In case you’re unfamiliar, Britain has been attempting to wage a war on internet porn, which has mostly added up to demanding women in porn act like proper ladies. But nonetheless, laws have been implemented to “protect” British citizens from video of adults doing things with their naughty bits, and that involves a request that’s a wee bit intrusive. Namely, you have to hand over your name and address.
The British laws are well-meaning: they’re designed to prevent children from watching online porn. As such, they’ll soon require some sort of identification. As Metro details, that’s taking the form of a form you have to fill out tying your name, phone number, and where you live to what you like to watch.
Oh and did we mention PornHub will tell the government all this info?
Porn giant Mindgeek – owner of popular online fleshpots Pornhub, RedTube, YouPorn and Brazzers – will now collect names, mobile phone number, addresses and dates and place of birth before users log in. You’ll have to create a username and password to use Pornhub from April onwards….AgeID will prompt users to create an account, using a passport or mobile phone to confirm their age. The data is passed to a government-approved service to confirm that the user is aged 18+ – then users can then use their AgeID account to bypass checks.
Let’s leave aside for a moment that there is probably nothing more monumentally useless to any government authority than a master list of people who enjoy pornography which, if studies of pornography usage are any indication, will in all probability resemble the phone book. The ostensible goal is to keep kids from watching pornography, which is a good and noble goal that is far more easily achieved by any number of methods that are not “build a giant database of people accessing porn sites.”
The law itself is murky and often illogical — with huge gaps for torrent sites and social media. It’s easy enough to ban explicit porn sites, but what about, say, Instagram, with its seven million posts tagged “nude” or “nudes?” The vast swaths of Tumblr? What about Snapchat? What about teenagers filching Mom and Dad’s passports (or let’s be honest here, finding Mom and Dad’s logins)? What about virtual private networks? Torrent sites? YouTube? Heck, what about the third page of British tabloids?
Really, all this is doing is making it all but inevitable a leak of people who like to go to Pornhub will happen. So, if you’re British, we recommend you stock up on DVDs. Or magazines. Or just use a VPN already.
(via Metro)