By 25 July, all sites and apps that allow pornography – whether they are dedicated adult sites or social media, search or gaming services – must use highly effective age checks to ensure children are not normally able to encounter it. Online firms who publish their own pornography are already required to protect children from it, and thousands of sites have already introduced robust age checks in response.

Major porn providers operating in the UK have confirmed to Ofcom that they will introduce effective checks by next month’s deadline in order to comply with the new rules. They include PornHub, the most-visited pornographic service in the UK. Other services who are happy to be named at this stage include BoyfriendTV, Cam4, FrolicMe, inxxx, Jerkmate, LiveHDCams, MyDirtyHobby, RedTube, Streamate, Stripchat, Tube8, and YouPorn. This represents a broad range of pornography services accessed in the UK.

Monitoring compliance with these new duties is a priority for Ofcom. If any company fails to comply with its new duties, Ofcom can impose fines and – in very serious cases – apply for a court order to prevent the site or app from being available in the UK. As part of our work enforcing the Online Safety Act, we have already launched investigations into four porn providers and won’t hesitate to take further action from July.

  • HexesofVexes@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    And when this measure fails to protect children and, instead, becomes a data security nightmare, another scheme will be proposed to further erode the freedoms the web brings.

    I look forward to hearing about the workarounds kids find.

    • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I look forward to hearing about the workarounds kids find.

      Look no further, the workaround is the humble VPN. The kids that found that work around are 50+ now lmao

  • 7112@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    This feel strangely like it has little to do with actually protecting kids…

    • Ushmel@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      It’s about making LGBTQ content “adult only” and using this same mechanism to enforce ID law on that content. They’ve been doing it in some USA states for a few years now. No one wants to be the Porn Politician that votes against it.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Yep, ancap thought in terms of efficiency, to justify ancap, goes after the central controller just not having enough information to fully govern a society well enough.

      These fuckers apparently think something changed, if you have one big honeypot of a web and mandate checks (as a justification) that yield said information to them.

      BTW, they are right, until we find a way to decentralize services.

    • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      You can literally find porn on search engines. Google images is a bit restrictive but Bing, Duckduckgo etc will straight up show porn in the image or video searches.

  • Armand1@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    If your kid has half a brain he’ll do what we did as kids when porn sites were blocked on the home WiFi: He’ll just get a VPN.

    And when VPN websites were blocked on the home WiFi, we’d just download their apps on mobile data.

    Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

    Better to educate your kids on their natural urges and letting them use the more moderated sites than have them go down the more dodgy rabbitholes. No kink shaming but some of the things people do are nasty.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I’m disappointed that Pornhub is apparently capitulating instead of blocking access entirely in protest, like they’ve done in other jurisdictions.

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      They only really block access when there isn’t an official way to validate. Iirc, Louisiana did this over a year ago and pornhub is doing age verification there now.

  • jasoman@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    So much for being better than the US. Welcome to the downfall of modern society UK.

  • TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    So people too young or too privacy conscious to use those major platforms will move to nicher porn sites. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all… /s

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      It already has. Lemmy.zip if unavailable to users (of the admins own volition as they don’t have the capability to comply) in the Uk because of the law

  • Sentient Loom@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    So what privacy will I have to give up?

    Actually I’m in Canada so I’m probably safe anyway.

    I mean… I don’t watch porn so this doesn’t affect my anyway…