UK's New Age Verification Laws (UK Model Info / Opinions Greatly Appreciated!)

[WebcamStartup]

I know there was talks of this, and somewhat know of what the legislation would entail. Can read the XBIZ article here. Here's a snippet:

LONDON — The U.K. government today published its Digital Economy Bill, which includes a section that would create an age-verification regulator and impose financial penalties for noncomplying adult entertainment sites that stream content into the nation, as well as their payment service providers and advertisers.

The bill goes well past the borders of the nation and particularly targets the flood of foreign adult tube sites that don’t have age verification systems in place to guard against access to those under the age of 18. Those sites typically solely rely on advertising and not memberships to capture revenue streams.

The proposal also creates a federal age-verification regulator that could divvy out fines of up to £250,000, or 5 percent of a company’s revenue, when appropriate, to offending adult sites.​

Curious if anyone was keeping up on this and has some information. Also would be curious to hear the thoughts from UK models. There's a PDF of the actual law itself. 151 pages, so I won't get around to reading it cover-to-cover tomorrow. I'll be sure to make a follow-up comment after reading it when I can actually speak intelligently on the matter.

My main question is what qualifies as an "Age Verification System". Does an interstitial claiming that you need to be eighteen or older qualify?

Also curious how the hell they're going to collect the fines charged to companies in other countries and what the UK will do with companies that don't comply. Do they have some way to block access to non-compliant sites?

As we all know, most camming sites do not require accounts to access. Sooooooo........What happens?

And I thought California was trying to kill the industry.........

 

[fandango]

Do they have some way to block access to non-compliant sites?

I've no idea about any of the rest but UK internet users already have many sites blocked. Hollywood studios have successfully won court orders to block many filesharing and torrent sites and I believe, although I've obviously never tried to check personally, that they also block any known child porn sites. So I imagine it wouldn't be too hard for them to enforce a block on whatever sites they decide to add to this list.

 

[Guy]

Do you think any camsites or clipsites are going to go out of business or lose UK models because of this? I hope not. Some of those UK models on ManyVids are pretty hot.

 

[AmberCutie]

I'm not positive it's the same topic, but I think this previous thread may have some discussion about it - https://www.ambercutie.com/forums/t...cludes-porn-age-verification-in-the-uk.24413/

 

[WebcamStartup]

Response from Natalie over on the ModelCentro forum:

I've been attempting to keep track of the changes. It seems UK legislators have been taking slow, but rampant steps towards initially killing off native adult paysites' business, and now making the whole area no longer profitable for businesses from abroad. That is the big picture, in what I call "blonde terms" (the way I try to think), how I see it.

Naturally there's a legal professional that monitors these things for MC and AC. I'll have to see what he can say about this and if there's anything important I'll post it here.

There is yet time to explore and see what this is all about. Currently, status is:

"It is expected to complete its passage through the House of Commons and move to the House of Lords in the fall.
If passed into law, the bill is expected to go into effect in the spring of 2017."​

Wouldn't mind getting that dude's email and being able to bounce geopolitical questions off him directly. The people behind MC have a couple companies in their quiver, including a payment processor CentroBill. Being that they're a payment processor, and this legislation targets payment processors specifically, they have to worry about their CentroBill clients in addition to their network of sites.

I've no idea about any of the rest but UK internet users already have many sites blocked. Hollywood studios have successfully won court orders to block many filesharing and torrent sites and I believe, although I've obviously never tried to check personally, that they also block any known child porn sites. So I imagine it wouldn't be too hard for them to enforce a block on whatever sites they decide to add to this list.

So do you believe it'll pretty much come down to the UK just mass-blocking all the non-complying sites?

Do you think any camsites or clipsites are going to go out of business or lose UK models because of this? I hope not. Some of those UK models on ManyVids are pretty hot.

I personally hope none of the non-UK companies comply and none of the local governments force them to comply. The UK can block all porn sites if they want. Would be devastating for UK models. Gotta wonder if it could be bypassed by VPNs or something.

It is possible to create a different (compliant) version on a separate .co.uk TLD and make sure all UK traffic is redirected there. Compliance wouldn't be difficult to the point of being near-impossible for the people with the in-house knowledge or money to outsource. Look at all the individual model sites though, for example. UK gonna try slapping them with a 250,000 fine?

The closest thing to this I can think of off the top of my head is when France tried getting Google to have to compensate (and back-pay) all the curators of the stories featured on their news section of Google.fr (which, just checking it out, appears it's already back). Google wasn't about to have it, so they completely pulled the news section from the French version. None of the actual French media outlets wanted it to happen, especially as Google News is an opt-in thing (need a special sitemap) and it's not like Google is a scraper site.

It's going to be very interesting seeing it play out. I still haven't read the PDF yet. Just got back from 4th of July weekend and playing catch-up all across the board. The language itself might indicate what the UK is prepared to do with non-compliance.

I'm not positive it's the same topic, but I think this previous thread may have some discussion about it - https://www.ambercutie.com/forums/t...cludes-porn-age-verification-in-the-uk.24413/

Awesome, thanks Amber! I'll be sure to browse through it when I have some time to sit down and focus for a moment.

And yes, it is the same topic being discussed. Makes me curious to know what UK defines as "adult entertainment", as there was a focus on "nude" vs "non-nude" at the beginning of that topic. Haven't read the PDF but I'm assuming it'd be more along the lines of "sexual in nature" which would include non-nude content as well.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

The UK can block all porn sites if they want. Would be devastating for UK models. Gotta wonder if it could be bypassed by VPNs or something.

I have to believe a VPN would bypass it. Not only just for the way a VPN works. But my professors (petroleum department) would routinely travel to China during the summer to work with a 'sister' university there with a petroleum program. Facebook and many other social sites were blocked there completely by the Chinese government. So they knew to have a VPN installed before they went so they could update their social media and such. I believe they also used it for everyday tasks like email too, just to keep them more private (from that government).

If it works to get to sites completely banned by China, I have to believe it should work for porn in the UK. The only thing is people will need to be cautious enough to have it running 24/7 so they don't forget. Oh, and get a GOOD vpn that doesn't do reporting or keep logs. There are far too many shitty ones out there that do nothing to hidemyass... *cough cough*

 

[WebcamStartup]

I have to believe a VPN would bypass it. Not only just for the way a VPN works. But my professors (petroleum department) would routinely travel to China during the summer to work with a 'sister' university there with a petroleum program. Facebook and many other social sites were blocked there completely by the Chinese government. So they knew to have a VPN installed before they went so they could update their social media and such. I believe they also used it for everyday tasks like email too, just to keep them more private (from that government).

If it works to get to sites completely banned by China, I have to believe it should work for porn in the UK. The only thing is people will need to be cautious enough to have it running 24/7 so they don't forget. Oh, and get a GOOD vpn that doesn't do reporting or keep logs. There are far too many shitty ones out there that do nothing to hidemyass... *cough cough*

Sweet. If that's the case, UK models *SHOULD* be able to still perform, they just won't be accessible in their own country on non-compliant sites. Keep in mind, I'm just assuming and haven't read the actual proposed law yet.

 

[fandango]

So do you believe it'll pretty much come down to the UK just mass-blocking all the non-complying sites?

I have no idea, I was just pointing out that they do it already and could easily do it some more in the future.

Also what Jerry said. The blocks are ridiculously innefective. Anyone who has even basic computer knowledge should be able to get around them in seconds.

 

[WebcamStartup]

Well, it appears that censorship on the ISP level has already begun. I guess better to be filtering in the ISP level than to be fining webmasters / payment processors.....

Still have yet to read the PDF. Flaky as fuck, I know.

 

[RebeccaT]

Sweet. If that's the case, UK models *SHOULD* be able to still perform, they just won't be accessible in their own country on non-compliant sites. Keep in mind, I'm just assuming and haven't read the actual proposed law yet.

Yep, that just about sums it up. So glad I'm independent and totally compliant.

UK service providers swithched the default for new accounts to block porn a couple of years ago. But it's easy to unblock although as some point that will be only if the site is compliant. As this will be nigh on impossible to implement, UK payment processors say they will refuse to process payments involving non-compliant sites.

 

[RebeccaT]

Incidentally, compliance applies not only to age verification but also obscenity, defamation, threatening behaviour, incitement to racial hatred, incitement to violence laws etc.

 

[FluffyGalore]

Got to say I'm not really worrying about it. I'm on both MFC and adultwork. AW already have age verification that members and performers can use or not. I'm assuming if it comes to it AW will just inforce it as needed since the majority of girls are from the uk. As for Mfc I have no idea what will happen but again if it's an issue I'll just cam full time on AW instead.

 

[WebcamStartup]

Got to say I'm not really worrying about it. I'm on both MFC and adultwork. AW already have age verification that members and performers can use or not. I'm assuming if it comes to it AW will just inforce it as needed since the majority of girls are from the uk. As for Mfc I have no idea what will happen but again if it's an issue I'll just cam full time on AW instead.

On that note, does anyone know any other sites that are already compliant and therefore......"UK-Proof"? (for lack of better words)

Nice knowing AW is. Thanks for that!

 

[Puffin]

On that note, does anyone know any other sites that are already compliant and therefore......"UK-Proof"? (for lack of better words)

Nice knowing AW is. Thanks for that!

I very recently got a new phone sim card.

The following is true:

This means that the first time a user goes to a restricted website, they will be invited to amend the filter settings, or turn it off altogether. - http://www.wired.co.uk/article/sky-broadband-automatic-porn-block

If I go to any myfreecams.com page, such as a profile I get redirected to the following:


Exactly the same happened when visiting adultwork.com. Visiting ambercutie.com is not age restricted at present.

 

[Guy]

I very recently got a new phone sim card.

The following is true:

If I go to any myfreecams.com page, such as a profile I get redirected to the following:
View attachment 64132

Exactly the same happened when visiting adultwork.com. Visting ambercutie.com is not age restricted at present.

I heard that some UK ISPs are blocking access to websites of VPN services in order to ensure that the filters can't be bypassed.

 

[Zoomer]

I heard that some UK ISPs are blocking access to websites of VPN services in order to ensure that the filters can't be bypassed.

I heard donkey's can fly to the moon if you fill their ass with rocket fuel, give them a lit cigarette and wait until the fart the firey fandango.

The internet is supposed to be independent. the ISP's will enforce blocking where it is legally obliged to. That has been demonstrated via court orders. They will not randomly start blocking sites unless legally obliged to.

So unless you've got a reliable source that proves otherwise, what you've heard is likely to be bullshit. For example, I use 3 different ISP's (hey, I live a rockstar life and live in several locations during the week - none of which I pay for!). They've not even blocked any adult sites I visit. So why would they therefore start blocking "VPN sites" when they can't even block the actual sites "breaking a law that's not active yet".

Seriously, do a little research.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ital-economy-bill-copyright-law-a7124356.html

Starts 2017. Wasn't hard.

 

[Guy]

I heard donkey's can fly to the moon if you fill their ass with rocket fuel, give them a lit cigarette and wait until the fart the firey fandango.

The internet is supposed to be independent. the ISP's will enforce blocking where it is legally obliged to. That has been demonstrated via court orders. They will not randomly start blocking sites unless legally obliged to.

So unless you've got a reliable source that proves otherwise, what you've heard is likely to be bullshit. For example, I use 3 different ISP's (hey, I live a rockstar life and live in several locations during the week - none of which I pay for!). They've not even blocked any adult sites I visit. So why would they therefore start blocking "VPN sites" when they can't even block the actual sites "breaking a law that's not active yet".

Seriously, do a little research.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ital-economy-bill-copyright-law-a7124356.html

Starts 2017. Wasn't hard.

https://www.vpncompare.co.uk/vpn-providers-blocked-by-uk-porn-filter/

 

[Puffin]

To see if a site is blocked in the UK? Check at https://www.blocked.org.uk

 

[Zoomer]

I hate to point out the bleeding obvious. What you are reading is an article about opt in/out filter. Seriously... I hate to smash someone around the face for their stupidity, but that's what I am going to have to do.

Currently I can opt in or out (from some ISP's) as to whether I see porn. Their filters are not perfect. So whilst you harp on about "oh look it's blocking VPN'" - it also blocks several charities and websites devoted to helping children who are confused about their sexuality, victims of sexual abuse, and many others. The filters they put in place (optional, VOLUNTARY) are flawed.

What you are doing here is looking at Evidence A, ignoring Evidence B, C, D and E, ignoring facts F, G and H... and concluding that ISP's are blocking VPN's as part of a not-yet-enabled law with regards to internet censorship.

For the love of God, do some research and read about the subjects before making posts filled which are wrong and misleading. With your history surrounding posts regarding the UK laws/legislation - please do some research.

And using that site you'd find MFC is blocked by several ISP's... under their existing "opt in/out porn filter adult block". I had that, i clicked a button and BOOM - I can view the fucking site. I'm not some wizard of technology, or "hacker" extraordinaire. I checked a checkbox.

Finito. End of. Done. Dusted. No more.

The thing you're confusing here is a law-to-be-enacted in the future which requires sites to put an age verification in place or potentially face blocking. That's not a block I can opt out of, that's blocked a la pirate bay - inaccessible unless you use VPN. You're comparing apples and oranges, oranges and lemons, penis and vaginas... they're not comparable.

 

[WebcamStartup]

To see if a site is blocked in the UK? Check at https://www.blocked.org.uk

Awesome, thanks for that