell network, so you can imagine how much I despise even an easier version of this.