A new UK law will soon force those who wish to access pornography websites to verify their age with credit card checks, open banking or facial age estimation. The rules will require major pornography sites including Pornhub and Redtube to introduce "highly effective age checks" from the 25th July in the UK for the first time [BBC].
The rules, laid out in the online safety act, are an attempt to prevent children accessing pornography online. Statistics suggest that 8% of eight to 14-year-olds in the UK visited a pornography site in one month with 19% of boys aged 13 and 14 visiting such sites. Around 11% of girls the same age are said to visit pornography sites in one month.
Without parental controls, it is easy for children to access such sites. A simple internet search can return swathes of pornography, from softcore images of to gratuitous hardcore images.
Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom's group director of online safety, says, "Society has long protected youngsters from products that aren't suitable for them, from alcohol to smoking or gambling. But for too long children have been only a click away from harmful pornography online."
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the UK authority for finding and removing child sexual abuse imagery from the Internet, called the announcement a "vital step" and said it welcomes platforms doing "all they can" to comply with the new rules.
"Exposure to pornography at an inappropriately early age can normalise harmful sexual behaviours, with the availability of violent pornography by children and young adults increasingly being linked to the growing rates of sexual violence against girls and young women," said Derek Ray-Hill, interim chief executive of the IWF.
There are some who believe that the legislation could push some young people towards the so-called 'dark web'. "I have cases where clients as young as 14 access the dark web," said Marcus Johnstone from PCD Solicitors which specialises in criminal defence representation for people accused of sexual offences [Sky News].
While accessing the dark web is relatively easy, it does require jumping over through a few hurdles with a need to use specialised browsers. There will be some young people attempting to seek out content on the dark web, but they will be a relative minority.
For the vast majority of under 18s, accessing content will be through a conventional browser such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari, if using a Mac.
It is unclear whether the rules will work given the enormous number of platforms offering salacious content. Pornography exists not only on major sites such as PornHub, but also blogging platforms. The likes of Blogger, Twitter, Flickr and similar sites also host dubious content.
Since the advent of the Internet, regulations concerning the making and distribution of pornography have been eroded or become meaningless.
Prior to online access a person wishing to access pornography would need to buy a magazine often from the 'top shelf' of a newsagent or go to a specialist sex or private shop. Moreover, the pictures published would be highly regulated. Those wanting hardcore porn would often be forced to seek out illegally imported magazines from parts of Europe.
Now, with just a few clicks one can access hardcore images, some of which are borderline illegal.
In this regard it is a no-brainer that efforts should be made to stop children accessing such material.
However the purveyors of this content have pushed back at the regulation. When France recently implemented similar age verification rules Aylo, the company which runs a number of pornographic websites, including Pornhub, stopped operating in the country [BBC]. Pornhub also stopped operating in a number of US states, again over the issue of checking the ages of its users [BBC]. At the last count the porn site had shut down in 17 states across the US to avoid compliance with age verification child protection laws [Twitter/X Laila Mickelwait].
The new rules in the UK legislation has also banned porn depicting strangulation in an attempt to protect women from violence. It is unclear how this will be policed or enforced.
In this regard it is perhaps time to work towards creating a black and white list of websites. Whilst some might argue that curtailing an adult's right to access pornography, there is little or no justification for some of the easily accessible hardcore imagery posted online.
Pornography is heavily censored beyond the US, the Americas and Europe with some countries imposing an almost blanket ban [Wikipedia].
There might be a case for an adult having access to the likes of Mayfair or Playboy, but the Internet has become the wild west.
Across much of Africa pornography is highly regulated or even banned altogether though in some cases does not go far enough especially with regards to child pornography. Across Asia too there are strict rules concerning pornography. The selling and distribution of pornographic material is illegal in India. In China pornography is also illegal, though it is available via the Internet where surveys reveal that more than 70% of men aged 18 to 29 are said to access pornography at some point over the course of a year. That said there is an ongoing cat and mouse game between online content providers and the authorities blocking sites and adding IP addresses to an ever increasing list of banned sites.
Even across parts of Europe there are some outliers when it comes to the restriction of access to pornography. Ukraine restricts online pornography while Belarus and Turkey ban or block the content entirely.
But with the rise of the use of VPNs which can circumvent territorial controls, blocking is becoming more problematic.
Currently most liberal democracies are concerned with younger children accessing inappropriate content. But there is also a rising concern that adults, particularly younger men, accessing extreme and violent pornography is brewing problems for the future.
Pornography has long been associated with misogyny and objectifying women. But there are clearly levels beyond which one might see content as being relatively harmless to material that could prove dangerous.
The UK age verification rules that come into force in July 2025 may be just the beginning. Over time one might well see a ban on all online pornography as countries come together to agree on blocks of sites around the globe.
This isn't as far-fetched as it might sound. China has already effectively banned most content from outside China unless placed on a 'white list' and continues to add sites deemed inappropriate — for whatever reason — to a 'black list'.
With both France and the UK, as well as some US states, now insisting upon age verification in order to access certain sites it is likely that internet blocking will soon be needed to enforce such rules should sites not comply.
In the long term such regulations might mean blocks on an entire country or region should that country not make sufficient efforts to police their online content providers.
In years to come, accessing pornography on the Internet could become a distant memory with those wanting to fulfill their carnal desires once again having to discreetly ask for a top shelf magazine before secreting it away in a brown paper bag. But at least in those days access to porn by under-18s was almost impossible, except for the few that might come across "some tacky little pamphlet in your daddy's bottom drawer," as Zappa alluded to in his '70s track 'Dirty Love'.
tvnewswatch, London, UK
The rules, laid out in the online safety act, are an attempt to prevent children accessing pornography online. Statistics suggest that 8% of eight to 14-year-olds in the UK visited a pornography site in one month with 19% of boys aged 13 and 14 visiting such sites. Around 11% of girls the same age are said to visit pornography sites in one month.
Without parental controls, it is easy for children to access such sites. A simple internet search can return swathes of pornography, from softcore images of to gratuitous hardcore images.
Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom's group director of online safety, says, "Society has long protected youngsters from products that aren't suitable for them, from alcohol to smoking or gambling. But for too long children have been only a click away from harmful pornography online."
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the UK authority for finding and removing child sexual abuse imagery from the Internet, called the announcement a "vital step" and said it welcomes platforms doing "all they can" to comply with the new rules.
"Exposure to pornography at an inappropriately early age can normalise harmful sexual behaviours, with the availability of violent pornography by children and young adults increasingly being linked to the growing rates of sexual violence against girls and young women," said Derek Ray-Hill, interim chief executive of the IWF.
There are some who believe that the legislation could push some young people towards the so-called 'dark web'. "I have cases where clients as young as 14 access the dark web," said Marcus Johnstone from PCD Solicitors which specialises in criminal defence representation for people accused of sexual offences [Sky News].
While accessing the dark web is relatively easy, it does require jumping over through a few hurdles with a need to use specialised browsers. There will be some young people attempting to seek out content on the dark web, but they will be a relative minority.
For the vast majority of under 18s, accessing content will be through a conventional browser such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari, if using a Mac.
It is unclear whether the rules will work given the enormous number of platforms offering salacious content. Pornography exists not only on major sites such as PornHub, but also blogging platforms. The likes of Blogger, Twitter, Flickr and similar sites also host dubious content.
Since the advent of the Internet, regulations concerning the making and distribution of pornography have been eroded or become meaningless.
Prior to online access a person wishing to access pornography would need to buy a magazine often from the 'top shelf' of a newsagent or go to a specialist sex or private shop. Moreover, the pictures published would be highly regulated. Those wanting hardcore porn would often be forced to seek out illegally imported magazines from parts of Europe.
Now, with just a few clicks one can access hardcore images, some of which are borderline illegal.
In this regard it is a no-brainer that efforts should be made to stop children accessing such material.
However the purveyors of this content have pushed back at the regulation. When France recently implemented similar age verification rules Aylo, the company which runs a number of pornographic websites, including Pornhub, stopped operating in the country [BBC]. Pornhub also stopped operating in a number of US states, again over the issue of checking the ages of its users [BBC]. At the last count the porn site had shut down in 17 states across the US to avoid compliance with age verification child protection laws [Twitter/X Laila Mickelwait].
The new rules in the UK legislation has also banned porn depicting strangulation in an attempt to protect women from violence. It is unclear how this will be policed or enforced.
In this regard it is perhaps time to work towards creating a black and white list of websites. Whilst some might argue that curtailing an adult's right to access pornography, there is little or no justification for some of the easily accessible hardcore imagery posted online.
Pornography is heavily censored beyond the US, the Americas and Europe with some countries imposing an almost blanket ban [Wikipedia].
There might be a case for an adult having access to the likes of Mayfair or Playboy, but the Internet has become the wild west.
Across much of Africa pornography is highly regulated or even banned altogether though in some cases does not go far enough especially with regards to child pornography. Across Asia too there are strict rules concerning pornography. The selling and distribution of pornographic material is illegal in India. In China pornography is also illegal, though it is available via the Internet where surveys reveal that more than 70% of men aged 18 to 29 are said to access pornography at some point over the course of a year. That said there is an ongoing cat and mouse game between online content providers and the authorities blocking sites and adding IP addresses to an ever increasing list of banned sites.
Even across parts of Europe there are some outliers when it comes to the restriction of access to pornography. Ukraine restricts online pornography while Belarus and Turkey ban or block the content entirely.
But with the rise of the use of VPNs which can circumvent territorial controls, blocking is becoming more problematic.
Currently most liberal democracies are concerned with younger children accessing inappropriate content. But there is also a rising concern that adults, particularly younger men, accessing extreme and violent pornography is brewing problems for the future.
Pornography has long been associated with misogyny and objectifying women. But there are clearly levels beyond which one might see content as being relatively harmless to material that could prove dangerous.
The UK age verification rules that come into force in July 2025 may be just the beginning. Over time one might well see a ban on all online pornography as countries come together to agree on blocks of sites around the globe.
This isn't as far-fetched as it might sound. China has already effectively banned most content from outside China unless placed on a 'white list' and continues to add sites deemed inappropriate — for whatever reason — to a 'black list'.
With both France and the UK, as well as some US states, now insisting upon age verification in order to access certain sites it is likely that internet blocking will soon be needed to enforce such rules should sites not comply.
In the long term such regulations might mean blocks on an entire country or region should that country not make sufficient efforts to police their online content providers.
In years to come, accessing pornography on the Internet could become a distant memory with those wanting to fulfill their carnal desires once again having to discreetly ask for a top shelf magazine before secreting it away in a brown paper bag. But at least in those days access to porn by under-18s was almost impossible, except for the few that might come across "some tacky little pamphlet in your daddy's bottom drawer," as Zappa alluded to in his '70s track 'Dirty Love'.
tvnewswatch, London, UK