The smart phone generation seem to have lower computer literacy than millennials largely due to smart phones hiding away a lot of the workings. In the UK age verification for adult sites came into force yesterday and like everywhere streaming services are getting very enshittified. This is going to lead kids to discovering tor, VPNs, pirating, how to make deep fakes (to fool ai based age verification), and other ways of getting what they want without restrictions.
When was it decided that parents can do absolutely nothing wrong regarding their kids so that intrusive bullshit like this had to be introduced? Who in their right mind would upload their ID or face pic to some rando porn site to verify an age? It’s like Internet Security 101 to not do that ever.
I had a sour taste in my mouth when signing Stop Killing Games because it required my full legal name and address even tho I understand that they need to verify my eligibility to vote and I trust them way more than I trust a for-profit porn site. It’s just not something I usually do on principle.
That’s the point. They’re not trying to “protect the kids”. They’re trying to kill porn by making it more cumbersome and uncomfortable for you to do.
Aren’t there like 1000s of Russian porn sites that dgaf who you are or where you are? (And probably install malware.) Are all UK ISPs going to find them all and block them all one by one or how is that supposed to work if the site itself doesn’t geo block?
Next step: the great wall of great britain. Protecting citizens from harmful foreign influences.
Hadrian’s firewall
Yeah the Act shows the wilful stupidity of politicians who pass legislation without understanding the areas they’re legislating on. It’s a nonsense act that tries to look like it is “protecting children” and is performative nonsense for MPs to pass moral judgement on things they don’t agree with.
But in practice it’s a security and privacy nightmare, it’s restricting and interfering in the freedom and rights of the majority of the population all to satisfy a stupid moral panic, and it makes the UK look like a backwards state.
Don’t worry, soon other countries will be down there with the UK. Look at the payment processor (Visa/MC/etc) issues recently with sexually explicit games on Steam and itch.io.