The UK’s Online Safety Act doesn’t just age-gate porn; it blocks material deemed “harmful” to minors. Days after the law went into effect, reports of non-explicit content on social media getting blocked in the region started to crop up. Subreddits from r/IsraelCrimes to r/stopsmoking are now walled in the UK. Video games, Spotify, and dating apps have instituted or will institute age checks.
Given the SCOTUS age verification decision [June '25], Stabile fears that people [in the US] will go “mask off” in the fall and spring, when state legislatures start getting back together. “People are going to attempt to restrict the internet even more aggressively,” Stabile said. “I think people are going to work to restrict all sorts of content, particularly LGBTQ content, but also content that is broadly defined as any sort of threat or propaganda to minors.” Other experts Mashable spoke to agree with him.
“I’m going to jump to the end step,” [Eric Goldman, law professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law] said. “The end step is that most online users are going to be required to age authenticate most of the time they visit websites. That’s going to become the norm.” In a paper he wrote, Goldman called these statutes “segregate-and-suppress” laws.
The stated reason behind these laws is to “protect children.” But as journalist Taylor Lorenz pointed out, in the UK, age verification is already preventing children from accessing vital information, such as about menstruation and sexual assault.
“When we see crackdowns on spaces on the internet, we’re essentially stripping away that potential for self-actualization,” Goldman said. We’ve reached the dystopian stage of the internet, he added.
That’s true for the entire corporate run internet. As is, however, all porn sites work fine with an AdBlock, which also blocks tracking. Unless the user is logging in with an email they use for everything else, it’s not as easy to connect their porn history with the rest of their online activities. People that use burner emails and throwaway accounts for porn sites aren’t being exposed. The infamous Ashley Madison leak showed that a LOT of accounts used work emails - those people are asking for trouble.
You know that’s not true. No porn site will do “their best”, they’ll do the bare minimum not to get sued. Even YouTube, with infinite money from Google, doesn’t do “the best” to ensure kids don’t see shit they’re not supposed to. Instagram is frequently bombarding kids with content that is not age appropriate, if they start following the “right” accounts.
Look in the mirror. People are rightfully complaining that this will give too much burden and POWER to corporations that are already too big and hoarding too much data, and you want corporations to be the nannies of the internet, dictating whether a user is or isn’t an adult. What kind of mental gymnastics is needed to equate greater corporate and govt control of the internet with “you’re just throwing a fit, you’re all selfish”?
Corporations dont want to do this, it costs money. We can talk about possible misuses of data if you’d like but I’d say we are swimming in an ocean of misuse at this point.
I’m saying people are selfish because this type of stuff has happened over and over and noone cares, but as soon as it affects porn the internet throws a tantrum. Sorry for noticing a pattern there but it seems like people won’t admit how addicted to porn they really are.