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Thanks to UK peers, coming to a laptop near you in 2019: Age checks for online smut
Age checks for online porn are expected to come into force around Easter 2019, as peers yesterday signed off on the final regulations and guidance despite acknowledging they will not be wholly efficient. The roll-out of the controversial rules is about a year later than the government had hoped, as it had to give the regulator …
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 19:45 GMT Pen-y-gors
Re: Doh....
Now, WE (the vaguely IT-literate Reg-commentardiate) know that VPNs are basically a good thing, so long as they aren't free! Paid for and used properly they can considerably increase security while browsing, and not just smut.
Could someone explain this to the BBC and the Lottery? Who flatly refuse to let you use iPlayer or buy a ticket while you are using a VPN, even if it terminates in the UK.
No, they want you to disconnect your VPN and use the highly questionable free WiFi in your local coffee shop without the safety of virtuality.
But kids can still sit in Star*ucks watching movies showing grown-ups in a state of undress, so long as they use their VPN.
Why do we bother with a Parliament of morons?
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Thursday 13th December 2018 11:15 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Doh....
Why do we bother with a Parliament of morons?
Ohh - I know this one!
Because we elect people who haven't ever had a real job[1] in their lives? Who have spent all their 'working' life in a political/social bubble and never, ever have had to do something real?
[1] IE - not politics/banking/legal.
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Thursday 13th December 2018 12:16 GMT Phil W
Re: Doh....
"Paid for and used properly they can considerably increase security while browsing, and not just smut."
The fact that you're paying for a VPN makes it neither secure or trustworthy. If you believe that's really the case I will happily take your money for the VPN service I'm about to set up.
I pinky promise not to log all your activity and sell it to either the government or ne'er-do-wells on the dark web.
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 21:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Doh....
If the VPN use does explode in the UK I wonder how much that's going to screw up GCHQ's work.
Opera, with its built in VPN capability is suddenly looking very attractive. Yes, it all gets funnelled to China, but that's only a problem for those doing the sort of jobs that the PLA might have an interest in, or those who might have illegal interests?
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Thursday 13th December 2018 10:28 GMT Kane
Re: Doh....
"If the VPN use does explode in the UK I wonder how much that's going to screw up GCHQ's work."
Not much, they'll just set up their own private companies that run VPN services for offer in the UK.
Remember kids, we own nothing.
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Thursday 13th December 2018 13:55 GMT Gonzo wizard
Re: Doh....
"If the VPN use does explode in the UK I wonder how much that's going to screw up GCHQ's work."
I suspect that depends on where the VPN terminates. If it terminates at an IP address in the UK - or any other five eyes country (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) I'd expect GCHQ to be able to access the traffic.
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Thursday 13th December 2018 09:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Stopping porn is like
there is no intention to stop porn, the intention is to show the plebs, aka the public, that their concerns are heard and acted on, thus making them "connect" with the Masters (deliver brexit for everybody, etc.). It works on most things, so why shouldn't it work in this case: the voice is being heard (tick) the show is being had (tick), the porn-lovers continue as before (tick), everybody goes nudge nudge wink wink (tick). All's well, for now.
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 16:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
"[...] the Earl of Erroll also came up with the novel proposal that the government could perhaps require a pop-up on the front page of porn sites "about understanding the beginning of a relationship and how you can get excited and go forward without going to the harder aspects which involve penetrative sex".
I wonder how carefully his lordship crafted that choice of words?
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 21:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
"It should start off with "When a man loves a woman very much..."
When my friends' and neighbours' teenagers asked me for advice on sex*** I told them that most of the pleasure was in the mind. The pleasure would depend on many things: learned technique; personal aesthetics; the degree of empathy with each other.
When lust becomes love is always an interesting debate. Relationships can decline suddenly when lust is sated. It only takes one jarring of other expectations to shatter the whole edifice.
In the 1990s it was interesting to hear snippets of athletic heterosexual experiences from one lad seeming destined for marriage. Then he broke off the relationship and came out as gay in his late twenties. He said "Now I have to make up for lost time" as he learned how to date men prior to Grindr.
The current twenty-somethings seem to be going in for serial monogamous relationships. As they approach thirty they acknowledge the experience needed to make a relationship work with their latest partner.
There is still the odd one - somewhat dangerously innocent - who has ended up in a rocky early marriage due to a pregnancy that should have been avoided.
***at that age they often need someone they trust outside the family in whom to confide their misdemeanours and fears. In days gone by that was the role of an official godparent.
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Thursday 13th December 2018 09:28 GMT Andy The Hat
It should start off with "When a man loves a woman very much..."
When a man loves a woman ... a man loves a man ... a woman loves a woman ... a man that was a woman loves a man ... a man that was a woman loves a woman ... a man that was a woman loves a woman that was a man ...
Oh sod it kids, find out for yourselves ...
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Thursday 13th December 2018 09:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
re. "When a man loves a woman very much..."
being of a different disposition I feel terribly offended by the above, narrow-minded and last-century sweeping and hurtful disregard for different dispositions, moreover, and much more importantly, I feel deeply discriminated against. Which, I would hope, qualifies for free legal assistance once I bring this matter to the court of law!
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 16:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Inevitably
"that included explaining what to do when they inevitably – regardless of the age checks – encounter porn online."
I think most teenage boys already know what to do when they encounter such material online. Something to do with making sure the bedroom door is shut and mum is not about to walk in....
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 19:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Inevitably
"I think most teenage boys [...]"
That applies equally to teenage girls. Since the 1960s it has become permissible in English society for girls to know about the possible pleasures of their own body too.
Not sure what pr0n they watch - in the past some of my women friends expressed a desire to watch gay male videos. Possibly because such videos only became generally available later and were therefore an unknown area for them.
I wonder if women are the larger audience for mainstream gay relationship films eg Brokeback Mountain; Call Me By Your Name.
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 19:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Inevitably
There are some smaller sites (such as Pandora Blake) that do pr0n that is more lady-friendly than the typical male sort money-shot style, but sadly they are going to be hit much worse than the pornhubs of this world by this stupid legislation.
Also the BDSM world gets a fairly balanced interest from women, but their tastes are so wildly different you can't really put them in to male/female interest groups.
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Thursday 13th December 2018 11:48 GMT xyz
Re: Inevitably
>I wonder if women are the larger audience for mainstream gay relationship films eg Brokeback Mountain
.... never having seen the film (bloke), I understand that 2 blokes who haven't washed, changed underwear or used bog paper for months suddenly decide to stick their ***** up each other's ***** ( in a caring and nurturing way obviously)....Can't see that appealing to women unless to comment on how much the place needed a good polishing (not French).
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Thursday 13th December 2018 13:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Inevitably
"Can't see that appealing to women unless to comment on how much the place needed a good polishing (not French)."
Worldwide - anal intercourse is mainly a heterosexual practice. It provides contraception - and a tighter fit for a man after his wife has had several children. There is some doubt about how much, if any, physical pleasure is inherent in the act for the woman. However a man as the recipient has the potential for direct stimulation of his prostate - which apparently can be quite something.***
***having had my enlarged prostate prodded in various medical investigations - it was noted that nothing was felt at all.
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Thursday 13th December 2018 09:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Inevitably
well, as a parent of a (soon to be) teenagers, I expect to have to knock on their doors anyway, just in case. Having shuffled towards the abovementioned doors in a protracted and clumsy manner, talking to myself louder than usual (and that applies to both, son and daughter's room).
...
er... a thought has just struck me, but... I'll let it rest.
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Thursday 13th December 2018 13:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Inevitably
"I expect to have to knock on their doors anyway, just in case. "
Very wise. A teenage friend had a tale of the day he was getting a BJ from his girlfriend. Then his mother and her mother walked into his room. Fortunately they left immediately - as they had been under no illusions about what the young couple probably did.
Unlike a neighbour. One day her young teenage daughter and a boyfriend were "at it like rabbits" naked on their lounge floor. In that position they believed themselves shielded from external view by the frosted glass in the bottom section of the floor to ceiling windows. Unfortunately the room was brightly illuminated by the evening sun - which made them very visible outside even through that glass.
A quick word to her later appraised her of the problem of that location. She didn't even blush - but went "Oops!".
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 17:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
Just how...
So its a URL blacklist of the entire internet of Pr0n which your site can only be removed from if it deploys age verification checks from a UK approved age verification check provider? The black list will be applied to all UK ISP's?
And this applies to any adult educational *ahem* site anywhere in the world?
Or have I got that wrong?
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Thursday 13th December 2018 09:17 GMT Dan 55
Re: Just how...
Seems they've given up on regulating the entire Internet (odd that) and I guess the same address lists that are used to block pirate sites will have UK porn sites which don't verify age added to them.
Meaning you could probably get round this with a small ISP or changing your DNS settings.
So Something Has Been Done, with enough loopholes to get the tabloids frothing meaning yet another law in two or three years.
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 17:43 GMT Cynic_999
There appears to be an assumption
... that watching porn will be highly likely to harm children. Is there any credible evidence to support that assumption? IME young kids are pretty much uninterested apart from its forbidden aspect, and older kids use it for the purpose for which it is intended. They also don't regard it as any more true-to-life than a James Bond movie.
Meanwhile, there appears to not be the same amount of hand-wringing regarding the amount of violent content available to children. The message perhaps being, "Make war not love"?
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 18:01 GMT MiguelC
Re: There appears to be an assumption
Another assumption is that payment (in cash) is mandatory on porn sites (as Lord Paddick so astutely pointed out when referring that it would be hard to control Twitter content as "asking payment service providers to take action – as they are required to for porn sites –" was not possible)....
I see a tiny point of failure there (in addition to all the others)
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Wednesday 12th December 2018 18:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: There appears to be an assumption
"Meanwhile, there appears to not be the same amount of hand-wringing regarding the amount of violent content available to children."
Churches still expose children to the gory sight of a bloodied naked man nailed to a cross. Before the 16th century the figures were totally naked - and some were created by the most talented people of their day.
Then the Church decided that a loin cloth was needed for "moral" purposes - and some sculptures were irrevocably damaged in order to fit one. Pictures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were partially gouged down to the brickwork in order to then replaster and add briefs to male figures.
It often seems to me that those who vociferously want to hide the human body from everyone - are often those who object to any criticism of their religions' public violent torture and death depictions in art.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
