Art, Writing, and Learning: The Clerisy Quarter > Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza

UK to regulate obscene content online more heavily

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Jubal:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40630582


--- Quote ---A nine-month countdown to the introduction of compulsory age checks on online pornography seen from the UK has begun.

The April 2018 goal to protect under-18s was revealed as digital minister Matt Hancock signed the commencement order for the Digital Economy Act, which introduces the requirement. But details as to how the scheme will work have yet to be finalised. Experts who advised ministers said the targeted date seemed "unrealistic".

The act also sets out other new laws including punishing the use of bots to snatch up scores of concert tickets, and mandating the provision of subtitles on catch-up TV.
--- End quote ---

So my view is basically that this is incredibly silly - there's no way to blanket-find, let alone blanket-block, all the relevant websites, this does nothing to secondary sharing of content via FB/Twitter/messaging apps, and it introduces huge potential new problems in that people will be asked, legally, to give lots of extra sensitive ID data to websites and companies that they don't currently have to. So basically potential big new crime, ID theft, privacy and security issues in exchange for a system that will in all likelihood do bugger all to actually protect anyone. Gah.

Clockwork:
I hate this so damn much. The bot thing is the companies problem, not the government, portugal the portugal outta that.


Porn regulations are dumb. Under-18s have been stealing looks at porn since time immemorial. Okay so back when it was more of a risk having to catch someone bathing or some armadillo but even so, if they want to see it they will. The human race is still going unfortunately so what harm has it really done? None, stupid goddamn 21st century sensibilities. Also, ISPs have blocked piratebay. That's gone awesomely for them, totally nobody uses that anymore /rolleyes. Is the depiction of sex in porn harmful? No. For the average, non-insane person who's at the same time as watching porn also seen ads saying 'no means no'; they'll do fine. Jesus it's not portugaling rocket surgery. Scumbags who don't respect when their partner doesn't want to do something aren't going to regardless of what they have or haven't seen.


Requiring VoDs to have subtitles is so retarded I can't even start. Who the portugal is going to actually subtitle youtube (as opposed to the CC which it already has).


Finally, up to 10 years for online piracy. portugal that noise as well. Legitimately you get less time for actual armed robbery. For use of a bladed weapon or firearm to intimidate AND serious harm done to person/business or property is 8 years starting up to 12 years. https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Robbery-offences-definitive-guideline-web.pdf


Someone try and argue the logic in that. It's ridiculous. Anyone feel free to quote that previous paragraph, sell it to a trashy newspaper, whatever. Spread the word how portugaling dumb this is.

Jubal:
I didn't actually realise that was a higher sentence than armed robbery, that's ridiculous. Forwarded that to the RA's social media team, thankyou!

And yeah, it annoys me too. I just don't see who this policy is for, other than maybe a few older daily mail readers or something.

dubsartur:
Porn, terrorism, and child abuse are the severed ears which Euro and settler authoritarians wave when they want to further restrict and surveil electronic communications. 

The other aspect of such a law would be that it would lock in the dominance of MindGeek.  MindGeek is the current name for a shifting series of companies founded on the observation that the budget of most porn films is far too small to defend the copyright in court.  So they got a lot of venture capital, created a network of video-sharing sites with friendly terms of service, and were shocked, shocked that many of the most popular videos were pirated (they had a very slow but scrupulously correct system for submitting takedown requests).  With revenues plummeting, most of the industry in the Anglo countries had to cooperate, and my understanding is that they hold the same position in the porn world that Newscorp holds in Australia and the UK or Amazon holds in online book sales.

They have access to capital (because they are "not a porn company" just a content-delivery network) and can afford to install a complicated system on their sites, most people in the naked-on-the-Internet business don't and can't.  And they can definitely afford lobbyists in London.

Glaurung:
After (I think) several intended dates for implementing age verification that didn't happen, and a "we're really going to do it this time" implementation date in July this year that didn't happen either, the UK government has now cancelled the current plans completely - see this Guardian article. The whole area will now be considered in an "online harms" white paper - though with a title like that, I'm doubtful the resulting legislation will be any better.

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