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The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

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Re: The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

#121

Post by [deleted] »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #11
SXX wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They know what they doing exactly. But they now have a reason to require age and ID checks to buy VPN. Then ban payments to VPNs that don't follow said regulation. You'll see.

> They know what they doing exactly. They're already using the "online safety act" to silence people online. They're super scared because a great many people have had enough. Crimes numbers, including rapes, are through the roof in the UK. And they want to silence anyone who wants to talk about criminality on the ultra rise. The UK is on a very dark path. It's the country in the world with the most millionaires fleei…

[deleted]

Re: The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

#122

Post by mid-kid »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #21
pr337h4m wrote: post #19

The most disturbing thing about this saga is that websites that have no physical/legal/business presence in the UK are proactively geoblocking UK-origin IPs. Censorious governments have always been a thing since the beginning of the internet. Websites (especially non-corporate ones like 4chan or R34) preemptively surrendering to a foreign government that has no jurisdiction over them is what's new.

This is because nowadays everything has to be zero-risk and "over-lawyered." We have seen the same with the GDPR and now also with the UK Internet Safety Act.

Unlike the UK Internet Safety Act, the GDPR is really easy to comply with for small independent websites. It was aimed at the big companies and companies unethically mining data, and it didn't do much outside of that scope.

Re: The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

#123

Post by t_a_mm_acq »

bsenftner wrote: post #82
t_a_mm_acq wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share more about this please? I work in the industry and would love to know more about your experience with this verification method.

Well, it's not really a verification method, it's the use of age estimation models in a computer vision sense. The problem with age estimation models is they are only better in statistically unreliable ways within controlled ethnic demographics. That word salad means that age recovery trained algorithms have a variance of accuracy that is difficult to reduce, and when successful is only successful on narrow classific…

I’m not sure - I think between the NIST tracks for age estimation and the work entities have done to gather large, diverse sample sets shows meaningful progress and perhaps real world usage.

Your points above are valid and real concerns, in addition to liveliness. There is work further to be done and improvements to be made. But it seems to me that they are solvable problems.

These datasets are getting granular, monolid vs non, 12+ different ethnicity sub groups and so forth.

Do you not think that with enough data it’s solvable?

Re: The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

#124

Post by pyman »

Quarrel wrote: post #41
pr337h4m wrote: post #19

The most disturbing thing about this saga is that websites that have no physical/legal/business presence in the UK are proactively geoblocking UK-origin IPs. Censorious governments have always been a thing since the beginning of the internet. Websites (especially non-corporate ones like 4chan or R34) preemptively surrendering to a foreign government that has no jurisdiction over them is what's new.

> surrendering to a foreign government that has no jurisdiction over them is what's new Many countries, including the US, claim jurisdiction if you are providing services to their citizens. Some claim jurisdiction if someone in that country sees your web page (ie you've now "published" it there). You've been blissfully unaware, perhaps, but this has been a thing for a long time. You have probably seen sites having se…

Harmful in which way? Porn addiction is as harmful as gambling, tobacco and alcohol addiction.

High school students with phones at school are showing porn to their friends, even younger kids. Some schools have banned phones, but teens aged 12–17 can still access porn sites freely when they get home.

In my opinion, gambling sites and porn sites should always verify age, same goes for shops selling tobacco and alcohol.

Re: The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

#125

Post by pyman »

jlarocco wrote: post #114
pr337h4m wrote: post #19

The most disturbing thing about this saga is that websites that have no physical/legal/business presence in the UK are proactively geoblocking UK-origin IPs. Censorious governments have always been a thing since the beginning of the internet. Websites (especially non-corporate ones like 4chan or R34) preemptively surrendering to a foreign government that has no jurisdiction over them is what's new.

There's the possibility that some of the users of these sites voted for these laws and want the verification in place.

Millions of worried parents, perhaps? Parents who are worried about the negative effects of gambling, tobacco, alcohol, and porn?

Re: The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

#126

Post by gruez »

vidarh wrote: post #102
TacticalCoder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They know what they doing exactly. They're already using the "online safety act" to silence people online. They're super scared because a great many people have had enough. Crimes numbers, including rapes, are through the roof in the UK. And they want to silence anyone who wants to talk about criminality on the ultra rise. The UK is on a very dark path. It's the country in the world with the most millionaires fleei…

> Crimes numbers, including rapes, are through the roof in the UK This is far-right propaganda. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/gbr/uni...

Your source is only for all crime statistics. If you look at the detailed breakdown rape has increased[1]. More worrying is the fact that charge rates have fallen[2], which makes the claim that crime was "down" doubtful.

[1] https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20250726_EPC...

[2] https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20250726_BRC...

Re: The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

#127

Post by pyman »

pr337h4m wrote: post #23
mytailorisrich wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because nowadays everything has to be zero-risk and "over-lawyered." We have seen the same with the GDPR and now also with the UK Internet Safety Act.

There is absolutely zero risk as long as you stay out of the UK. Even if you do travel to the UK, there is no practical risk for the foreseeable future.

High school kids cannot buy weapons in the UK? They can't even watch porn?

Jesus Christ, stay away from that country!!

Re: The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

#128

Post by pyman »

cherryteastain wrote: post #32
Aeolun wrote: post #29

Is this hysteria about sex a new thing? I feel like I grew up in an age where it was pretty normal to see these things as soon as you were old enough to be interested in them.

It's just iteration N of a series of power grabs to expand the panopticon of mass surveillance on the internet under the guise of 'but think about the children!!!'.

[flagged]

Re: The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

#129

Post by pyman »

jayceedenton wrote: post #14

Age limits on buying cigarettes are easily thwarted by finding a corner shop that needs the sale and will sell to kids. Height restrictions on fairground rides are easily thwarted by putting bits of wood in your shoes. None of this matters. The point is that this kind of control will drastically reduce under 18s consuming content that they shouldn't. We don't need the all of society's controls to be flawless.

Exactly. For example, adult smoking prevalence in the EU has dropped by about 9% per decade among men which means it's fallen nearly in half since the 1970s.

The US is always against regulations when they don't benefit their companies, whether it's social media, AI, porn, tobacco, or weapons.

Re: The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

#130

Post by codedokode »

SoftTalker wrote: post #115
rcxdude wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A VPN is a hell of a lot easier to access then a corner shop that's willing to break the rules, and such rules on corner shops didn't exactly stop teenagers from finding porn before the internet

For a kid, finding porn before the internet was significantly more difficult. If you were old enough to pass for 18 yeah a newstand might sell you a magazine. Most would not if you were clearly younger. And you needed to pay for it. Most kids (especially young kids) don't have any money. And then you had one magazine. Still photos. And it didn't show anything but naked bodies. No real sex, the hardcore stuff was only…

At my school one guy had adult VHS cassettes (probably his parents') and a VHS player and he invited other guys to watch porn. By the way I wasn't invited. Maybe it was good because later the teachers found out about this.
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