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posted by martyb on Thursday November 30 2017, @08:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the we-are-watching-you-watching-them dept.

UK age verification legislation will lead to a porn habit database (archive)

The country is eager to protect children from porn. It's a worthy goal, mind you, given that research shows that exposing kids to porn can be damaging. Unfortunately, it's a quixotic goal, given that porn is impossible to block. Nevertheless, the UK is now on the brink of creating a database of the country's porn habits.

It also seems poised to hand the age verification piece of that puzzle over to an outfit that Vice refers to as "the shady company that controls the majority of free porn tube sites." That company is called MindGeek. Vice likens it to the Walmart of porn. Britain's leading obscenity lawyer, Myles Jackman, says it supposedly owns about 90% of tube sites on the internet, and it didn't get that way by making friends in the industry.

[...] And now, MindGeek, the WalMart of porn, is getting ready to become even more filthy rich by having maneuvered itself into the position of becoming gatekeeper for consumers of porn, be they adults or kids who don't know how to use a virtual private network (VPN). It's not a done deal quite yet, but MindGeek has had several conversations with officials. It's also currently pushing its own age verification platform, AgeID. If selected, Britons could be dealing with AgeID as the principal gate between themselves and their porn.


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  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @08:53PM (12 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @08:53PM (#603642)

    Britain is a place that to me is too stupid to survive.

    Guns bad: Ban Guns
    Now Knives Bad: Ban Knives
    Now Spoons Bad: Ban Spoons
    Now Muslim Bad: RELIGION OF PEACE YOU ISLAMOPHOBE!

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  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:05PM (8 children)

    by isostatic (365) on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:05PM (#603652) Journal

    Spoons aren't banned, neither are knives (for adults)

    There's an argument Weatherspoons should be banned for crimes against beer, but that's about as serious as nationalising greggs.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by turgid on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:13PM (7 children)

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:13PM (#603656) Journal

      I boycott Wetherspoon's because they supported Brexit. I boycott Amazon because they abuse their staff, and I've never used Uber.

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by frojack on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:59PM (4 children)

        by frojack (1554) on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:59PM (#603702) Journal

        You should take up farming, because you can find a reason to boycott any and every company on earth. Soon you will have nothing to eat, wear, drive, ride, drink, sleep in, watch, or listen to.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 01 2017, @12:38AM (3 children)

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday December 01 2017, @12:38AM (#603741) Journal

          You say that like dependency is good and self-reliance is bad.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday December 01 2017, @08:32AM (2 children)

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 01 2017, @08:32AM (#603835) Journal

            Ummm... if self-reliance is such a virtue, it should be embraced by everybody, right?

            Let's have a taste of how a world in which everybody is self reliant would look like. With self-reliance, likely there's no science/technology progress. Why should it if everyone can manage** and can manage by her/himself****

            ---
            ** necessity is the mother of invention. If you can manage, where's the push to invent?

            †*** if no need to collaborate with others, then it's not likely you'll make any discovery known. Even if you don't want to keep it secret, what's the motivation of others to disseminate your discovery... they can manage by themselves, others won't be so interested to search for the scratch if there's no itch.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 01 2017, @02:50PM (1 child)

              by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday December 01 2017, @02:50PM (#603907) Journal

              That's argumentum ad absurdum, but, OK, let's play. Do you instead champion a world where we all go to mama and papa Walmart for everything? Where nobody can tie their own shoes and instead must pay a service to show up every morning to do it for them? Do you want to drive a stake through the heart of the DIY movement and demand that everyone, everywhere give up on trying to learn how to do things for themselves? Will you ban all the how-to videos on YouTube because it gives people dangerous ideas?

              I don't think you are saying that, so perhaps you should allow that I was not saying the converse. There is a spectrum. I personally prefer the self-reliance end of it. Frojack styles himself a conservative, an ideology whose planks include self-reliance and independence from government and other big systems, so I was pointing out that he was not being true to those.

              But in that there's also a critique I make of conservatism, in that as much as they agitate against dependence on government by saying people should do for themselves, they do not actually mean for people to do for themselves but to cultivate their dependence upon corporations. In other words, they're only wanting to trade one form of slavery for another, and think they're fooling the rest of us by calling it something else, something idyllic and synthesized from romantic myths of the frontier.

              --
              Washington DC delenda est.
              • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday December 01 2017, @11:22PM

                by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 01 2017, @11:22PM (#604090) Journal

                I don't think you are saying that, so perhaps you should allow that I was not saying the converse. There is a spectrum.

                Indeed, I didn't say that and I didn't mean you were meaning the converse.
                It was only an exercise to see what a 100% dose of self-reliance could imply.

                I personally prefer the self-reliance end of it.

                I certainly like a life sprinkled copiously with self reliance myself.

                in that as much as they agitate against dependence on government by saying people should do for themselves, they do not actually mean for people to do for themselves but to cultivate their dependence upon corporations.

                Well said.

                --
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @05:21PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @05:21PM (#603968)

        you're a special kind of brainwashed if you think an un-elected body of thieves and would be masters like the fucking scum in the EU is somehow better than nationally elected thieves and would-be masters. why you drones act like it's more sophisticated to be in favor of more slavery is especially disgusting. just like in the US, being a boot licking wanna-be authoritarian is cool. being pro freedom is subversive.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @06:12PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @06:12PM (#603988)

          Nice troll :-)
          +1 Funny.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:05PM (#603653)

    lolwut [bbc.com]

  • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @11:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @11:34PM (#603723)

    Score: -1, Insightful

    Score: -1, Inciteful*

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Wootery on Friday December 01 2017, @11:18AM

    by Wootery (2341) on Friday December 01 2017, @11:18AM (#603860)

    Guns bad: Ban Guns

    Sorta. The ban isn't total. Us Brits can still get a rifle and/or a shotgun, with the proper checks and licences. You can even get a serious crossbow without a licence.

    Also, like every first-world country in the world apart from the USA, our gun-control laws work pretty well.