Porn sites will be legally required to verify users' age

These are good steps

But how many kids under 18 will click the "no" button when asked if they are 18 years or older?

 

I don't think many would, to be honest! If I recall correctly, you needed to be at least 15 to use Habbo, but around sixth grade (10 years old) most guys and some girls in my class had an account on it.
I am personally very honest, but even I lied about my age on sites that asked this question, as a teen.
Moreover, many sites don't even have this button, and those that do first display the homepage with the filthy thumbnails, and then overlay the button on top of that!
So I think that this measure is necessary.

Thanks for sharing, IGY. I hope this will get through and be implemented well! Other countries might follow, and some sites might choose to verify users' age regardless of location.

 

Ah that's something I missed.
In that case it can be a really good way in the prevention.

 

Finally, a step in the right direction. Remember when they use to have vending machines to sell cigarettes? And kids could buy alcohol for their “ parents”? Took a while to protect kids from those things but it happened, so hopefully porn sites will end up having to strictly verify the age of everyone who uses them. .

 

Right? I thought this was the case.
It's what I can ask about if someone says that this is a bad deal, for reasons of free choice and own responsibility.

 

Yup-I’m old enough to remember buying cigarettes for granddad out if a vending machine. Then getting the candy cigarettes for me! Lol

 

I'm not very tech savvy, but surely this wouldn't be a hard thing for a lot of young people to get around? Like use a VPN or something?

 

I think this is a great step in the right direction. I hope that in the future most countries will have adopted these kinds of laws.

 

I wish this would happen in the United States as well. Also, an investigation into porn sites to ensure they don't have child porn or incentivize human trafficking. Both would be excellent ideas if they were ever implemented.

 

Definitely a step in the right direction. But with access to Twitter/Reddit you can see just about anything you would find the typical porn site. Its a gesture that won't really offer much resistance in my opinion. But still cool that people are taking those steps. I really feel like more people are starting to understand that porn isn't harmless. The rise in mental health awareness seemed to ignore the role porn can play in messing with people's minds. But I think more people are waking up to how weird porn is haha. Just the whole practice and purpose of it let alone the effects of it. Thanks for sharing this news

 

Sure. You need a lot more curiosity to circumvent something like this, though, than you do to simply Google something like 'sex video' and click the first result.

 

Of course. Steps in the good direction are good, though, even when there is still a long way to go. Banning cigarette ads aimed at kids was a long way from properly educating against smoking, strictly regulating cigarette sales, etc (to be honest, personally I think that in my country they're going a bit too far: a cigarette addict should be able to attend university without experiencing constant withdrawal symptoms, for example), but it was, looking back on it, obviously a necessary and a good step.

I am not expecting sex education to include the possible implications of porn any time soon. It would be great, but I don't think it will happen. However, I do think it probable that the generation now growing up will have sex education focusing on consent and relationships, because of all the #metoo business. Most that I can remember from my sex education in school (~10 years ago) was that you should use a condom, so giving some attention to consent would already be an improvement.

 

I definitely have some doubts about how well this will be implemented. The UK doesn't have a "Great Firewall of China" setup where they can flip a switch and block content of their choosing nationwide.

At best they might get some of the big professional sites to comply with the regulations. They might block a few hundred sites that refuse to comply, which is a drop in the bucket considering the millions of currently live porn sites and thousands more coming online every day.

We'll see, but my guess is that this will be legislation which will exist on paper but without any serious enforcement.

 

It's a good step, if it works, but what this story and the reaction to it has made me realise is that for the vast, vast majority, porn addiction and its effects are still seen as a big joke.

Maybe having spent so much time on here with like-minded people I'd started to believe that society was really starting to recognise how damaging pornography use can be but clearly that is still very much far from the case. Stepping outside of this forum and reading the reactions to this move from the UK government you quickly realise that we are such a tiny minority in our views, to the point where it even made me start to question myself but I am defiant in my belief that everything I believe to be true with regards to long-term porn use is absolutely correct, I would bet my life on it. Every relapse I have I may as well be injecting poison straight into my brain, I am not crazy, the effect it has on me is absolutely undeniable.

Some of the takes I have seen from people in response to this news are unbelievable, the worst being that now our kids won't be able to access porn safely ... Jesus F Christ facepalm x1000. The stupidity is too overwhelming for me to argue against.

 

Honestly I feel like they'll find new ways to access porn. Looking up topless girls on google search, Instagram girls who are half dressed, youtube videos with sexual content, etc........

 

Of course. Making it impossible for children and teens to access sexual content is not among the possible implications of this move, I think. It does, however, decrease the chance of early addiction quite significantly, I think.
I got addicted at 11 from Wikipedia, and I am really hoping that Wikipedia wouldn't be blocked for kids, as it's such an important site for information gathering. However, it took a few years until I found videos with full nudity, even though I was looking for them. If I'd do that again now, I would have it among the top results, I'm sure (I'm not going to try, and you shouldn't either). Google's safe search isn't even on by default (I really think that should be required too...).