Papers please: for millions of Americans, accessing online pornography now requires a government ID. It could have global implications for the future of the web.
How the American war on porn could change the way you use the internet
looks slightly annoyed
I’m not particularly enthusiastic about such state laws, but the UK spent the last several years having committed to mandate age verification itself prior to eventually abandoning it, and I didn’t see Voice of America trying to get people in the US riled up about British law.
With the passing of the Digital Economy Act 2017, the United Kingdom became the first country to pass a law containing a legal mandate on the provision of an Internet age verification system.
And if I recall, they had some follow-up effort, which I assume is what is briefly referenced in the article.
Implementing the Online Safety Act: Protecting children from online pornography
This is the second of four major consultations that Ofcom, as the appointed online safety regulator, will publish as part of our work to establish the new regulations under the Online Safety Act (2023).
Currently, services publishing pornographic content online do not have sufficient measures in place to prevent children from accessing this content. Many grant children access to pornographic content without age checks, or by relying on checks that only require the user to confirm that they are over the age of 18.
The Online Safety Act is clear that service providers publishing pornographic content online must implement age assurance which is highly effective at correctly determining whether or not a user is a child to prevent children from normally encountering their online pornographic content.
looks slightly annoyed
I’m not particularly enthusiastic about such state laws, but the UK spent the last several years having committed to mandate age verification itself prior to eventually abandoning it, and I didn’t see Voice of America trying to get people in the US riled up about British law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_UK_Internet_age_verification_system
And if I recall, they had some follow-up effort, which I assume is what is briefly referenced in the article.
looks
Yeah.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/guidance-service-providers-pornographic-content/
Let alone Spain has already implemented a system for this which is part of a bigger EU effort. https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-builds-porn-passport-to-stop-kids-watching-smut/
Sadly, I don’t think this is going away.