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FILE PHOTO: Illustrations of pages of porn sites on the web.
Conservatives take on adult entertainment industry
“Yes, I’m an adult” boxes for popular adult sites may soon become a thing of the past.
Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne, an independent, has proposed a law that would require Canadians to verify their age to access sexually explicit material online to prevent minors from being exposed to harmful content.
The law would pose a challenge to Montreal-based Aylo, which owns Pornhub and some of the internet’s other biggest adult video sites. An Aylo executive told the Canadian Press the company is considering blocking Canadian users if parliamentarians pass a bill imposing age verification on the sites.
Several US states — including Louisiana, Montana, and Arkansas — have passed similar laws requiring internet users to upload government identification to prove they are old enough to access Aylo and similar websites. This caused traffic to crash in those states, prompting Aylo to geo-block IP addresses in those areas.
Adult sites will face another challenge when rules under the UK’s Online Safety Act come into force next year, requiring British internet surfers to upload passports or credit cards before they can access such sites. Privacy advocates warn that the law poses risks to internet users’ privacy and security.
The Canadian bill is just going to a House of Commons committee to be studied. The governing Liberals oppose even studying the measure, but they were outvoted by the Conservatives, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois MPs. The bill is unlikely to go anywhere with the governing Liberals opposed to it, but on Wednesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievresaid he would support an age-verification law, which means Canadians could see a similar law if the Conservatives win the next election, as all the polls predict they will.
The Pornhub logo is seen on an iPhone mobile device in this illustration photo in Warsaw, Poland on 12 October, 2022.
Is the UK trying to screw the porn industry?
If the British communications regulator has its way, visiting porn sites in the UK is about to become a much more intimate process.
Responding to parliamentarians’ criticisms that those “click yes if you’re an adult” boxes do too little to shield kids from smut, a new proposal would require triple-X sites to demand users’ banking details, photo ID, credit card, or even a biometric face scan to prove they are over 18.
Proponents say users’ digital histories will be kept secure, but critics say surrendering personal data to porn sites is a privacy nightmare. The new rules would begin in 2025.
Will Brits keep calm and… give their personal data to porn sites? The UK already tops a list of the European populations most reluctant to talk about their sex lives.
The result could be to crater engagement with porn sites more broadly. In fact, that’s exactly what happened when similar ID checks were introduced in US states like Louisiana, Montana, and Arkansas: web traffic on the sites fell more than 80% because of users’ reluctance to tie their sensitive personal information to the sites.