Adults may be forced to buy £10 ‘porn pass’ from newsagents to access X-rated movies ‘anonymously’ (mirror.co.uk).
That being the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) recommendation to enforce the porno proof of age hue and cry raised by Uncle CamerTom (Blog, Jul. 2015) which was his go-to distractory tactic before he quit as PM and let St. Theresa take over the staffroom to smack the Brexiting bums of nawty boys caught looking at virtual Page 3 with her cane—that sort of nawtiness being a European thing and like most things after Brexit something you will have to pay more for.
Adults may have to buy a £10 “porn pass” from newsagents if they “anonymously” want to prove they’re aged over 18 so they can access X-rated movies.
It will be one option available to the estimated 25 million Britons who regularly visit the adult websites when new age verification laws are introduced later this year.
Indeed, nice and “anonymous” that will be standing in line at the checkout although it may bring custom to more out-of-the-way newsagents as used to happen when people bought top shelf mags. Something new for the some of the many fems who have got a taste for solo pink canoe paddling with the internet (metro.co.uk, Feb. 2017) you might imagine.
Buying a 16-digit code—or “porn pass”—will be an alternate way for people to access online porn who do not want to put in their credit card details to prove their age.
Indeed, the inputting of credit card details for anything other than a purchase being inviting to any number of scams waiting to happen that may wish to bend you over and giving those who prefer to buy their weeks shopping daily at local corner shop rather than with a weekly visit to a supermarket an oppo to still get virtual booty if they don’t have a credit card but at least have the sense to not use their debit card to hand over their bank account for fist scam with vigorous rear entry.
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the country’s film censor, conducted a public consultation about ways to enforce a proof of age process after it was appointed by ministers to enforce the new rules.
“New rules” which were to come into force in April but have had their date pushed back “in an attempt to ensure any system introduced was workable”.
Indeed, perhaps having someone with an eye to porn industry and its history on the internet may help them realise that Web 2.0 internet just doesn’t work the way any such plan hopes to work.
An age-check scheme has been active in Germany by MindGeek—owners of PornHub and many other porno user-upload hubs—since 2015 (Wikipedia) allowing identify to be shared across participating websites. Such a system may make some recall with displeasure the adult age check paid subscriptions that were rife in the mid to late-90s to allow access to a dozen or so porn sites under its umbrella that in the end just morphed into the CCBill and Epoch signups and such of today.
But although a likely candidate to enforce the age checks for the BBFC, but could their compromising, dominant stake in that industry be somewhat problematic?
Perhaps also somewhat problematic could be that MindGeeks porntube sites host videos of the non-conventional sex acts such as spanking, urination—a.k.a. female ejaculation classed as the rather vague and catch-all extreme pornography or at least non-certifiable by the BBFC in an effort to turn back the clock on Britain’s censorship regime to the pre-internet era (theguardian.com, Nov. 2016). Will MindGeek’s sites themselves have to display a “not allowed in your country” message for those videos viewed in the UK and will they be treated and punished when one slips through the net?
Coming in under the banner of protecting children from adult content, the concerned will at least be appeased if it should work; but will it work? Did you really need to ask?
“This legislation is a digital white elephant,” [Alec Muffett, an internet security expert and a director of the Open Rights Group] told the Sunday Telegraph.
“The kids will beat the technology, and adults could have their details hacked. Nobody is lined up to guarantee the trustworthiness of the companies which provide age verification and confirm someone’s age to a porn site.”
Indeed, seemingly the same distraction from issues of other elephants in the room Tory government can’t do anything about, and of that “guarantee the trustworthiness”, for an industry that is hemorrhaging because of user-uploaded, often amateur or camgirls squirting on sofa shared on via social media and forums on cloud storage rather than professionally produced or accountable porn, is welcoming and selling age check just the biggest porno fish in global pond seeing a replacement source of revenue in addition to the ad revenue numbers game which is what makes the various porno hubs profitable?
What sites will need one?
To be sure, what exactly counts as porn these days? Will this site need an age check for its drawn pictorial adult content that would get me booted off F’book or Instagram? Do I just find out when my ISP decides?
What about Twitter? A lot of adult images get uploaded on to Twitter which has found its niche by not having an aggressive nip-checker bot like Instagram, is it exempt because it’s Twitter? What about the lashings of porn on Tumblr, the variable picture-filled microblogging go-to site for Gen-Z with a likely underestimated 20% of all traffic in and out being porn? (Wikipedia). How about Rapidgator et al. where along with the legitimate upload content they at least theorise a lot of pirated porn resides in the cloud. And will Google regret having to have had to cancel its plans to remove porn from Blogger?
And if not? Yeah, there on gonna miss a lot of the content they are supposed to be protecting the innocent from arn’t they whilst they make white elephant do tricks outside the sites they never did actually visit of the producer of porn rather than the de facto upload and share distributor. Unless said age verification is handed over to control of those user-upload porno hubs of course, which due to their popularity have now purchased many of said studios with the ad revenue made.
Updated 15th October 2018
And the “good news” for a populace still suffering under under Tory austerity and impeding cutting off bigoted trade nose to spite Lil’ English face Brexit:
Porn age verification could cost £10MILLION in legal battles against Tory government (mirror.co.uk).
The money has been earmarked by the Treasury to pay for challenges to the “age verification” policy when it finally enters force in the UK.
Seemingly estimating a “a realistic risk” of a “likely number and scale of legal challenges” according to digital minister Margot James suggesting even she doesn’t likely expect it working any better than current porn filters, and although still no launch date set, still presumably aiming to be “fully in place” as ex-Culture Secretary Matt Hancock—later ghosted after putting out the biscuits by social media companies to give them a telling off (Latest Picks 20th May 2018)—claimed by April 2018.
But with some useful details shed light on to further convince taxpayers will be paying those legal fees to look up a proverbial white elephant’s arse:
Only “commercial” porn sites will have to verify users’ age.
Therefore exempting “blogs and social media sites where there’s no money earned”, laughably “any porn that is free to watch” and curiously “sites where less than a third of the material is porn” presumably regardless of whether they are charging for content including that porno third. I’m guessing that will include cloud sharing à la Rapidgator, Depositfiles et al., but I’m curious to know how how in hell the BBFC hopes to quantify whether porn content exceeds a third when studios are fighting an ever losing battle to stop them hosting copyrighted content that is uploaded again as soon as it’s taken down.
I guess my drawn porn titties are in no danger then unless the small print says something akin to “or you charge for commissions”: Please give vouchers to help keep this site alive buy me more Shakira stuff (Latest Picks 2nd Feb. 2017).
Updated 24th March 2019
And how could it not, like everything else be scuppered by the Sisyphean exercise in rolling a patriotic rock up a lil’ English vicarage garden path only for it to roll down again while taking a break for tea that is Brexit:
Adults only: the battle to keep online pornography from Britain’s children (theguardian.com).
A new law forcing pornography users to prove that they are adults was supposed to be introduced early next month. But sources told the Observer that it may not be unveiled until after the Brexit impasse is resolved as the government, desperate for other things to talk about, believes it will be a good news story that will play well with the public when it is eventually unveiled.
Which of course was its initial distractive purpose envisioned by uncle Camertom pre-referendum and seemingly now being saved to serve the “good news” that prolapse porn will no longer be filling grandad’s screen when page-sticking Brexit morass leaves Kent as lorry part and when short of anything else on shelves we are reminded we are all doing our patriotic bit by heartily tucking into tonnes of British leeks, canned peaches and spam (independent.co.uk, Feb. 2019).
