And also by me (and plenty of others) well before that.

Meanwhile, the VPN folks will flourish and the teenagers this is supposed to be protecting will all be over in the dark web rooting through the dodgier sites, because there won't be any filter to keep them out.

And also by me (and plenty of others) well before that.

Yes, and given both that and the news of yesterday,  I have re-emailed my local MP with an edited version of my previous message to him which now includes this point...but he may well just blank me again:

***

Dear Rt. Hon. Mr Lammy,

I write in protest of the proposed UK-wide age-block on adult websites due to come into force this July.

I understand that the point of the above measure is to protect children from pornographic material online.  To me, however, the answer to protecting children from such material is simple: responsible and authoritative parenting.  The numerous and long-available forms of porn-blocking software are amongst the tools to which parents have recourse in order to shield their children from adult material online.  According to my line of reasoning, then, the accessing of adult content online by individuals under 18 years of age is the fault of their parents.  Irresponsible parents alone, then, are the parties who should be targeted by any new laws designed to protect the under 18s from online pornography, as far as I am concerned.  As you can see, this precludes the idea or practice of an age-block affecting every single internet-user, the majority of whom being over 18 years of age anyway.

Having to surrender one's privacy, such as is required by the proposed online age-verification process, in order to engage with a FULLY LEGAL activity - like visiting websites offering either legal pornographic material or escort adverts (or both) - I personally consider, furthermore, an obvious and unjustified infringement of freedom and autonomy.  Law-abiding citizens, such as I believe the vast majority of the people of this country to be, do not deserve a "nanny state".   Moreover, in ignoring the role of parents in the monitoring of their children's internet-use, the clamouring of certain government ministers and child-protection organisations of the apparent harm caused to children by online porn does nothing more, to my mind, than to demonstrate the flawed, disingenuous, and ignorant thinking of these groups as well as their obvious anti-freedom stance (as I see it).  Moreover, in my opinion, it is blatantly and inexcusably wrong to derive laws from flawed, disingenuous, ignorant, and anti-freedom thinking. 

Lastly, as I understand it, the government itself believes that age-verification may simply lead to recourse, on the part of both children and adult viewers of online porn, to the so-called "dark web" (whose pornographic offering is, I am told, far more disturbing than that presented by mainstream porn sites).  There is also the fact that age-verification can be totally (and easily) bypassed by means of a VPN (virtual private network).  It is widely agreed, furthermore, that where accessing the apparently inaccessible online is concerned, the young are significantly ahead of older generations.  They know about both the "dark web" and VPNs, then, I believe, not to mention further possible means of accessing prohibited sites.  In my view, these points will rapidly render online age-verification dangerously counter-productive for some under-18s (who will turn to the "dark web", as may some over-18s as well) and wholly ineffective for others (who will turn to VPNs, just as many adult viewers of online porn may do as well).  To me, all these points present an extremely strong case for scrapping the plans for online age-verification (which, for the reasons that I have expressed above, is what I personally want) and cracking down, rather, on the irresponsible parenting (including the failure to make use of the widely available parental internet controls) which I believe is ultimately to blame for the under-age accessing of online porn.

Given the arguments which I have just presented to you, Mr Lammy, I urge you to lobby against the proposed UK-wide age-block on adult websites.

Yours sincerely,
Naomi Dixon.

***

...and even if he actually responds this time, he may well disagree with my arguments (which I mainly got from young Jasmine's World which saved me a lot of time )
(FYI, the name that I have used is fake  )

Sounds like a handy way to censor, how will any of us know if our sites are suddenly blocked and what about errors?

I can see Adultwork getting into trouble with this seeing as they let so many people post explicit pics of themselves on their profile pic despite them saying this isn't allowed.

AW only say it's not allowed if you have ticked the self-certify box, otherwise it's still free-reign.

Pixelating every image on a server is just a single line script and a little patience...

Pixelating every image on a server is just a single line script and a little patience...

Yes - however it will severely impede their turnover. The profile pics and free galleries are what drive PG and webcam sales. (And ultimately bookings - none of us are going to carry on putting this amount of advertising on with them if it's not driving sales and bookings.)

(When I said "cheapest option" I actually meant "most profitable", sorry to be unclear.)

Actually, they just pushed it back by 6 months- I wonder how many clients will get a VPN to access AW- worrying times xxx