For the best part of half a decade Conservative politicians, starting with David Cameron, have been on a crusade to clean up the web. They succeeded at the end of 2017 when parliament passed the Digital Economy Act, which laid out the plans for the new porn block.
In simple terms, its plan is to require pornographic websites to verify users are over 18 before they view content, with several age verification providers vying for their custom using a variety of different methods. But the policy has been beset by numerous delays.
And now, it's been cancelled completely. As of October 16, 2019, the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) dropped the entire porn block. Culture secretary Nicky Morgan, in a written statement, said the government wasn't going to pursue the implementation of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act (aka the porn block). “The Digital Economy Act objectives will therefore be delivered through our proposed online harms regulatory regime," Morgan said. "This course of action will give the regulator discretion on the most effective means for companies to meet their duty of care.”
So, how did this mess happen at all? Here we explain where the new regulations came from, what they mean for web users and the problems they could create in the future.
So what exactly is the UK's porn block?
Technically the porn block is a system of age checks. From the launch date in July, porn websites will have to show anyone visiting from a UK IP address a landing page that doesn't show any explicit content.
This landing page won't go away until the visitor is able to show they're over 18 – old enough to view the adult material. Formally, it's called age verification. These blocks will vary in appearance from one website to another but there's one thing that's certain: this approach is the first set of age checks being placed on porn anywhere in the world.
The change that porn websites will have to make has been introduced by section 14(1) of the Digital Economy Act. The Act completed its maneuvers through parliament on April 27, 2017, and also says the UK should have a universal broadband service, gives extra powers to communications regulator Ofcom, and encourages the government to introduce more digital services.
But its the pornography element of the Digital Economy Act that's been the most talked about. The law itself defines pornography (videos that should have an R18 certificate, or material that's designed to sexually arouse) and says how the web should be policed to stop children seeing adult content and introduces the powers to make sure age-checking landing pages are put in place.
Despite being passed in April 2017, it has taken the UK government more than two years to get into a position where the law will start to be enforced. The reason why it took so long? Setting up a system to monitor millions of websites is complicated. A body needed to be appointed to oversee the law, punishments needed to be defined and, crucially, websites producing the age verification technology had to make it.
So when's it going to happen?
The porn block was originally due to be implemented in April 2018, but it has suffered from huge delays and a large amount of incompetence. Tricky legal measures meant that its 2018 launch was pushed back to the middle of 2019.
However, just several weeks ahead of the roll-out the UK government had to issue an embarrassing retreat. Policymakers had failed to tell the European Commission about the porn-stopping plan and its wider consequences for people across the web. As a result, the block was delayed. Digital minister Jeremy Wright told the House of Commons it would be at least six months until all the paperwork could be properly completed. That means it's unlikely the porn changes will happen, if they do at all, until 2020.
Where did the idea come from?
The Digital Economy Act was largely launched off the back of a report from the NSPCC that claimed more than half of children and teenagers that ended-up looking at porn "stumbled across" it. (Hint: typing porn into Google will get you there pretty easily).
The opinion-shaping analysis came from a “creative market research” group called OnePoll, which pays people to fill in online questionnaires. It's hardly the most robust data science. The same research from OnePoll claimed that a tenth of all 12- to 13-year-olds thought they were "addicted" to pornography. OnePoll's other surveys have produced results such as: "German men are the world's worst lovers" and "Fifty per cent of British adults think Mount Everest is in the UK".
But aren't there millions of porn websites?
That's where the porn block runs into its first difficulty. Websites hosting pornography come in all shapes and sizes. While Pornhub is listed as the 28th largest website in the world, in the Alexa rankings, there's a sprawling network of other options. It's impossible to put any realistic numbers on how much of the internet is made-up of porn but the industry is huge.
Under the Digital Economy Act all commercial providers of pornography are required to put age checks on their websites. This applies to websites that aren't based in the UK. And the definition of what constitutes a commercial porn provider is pretty catch-all. The Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations 2019 say commercial porn includes material that’s freely available online but makes money through advertising revenues. It also includes porn that is paid for.
The porn block doesn't just impact images and videos. Porn that is audio-only or text-only also falls under the definitions set out by the Digital Economy Act. Essentially, the block will make it harder to access any porn.
Porn isn't just on porn websites though
Online porn transcends what is traditionally thought of as pornography websites. You don't need to visit YouPorn or xHamster to get your fill of adult content. Finding 18+ material online is much easier. Simply open Twitter, Reddit or Snapchat and within a few taps (or clicks) you'll be able to stumble across adult material. But the Digital Economy Act doesn't include social media.
The commercial regulations say age checks aren't needed on websites or apps where porn "makes up less than one-third of the content of the material made available". Like the rest-of-the web, it's almost impossible to put a number on how much of Twitter or Reddit is made up of porn. The rules also don't apply if the website is "marketed as an internet site" rather than a porn website specifically.
Is anyone checking this stuff?
The porn block has its own regulator. The UK's British Board of Film Classification has been given the unenviable task of checking porn websites have introduced age checks. It has created a specific website for its work.
At first, its job shouldn't be too hard as the vast majority of the internet's biggest pornographers have said they will comply with the law. Where the BBFC may run into problems is with smaller porn websites that decide not to follow the UK’s rules. If this does happen, it has been given enforcement powers to punish website owners.
The BBFC is able to ask third-party advertising networks to pull their ads from websites that don't introduce age checks. It can also ask payment service providers to do the same and in the most extreme cases there's the possibility for it to get internet service providers and mobile network operators to block access to websites totally. It’s unlikely the nuclear option will ever be deployed.
How will I prove I'm over 18?
This is where things really get sticky. The government has left it up to individual porn websites to pick how they introduce age verification technologies. And as a result a whole new industry of age checkers has appeared.
The most well-known of these is AgeID, designed by MindGeek – which describes itself as a "leader in web design, IT, web development and SEO". What MindGeek doesn't mention on its own website however is that it is the owner of Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube. Critics have questioned the company's move into age checking as it could put too much power in the hands of one company.
However, there are other alternatives that have been created. There's AgeChecked, AgePass, 1Account, Yoti and more. A porn website can include more than one age checking company on its website. It is completely up to individual websites. Each age-checking company has a variety of different ways people can prove they're old enough to view porn. These include using SMS, credit card data, passport information, or driving licence details. There are other options that include face scanning and the blockchain.
The BBFC has introduced a certification regime for the age checking tools being introduced by companies. This is intended to check the security protections for each of the verification methods. However, it isn't a requirement for companies providing age checking tools to submit their products to the BBFC for evaluation. This raises the possibility of insecure systems, which handle people's personal information, being created.
Is there a way around the porn block?
The porn block isn't infallible. In fact, the way that it has been implemented means it really doesn't take much technical knowledge to get around at all. It's so easy that the children the law is meant to protect won't find any difficulties in subverting its purpose.
As the Digital Economy Act applies to web users trying to access porn from UK-based IP addresses, making website think a user isn't in the UK is likely to avoid the landing pages put in place by porn websites. For that, all that's needed is a VPN.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
