The Australian government is investigating implementing age verification to access porn online following a failed UK age verification scheme. Children's charity eChildhood claims that "a third of students aged eight and under attempted to access online pornography in the past six months" including through advertising popups. No mention has been made about how effective the Australian plan will be and what exact measures may be taken to block access online.
The UK proposed making users visiting porn sites prove they were 18. The government abandoned the plan in October after a series of major technical issues.
The Australian report said three "crucial factors" needed to be sorted out to succeed where the UK scheme failed.
These included ensuring a level playing field for regulation, making age verification easy for consumers to use and raising public awareness of the need for age verification.
[...]Advocacy group Collective Shout said UK research found 28 per cent [of] children aged 11 to 12 had seen pornography online. In the 15 to 16 age group, the number jumped to 65 per cent.
The Internet routes around damage.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2020, @10:13PM (1 child)
Well, when I was 12, the internet was still just ARPANET. The Apple II was a year away. Phones were stationary and actually had dials.
But a certain kid at school was the guy to see if you cared to exchange 50 cents for a Playboy magazine page of a naked lady. He made a lot of money. Quite a bit of it from me (I didn't really need to spend lunch money on actual lunch, after all.) Sadly his business ended when his older brother discovered why his magazine collection, while still on the shelf, was getting a lot thinner.
The point is that 11 or 12 is the age when kids start hitting puberty, and thus start getting interested in sex. They will seek out this knowledge from whatever avenues are available to them. Today, that's the internet, but let's not pretend this is anything new.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday March 07 2020, @01:43AM
Well, when I was 12 Woodstock happened 2 years ago.
YMMV.
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.