
UK drops plans for online pornography age verification system - JulianMorrison
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/oct/16/uk-drops-plans-for-online-pornography-age-verification-system
======
nothrabannosir
While the title inspires confidence ...

 _> The culture secretary, Nicky Morgan, told parliament the policy would be
abandoned. Instead, the government would instead focus on measures to protect
children in the much broader online harms white paper. This is expected to
introduce a new internet regulator, which will impose a duty of care on all
websites and social media outlets – not just pornography sites._

Which links to: [https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/online-harms-
whi...](https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/online-harms-white-
paper/online-harms-white-paper)

.. which is almost a satire of every “think of the children” and “beware of
terrorists” manifesto ever written. It’s a long document but I couldn’t find a
single mention of the balance between safety and governmental overreach.. I
would be surprised if e2e encryption were compatible with this white paper.

~~~
otakucode
Quite a few years ago I recall watching a presentation by a leader of a child
advocacy organization that was dealing with the various governments in the EU
and providing technical guidance to them. They were very close at the time to
moving forward with a plan to require video card manufacturers to build things
into their firmware to check every single image before it is displayed on
screen against a database of known illegal imagery. The crux of the talk from
the advocate was that they, child advocacy organizations, spend an awful lot
of time and resources fighting against these sorts of high-profile attacks
against imagery because it is known to not actually help kids in abusive
situations. I keep expecting that sort of policy to re-appear. As technical
people, we know that the technical aspects of such a proposal are insane and
impractical, but that often doesn't constrain policymakers.

~~~
isostatic
> but that often doesn't constrain policymakers.

Why don't we see more people with basic technical knowlege in policy making

------
Scapeghost
The repression of sex instead of violence is THE single most bizarre facet of
human society.

WHY are there so many taboos around an act that provides pleasure, reduces
stress and _literally creates life_ , that is the most natural instinct and
urge of practically every single creature in known existence, but we can
freely show depictions of ending someone's life and glamorize death, injury
and misery?

What the honest, actual, fuck.

~~~
roryrjb
Great comment. One word: religion.

~~~
papito
Almost all "religious" rules are made by men, with others blindly following
them. This makes you more pious and "religious", if you do.

Did these people actually _read_ the Bible? "So the two daughters get their
farther drunk on wine, rape him, and have his children". Then the Bible moves
on to the next tale, like "well, yeah, THAT just happened".

~~~
Scapeghost
It all comes back to control. The leaders of religious communities/countries
indulge in all sorts of hanky panky, so even they don't buy their own BS.

Or see the recent scandal of Jeffrey Epstein and his sex trafficking for first
world elites, or Harvey Weinstein and Hollywood's abusive underbelly. Or,
closer to the topic here, the allegations of pedophilia involving UK's cream
of the crop.

~~~
papito
Yes, and that's why I do not recognize the institution of church. Too many
times it's just a grifting operation stiffing the chumps, and sometimes a
hide-away for boy-loving pervs. Because who would ever question a priest?

------
gherkinnn
Good riddance. A moronic idea to begin with.

“The decision will disappoint a number of British businesses that had invested
substantial time and money developing verification products.”

I’m devastated. Let’s hope they all follow their morals and go bankrupt.

~~~
vonmoltke
What's the moronic idea? Requiring age verification for age-restricted
products, or age-restricting porn?

~~~
e2le
Requiring that people buy a "porn pass" (a nice way of saying license) in
order to view porn is moronic. I also have reservations on how peoples
information is collected and stored when they buy said porn pass which could
have far reaching negative consequences.

~~~
cr0sh
> I also have reservations on how peoples information is collected and stored
> when they buy said porn pass which could have far reaching negative
> consequences.

I'd wager a good deal of money on betting that the conservative minded people
pushing this legislation are also likely ones who consume a great deal of the
content this legislation is aimed at.

I tend to wonder:

Do they have to buy said "passes" as well, or are they allowed to "opt out",
so to speak?

I'd better the latter is more likely than the former, but it raises the
question of what makes them so darn special? Of course, they'd probably claim
they don't need it anyhow, as they are (somehow) of higher moral character (or
some such rubbish) and would -never- consume such content anyhow...

If something like this actually gained traction and went on to become law, it
wouldn't be very long until one or more of the legislators who pushed for it
found their internet browsing history out in the public sphere.

Sad thing, though? Given today's seeming apathy, and in some cases acceptance
and encouragement, of such activity by our public servants, likely nothing
would happen to them politically or publicly.

It's a sickening form of Animal Farm we are currently living in.

------
rasengan
This is big news, but unfortunately, it sounds like it was dropped due to
implementation issue as opposed to the fact that it is censorship and,
moreover, an invasion of privacy.

As I always said, opt-in is not an option.

------
pmoriarty
How does looking at pictures of naked people having sex harm children?

~~~
billpg
I would instead ask if watching videos of women being raped and beaten up
(even if fictional) harms children or sets up teenage boys with unreasonable
expectations of what sex is like.

~~~
mrguyorama
Too be honest, as a (probably still) dumb boy, I'm not sure NOT watching said
content sets us up with any better expectations. The vast majority of people
just have no freaking idea when it comes to sex; porn, erotica, wikihow
articles or not

~~~
cauliflower99
I recall speaking with someone who became addicted to porn at a young age. It
destroyed his life, his relationships and he became severely depressed.
Furthermore, the porn industry has one of the highest rates of suicide.

Perhaps the vast majority of people don't have a good idea precisely because
they have watched porn from a young age. I know that's the case with the young
adults of my generation (26 years).

So to answer your question => Yes; not watching porn is much healthier than
watching.

~~~
saagarjha
I'm not sure I'd agree, unless you have statistics to back it up. Sure, porn
may be unrealistic, but it _does_ help normalize sexuality and might provide
information to those who may otherwise not get it.

~~~
lm28469
Might also normalise unhealthy sexual behaviors and spread misinformation. I
don't think anyone can backup their claim with stats on that subject though.

~~~
saagarjha
It probably does that too. They’re not mutually exclusive by any means.

------
danjc
Given the sentiment expressed in the comments here, I'd be interested to hear
what technique others would propose to prevent access to porn by minors.

~~~
dep_b
Porn is to real sex like every YouTube movie about home improvement would only
feature chainsaws, flamethrowers and jackhammers: it looks great - no doubt -
but it's useless if you're looking for practical information how to fix your
leaking roof.

So perhaps there should be good non-prude material for under aged people that
are interested in the subject. If kids have nothing useful to watch they'll
watch porn instead, right?

For example: I found a very informative book about drugs at school written by
two guys that tried about every type of drugs in existence and wrote what to
expect from it and what it's benefits and risks were. The section heroin
basically contained the word: "NO". I don't think kids in the US had access to
this type of information given what happened in the last decade with heroin
because of 'protecting the kids' laws in schools.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Porn is to real sex like every YouTube movie about home improvement would
only feature chainsaws, flamethrowers and jackhammers: it looks great - no
doubt - but it's useless if you're looking for practical information how to
fix your leaking roof.

Once you're competent in the relevant domain you can usually skim through
those chainsaw and flamethrower DIY videos, find the parts you need and
implement them with little issue.

------
remotedeveloper
> Instead, the government would instead focus on measures to protect children
> in the much broader online harms white paper.

------
kerrsclyde
VPN Providers will be crying into their beer.

------
alkonaut
Sudden outbreak of common sense.

------
martokus
I wonder who would stand up and say how much tax payers money were wasted
here? Someone should, right? At least for Pornxit a decision was made. Brexit
to follow...

Update: spelling

~~~
vonmoltke
> Pornxit

Eh, tacking -xit onto things doesn't work nearly as well as -gate,
unfortunately.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Sexit

------
LinuxBender
If they had kept the requirement simple (such as adding the RTA header) [1]
and requiring browser developers to recognize the RTA header, then they would
not have had the complexity and doubts currently in play. That would have
pushed the requirement, liability and decision onto the parents as to whether
or not adult content was appropriate.

[1] - [https://davidwalsh.name/rta-label](https://davidwalsh.name/rta-label)

~~~
schoen
It's difficult to force foreign web sites and foreign browser developers to
support this, in general but especially if you _don 't_ have the threat of
blocking them if they fail to comply. Even so, some of them are likely to be
indifferent or actively opposed to it.

~~~
LinuxBender
There are already lists that say what domains are adult. This would just be
adding one field that says RTA=(0|1|2) 0 being no header, 1 being site wide
header, 2 being headers per URL. Governments that wish to go chasing after
domain owners for non compliance could do so, just as they do today for
copyright violations. (domain take-downs, etc)

~~~
schoen
I don't understand the international enforcement part.

It's not illegal in the U.S. to have a porn site or sexually explicit site
without an RTA header. There's no legal remedy available in the U.S. to the
U.K. government against a site that intentionally decides not to use this
header, nor against people providing infrastructure to that site. DNS
registrars, registries, and ICANN don't require it either.

~~~
LinuxBender
This solution addresses people in the UK visiting UK sites. If you want to
prevent your citizens from going to a site hosted elsewhere, then you would
have to consume the RTA auditing results and enforce them at your internet
border.

Certainly this won't solve VPN's and some proxies, but then who are we trying
to block? Adults? Children? If we are thinking of the children, then an order
to UK ISP's to consume the non-compliance list and block those domains (and
even IP's if you want to get heavy handed) should more than suffice. Whether
or not you decide to block CDN IP's is entirely up to how heavy handed you
want to get. I predict CDN's would move adult sites to their own CIDR blocks
if this starts occurring.

If we are trying to block adults, that is a whole other discussion as to the
intention of the blocking in the first place. I would expect some countries in
the middle east already know how to address this problem, by forcing all
traffic through a MITM set of proxies. I believe Syria and Iran use Bluecoat
proxies. China uses (or used) a heavily modified netfliter implementation.
They have the distinct advantage of not having to be performant. Priority
always goes to blocking first.

~~~
schoen
> This solution addresses people in the UK visiting UK sites. If you want to
> prevent your citizens from going to a site hosted elsewhere, then you would
> have to consume the RTA auditing results and enforce them at your internet
> border.

But isn't that _already_ the structure of what the old proposal was going to
do? UK ISPs would be expected to actively cooperate in blocking things
indicated to them, most of which would be hosted outside of the country.

~~~
LinuxBender
The primary difference being, end users are not registering with a centralized
site and handing over sensitive information. There would be no citizen
database. Rather, the inverse would be true. A database of adult sites that
lack a header.

Don't get me wrong, I think a citizen database of porn passes would be a
blast, once it leaks out from some public S3 bucket. I would tease Ricky
Gervais about his habits until he turns it into a standup routine. (kidding,
but it could happen) I'm just hoping one of his writers visits this site.

~~~
schoen
Oh, sorry, I got confused about which part of the plan you were focusing on. I
thought you were focused on the blocking method rather than on the opt-out
method, and I didn't see any significant impact on the blocking method.

What you've said makes better sense to me now.

------
ColinWright
Also discussed here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21271103](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21271103)

Mentioned here with no discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21270259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21270259)

------
jliptzin
> Although the age verification policy was first proposed by the Conservatives
> during the 2015 general election, it took years to develop and make it into
> law.

Why are such laws always proposed by conservatives? Aren't they supposed to be
for smaller, less intrusive government?

~~~
galaxyLogic
Conservatives are the Big Brother. They like to watch over you and control
you. They are not "liberals". Liberals are the opposite of conservatives.
Liberals are happy to give you permission to enjoy your life.

Think about the semantics of the word 'conservative". It means keep things the
same they are, conserve the status quo. Now who would support such a
viewpoint? Of course those who benefit from inequality, who are on the sunny
side of it.

~~~
mkohlmyr
This is a overly simplistic and (sorry) borderline childish point of view.

The truth is that political ideology does not fit neatly on a continuous line
from "liberal" to "conservative" and that party lines have been drawn in such
a way that the original semantics of the labels no longer apply to a large set
of preferred policies on either side.

Some kind of multi-axial graph or multi-dimensional matrix would be more
useful. Social & Fiscal are two useful axes, and the bare minimum of what you
need in order to sensibly represent modern day politics. It might actually be
an interesting thought experiment to explore what other axes are most useful.

~~~
galaxyLogic
I'm thinking more in terms of one such (possible) axis conservative-liberal,
not in terms of two-party politics. So while there are countless numbers of
ways we could categorize people I think conservative-liberal is a rather well-
defined and by necessity over-simplified characterization.

"Conservative" can be defined as a person who wants to conserve society as it
is now or as it was earlier, the good old 1950s.

"Liberal" means a person who would like to liberate what is currently
oppressed.

I assume that "conservatives" want to conserve their own power because who in
their right mind would want to conserve a situation where they are oppressed.
Those who want "liberation" do not want to conserve the current state of
affairs.

------
damnyou
The fact that state-enforced _age verification_ was within the overton window
in the UK is unfathomable. All age restrictions are toxic and lead to a
culture where parents and children mutually distrust each other. And the
_state_ wants to enforce them!

No gods, no masters.

