and fuck the UK goverment
That is, I believe, a British law that they’re following for users that appear to be in the UK. Not like they’re going to just disregard the law.
kagis
Yeah, the Online Safety Act 2023.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Act_2023
The Online Safety Act 2023[1][2][3] (c. 50) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to regulate online content. Designed to protect children and adults online, it passed on 26 October 2023 and gives the relevant Secretary of State the power, subject to parliamentary approval, to designate and suppress or record a wide range of online content that is illegal or deemed “harmful” to children.[4][5]
The act creates a new duty of care for online platforms, requiring them to take action against illegal content, or legal content that could be “harmful” to children where children are likely to access it. Platforms failing this duty would be liable to fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their annual turnover, whichever is higher. It also empowers Ofcom to block access to particular websites.
So that’s what they’ll be aiming to do.
Some websites and apps stated they would introduce age verification for users in response to a 25 July 2025 deadline set by Ofcom.[47] These include pornographic websites,[48] but also the social networks Bluesky and Reddit.[49][50]
Probably should be mostly irritated with Parliament.
I expect that using a VPN that terminates in another country will avoid it, though I bet that then you can’t do things like buy Reddit Gold, if that’s still a thing.
If you don’t mind my hijacking, I’ve seen the term “kagis” used a number of times on Lemmy, possibly only by you but I think also others. Based on the usage, I assumed it was a Latin word to indicate some sort of transition or side-bar, but it seems to just translate to “you are”, which doesn’t make sense in context. Can I ask what it means?
There’s a search engine named Kagi. It’s basically the equivalent of “googles” but for a different search engine.
Thanks. The usage now makes sense, albeit superfluous.
Kagi is a new-ish search engine that is popular among Lemmy users. Those users are trying to get it to catch on, and have started using kagi as a verb, the same way people say “let me google that really quick.”
It honestly feels a lot like when Microsoft was trying to get Bing and their phone OS to take off, and started slipping product placement into popular TV shows. There was a brief time period in American TV, where characters had the disgusting line of “Bing it!” Usually while showing the Bing home page on a Microsoft Phone. It was just blatant ham-fisted cringey product placement.
Yeah I’ve noticed this user basically inserts a “kagis” into like 2/3 of their comments, it always slightly irks me because it makes me feel like I’m getting advertised at. I’ve never felt the need to proclaim which search engine(s) I’ve used to research any particular comment on Lemmy, and I find it odd that the one person who does so regularly is doing it for a paid service.
Apart from that, their comments are usually pretty good, so I’m not accusing them of shilling or anything, but I find it super peculiar.
Does “googled” make you feel advertised at?
Not particularly, and while I admit this can seem hypocritical, the verb “to google” has just become a generic trademark.
When someone says band-aid, or kleenex, or jello, I think of bandages, tissues, or gelatin desserts, not of a specific brand of these products. Same goes with “googled”, it just means “searched the web” now rather than specifically using Google.
What about ye olde “googles on ddg”?
It makes me sad when I see the name because Kagi used to be a payments processor for shareware and essentially a predecessor to modern app stores…but before enshittification.
Upvote for the verbification of Kagi :)
I’d add that if you pick Ireland as the VPN exit country, it will have notable benefits:
-
Sites that pick language based on IP will probably do English.
-
It probably won’t add much latency.
-
Ireland isn’t too bonkers and hopefully won’t have any large collection of online laws of their own that become an irritant.
-
Because Ireland has a considerably smaller population than the UK, if people in the UK do this at scale for pornography, it will make the Irish statistically look like absolutely indefatigable horndogs, which I think will be pretty funny on visualizations.
Pornhub stats: Irish +28572%
the Irish statistically look like absolutely indefatigable horndogs
What did you think that “wild rover” they keep singing about was? 😉
Indefatigable horndogs best band name calling dibs now
Please make the music ska. A band with that name, playing literal horns, creating a fast, upbeat tempo? It would be beautiful.
-
Does a vpn bypass it?
Edit: btw yes I totally agree with you, I’m just wondering if that would be a workaround
Reddit blocks VPN users. I’m unable to access it on my home network because of it.
Which is great! They trained me not to bother going to their site by blocking my attempts. Though I kind of want to punch Snoo now, from having to see his smug face winking at me on the block page every time. Little fucker, you used to be cool. Enjoy the inevitable bot-pocalypse nazi farm you’re building.
At one point Reddit had an Onion site
You can use a VPN to negate this check. For now…
But Spez will still edit your comments. I don’t know how reddit has still some users left after that and the API train wreck.
Exactly. I get that there are still niches there that haven’t found their place here yet (be the change you want to see), but the only way I use Reddit now is through a search for things that find old information, since it is still a huge database of data (admittedly both good and bad).
Anyone try a McLovin ID?
Unpopular opinion: this is a good thing - there should be more barriers to porn. I know some teens will find a way around it, but it has been proven to affect the developing brain negatively and normalizes some really harmful behaviour.
Then the parent(s) need to be parent(s) by monitoring their childrens online activity if they feel theyll have access to content they shouldnt. They should also explain what porn is, why they shouldnt view it, and what about it is harmful to prepare them for when they will, not might, but will encounter it so they have the tools and understanding necessary to handle and process what they are seeing. Porn exist. Its not going anywhere anytime soon. Making it harder to access for everyone isnt going to make it go away, stop witty teens from finding it, or stop content that slips through the moderation cracks in spaces that dont allow pornagraphic content.
Im not advocating for more porn or easier access to porn, but rather recognition that the parent(s) are responsible for their childrens wellbeing, education, and preparedness for adulthood where they will absolutely encounter adult content, online and off, regardless of if they voluntarily sought it out. Hiding it, pretending it doesnt exist, or avoiding the topic with them doesn’t prepare them for reality in adulthood where they are expected to be able to handle uncensored life.
Not to mention, as it was pointed out several times in the comments, an ID mandate for a website is extremely easy to circumvent with a vpn, something that is incredible easy to obtain and set up. The only way, in my opinion at least, to effectively stop children from accessing porn is for the parent(s) to monitor their online activity and educate them on what and why this content is not okay for them to view as a child.
The problem is that porn and self pleasure are taboo topics. Parents seem to want to make their kids stay kids when in reality they need guidance on how to be an adult.
Parents should monitor their children’s behaviour AND society should also impose barriers. The “everything is on parents” is the same personal responsibility myth that conservatives use to justify removing government assistance and cutting things such as healthcare and schooling.
On their way home from school children cannot enter a bar and be served alcohol - or at least this is exceedingly difficult. This has undoubtedly saved people from substance abuse. The same can be said here.
Of course parents should discuss porn and its problems, just as they would with alcohol and other vices.
Also, I have taught young people technology. VPNs are not as intuitive for the mobile generation. Many will not bother, or when they figure it out they will be much closer to a reasonable age.
The barriers do not have to be perfect, but they will help.
Society does impose those barriers in the form of dedicated spaces for adult, dedicated spaces for children, and content moderation in spaces where both audiences are welcomed. I also didnt and am not claiming “everything is on the parents” because i think thats a ridiculous and unrealistic stance. I fully support government assistance programs. What Im claiming is theres a level of responsibility on the parent(s) to monitor their children, regulate the content they consume, and educate them about the things they may encounter outside of their ability to process as children and im making this claim specifically about online porn/adult content, the topic of the main post and conversation.
Alcohol is a different topic despite the overlap in it being considered for adults. Correct, children cant just walk into a bar and order a drink, but they can walk in with their parent and that parent can order it on their behalf and give it to them. The law obviously varries from place to place, but in general in the U.S., its that a bar cant serve children, not that they cant let them enter. Ultimately, its up to the parent to decide if its something they feel their child is allowed to consume and the bar owner if they want to allow that child to enter.
I think at this point it’s clear to everyone that content moderation done by humans is not viable at scale. In this sense the web is unique, and would require a more dragnet solution, like ID verification. This is done in China already to much success to limit game time for youths.
A child would be turned away at a strip club, so perhaps this is a better analogy than a bar.
Still, if a parent wanted their children to browse an unfiltered Reddit they could provide their ID, and in this way we have a similar analogy.
A strip club isnt really a better analogy since there are no laws in the U.S. barring children from entering, but again, this cam varry depending on location. A parent can still take their child there if the establishment owner allows it.
Except we’re not talking about the physical world, we’re talking about the digital where a simple ID verification is a piss poor effort of a barrier. Which then leaves us with, what, exactly? The mass surveilance, a.i. facial recognition, and deep privacy invasion used in china? Because, im never going to agree with you on this, period. If a parent has a problem with their kid visiting spaces clearly labeled and marked as for adults, then that parent needs to be a parent and kick their kid off the internet.
Man kids should not be able to enter strip clubs, that’s insane to me.
Mhm
The law doesn’t exist to raise your kids to do the right thing. This is a massive privacy violation.
Advertisers have already been mining porn habits on Reddit to sell to third parties. Browser fingerprinting and the Reddit app identify you. If you were concerned about privacy you would not be using Reddit.
But a lot of children and teens do use Reddit, and we should do our best to limit their access to pornography, especially when this data is indiscriminately collected about them too.
Does the law exclude sites that don’t violate your privacy? Is it limited to big sites like reddit or Facebook?
the law isn’t about access to porn it’s about stopping access to lgbtq spaces (and anything else the government doesn’t like)
If this is true, then this censorship is a terrible tragedy. I still would like government imposed ID age verification for porn though.
Edit: Judging by the spike in downvotes on this comment I can see assumptions are being made about my intentions.
You can limit pornography and not limit access to sex education services, or LGBT communities as they are not pornographic.
But if there was an LGBT forum posting LGBT pornography, then yes, it too should have age verification.
You can just use a different porn site, there are millions of them and someone who wants to find them (horny teenagers) will find them. I will let you figure out yourself if the content on those sites is less harmful. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
I seriously doubt this will do anything
The youth tend to be pretty good at pushing though boundaries and restrictions
Fuck off. Like, all the way off.
There is no meaningful barrier to porn without changing what makes the internet the internet. There are only old tech illiterate law makers virtue signaling about their children while those children run circles around arbitrary shit like this
What is worse is that the politicians have totally forgotten the typical behavior of youth. The are going to end up making porn seem really cool and rebellious which will increase porn addiction.
We can change anything, and if it makes society a better place then we actually have a moral obligation to try.
I’m also not asking for perfectly monitored total surveillance. Just some barriers for surface level use.
A kid can camp outside a liquor store, offering strangers money to buy them alcohol. But this is difficult, and has a chance of having them turned in.
In the same way an ID pop-up can be circumvented with savvy use of VPNs etc., but it will easily block many of the youngest and most vulnerable. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective.
Making the internet a walled garden will NOT make society a better place.
This is just a lack of imagination on your part.
You could theoretically come up with a system that is both decentralized and able verify age using dedicated protocols/API to respective governments. Just like how most Lemmy sites scan for and report CSAM.
We can change anything, and if it makes society a better place then we actually have a moral obligation to try
The problem is that “better” in the context of society is usually subjective. We’re talking about a form of censorship, for which change in a positive direction is very complicated at best.
Lawmakers in the US want people to think that ISPs taking responsibility for pirates on their network is a change for a “better” society, for example. Or that net neutrality is unfair to businesses and would result in a “better” society if abolished.
The truth is that it’s a ploy to gather unprecedented amounts of data on citizens hiding behind a “won’t they think of the children” moral take.
Have you met some of these youth? They are never really stopped by restrictions. One person finds a way to bypass it and word spreads like wildfire.
Realistically, a kid that wants to see some funky stuff is going to find a way. Not every website cares about these stupid laws.
Instead of policing everyone, risking security leaks, and deanonymizing users, the parents who want to stop their children from viewing naked humans should just put up block lists on their network. It would filter a lot more than just adding age verification to reddit.
Also, most students have phones. The first time I saw someone I knew naked was some other kid showing me the photos she sent him. He and I weren’t even friends, we just, sat next to each other in class.
Sure, we all have anecdotes of finding porn on the internet before it was reasonable. And everyone can eventually find ways around barriers. I also remember someone young googling terms and not realizing there was a setting blocking content. They had given up.
Barriers can meaningfully delay, giving young people more time to mature before they are exposed to this content. If every social media platform implemented this, it would have a significant impact. That’s why the porn industry lobbies so hard against these sorts of laws.
I think many underestimate how damaging porn use actually is, how toxic the industry is, and how much of the traffic is generated by the underaged.
I found porn in the woods my dude - friend’s houses, parent’s stashes. It’s always been available, although not so readily.
While I tried to prevent access for my own kids also, I accepted that after a certain age they’re going to be interested and be able to find it. Their mother and I had some tangential talks about it with them and let them know it’s not realistic at all. As far as I know, everyone turned out okay. Normal lives and relationships and all.
I’m not convinced that whatever they found as they were growing up was as harmful as you’re making it sound. You’re making a lot of bold, unsourced claims. Although now that I think about it, I don’t know how you can ethically do a lot of research on the topic.
I believe a bigger topic, and one that plays into what you’re concerned about, is early use (especially unmonitored) of any networked computing devices. Maybe make smart phones or PCs adult only like alcohol, tobacco, or guns. If the family chooses to have one in the home it’s up to the parents to make it safe.
Instead of policing everyone, risking security leaks, and deanonymizing users, the parents who want to stop their children from viewing naked humans should just put up block lists on their network. It would filter a lot more than just adding age verification to reddit.
Or even better, parents could have conversations about sex instead of letting the kids get sex ed from porn.
Americans are scared of sex education. The schools could just continue teaching it, but a lot of people don’t like that.
Respect for sharing your opinions and backing it up.
That said, it’s not a question about whether porn is bad; it’s a question of whether we should normalize providing your ID online. I don’t think the risks involved with deanonymization and ID fraud are worth it.
This is the most convincing argument for me, as I know many governments have not been putting their citizen’s interests first.
Despite the risks, I know these sorts of anonymous confirmation systems already exist, and can be implemented effectively with transparency.
Most VPN services tout “zero logs”, and many back it up with audits. We can demand the same from our government.
I’m sure drivers licenses and social security numbers made people uncomfortable too when they were rolled out, but they certainly improved our lives.
A slippery slope is a logical fallacy - we can impose just enough oversight to be helpful AND curtail overreach. We can build and verify a good system.
Also, thank you for being kind.
Fuck Reddit and Fuck Spez.
They have to comply with local laws. (Fuck them anyway but for entirely different reasons, at least in this case they’re following the law.)
Who do we throw stones at boo mercilessly? Conservatism broadly, the kink-cult that makes everything about sex and denying sex while having the weirdest, worst sex behind the scenes. Making people scared of anything remotely sexual while also championing violence and hate.
In the US, our pedo-in-chief started doing this too and you need to register your ID with the state to get into pornhub and other adult sites in some states. This is a spreading problem that people are too ashamed to push back on.
Dude I was recently visiting Florida. I totally forgot the fascist bullshit laws about porn there, was gobsmacked I couldn’t view pornhub. 5 minutes and a free vpn on my phone and I was happily watching my preferred smut.
It’s so stupid how pointless the laws are, like it’s dumb easy to circumvent them.
Just some real bullshit waste of time. Plus a waste of money for companies that try to comply with the Florida law. Pornhub just decided if you’re in Florida you can’t even use pornhub because they didn’t want to spend the money and time to comply with the stupid ass backwards law.
Sometimes my VPN kicks me to one of those backwards ass states and I also get surprised by them. Swap states and I’m in.
Its funny and pointless until they pressure Visa and the site you are using dies.
they didn’t want to spend the money and time to comply with the stupid ass backwards law.
They didn’t want the liability and connection to a government database that will probably start looking for people who are into like, cuckolding or something, since that seems to be what the right is absolutely obsessed with.
“Estimate age from selfie”
fake beard sales dramatically increase
Works in real life too. Grew a beard when i was 17, and never got carded for booze again after that.
As someone with long hair and a long beard I haven’t been carded in basically 10+ years.
Last weekend I got carded buying a beer with my parents-in-laws. Of course one of the very few times I didn’t have my ID.
Two 65+ people order a beer and then like, oh we’ll get your beer on our tab to make things easier. Bartender “I’ll need to see his ID”
We all couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t upset or anything, it was just kind of absurd feeling. I’ve been drinking for almost 20 years.
It’s one of those situations where common sense should be allowed to be used.
Yeah how tf is that supposed work??
Are there any women here today?
The stuffed bra has deferred many an ID check.
Don’t be sexist. Gray is gray.
It was a Life of Brian reference.
Are there any women here today?
My deepest apologies sire, I know I lack familiarity with the greatest comedies. I know it is my duty to know them, especially when I listen to them out of my mind on laughing gas.
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle don’t grumble, give a whistle. And this’ll help things turn out for the best.
Oh shit, hopefully god can’t see through my tin roof.
Try using old.reddit.com. Literally just replace
wwwwithold, or addoldin front ofreddit.com. This should take you to a version of reddit’s interface which isn’t complete trash and it usually also allows you to bypass the need to login for NSFW content.I use rdx.overdevs.com for anything I need on reddit these days, it’s a read only interface that isn’t affiliated with the site and doesn’t track you or advertise anything.
Yeah I already left Reddit because (one of the reasons) they wouldnt let you open NSFW content without downloading their app on mobile. Having to submit ID is just way too ridiculous.
I was forced out of reddit, as are many through their schemes of removing accounts that doesn’t adhere to propaganda standards
They permabanned me claiming that I had posted the Alligator Auschwitz video and called it Bullying ( violating rule 1). Their evidence when I appealed? A screenshot of the video with “deleted” as the poster. Thing is, the only subs I ever posted to were niche hobby subs. I would comment in politics subs and news subs, but not post. I can’t even lie, it hurts to lose access to some of those subs since Lemmy simply doesn’t fill the void yet.
reddit has bots running the site mostly, i wouldnt be surprised its used in some form to report anti-faciscst sentiment. the only protected spaces are the subs, that the user has been on for a while.
I voiced anti-fascist sentiment all over the place, but I never posted the thing they banned me for. I had been behaving myself, so the ban was quite a surprise.
Why dont they just offer some government id api service that Reddit can use? Giving away ur id and shit for everything is insane
Every country has their own, and they usually have pretty strict guidelines with who can access it.
its much easier to outsource this process to llms (or, much more likely, people manually checking it somewhere in Philippines)
Britain is the one to enforce this, so Britain should provide a way to do it imo, fair if the government has a partnership with a private actor to do it. But the government should absolutely have a stake and do oversight.
What happens if everyone just uploads the same 1 photo/ID?
VPN, friend
So I don’t have a horse in the race, but I am curious if you follow the link to estimate age from selfie, and claimed some random picture of a politician is your selfie, would that work?
Idk but it probably forces use of ur camera and uses faceid features. can’t just upload a random photo
As those policies are enforced client side, an industrious person could probably see how it works and do whatever. I can’t seem to trigger any age verification to see, but if it works in a web browser, you can pretty much rewrite everything about it and make it upload whatever you like.
Sy far the only ones I’ve seen are scenarios where I have to upload photo to match my appearance when I show up in person to something, so it’s not useful in that context, but I’m suspecting this scenario is similar.
The counter argument could be that if a person has that ability, they are probably close enough to being an adult and/or have earned their technically illegal access to porn, and the site operator made a good earnest attempt that stands up to casual lying.
You can also buy digital copies of UK passports for 10bucks a pop
From what I have heard it’s absolute bare minimum level of checks so it will probably work
Was using a VPN to watch iPlayer last night and then hopped on reddit and was like “whereintheactualfuck is all the porn‽” Before realizing I had it set to the UK. Blew my mind for a minute
I went “whereisallmyporn?” When reddit banned it from r/all. I think that was the start of its downfall for me.
I deleted my Reddit account but still follow some writers on it and had the same issue. The worst part is it’s anything marked as NSFW – even posts that were tagged as a joke weren’t accessible.
I changed my VPN to another country and Reddit was still asking me to log in and show ID until I cleared my cookies and cache.
What I don’t understand is that there are ways to prevent kids from looking at porn that don’t rely on crazy shit like this, even if they do involve some government action. Having to send a picture of your face to a porn provider to view porn is the dumbest possible way to fix this. I suspect the real reason for all of this is people want to effectively ban porn altogether and dumb fucks are letting them.
@markovs_gun @Abraxas Kids are being banned from all social media here in Australia soon. Including, it seems, YouTube lol.
Expensive and completely unworkable. Reminds me I must spin up that Mastodon instance for my kids and their mates :mastodondance:
It’s absolutely not about making sure everyone signs up to DigitalID.It’s going to be interesting to see if, after Britons become accustomed to letting websites take pictures of their identity documents, whether there will be interesting fraud attempts made on the British public from other websites who claim that they are conforming to British law.
Having to upload your ID anywhere is already sketchy as-is, let alone a porn site. What ever happened to the days of “never use your real name on the internet”? Computer class teachers would drill that into students’ heads all the way through K-12.
When Facebook came along, I thought people were insane for posting things under their full name with their photo attached to it. I thought MySpace was asking for too much personal info as-is! Fast forward ~20 years, and not only are you expected to provide your real identity on several websites, some American states even require it now!
Honestly blows my mind how willingly we gave up our online anonymity without even the slightest bit of pushback. We all just accept it as normal now.
FB has a very aggressive data mining verification for making an account, they don’t even let you use some obscure emails to registet
Does old.reddit.com still work? It used to not even require a login for NSFW.
I don’t know about local requirements in the UK but testing now in the US, yes old.reddit.com allows access to NSFW subs without a login
The UK recently passed a law requiring submitting a photo ID to access adult content. It’s also super unclear on very important specifics
