Online safety act - if only they knew
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I read a news article the other day saying that since its introduction which means all adult content must be kept away from children and requires age verification the traffic to porn sites has gone down significantly. Which in my opinion can only be a good thing. Keeping children away from this content (and hopefully making it a little more difficult for the adults) might save a few people from ending up desperately seeking help on the forum.
It's already in place for gambling and alcohol; and have verification for banking where our finances are at risk. I even have to verify logging into my work account (as if someone else is going to want to do my work for me as well as their own). It's as if people are only concerned where there's money involved. Im really concerned that 500k people and Nigel Farage are wanting to repeal it!?!
I bet those people aren't aware of all the work LFF are doing and all the experiences of the many devastated families on this forum. Many of us secondary victims have been desperate for regulation and restricting adult and harmful content to prevent harm to children and so that other families can avoid going through what we are.
A repeal flies in the face of everything the children's commissioner is trying to achieve. I personally think we need more regulation and that social media and online platforms must automatically take anything down that is reported until they can confirm it's not harmful; rather than the current method where you report then wait for them to decide if it breaks their rules.
The article was Sky News from Tuesday 26th if anyone is interested.
It's already in place for gambling and alcohol; and have verification for banking where our finances are at risk. I even have to verify logging into my work account (as if someone else is going to want to do my work for me as well as their own). It's as if people are only concerned where there's money involved. Im really concerned that 500k people and Nigel Farage are wanting to repeal it!?!
I bet those people aren't aware of all the work LFF are doing and all the experiences of the many devastated families on this forum. Many of us secondary victims have been desperate for regulation and restricting adult and harmful content to prevent harm to children and so that other families can avoid going through what we are.
A repeal flies in the face of everything the children's commissioner is trying to achieve. I personally think we need more regulation and that social media and online platforms must automatically take anything down that is reported until they can confirm it's not harmful; rather than the current method where you report then wait for them to decide if it breaks their rules.
The article was Sky News from Tuesday 26th if anyone is interested.
I mentioned in a previous post related to the OSA that however well-meaning it is I doubt it will actually achieve much in terms of cutting down children’s access to adult content. Young people nowadays are very tech savvy and many know how to access adult sites and bypass parental controls, whilst it will I’m sure cut down on young people accidently coming across adult content if they want to look at porn they will find ways of doing so, I'm sure most of us as teenagers managed to get hold of stuff that we were too young to have legally weather that be alcohol, cigs, porn etc.
You mention UK access to porn sites has dropped significantly but its unclear if this is a real drop in access or if UK users are now using a VPN or TOR browser and making it appear that they are in other parts of the world. There were plenty of articles in the days after the age verification requirements went live indicating that UK traffic to sites selling VPNs went up massively.
I also worry that the OSA actually risks making our situation worse, by making legal pornography harder to access people may feel the need to use riskier methods to access it such as the dark web which puts them at increased risk of inadvertently accessing illegal material.
You mention UK access to porn sites has dropped significantly but its unclear if this is a real drop in access or if UK users are now using a VPN or TOR browser and making it appear that they are in other parts of the world. There were plenty of articles in the days after the age verification requirements went live indicating that UK traffic to sites selling VPNs went up massively.
I also worry that the OSA actually risks making our situation worse, by making legal pornography harder to access people may feel the need to use riskier methods to access it such as the dark web which puts them at increased risk of inadvertently accessing illegal material.
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I really hope it doesn't force people down really unsafe methods to get legal porn. As you said, restricted stuff (alcohol/cigs etc) was always available pre-internet and there will always be ways for kids to get round it (old school it was older siblings sneaking stuff to younger ones). But it's just absolutely everywhere and actually an effort to avoid whereas before it was harder but not impossible to get hold of.
Im just a bit lost as to what more we can actually do going forward to save others from this horrible fate. It just never feels enough. I can restrict my child's access and teach them everything about consent and online safety and the dangers of nudes and social media but it's getting harder to avoid giving kids smartphones and access to these type of apps as you need it for everything-online banking, homework, bus passes, even booking swimming lessons etc needs an app and an email address. It's getting to the point where you can't avoid it. The bullying, the scary behaviours of adults and other kids online is just so worrying and desperately sad. ????
I really hope it doesn't force people down really unsafe methods to get legal porn. As you said, restricted stuff (alcohol/cigs etc) was always available pre-internet and there will always be ways for kids to get round it (old school it was older siblings sneaking stuff to younger ones). But it's just absolutely everywhere and actually an effort to avoid whereas before it was harder but not impossible to get hold of.
Im just a bit lost as to what more we can actually do going forward to save others from this horrible fate. It just never feels enough. I can restrict my child's access and teach them everything about consent and online safety and the dangers of nudes and social media but it's getting harder to avoid giving kids smartphones and access to these type of apps as you need it for everything-online banking, homework, bus passes, even booking swimming lessons etc needs an app and an email address. It's getting to the point where you can't avoid it. The bullying, the scary behaviours of adults and other kids online is just so worrying and desperately sad. ????
I think in equal measure the internet is the greatest and the worse of humanities inventions.
I know some people are mad about the new law not for the porn site verification which i think a lot although probably annoyed can see its needer. but the apps being used to verify you're over 18. Apparently they've been hacked a load or something and theyre worried about their personal data as if the internet isnt one massive data harvester theyve never known about. But thats what I've seen against the new law, which is why VPN downloads went up because you can just use that to bypass the new law. And then there are sites just not complying properly that are less well know apparently although I don't know if they still are I got off that side of the Internet because it was starting to annoy me their whinning over a law meant to help protect children