Age verification legislation is tanking traffic to sites that comply, and rewarding those that don’t
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/age-verification-legislation-is-tanking-web-traffic-to-sites-that-comply-and-rewarding-those-that-dont/
by 00DEADBEEF
27 comments
Honestly feels like its only a matter of time until its repealed
Which was always going to be the case. Porn sites that take this seriously will be the ones that take the health and wellbeing of the performers (more) seriously too.
It’s legislation that literally opens up a market to sex traffickers and abusers and does zero to tackle the problem it intends to.
Whoever could have forseen this very obvious consequence.
In France their age verification where they need to use government ID was only applied to the biggest 4 porn sites. This had exactly the result you would think of.
In fact Pornhub is currently not operating in France at all in protest over being singled out.
But the UK government will use this as justification for ‘toughening the laws’ and banning VPNs etc. They will never admit it’s stupid unenforceable law.
It’s not like everyone with even an ounce of IT literacy didn’t predict this when it was going through the parliamentary process.
Once you realise this is simply the government making it look like its doing something, it all makes sense. They absolutely know it won’t make a difference, but it will convince the boomers who vote in droves that something is being done about that there dangerous interweb.
Best not to get too worked up about it, just get a VPN.
“Please take a selfie to verify you are over 18. We will immediately delete it afterwards”. We can all learn from the Tea App hack that this is a blatant lie.
It’s honestly stupid. Go after sex traffickers. Not people trying to have a wank. If they really cared about protecting kids they would campaign to restrict children from accessing the internet and social media at all and own phones until they come of age. The amount of filth kids can easily access with a few clicks is insane and forcing a few websites to demand people verify their age is going to do absolutely nothing at all. I literally get ads everywhere I look for AI sexbots/chatbots, ads promoting onlyfans and sex/hookup sites. Yet I’ve never verified my age at any point on sites like YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram etc. OSA – Online Surveillance Act
Government never stops making our lives worse while telling us the opposite.
Recent email from Xbox
“We’re partnering with Yoti, a trusted, third-party identity verification provider, to give you a menu of options for how to securely verify your age. Starting early next year, age verification will be required for you to retain full access to social features on Xbox, such as voice or text communication and game invites. Until verification is completed, access to these features will be limited to friends only.
While choosing not to verify your age by early 2026 will limit your ability to use social features on Xbox, your previous purchases, entitlements, and gameplay history and achievements will not be affected, and you will still be able to play and purchase games.“
Still not going to verify my age. I don’t need those features. This is getting ridiculous.
Great. It creates a capitalist incentive to not comply, and we know that incentives always win.
Asking for a friend, which are the websites without age verification?
I hate this age verification law which on the disguise of protecting children is censoring people.
I hate that people cannot access many helpful sites and resources that are tagged “18+” or “NSFW” which has nothing to do with porn, or like even support the victims of trafficking, exploitation etc as a result of the said porn industry.
I hate that they’ve taken a umbrella policy and i don’t locate a concrete plan beyond that to tackle whatever they want to (like early education, acceptance, openness, fight against misogyny, imbalance of power, etc etc).
How about anonymous self help site of victims which now requires ID to access, so is no longer anonymous?
Why is ID of vulnerable people being sent to the US which has now and again used data of vulnerable people to force exploitative marketing to them.
But for headlines like that is it failure of policy or the enthusiasm of people to seek porn no matter what?
I doubt they care. It was never about protecting children on the internet, it’s always been about getting their foot in the door so they can start manipulating what people see and interact with on the web. They’ve already achieved that.
It’s what regulations they’ll implement in the future that worries me.
Was always going to happen.
I think a big issue when it comes to this stuff is too many people seem to treat websites as if they’re brick and mortar stores.
But what they fail to get is that the Internet is global and its a much smaller commitment to start up a new website than it is to setup a new bricks and mortar store.
New websites are popping up every minute of the day, many by one or two person teams that won’t even be aware of UK legislation let alone have the neans to abide by it.
Months in and there are still thousands of porn sites with no verification. It’s absolutely pointless.
If this was actually about protecting kids, the devices they use should have been targeted. Would have been so easy to force a VPN connection to route traffic to filter sites.
Oh wow, who would have seen this coming? It’s almost as if the OSA was a de facto porn ban because the law makers knew fully well that no reasonable person is uploading their passport or driver’s license to access porn.
This is what happens when you meddle with things you don’t understand. The results are unpredictable
Which sites aren’t complying? Just so I don’t accidentally stumble across them.
It’s absurd that an entire nation has to suffer because of lazy parents. Instead of making a law that requires parents to do their job, Parliament burdens the nation with protecting (and failing at it) other people’s children. “But there’s horrible stuff on the internet!” Well, why not do your job as a parent and look into restricting what your kid can access. THERE WERE ALREADY TOOLS APLENTY WHICH ALLOW PARENTS TO DO THIS!
Yep, based on my research this just pushes people to sites with more copyright infringement and more extreme content and less moderation. Funnily enough during my reseach I came across much more extreme stuff (although still not illegal) than the one I usually like – on accident, simply by virtue of being on a shadier website. They told us this sort of thing is the exact thing the act was trying to prevent….
Going to the shadier websites was actually easier than activating my VPN… and once the teenagers find them it’s unlikely they will go back to the vanilla stuff that requires a selfie…
PS. “Research” here means wanking
Is there a site that’s keeping track of sites that don’t have porn material that’s affected by this age verification?
I want to see how many sites are being censored.
Well suck me sideways, I’d never have seen this coming!!!
It was never about age verification, it was always about linking your identity to your online activities so they can prosecute or in other ways punish you or even blackmail you.
Thankfully I downloaded a bunch of porn from Limewire years ago!
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