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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.
(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.