Online Safety Bill Etc

Reading that story, it seems odd that Pornhub say they will comply with the UK rule given that last month there was another story about how they are pulling out of France for the same age check reasons.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yelvlnzveo

The article is slightly vague on detail but it looks like it has something to do with the way verification is mandated in the French law. According to the article, the porn sites don’t want the responsibility of holding personally identifying details about their viewers on their own systems when the devices people use are capable of determining age. I assume the law in the UK allows the operators to offer that as one of the 7 routes to verification they keep talking about.

[RichardCoulter]

An Ofcom spokesperson said yesterday that fines would be the first tool used to ensure compliance (along with a referral to the police where necessary) before things like prosecution or geoblocking.

It will be interesting to see what happens with X as people can join from aged 13 and there is plenty of pornography on there. Musk seems to think he can do whatever he pleases, so I can see X being eventually geoblocked. IMO this won't be a bad thing and should be a major incentive to people to switch to Blue Sky.

They advertise themselves as being 'what social media should be', which I assume to mean that it is professionally run with appropriate moderation policies.

[peanut]

From that BBC page it states...

'According to Ofcom, platforms must not host, share or permit content encouraging use of VPNs to get around age checks.

The government told the BBC under the Online Safety Act, it will be illegal for platforms to do this.

The regulator said parents should be aware children using a VPN to access the internet "would not be able to benefit from the protections of the Online Safety Act".

Concerned parents, it said, should block or control VPN usage.'

So this new law/ruling is because parents aren't controlling what their children are viewing who now need 'protecting'. Now they're saying the onus is back on the parents to control what and how they're using the internet.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

An Ofcom spokesperson said yesterday that fines would be the first tool used to ensure compliance (along with a referral to the police where necessary) before things like prosecution or geoblocking.

It will be interesting to see what happens with X as people can join from aged 13 and there is plenty of pornography on there. Musk seems to think he can do whatever he pleases, so I can see X being eventually geoblocked. IMO this won't be a bad thing and should be a major incentive to people to switch to Blue Sky.

They advertise themselves as being 'what social media should be', which I assume to mean that it is professionally run with appropriate moderation policies.

The same Bluesky that saw a glut of child porn being posted late last year, at the exact-same-time the hand-wringing hard left staged a mass walkout of Twitter?

The Bluesky that has about 100 content moderators against Twitter’s 2,000-plus? (And only has 100 because it had to quadruple the staff to cope with the child porn outbreak).

The Bluesky that is, by design, harder to moderate because it’s decentralised? (unlike Twitter which is still centrally controlled)

You appear to be conflating a personal dislike for the politics of Twitter’s owner with an assumption that Twitter is less wholesome or less moral than the alternatives. Newsflash: humans are awful, and they take the same sh*t with them wherever they go.

You might want to reflect a little before simping for what is, after all, just another social media site.

Originally Posted by peanut

'According to Ofcom, platforms must not host, share or permit content encouraging use of VPNs to get around age checks.

In other words, you can say they exist, and could be used, just dont say you should use them ..

---------- Post added at 16:45 ---------- Previous post was at 16:43 ----------

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

They advertise themselves as being 'what social media should be', which I assume to mean that it is professionally run with appropriate moderation policies.

No, it just means the have a fancy sounding (but meaningless) advert. What exactly should "social media be" ?

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Chris

The same Bluesky that saw a glut of child porn being posted late last year, at the exact-same-time the hand-wringing hard left staged a mass walkout of Twitter?

The Bluesky that has about 100 content moderators against Twitter’s 2,000-plus? (And only has 100 because it had to quadruple the staff to cope with the child porn outbreak).

The Bluesky that is, by design, harder to moderate because it’s decentralised? (unlike Twitter which is still centrally controlled)

You appear to be conflating a personal dislike for the politics of Twitter’s owner with an assumption that Twitter is less wholesome or less moral than the alternatives. Newsflash: humans are awful, and they take the same sh*t with them wherever they go.

You might want to reflect a little before simping for what is, after all, just another social media site.

It's not so much Musks politics that bother me, it's the dreadful way that he's abused his wealth to buy and ruin Twitter.

There are reports that Blue Sky are now asking for user details in order to comply with the Act, but that X is not.

[RichardCoulter]

Update: Surprisingly, X/Twitter are now implementing an age verification system, so it appears that Musk is playing ball. I had suspected that he would be the one to be awkward.

Because of some of the material on that site, I wonder if under 18's will now have their accounts closed and what will happen to their policy that people can join from 13 upwards?

Perhaps people who post material inappropriate for those aged 13 to 17 will have to flag it as such and it will be blocked from those under 18??

[RichardCoulter]

I'm surprised that so many websites have chosen to geoblock the UK and lose business rather than introduce age verification checks.

I'm wondering if it's these sites that failed to do the assessment required by last March and are now panicking because they fear Ofcom enforcement??

[Carth]

I highly doubt there are any large (or small) website 'businesses' that have any fear of "Ofcom enforcement"

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I'm surprised that so many websites have chosen to geoblock the UK and lose business rather than introduce age verification checks.

I'm wondering if it's these sites that failed to do the assessment required by last March and are now panicking because they fear Ofcom enforcement??

More likely the cost of compliance is higher than the revenue from being visible here.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I'm surprised that so many websites have chosen to geoblock the UK and lose business rather than introduce age verification checks.

I'm not. They have successfully turned the UK into a place to avoid, made us into an internet paraiah.

Except of course for those with the knowledge to use a VPN (and of course the younger generation, the ones they pretend they are protecting, are the ones most capable of doing this). Many will already be using VPNs anyway.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Carth

I highly doubt there are any large (or small) website 'businesses' that have any fear of "Ofcom enforcement"

You don't think that the possibility of having their site shut down, huge fines or even imprisonment had any bearing on the decision of websites to either comply with the legislation or voluntarily withdraw from the UK?

---------- Post added at 16:31 ---------- Previous post was at 16:28 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

More likely the cost of compliance is higher than the revenue from being visible here.

Yes, maybe age verification software is expensive??

Re: X/Twitter. There is no prescribed way to verify that someone is over 18 and the way that X have chosen to do this is to check when the account was opened (fair enough) or check the messages sent/received by users. Ofcom say that they are monitoring how well this works very closely.

---------- Post added at 16:35 ---------- Previous post was at 16:31 ----------

Originally Posted by Paul

I'm not. They have successfully turned the UK into a place to avoid, made us into an internet paraiah.

Except of course for those with the knowledge to use a VPN (and of course the younger generation, the ones they pretend they are protecting, are the ones most capable of doing this). Many will already be using VPNs anyway.

When this possibility was put to Ofcom they said that this legislation wasn't a "silver bullet" and that some children will inevitably get round these changes, but that it is a better situation to where people were just required to click 'yes' when asked if they were over 18.

They have advised parents to check & try to stop children from using a VPN and made it unlawful for platforms to promote/encourage the use of VPN's in order to circumvent the new restrictions.

It's a good idea from the parents POV too, as the VPN set up by their child (likely to be a free one) may well abuse the data that they gain access to from all users of the connection.

[Sirius]

I did a quick for educational purposes only check and a VPN will circumnavigate the Online Safety nonsense completely and it was a totally free VPN as well.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Sirius

I did a quick for educational purposes only check and a VPN will circumnavigate the Online Safety nonsense completely and it was a totally free VPN as well.

There was/is no doubt that this would be/is possible. I'm surprised you find it amusing that some children will use this to circumvent the measures and access all types of pornography and other inappropriate material.