Age verification mandatory for porn sites in the UK starting July

My point is: Seriously and honestly talk to a kid these days. Or read detailed reports on where the suicide rates in young peoples are sourced in.

Even porn where whatever a granny dressed up as a horse is pissing into someone else's mouth. Might be very troubling to a teen trying to understand their sexuality. Surely not a good start as sex ed.

But that's still a far cry from kids seeing people killing each other FOR REAL.

Talk to the kids. Porn is nowhere near the Top 10 of what's causing their anxieties and depressions.

This is grown-ups taking their standard route: Let's not change anything of relevance, but instead let's put a useless ban on something that won't go away by a ban, anyway.

My main issue is whenever the topic of age verification is raised, the consensus from the tech community is "the only way to achieve age verification is mass surveillance and I won't stand for it!", and as someone who works in an adjacent field to this, I feel the need to dispel that notion. We should be directing our collective energy into ensuring age verification is secure and private, not fighting against the notion entirely.

Solving one problem doesn’t mean we can’t also work on solving the others.

It's not illegal for minors to access their technology devices or watch disturbing news footage.

This is merely an enforcement vehicle for rules that already exist. It is an acknowledgment that the law that has been in place for years doesn't work anymore.

Back in the pre-Internet days the adult video store or cinema would make sure you were of proper age to patronize those businesses. Sure, you could sift through your Dad's Playboys but essentially, an adult could reasonably be able to figure out how to limit exposure of content to their children.

In the current environment it's basically impossible.

An analogy to the status quo would be if drinking for under 21/18 was illegal but no bars or stores were required to check ID. That makes it effectively legal.

Now, as to your point on whether these rules make sense in the first place? I think we can reasonably assume that most of the voting public isn't in favor of legalizing pornography for minors. It doesn't really have to make sense when compared to other things we allow exposure to.

In other words, the existing laws already roughly reflect our cultural values. Most people in the Western world are literally more okay with showing their child something violent versus something pornographic.

If we all collectively as a culture decide to change that in the future, great, but I doubt a referendum to that effect would have majority agreement.

Essentially, the only concern with this law should be the anonymity of the age verification. All other concerns are addressed by the fact that a minor viewing pornography is already breaking the law.

Because there is some kink in the Anglo Saxon psyche that means it's appealing to voters? I don't know, but I can't think of another explanation. The European countries focus their ire on violence and anti social behaviour, which makes far more sense to me.

It pretty clearly isn't because porn is particular harmful. If it was the explosion of porn the internet has made available would have some obvious effects. Yet all we get is the occasional report of some porn addicted individual. Not good, but it's more than offset by the reduction in sex crimes in the same period. And as addictions go porn addiction does seem that bad. Wasting time on porn is still wasted time I guess, but isn't actively harmful like, sugar addiction, nicotine addiction, alcohol addiction or gambling addiction - all of which are tolerated.