
UK government could force ISPs to block adult sites without age verification - jsingleton
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38062660
======
satysin
So I am guessing they will also be banning all the porn on TV, in magazines,
books and such as well? I mean 50 Shades of Gray is pure _filth_ and only a
depraved mind would choose to read something so disgusting and degrading to
women. And to think children can buy this book at their local super market!!
_HORRENDOUS_

</sarcasm> for those who didn't get it.

I am all for protecting kids from the extreme sides of porn but that is
something a parent should be doing. You know like how they protect their
children from drugs, alcohol, violent movies and games, the stuff kids
shouldn't be exposed too.

There are plenty of parental control systems available for computers to
prevent accidental exposure (not perfect but good enough) should a parent want
a more automated solution. But putting the government in control of picking
what is acceptable porn for consenting adults and what is not is _not_ the
solution.

I am a 30-something male. I have a wife. I look at porn. Big deal. People act
like they don't care about porn but if that were true it wouldn't be such a
_huge_ business. Enough people _pay_ for the crappy porn you get on TV for it
to be a profitable business for god sake. Literally everybody looks at porn
and I would be more worried about those who _don 't_ than those who do.

This is a terrible step down a dangerous path and of course it is wrapped up
in a "think of the children!" spin.

~~~
throway11
Generally I don't respond to comments on hn, but I've created this account
solely to respond to this.

The availability of hardcore porn to young adults is a genuine problem,
there's isp level filtering but it doesn't work, part of the problem is image
search, which embeds content into the page which means that it doesn't get
picked up by the ISP's filter.

I think the situation could be greatly improved by not embedding explicit
content into image searches and instead fetch explicit content from a separate
cache which could be easily blocked by ISP level filtering. I'm no expert
though, I suspect there's a performance penalty if you stop embedding the
content, but maybe that would be a reasonable sacrifice.

As for protecting kids, I think we can agree that now that every kid has a
smartphone with unfettered web access it's certainly more difficult to protect
them from porn than it is to protect them from, say, alcohol where you
generally need to prove your age etc.

I am by no means saying that state imposed filtering is an appropriate
solution, but I'm not entirely certain what other effective solutions are
available - it's a genuine problem.

~~~
Latty
> The availability of hardcore porn to young adults is a genuine problem

It is? Teens are going to be interested in sex - porn is probably the safest
way for them to explore that. Yes, clearly porn is a fantasy and has issues to
do with expectation, but the answer to that is to educate them more, not try
to keep them ignorant.

This kind of thing is a lazy and stupid attempt to do something no one will go
against, because if you say anything about it, you can be smeared for being
pro-porn and anti-child, regardless of the truth.

~~~
throway11
> because if you say anything about it, you can be smeared for being pro-porn
> and anti-child, regardless of the truth.

Fair, I agree that it can be seen as a shrewd move by government for exactly
this reason.

------
anexprogrammer
What's more concerning is the proposed route (via the BBFC) seems likely to
return the UK to obscenity rules of the 80s. That means uncontroversial legal
acts could be blocked too.

From the rather more in depth Guardian piece[1] on the topic _" A spokeswoman
for the BBFC said it would also check whether sites host “pornographic content
that we would refuse to classify”._

 _“In making this assessment, we will apply the standards that we apply to
pornography that is distributed offline,” she said. “If a website fails on
either of these [age verification or obscene content] tests then a
notification of non-compliance will be sent to the site.”_

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/censor-
no...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/censor-non-
conventional-sex-acts-online-internet-pornography)

~~~
fredley
Here are some of the things that will not be classified by the BBFC (resulting
in a total ban/censorship):

> Pictures and videos that show spanking, whipping or caning that leaves
> marks, and sex acts involving urination, female ejaculation or menstruation
> as well as sex in public, or showing more than four digits inserted into an
> orifice for sexual stimulation.

------
datamoshr
Limiting access to porn is a parents job, not a governments. As long as we
keep allowing an Orwellian government to do things like this, then things
won't change.

~~~
fredley
Sadly this is the current UK Government's approach to many things. Drugs are
bad, so must be banned (no chance of following the rest of the Western World's
route to legalisation any time soon). Porn is bad, so must be banned. Never
mind anyone who wants to access either of those things can get them easily,
and banning them is hugely expensive and criminalises people who would
probably benefit much more from some form of help or counselling. Such is our
way.

~~~
vixen99
Any possible considerations of the substantial arguments against your view
seem to escape you. Moreover you pull the straw man trick by putting arguments
in the mouth of dissenters to your view. This is an immensely difficult issue
with strong arguments on either side; please don't trivialize it with airy
condescension towards those seriously taking on board the consequences of
decriminalization (for instance: [http://www.dea.gov/pr/multimedia-
library/publications/speaki...](http://www.dea.gov/pr/multimedia-
library/publications/speaking_out.pdf) and there's tons more). They are not
idiots.

~~~
jdietrich
Our government's drug policy is not informed, it is not considered and it is
not reasonable.

Exhibit A is the sacking of Professor David Nutt, who was the most senior
government advisor on drugs. His scientific advice contradicted government
policy, so he was replaced with someone who would toe the party line. The Home
Secretary did not consult the Science Minister on this decision. After Nutt's
sacking, five other members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
resigned in protest.

The government has shown utter contempt for evidence on the harms of drugs.
They have consistently rejected scientific evidence when it contradicts their
political ideology. Their reasoning for criminalisation is facile and
circular. An examination of the relationship between the Home Office and the
ACMD shows this with absolute clarity.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt)

------
fredley
This is not just about porn sites, this is about any site with 'adult'
material. For example, if Reddit refused to strongly identify (via a credit-
card check) UK users, it too would be banned according to these rules.

~~~
pjc50
And Tumblr. And various image hosts including imgur. And, of course the
wellspring, 4chan.

I'd like to see them try blocking Reddit. I know "accelerationism" is seldom a
great idea, but I think it might actually wake people up.

~~~
fredley
Reddit could probably comply relatively easily if it chose to - by requiring
AV for NSFW subreddits. Tumblr though? I doubt many of the people who wrote
this bill have any idea how the internet is used these days, sadly.

~~~
pjc50
> requiring AV for NSFW subreddits

Just for UK geolocated users? I dunno, it would be even more unpopular with
the user base than the last round of cleanup. And it would cost them money.

~~~
Crespyl
They already implemented "quarantine" for "controversial" subreddits, such
that users have to provide a valid email address to read or subscribe to them.

I seem to recall some level of geoblocking for German users as well, so it's
not as if it's unprecedented.

------
richmarr
A few commenters are already saying this is the thin end of the wedge, or that
any sites that don't strongly identify UK users will be effected.
Realistically this isn't going to happen.

The UK government often come out with annoucements like this; and pretty
rapidly retreat when they realise that their proposals are impractical, or
just let the idea die quietly.

ISPs don't want to do this, and the BBFC (a not particularly high-tech
organisation of less than a hundred people) don't have the capability to issue
these notices on any significant scale, either manually or using machine
learning. Does anyone know how much extra funding they're being offered to do
this job?

(edited to add the obviously missing word "don't" in the first sentence)

~~~
welly
You took the words right out of my mouth.

~~~
richmarr
Sorry about that.

My guess is that this is a poison chalice... someone lining the BBFC up to
look bad, for some reason incidental to online porn.

------
junto
The problem of children accessing adult content either on purpose or by
accident is a challenging one.

The UK government sees this as a "sex shop" problem, where adult material is
hidden behind a door where under 18's are not showed to enter.

Most of us would agree that the responsibility for our children's internet
access falls on the parents shoulders, but since the vast majority of children
are much more tech savvy than their parents, and they have smartphones that
are difficult to lock down, parents are failing to protect their children.

The NSPCC study that was linked illustrates that point. The question is, how
do we solve the problem?

My preference would be to opt in with service provider to block known porn
content, but blacklists are flimsy. Also, there are websites like reddit that
offer a variety of content that spans various subjects, including porn
subreddits. Can my child access the Minecraft subreddit? It's a pretty easy
jump to NSFW material.

OpenDNS used to have some pretty good content blocking tools, but a smart kid
is going to figure out how to switch their DNS settings to use Google instead.
It's a whack a mole problem where established websites will suffer, and we'll
new porn sites popping up even more frequently than they do now, with ISP's
playing a constant game of catch up.

~~~
notgood
Protect their children? Has there been any study that children need this
"protection" you speak of?

I was able to get hold on porn videos when I was a teenager, despite not
having internet at home or somewhere else.

At the end, the only way forward is to speak with your children, it has
nothing to do with firewalls.

~~~
junto
>Protect their children? Has there been any study that children need this
"protection" you speak of? I was able to get hold on porn videos when I was a
teenager, despite not having internet at home or somewhere else. At the end,
the only way forward is to speak with your children, it has nothing to do with
firewalls.

I was referring to this part of the article:

>The government said its new rules were based on studies that suggest viewing
pornography at a young age can have detrimental effects on future adult
relationships. A survey from the NSPCC found that nearly half of 11-16-year-
olds had accessed an adult site and one in five 11-17-year-olds said that they
had seen images that had shocked or upset them.

The reality is that even younger children are now regularly accessing the
internet and they are able to access pornographic content by accident. When it
comes to young children, what exactly are you expecting parents to talk to
them about? These are children who haven't reached the age where they have had
any education regarding sexual activity, but they can still use an iPad or a
laptop. Here is a classic example of inappropriate advertising in a children's
iOS application:
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/advertising/explicit...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/advertising/explicit-
porn-advert-banned-after-appearing-in-talking-tom-app-used-by-
children-10310701.html)

As a parent of young children I do want to be able to restrict their access to
the certain parts of the internet, in exactly the same way that I wouldn't let
them watch an age-inappropriate movie. It's an entirely different scenario to
you as a teenager seeking out pornographic videos.

The point is that young children can stumble into a "virtual sex shop" or a
"virtual strip club", whilst in real life they can't - they are barred from
entry.

~~~
notgood
They have the ages all wrong then, teen years start at 12, not at 17. Meaning
you are interested in kids from ~1 to 12

When I mean "talking to children" I mean the all things, tell them to reach
you if they see anything they find concerning on the internet, tell them some
people may put ugly things on the internet so if they see anything that upsets
them they should talk to you, all this even before sex education.

Still, you are over-estimating the effects of sexual images to kids, they
barely understand what they see at that age; and I'm pretty sure it's 100%
impossible to tell apart adults who saw porn when they were that young from
the ones who didn't.

But still, even with the firewall argument: parents who are concerned about it
should be educated about using Ublock or something like that; not a censoring
that affects everyone. Specially because such censoring power is always going
to be used for evil after a few administrations, it starts with porn and then
it is for "evil online forums" and then its for anyone talking against the
government.

------
johndoe4589
I understand the concerns but on the other hand, why is it so hard to make
"defaults" while still allowing people freedom to browse whatever they want?

I'd be perfectly happy for major porn sites to be blocked by default, as long
as ISP customers can just go to their account online and toggle a checkbox and
be done with it.

Google images blocks "adult" pictures by default doesn't it? Why aren't we
having the same conversation and upset with Google images? Perhaps because all
it takes is toggle the filter off in the menu.

Their proposal to block sites without age verification is pretty dumb though.
Any kids can get through that, and it doesn't give any power to the parents to
block these sites.

edit: I guess as usual the difficulty is in having rules that can be clearly
defined, so "age verification" just fulfills that. But if they already have
laws to categorize pronography I don't see why they couldn't apply to setting
up "default" filters. Especially if looking at commercial pornography sites. I
think commercial ones are the most damaging because their drive for money is
what pushes them to create the most extreme and dehumanizing content.

~~~
fredley
In the UK, this is already the default: adult content is blocked by ISPs,
unless you check a box. The percentage of people who have the box ticked
roughly correlates with the percentage of households with children. This bill
goes further in requiring age-verification to be run by every site serving
adult content, or be blocked in the UK altogether. The reasoning is that
children can still browse pornography if they are not connected to their home
network, and this will stop that happening.

~~~
johndoe4589
Oh I see good point. I was thinking most public wifi networks would also leave
the filter on.

But then again, how does the age verification protect children? I guess they
are looking at the initial "impression" (in web semantics, the initial page
load and what is shown without age verification).

~~~
pjc50
You must understand that UK public policy does not proceed from noticing a
problem to solutions to that problem.

It proceeds from newspaper headlines to policy announcements generating
counter-headlines. The whole thing is driven by "BAN THIS FILTH" arguments in
the Mail, Sun and Express. (At least two of which daily publish exploitative
photos of women; the Mail has an entire sidebar of not-really-consensual
bikini shots of celebrities)

------
yup123
Why is anyone surprised, Governments have the power to do this, if you don't
like it, take that power back.

On one side you have people asking Governments to ban Games like GTA, on the
other you have people who are surprised Governments use the power they have to
"protect the children".

Only solution to this i think is to limit Govt's power and The majority of
people using a constitution.

------
welly
Every few months, the UK government pipes up with threats to ban porn sites or
threaten to force ISPs to do this, that or the other and with almost as much
regularity, those threats soon fade to nothing when they realise the magnitude
of the task of doing so.

I suspect this latest threat will soon fall by the wayside.

~~~
buro9
You missed the bit where the IP Bill has been approved by all Houses and
awaits Royal Assent:
[https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/investigatorypo...](https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/investigatorypowers.html)

It's done. Pervasive surveillance is in.

We have already achieved "forced ISPs to do this, that or the other".

~~~
welly
I did miss that bit. Well, how about that then. They finally put their money
where their mouth is, sadly.

------
throwaway2016a
Logistically this is a difficult problem to solve. I know when I was a kid I
had absolutely no problem getting into websites I wasn't supposed to be in.
Most of them were as simple as just lying and saying I was born twenty years
earlier. I also had no problem finding people's stash of Playboy magazines
(oh? You think I can't reach that shelf?).

So do you use something that has your name attached to it like a national ID
or credit card? One, credit cards can be stolen, and secondly having to give
your real name to these websites will have a cooling effect even among legal
adults (although that might be part of the idea).

And then, what about websites that aren't hosted in the UK? Does UK have
something similar to the great firewall of China or are they just planning on
building one for this?

------
a_imho
Maybe that is because I was a child once, but I see absolutely nothing wrong
with children accessing adult sites, even if it is a self contradictory
sentence.

I hope the Lovejoys will censor youtube too, I see too much swearing by top
youtubers nowadays.

------
visarga
Is this how democracy works? Amazing! You can override private lives by
collective will.

~~~
jdavis703
Democracy is just another form of tyranny. It's just the best we've found so
far. Instead of a group of hundreds dictating the lives of everyone else, we
at least have a plurality of the population dictating how the rest of us live,
and every once in a while the people receiving the dictates get to become the
dictators. There's gotta be something better out there. Perhaps having
thousands of nation states with freedom of movement between them all? That
ways you can pick and choose what rules you want to live under?

~~~
wav-part
> Perhaps having thousands of nation states with freedom of movement between
> them all?

We will have Private Cities [1] before that.

[1] [https://fee.org/articles/private-cities-a-path-to-
liberty/](https://fee.org/articles/private-cities-a-path-to-liberty/)

------
markharris99
I live in the UK. I think it's really only a matter of time before they outlaw
VPN or at the very least, they break the encryption so that if you do use it.
They can still see what you are doing.

\-------

First they came for the Porn Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I didn't
watch Porn.

Then they came for the Torrent Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I
didn't torrent.

Then they came for the Bitcoin Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I
didn't pay with bitcoin.

Then they came for me for using VPN and there was no one left to speak for me.

~~~
fredley
According to other parts of the Digital Economy Bill, it's not actually ISPs
that bear the burden, it's Connection service providers, i.e. any service that
provides you with a connection - including VPNs. What they'll do to VPN
providers that don't comply I don't know - probably they'll find their powers
rather limited.

~~~
jdavis703
How will they enforce this against foreign VPNs? Especially if those VPNs
allow for payment via things like Bitcoin.

~~~
fredley
They probably won't, making this all an exercise in futility.

------
iuewwiu
I've seen images on the Netflix front page I wish I hadn't!

Back in the early days of the web it was a funny game for colleagues to email
links to "hilariously" revolting images.

This is a "know it when you see it" problem.

What about art ? Bosch for instance...is that suitable for kids ? I think it's
a healthy satirical commentary on human nature.

It's what we read too. I've read things in forums, out of nowhere, and
suddenly I know something I wish I didn't know. That's life.

Maybe AI's can help ?

------
dest
Despite all the concerns about freedom of speech, it could be a good
opportunity for the offline porn market, with relatively higher margins
because of the artificial scarcity.

~~~
martin-adams
I see you have your entrepreneur hat on

------
Mahn
Yes, let's crack down on porn and make it a taboo again, that way when kids
grow up into young adults they can have no idea what they're doing and catch
their STDs they way it's meant to.

In fact, let's protect kids from anything minimally shocking on the internet
so they can grow up super sensitive to anything people do.

~~~
dozzie
It's not like porn educates about sex or STDs. Your argument is invalid, even
though I agree with your standpoint in general.

~~~
stinos
This. As far as I can judge it, there's way more unprotected sex then
protected sex in porn so it's not going to teach anything about STDs. Apart
from that: there's imo way too many porn out there which has nothing to do
with realistic sex. But I agree with the sentiment: this stuff shouldn't get
hidden (well, not above a certain age maybe), but kids/teens should be
educated to be critical so they know what you see on the net is not exactly
the way it goes in normal life.

------
meirelles
Good luck on the mission of keep internet child safe. There aren't so many
websites out there.

------
antihero
This is utter, utter insanity.

------
therealidiot
It's this kind of shit that makes me hate living here. The UK feels so
backwards, I often want to leave - maybe I will? It just gets me so
frustrated.

But, I know that anywhere I would go will probably already (or soon) have
similar policies. I don't even want to be on this damned planet, argh! Just
far away from the "people in power" who keep coming up with these things.

It's not even about porn, it's just the idea of age verification being
required to access _any_ kind of site.

