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.
Related Stories
French porn star piqued over Macron's desire to crackdown on X-rated films
A star of French porn films has challenged President Emmanuel Macron to meet with him and female porn actresses after France's leader aroused his anger by linking the porn industry to violence against women and inequality. Manuel Ferrara was furious over the president's speech at the weekend which outlined his plan to tackle violence against women and ensure equality between the sexes. According to Macron pornography makes women "an object of humiliation" and that action needs to be taken because porn films are now so widely watched among school children.
Ferrara hit back on Twitter and invited the president to discuss the issue. "I am involved in this industry that you are trying to demonize by making this kind of remark. I am ready to sit down with you and discuss a topic that by all accounts you know nothing about. I'm waiting for your call!" In an interview with France Inter radio the porn star continued to criticize the president saying he found his remark "shocking". "He demonizes the porn industry and is jumping to conclusions (faire un amalgame). It's the same with video games. It's like saying 'a teenager who plays Call of Duty is going to pick up a gun and kill everyone in his school'."
[...] On Saturday Macron announced his plan to extend the powers of France's broadcasting regulator CSA to cover X-rated films as well as launch an awareness campaign on pornography in secondary schools. "The CSA plays an indispensable role in regulating audiovisual content everywhere and stopping the most undignified behavior becoming a form of tacit propaganda," said the president. "Today we do not regulate access to video games, internet content and pornographic content that is increasingly available."
Also at BBC and Reason (archive).
(Score: 5, Funny) by isostatic on Thursday November 30 2017, @08:50PM (4 children)
A generation of teenagers will learn how to set up VPNs, a valuable life skill
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:39PM (2 children)
Bad news. Too many people start using VPNs they'll soon go the way of net neutrality.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @12:17AM (1 child)
... and for promoting the growth of government interference?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @05:14AM
> promoting the growth
That's what she said!
(Score: 2) by gidds on Sunday December 03 2017, @10:33PM
Every time we discuss anything related to net privacy, censorship, or tracking, VPNs are mentioned as a solution.
And I really don't see it.
If you don't use a VPN, then your ISP can see everything you do online, and anyone else can track you to the ISP's endpoint.
If you do use a VPN, then your VPN provider can see everything you do online, and anyone else can track you to the VPN's endpoint. Plus your use of a VPN makes you stand out as (apparently) having something to hide.
Why is the latter any more secure than the former?
[sig redacted]
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Thursday November 30 2017, @08:51PM (9 children)
> If selected, Britons could be dealing with AgeID as the principal gate
Change title to Private National Porn Habits Database.
Who's gonna buy Mindgeek first? Google or Facebook?
(Score: 3, Funny) by isostatic on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:00PM (8 children)
Who's gonna buy Mindgeek first? Google or Facebook?
Disney
(Score: 3, Informative) by drussell on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:52PM (7 children)
Indeed...
Disney already owns the largest porn studio company in the US. They bought them in about 2012, IIRC.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:49PM (6 children)
Linky please.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Thursday November 30 2017, @11:13PM (5 children)
link to the news item, or to the movies?
(sorry, my AI is practicing rhetorical questions)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday November 30 2017, @11:47PM (4 children)
Add this to your training set: linky to the news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday December 01 2017, @09:07AM (3 children)
And the sites. Asking for a friend.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday December 01 2017, @09:27AM (2 children)
Is it mouse pron, or an independent prodiction company?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @03:26PM (1 child)
It's copyright porn, watch out the clip always gets extended when it is close to ending...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday December 01 2017, @05:26PM
Well, if it's Disney lying about how long something is, don't be surprised it gets longer.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @08:53PM (12 children)
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!
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:05PM (8 children)
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)
I boycott Wetherspoon's because they supported Brexit. I boycott Amazon because they abuse their staff, and I've never used Uber.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Informative) by frojack on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:59PM (4 children)
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)
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)
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
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 01 2017, @02:50PM (1 child)
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
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 certainly like a life sprinkled copiously with self reliance myself.
Well said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @05:21PM (1 child)
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
Nice troll :-)
+1 Funny.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:05PM
lolwut [bbc.com]
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @11:34PM
Score: -1, Inciteful*
(Score: 3, Informative) by Wootery on Friday December 01 2017, @11:18AM
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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Thursday November 30 2017, @08:54PM (2 children)
Well, the best thing to do is to get a hold of the cabinet members' IDs and use the exclusively for porn site IDs (*)
It is data noise when you limit the number of IDs used and it would be simple to use one single IDs for all those accesses for everyone. If it is blocked, then you simply take the next and the next and the next. Let the cat and mouse game commence.
(*) that will show, once and for all, that the leaders of the country are fucked.
(Score: 2, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:12PM
I absolutely love this idea. Enough that I'm going to start using a VPN endpoint in the UK for all my porn browsing needs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dublet on Friday December 01 2017, @01:04PM
Errr.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42151148 [bbc.co.uk]
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by crafoo on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:30PM (6 children)
So this is the wedge they will use to make mandatory online identification a reality. UK is lost.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:39PM (3 children)
First they came for the wankers...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:48PM (2 children)
> First they came for the wankers...
Doesn't work. Everybody's a wanker, health permitting.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by maxwell demon on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:41PM (1 child)
Those who haven't yet reached puberty aren't.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @03:32PM
FWIW "Masturbation is considered normal when performed by children,[33][34][35] even in early infancy.[28]"
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masturbation#Frequency.2C_age.2C_and_sex [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:50PM
A lot of wasted effort if they stop halfway. Absolutely no reason for the progression to be interrupted.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday December 01 2017, @02:22AM
Don't worry, In the US it is worse. Thanks to removing Network Neutrality and Privacy rules, I expect the super cookie issues on mobile phones to become common place on wired internet providers.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20150203-column.html [latimes.com]
Technologically, it can be done... Its just a matter of mapping your MAC address connecting to your ISP to your account. Yes, if you know what you are doing you can change your MAC address, but many cable companies require it to stay the same in order to connect to their network.
You may think that they would be unwilling to go this far... maybe initially, but you know advertising companies would pay them to identify their users... and nothing stops corporate greed.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:40PM
Good luck. I've never logged into any porn site, or paid one, ever. I come from an older generation that had to fight for porn. If you were 10 years old and had a page torn out of a Playboy/Hustler, it was akin to searching for gold and finding it. Paying some place for it? Honestly, going into one of those places just seems weird when you can get everything you need to get off on the Internet, for free, anonymously.
It's too easy these days anyways. I don't have to work for hardcore porn. Just look at an RSS feed from my favorite private tracker, load up what looks interesting, and then watch it after it automatically downloads to my computer.
If I didn't want to pirate, there are literally tons (measured in hard drive weight) of amateur pictures out there. Plenty of exhibitionists rejoiced when they found the Internet, and were very eager to let the rest of us know.
Logging in for porn. How quaint :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Touché) by bob_super on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:51PM (3 children)
- UK men will get Viagra over the counter
- UK people will lose anonymous porn
Just when:
- Women all around the world are speaking up about sexual harassment.
What could possibly go wrong?
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday December 01 2017, @08:49AM (2 children)
Correction:everybody will get Viagra OTC.
I'll tell you what can possibly go worse: the women learn that Viagra works for them too [go.com].
If you think overly-horny men can be a problem, wait to see what problems an increased level of nimphomania can bring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Friday December 01 2017, @05:36PM
> wait to see what problems an increased level of nymphomania can bring.
Sure! Challenge Accepted! Bring. It. On!
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday December 01 2017, @07:49PM
> I'll tell you what can possibly go worse: the women learn that Viagra works for them too
As long as it works better than Addyi, the "female Viagra" that's barely better than placebo on everything except causing blackouts and counteracting your birth control pill.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:22PM (6 children)
What research, exactly? I mean, I don't think you'd get the "We're going to show pr0n to 8-year-olds to find out if it's damaging" study approved by any ethics board, and grant funding would probably be hard to come by. And yes, I RTFA, and it doesn't provide anything at all to back up that assertion.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:35PM (1 child)
What about all those kids with glasses?
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday December 01 2017, @03:45AM
Mother: Billy... if you keep doing that, you'll go blind.
Billy: Ahw mom, can't I just do it until I need glasses?
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @11:15PM
I didn't check though.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @12:22AM
Well adjusted kids keep quiet, or lie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @03:06AM
I'm sure some studies exist, but no good ones. It's just the same nonsense from the social 'sciences' that you see in other areas where the researchers admit that their study is completely inconclusive and some portion of the media then misrepresents it as conclusive, or where the researchers are severely biased and pretend that only one conclusion can be drawn from the data. Don't expect much of anything from these fields.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday December 01 2017, @08:53AM
That's sooo irrelevant.
We are speaking about new legislation and an interested company.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Interesting) by meustrus on Thursday November 30 2017, @11:01PM (10 children)
Pass a law requiring all porn sites to identify themselves with a special HTTP header (X-XXX-Content?) or an analog for non-HTTP distribution. Then let the private sector sell parents filtering software that uses this identification. Public spaces can install these filters as a matter of course, and parents can install it on all computers in the house (with a pin to disable, as in other parental control software).
Concerned citizens can now block the stuff on their own machines without affecting anybody else. And if the parents can't be bothered to set up the parental controls, porn is not the only potentially damaging thing their kids will be getting into anyway.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday November 30 2017, @11:16PM (2 children)
Your idea makes sense therefore it will not be adopted.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @04:09AM (1 child)
No, it doesn't really make sense. What classifies as porn is different in different societies/jurisdictions. Where's the line? Topless women are not porn in Europe, women showing their ankles are porn in Saudi Arabia.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday December 01 2017, @02:52PM
Of course the judgement of what needs identifying would be the hardest part, especially with the international differences you describe. Porn isn't about body parts though. It's about intent. And while the Saudis are welcome to put a great big firewall around the bear ankles part of the internet, anybody that's really only concerned "for the children" should be able to agree that it's about intent to titillate, not the presence of female nipples.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday December 01 2017, @03:11AM (4 children)
That solution is only marginally less bad. Responsibility does not fall upon me to make it easier for you to identify content you find offensive. Why not expand this to other areas and not just porn? If your website is pushing a Christian agenda, then you have to identify yourself with a special HTTP header so that people can block your nonsense more easily. Somehow, I don't think that would be accepted. It's up to the developers of filtering software to figure out ways to block certain content; it's not up to other people to make it easy for them.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday December 01 2017, @02:55PM (3 children)
Democratic societies are free to make a majority decision as to which content types need to be labelled. And if the filtering software has to play a cat-and-mouse game like ad blockers do, it will never be good enough, because when something makes it through the filter, the consumer is probably not going to complain.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday December 04 2017, @09:09AM (2 children)
They're also "free" to make certain minorities into slaves, as we saw in the past. But the fact that they can do this doesn't mean that it is ethical. The majority should not be able to violate fundamental liberties such as freedom of speech. And it is a speech issue, because there would be punishments handed out for not presenting your website in a way that the government deems desirable.
You offered no justification beyond popularity, and that is why you fail.
I don't care. That's an issue for the oversensitive people to try to solve for themselves.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday December 04 2017, @03:01PM (1 child)
So is your argument that content labeling is an evil equivalent to slavery? Or are you merely pointing out that the same argument can lead to slavery in the absence of ethics? There's a lot of evil that we can do within the current political system. If you want to fix it, I suggest you stop complaining about unobjectionable proposals like requiring accurate labels for things and go to work on real ethics violations like mass surveillance, corrupt campaign finance, and eminent domain abuse, or if you want to go international, there's plenty of genocide out there that still needs eliminating.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can have a less sensationalist conversation about how to solve comparatively minor problems like this, since that's apparently the only kind of problem we can solve.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday December 05 2017, @01:23AM
No, my argument was that, even in democratic societies, the majority should definitely not have absolute power because that can lead to things like slavery and violating free speech rights. It may be the case that if the thuggish, foolish, and unprincipled majority wants something desperately, then it's going to happen no matter what, but that doesn't necessarily make it right.
I don't find it unobjectionable. Telling me to give up on things that I care about is not exactly convincing. For one thing, it's not really an opposition to putting labels on things in general, but an opposition to specific proposals like yours that would necessarily conflict with free speech.
And the proposal you put forth is not something that has been implemented yet, so it's by no means an inevitability.
I already oppose all of those things. That sort of whataboutism isn't going to work. I'm not just going to focus entirely on those other things and ignore the government when it tries to violate my rights in other ways. For now, I'd rather discuss why it is ethically justifiable to mandate that pornography sites be labeled so as to be easily identified by filtering software, and why it would not be justifiable to make such requirements for other types of speech (like pro-Islam speech, etc.). Just because the majority wants the requirement for one type of speech but not others? Is that really it? That logic could be used to justify any number of intolerable policies. Should it be done because some people find the content offensive and would prefer that it be easier to block? That could apply to any speech.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday December 01 2017, @03:39AM (1 child)
It would be nice his could work... and I have heard the idea in the past. Other variations include limiting them to the .xxx domain.
However, it will not work. Some porn producers are almost as sleazy as corporate executives... More than a few of them will ignore the law (or just pay it lip service) for the money. Think of how popular the porn site that gets by the filtering software will be. And we all know how quick the legal system is...
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday December 01 2017, @02:47PM
With the right penalties, the easily-provable crime of not identifying your content shouldn't take long to get you sued. Especially if this happened in the litigation-happy US.
It's not like the people being blocked are a huge market anyway. How much money are you really going to get from the teenagers that can't figure out their way around a software filter?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 1) by noneof_theabove on Thursday November 30 2017, @11:36PM (1 child)
That's it in a nutshell.
When the industry lobbyist paid off ICANN to not approve XXX domain names, "we" the people again failed.
Yes VPNs get around some problems but when children are not allowed to install applications, phone or pc, then there is no problem.
I never had kids but fully supported using XXX for all porn sites.
Well not that have let the whole dictionary in, but again ".porn" like xxx did not become the de facto standard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @06:30PM
But if its done at the domain name, what about the kids that just want to read the articles?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @10:29AM
[Citation needed]
Outside of the puritan Christian US, I've never seen anyone claim this. In fact, not that long ago, people only had one bedroom, if the house even had separate rooms. Do you think kids never woke up when their parents were "doing it"?
Heck, I remember reading that in the US, porn magazines are put on the top shelf. The last times I bought one (before everything moved to the internet), it was on the bottom shelf, where prudish adults wouldn't see them without looking for them.
The only actual case of "damage" I've heard of is one very young child that got convinced that "women eat peepees". No more damaging than any other misunderstanding that can be cleared up once the child gets old enough that you can explain the misunderstanding.