What is the reason behind the dead Porn blockers?
The controversial plan to introduce ‘porn blocker’ is officially dead but there is more to that as you will find out below. All internet providers would have blocked UK x-rated websites if the new system had come into place. Although London Privé already was aware of concerns about the policy, it was not clear how the government intended to go about its implementation. The government represented this project as an attempt to block minors accessing porn sites, or was there any hidden attempt to monitor how the adult public uses the internet? No surprise it didn’t work and here is our point of view.
The first sign that the law implementation might fail was when the delays set in. Some said the legislation would finally come into effect earlier this year, while the government was keeping everyone in the limbo. It was no surprise that withdrawal of ‘porn blocker’ law happened just a couple of days ago in October 2019, but the government said they are still going to find another way to push through with its objective. In this regards, they are searching for an effective means to make companies live up to their ‘duty of care’. What was a concern to genuine users of the adult sites is that it was not clear and still is not, what lyes behind intended age verification for all users?
If this policy were allowed to continue, it would have spelt doom not only for the adult sites but mainly site visitors. Many of the adult websites users want to remain discrete, and the slightest form of privacy concerns is usually enough to scare anyone away.
If that law had come into effect, search engines would have to upgrade their algorithm leading to adults beeing automatically blocked access from using any adult sites screening out any free porn sites like PornHub and YouPorn or other related adult sites from search engine results, which are not only porn sites but recognised as adult sites in google eyes and even though they do not contain pornography videos or images, it would mean that escort users would have restriction accessing all London escorts agency sites unless they could prove their age with concerns that such policy would make every user vulnerable in one way or the other.
High expectations from adult site users and final full concept failure
For more than once, we have seen governments around the world mask their real intention with something the public would not readily accept. For the ‘porn blocker’, verification would have meant sharing card details or uploading personal documents on adult sites, but who honestly wants to do that? Some internet users believed it was an attempt to monitor their activities? This scepticism would put off most of the genuine users from sharing confidential information, which would undoubtedly lead to a decline in adult industry traffic due to fear of personal privacy breach.
Finally, the general fault with this plan is that there is a way around age verification for adults, but it is the same accessible for minors too and is the use of virtual private networks (VPNs). With VPN, anyone can mask their location and bypass age restrictions and is failing the concept of this ban and law in the first place, which is to prevent minors from accessing porn sites.
We asked what some adult sites think about this and here is one reply:
Comment from Bikini Fanatics:
Thanks for reaching out. Bikini Fanatics are actually very happy with the end to this porn block. The main reason for us is that we feel it's a violation of free speech and it's practically impossible to enforce.
With the internet and it's open character it's extremely hard to police something like a blocker. A VPN or a simply proxy would already circumvent this and therefore making it impossible to enforce.
Besides that, it's also a huge risk from a privacy concern. The UK government allowed basic 3rd party companies to build a system to age verify and this is just asking for them to get hacked, their database is stolen and published. All of a sudden you can find out that your neighbour who is happily married might have been subscribing to gay porn sites. You can probably imagine the huge risk and troubles this could cause.
Thanks
As a conclusion our side, while the death of ‘porn blocker’ may not be a surprise as it would never work, it is good news for the escort sites. But is still unclear what the government does intend to do, so we will remain on alert and update on any news in future.
London Privé