Pornography won the porn war in the UK, but now the market is combating on a different front in Germany, where authorities are attempting to force internet service suppliers to obstruct significant sites that donâEUR ™ t carry out age confirmation systems.
Currently, German law requires pornography sites to restrict access to individuals 18 or older. WhatâEUR ™ s altered is that German authorities, like the British before them, have now called it a good usage of their time to actually pursue porn websites they think arenâEUR ™ t doing enough to avoid under-18 surfing, and are attempting to oblige them to introduce more strict age verification systems. That in turn includes all the complications and personal privacy problems that thwarted a similar effort in the UK, such as the technical trouble implementing the guidelines, censorship, and-depending on how websites pick to comply-the possibility third-party age confirmation services would build databases of whoâEUR ™ s enjoying what and when.
Per Motherboard, German regulators-in an effort led by the director of the State Media Authority (LMA) of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Tobias Schmid-are in the procedure of forcing telecoms like Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom to enforce Domain Call System (DNS) blocks against sites like Pornhub and YouPorn.
The DNS system is basically the phone book of the web, translating domain into IP addresses so users can browse the web. DNS obstructing Pornhub would prevent German internet users from typing âEURœpornhub.comâEUR into a stock web internet browser and right away arriving at the page. The logic, apparently, is that faced with the hazard of a losing the majority of their web traffic from Germany, significant porn sites will cave to regulators and implement the rules.
ItâEUR ™ s not exactly foolproof (or teenproof). They could also utilize a virtual personal network, which produces an encrypted bridge from a userâEUR ™ s device to a server somewhere else, to check out a pornography website from another country. YouâEUR ™ re welcome, Germans of the future.).
According to Motherboard, German regulators are also only targeting a handful of the biggest sites on the internet, indicating anyone could simply browse to a lesser-known pornography site and watch uninhibited. Schmid is supposedly worried about children learning of âEURœabnormal sexual practicesâEUR like gangbangs, so itâEUR ™ s a good idea that type of content canâEUR ™ t be discovered on 10s of thousands of sites or anything.
In the UK example, glaring flaws in the system included the total lack of a framework for confirming ages of users-with proposals including validating ages with text messages, requiring credit card confirmation, keeping an eye on social media feeds, and even entrusting to publish office employees the task of releasing distinct ID codes that enable registration at sites. In a white paper, UK regulators later on yielded the plan might lead to a âEURœfragmented regulatory environment.âEUR The British Board of Film Classification, which was charged with implementing the strategy, more or less admitted it was completely powerless to prevent randy teens from acting on their digital urges.
âEURœProtecting minors from adult content discovered online is a positive concept. âEURœBut what is occurring here instead is an attempt to censor a few of the huge adult industry market players, leaving hundreds of smaller adult sites without supervision. Age Verification]