Poll: UK Porn Age Verification
Porn sites will be legally required to verify users’ age (bbc.co.uk, Feb. 2022)
The legislation, which is part of the draft Online Safety Bill, aims to give children better protection from explicit material.
The measures, to ensure users are 18 or over, could see people asked to prove they own a credit card or confirm their age via a third-party service.
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Previously, only commercial porn sites that allowed user-generated content were in the scope of the Online Safety Bill, but all commercial porn sites will now be covered.
Banning porn sites in the UK was first trumpeted as some might say a post election immigration issues distraction by Uncle Camertom in 2015 (Blog 31st Jul. 2015) and was given further emphasis under the Digital Economy Act in 2017, while Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock was charged with bringing social media companies to heel over online harms (Blog, 28th Jan. 2019) prior to being forced to resign after breaking COVID distancing rules groping his mistresses’ ass on CCTV. But attempts to get the age verification legislation in place was delayed three times with officials admitting they “can’t enforce it” (Blog, updated 30th May 2019).
Consumption of porn surged with “home working” during the Covid pandemic (latest Picks updated 16th Mar. 2020), and now tagged onto the originally “user generated content” targeted Online Harms Bill which superseded it, presumably something could be thought to have changed culturally or technologically enough for it not to be seen as a continuation of the flogging of a governmental white elephant’s arse, lest it bring to mind the much misappropriated idiom (quoteinvestigator.com) regards insanity being doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
So…
Forth time lucky? Will parliament finally get it’s ever recurrent, ever delayed age verification on porn sites in the UK legislation through this time?
Updated 10th March 2022
And with France’s President “Choupinet” Macron ahead of impending election desperate to be seen sorting something, anything efficaciously at time of global crisis in the Ukraine, getting in with a porn ban first is perhaps the best he can do, getting one up something in eternal stakes of Anglo-French rivalry, with the state regulator seeking a court order because of the various “porn hubs” failing to respond to a final, doubtless bureaucratically laden warning to prevent access by les jeunes:
Pornhub and other X-rated sites face French court ban to protect children (thetimes.co.uk).
If the judges issue the order, internet service providers must prevent access to the sites and search engines must ban them from listings.
Which seemingly just tries to drag ISPs and Google et al. into a verification quagmire too that will still not stop those espiègles who may use any sort of workaday VPN or proxy obfuscation to hide their location (Latest Picks 19th May 2017), suggesting any porn censorious French “great firewall” will resemble one being made of Brie.
Updated 17th March 2022
And with Blighty introducing its “long-awaited” Online Safety Bill today:
Online Safety Bill: Updated proposals will make UK safest place to go online, government says (news.sky.com).
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said tech firms had previously not been held to account when harm, abuse and criminal behaviour had “run riot” on their sites.
With chair of the committee, Tory MP Damian Collins, excitedly ejaculating that “the era of self-regulation for Big Tech has finally come to an end”. But rather than need to enter credit card details before proceeding to content on legit-looking porno site with “Your Pants Pulled Down and be Taken Up The Arse” heading, the emphasis is still more on getting search engines and riotous social media to block “harms”, presumably not exemplified stateside by Ye’s Insta-suspension after the “Easy” kidnapping, burying and decapitating of Pete Davidson, the unilateral winner-takes-Ukraine PvP single combat challenge offered by Elon Musk to Putin or whether a missing diamond emoji on Brit-Brit’s latest, now very free, bent-over and bare beach pics has resulting in her Insta-darkness (theblast.com).
Updated 28th April 2022
Chief whip orders investigation into allegation Tory MP watched pornography on phone in Commons (news.sky.com).
With, as suggested in this polls multiple choice, searching for content for a one handed workout being a common endurance in the chambers and there surrounds.
The Conservative Party‘s chief whip has ordered an investigation into allegations a Tory MP watched pornography on his phone in the Commons chamber.
Seemingly during a meeting of the 2022, the female grouping of the 1922 committee of Tory backbench MPs. The male Tory MP remains nameless at the moment, but all seemingly suggesting he should own up before he is outed and fall on his meat sword, with Downing Street echoing sentiment that a misogynistic culture in parliament was “not good enough” with “shocking incidents” still being reported in the wake of the Daily Fail’s “perverted smear” regards Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner distracting PM by Basic Instinct-ly uncrossing legs (metro.co.uk).
So who, and what were his particular pornohub searches? If he is not kicked “out of parliament, out of the party” (news.sky.com), doubtless assurance will be made that if verification legislation is passed his own go-large porno pass will not be coming out of taxpayers pockets as part of his expenses.
Updated 29th April 2022
And he is named!
Neil Parish: MP under investigation for watching porn in Commons says he opened file by mistake and will quit if found guilty (news.sky.com).
Having his whip removed (meaning suspension from their parliamentary party) and after having given an interview on jingoistly unwoke GB News about the matter (gbnews.uk) before he had decided to own up and fall on his meat sword for sake of party, if found guilty.
Mr Parish, who was suspended by the party on Friday, said he would “fully comply” with the investigation as he apologised and revealed he only told his wife this afternoon.
Saying he had opened the file “by error”, and his wife when questioned in agreement that the ladies in the Commons were right to be upset, but that“he’s quite a normal guy, really“ and so presumably not trying to fit that now lost whip in any orifices at home.
Updated
But the “veteran politician” deciding not to wait to “fully comply”.
Neil Parish: MP resigns as he admits watching porn in the Commons (news.sky.com).
With the MP and 65-year-old farmer’s “error” initially occurring accidentally after “looking at tractors online” but with the sight of some chassis seemingly piquing the interest of his front-end loader leading to a second peek.
Neil Parish said he watched adult material twice in parliament, claiming the first time was accidental after looking at tractors online but that the second was “a moment of madness”.
Updated 1st May 2022
And a search term double entendre has been put forward which may have led to his initial “error”.
Disgraced MP was looking for “Dominator” (radioexe.co.uk).
Colin Slade, a Conservative councillor on Mid Devon District Council (and a Radio Exe presenter) has told the Telegraph newspaper that Mr Parish could have been searching for Dominators.
A Claas Dominator combine harvester to be precise, a version of which has been spotted in the Parish family barn.
However, Mr Slade says that the search term hasn’t been confirmed by the former MP.
But with a combine able to be defined as a specific type of tractor, presumably he can now clamber on to that suggested rolling “play on words” if he so wishes.
Updated 13th July 2022
And, of course it all ends up arse over tit again in the same ditch:
Online Safety Bill set to be delayed by at least three months (telegraph.co.uk).
Amid growing Conservative backbench criticism of its impact on free speech, there are concerns that the Bill could even be scrapped depending on who takes over as the new Tory leader.
With the Torygraph dismayed its campaign along with the NSPCC for new online duty of care laws is being sidelined, but of course the indignation still serving purpose, and with ex-SAS Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis living up to his “Monsieur Non” nickname by helping to shoot campaign standard-bearer in the foot on manoeuvrers in his comment in the paper the previous day:
The current trajectory of the Bill threatens to compound the situation by bringing the state in as the enforcer of online censorship. It grants an enormous amount of executive power to the state in an entirely undemocratic way.
With those that have thrown there hats in for the leadership seemingly kicking away the other leg and shoving into ditch:
Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch says Online Safety Bill is “in no fit state to become law” (news.sky.com).
Former minister Ms Badenoch, who is through to the second round of voting in the Conservative Party’s leadership race today, said postponing the Bill was the “right move”.
If not yet actually lifting the shovel:
She added that if she were to be successful in her bid to become leader, she would “ensure the bill doesn’t overreach”.
7th October 2022
With a robotic PM now in place—admittedly, a somewhat terrible “we would like to ditch her too” place (independent.co.uk), eyes returning to the bill suggest a mere three month delay may be something of a reach.
Online Safety Bill needs a “total rewrite”, human rights lawyer says (standard.co.uk).
Dr Susie Alegre has written a legal opinion piece warning that the proposed internet safety laws fail to address the root causes of online harm, such as the systems which recommend posts to users, and that the laws would also threaten free speech.
Despite Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan saying ministers were working “flat out” to deliver it having previously suggested some “tweaks” would be made to the legislation.
But Dr Alegre said the entire Bill needed work, writing that it was poorly drafted with “broad and opaque” definitions that will make it difficult for companies to know what they are required to do.
Updated 26th November 2022
With Commons Leader “Admiral” Mordaunt (theneweuropean.co.uk) having raised signal flags promising the Online Safety Bill will return to Parliament next month (independent.co.uk), deepfakery and “downblousing” is tagged on to the “mammoth piece of legislation”’s list of user generated content to be outlawed:
UK plans to make the sharing of non-consensual deepfake porn illegal (theverge.com).
The government announced this morning that deepfakes would be covered in the legislation along with strengthened laws against “downblousing” (taking explicit images down a women’s top without consent). The passage of the bill was delayed this year by recent political chaos, but the UK government now plans to return it to parliament in December for further debate.
“Upskirting” having already been given more eye and made a criminal offence by a private member’s bill (Blog, updated Apr. 2019) and deepfakes banned by Reddit, Pornhub and Twitter (Blog Feb. 2018) after tabloid moral panic of Orange Don having his head virtually grafted onto something humping Scarlett Johansson before either or both morphed into Nicholas Cage.
In the government’s announcement, it says that non-consensual deepfakes will be tackled as part of a wider initiative to stamp out revenge porn and other forms of “intimate image abuse.”
So seemingly lumping them in with a revamp of law introduced which is currently “not fit for purpose” according to victim groups (Latest Picks May 2019).
The bill is of course as heavily focused on online harms not relating to porn, with for the young, self-harm sadly intensified by social media, and a parental eye with now be able to see exposure which may have led to tragedy:
Social media giants will be forced to give dead children’s data to parents (telegraph.co.uk).
Social media bosses will be required by law to unlock the data or face multi-million-pound fines and up to a year in jail under the plans.
Updated 30th November 2022
But…
Online Safety Bill: Plan to make big tech remove harmful content axed (bbc.co.uk).
Controversial measures which would have forced big technology platforms to take down legal but harmful material have been axed from the Online Safety Bill.
With a section requiring “the largest, highest-risk platforms” to tackle “legal but harmful material” such as self-harm, eating disorders and misogynistic posts given the chop.
Anti-wokeness former Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch backed criticism that the bill opened the door for the censorship of “legal” free speech, claiming it was “legislating for hurt feelings” and Campaign group the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) chief executive Imran Ahmed welcoming that it had in fact “strengthened the law against encouragement of self-harm and distribution of intimate images without consent” while admitting platforms might feel “off the hook” by giving users controls to hide the posts of “bad actors and dangerous content” instead of having “active duties” in censoring.
But Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell MP saw the passing of responsibility to users to self censor instead as giving a “free pass to abusers and takes the public for a ride” that was “a major weakening, not strengthening, of the bill”.