MessMaster might already know about this, but here's a quick heads up - the Online Safety Act will be enforced in March 2025:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

NB This is UK legislation, but it says:
"The Act applies to services even if the companies providing them are outside the UK should they have links to the UK. This includes if the service has a significant number of UK users, if the UK is a target market or it is capable of being accessed by UK users and there is a material risk of significant harm to such users."

So, I think the UMD is in scope. In particular:
"Websites with age restrictions need to specify in their terms of service what measures they use to prevent underage access and apply these terms consistently. [..] Companies can no longer say their service is for users above a certain age in their terms of service and do nothing to prevent younger children accessing it."

This has been in the works for a long time. It's primarily aimed at the big social media companies but will also apply to all adult websites. If Ofcom (who will be enforcing it) decide a site is within scope, and not implementing effective age verification, they'll have the power to order all UK ISPs to block it in the same way they already do for illegal content.

I foresee an explosive growth in encrypted VPNs, but also a significant drop in traffic to any sites that don't have appropriate A/V in place.

In addition (from Google):

The constitutionality of age verification laws for websites that may contain harmful material to minors is a complex issue that the US Supreme Court will hear on January 15, 2025:

Background:
The Supreme Court has previously ruled that age verification laws are unconstitutional when there are less restrictive alternatives, such as filtering software. In Reno v. ACLU (1997), the court ruled that the Communications Decency Act's age-verification requirements violated the First Amendment. The court found that the law was not "narrowly tailored" and that it burdened users and websites without ensuring that users were adults.

The case:
In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the Supreme Court will consider a Texas law that requires websites to verify the age of users if at least one-third of their content is harmful to minors. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law, using a "rational basis" review to determine that it was rationally related to a legitimate government interest. However, the challengers argue that the court should have used a more demanding test, known as strict scrutiny.

Arguments:
Some argue that the court should reaffirm previous decisions that similar age verification laws are unconstitutional. Others argue that age verification at the operating system or browser level is effective and doesn't burden users or put their privacy at risk.
__________________________________________________

If the SCOTUS upholds the Texan law, then expect most states in the Union to have age-verification laws for adult sites voted through before the following year is out. That, plus the UK ban, will have a huge and negative effect on legal adult businesses.

The world is changing.

In the US, States already have laws that require age verification to protect minors from harmful content, or pornography.

19 states have laws.
14 states rejected bills.
5 states have introduced bills.
12 states have not introduced bills.
2 federal bills have been introduced.
Source: https://action.freespeechcoalition.com/age-verification-bills/

Wyoming just announced a bill yesterday, 2024-12-16.

The state laws are similar, but some have different conditions. Tennessee requires re-verification after each 60-minute session. Tennessee considers it a class-C felony penalized by 3 years jail time. The law in Texas is penalized by a $10,000 per day from the law was enacted. Texas sued 3 porn companies already for million dollar lawsuits.

The supreme court will hear the case of Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton Attorney General of Texas, 23-1122 in January 2025 on whether or not these laws are constitutional. The future of these laws or the possibility of federal laws all depends on this ruling. It also really depends on how well these laws are enforced. There is a lot of porn sites on the internet for them to review. I am sure they would continue to focus on the large ones.

My replies from https://umd.net/forums/fellow-americans-please-vote-for-kamala?start=30 on page 2, 3, and 4 have more about this subject.

I think Germany and France has laws too (JMStV and SREN), right?

I would not be surprised if more sites started to require age verification so that they don't risk getting sued, fined, or blocked. These laws may actually work, and age verification may become the new normal. If umd adds age verification, I am concerned that half of the umd users would drop because they don't want to verify their age and new users don't join because they can't even see what umd is about.

Ever since I learned history brute forcing the age verification to play Leasure Suit Larry, I have been interested in bypassing verification garbage. Given some of the things they have wanted to do in the states, the lawmakers don't realize they are following the Chinese governments playbook. The Chinese government and game manufacturers go to some interesting lengths to try to verify that children are not playing video games.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/this-country-restricted-young-people-from-video-games-but-kids-are-evading-the-bans/pz23thdtn

You cannot prove that the ID sent to you was that of an adult and not a child. Even if you host a skype meeting to verify real people, you have no way of knowing that same person is the one using the account. Especially since people save passwords that are stored in plain text in the browser settings. Kids will always be smarter than the people making the laws. The people making the laws are always at least 2 generations behind technology.

All this is going to do is cause problems for adults. It is not going to keep out kids.

I think there will be a small uptick in VPN use. The UK can ask ISP's to block access to the sites that do not comply, but that is easily beaten by online proxy servers. Then websites would have to start blocking known proxy server IP ranges and known VPN ranges. Most websites will just Geo Block and call it good, that is what pornhub did. Most admins do not want to have to go through the hassle of subscribing to IP lists.

Or all porn sites will just move to the dark web which most tech savy kids can figure out anyways.

If the site is blocked in the UK then people could get around it with VPNs. However, there's still a question of whether the site owner knows that they're in the UK (e.g. because they have a verified account and they've submitted a copy of their ID, or because they buy videos using a credit card that's registered in the UK).

The first requirement is for all websites in scope of the act to prepare an online safety risk assessment (by 16th March). There's a guide here, but the pdf is 84 pages long!
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/quick-guide-to-online-safety-risk-assessments/

I remember a similar discussion from a couple of years ago, regarding GDPR:
https://umd.net/forums/umd-moderators-reading-our-private-messa
At that point, MessMaster said:
"If somebody comes at me talking about GDPR I'll tell them where they can go."

I'm not sure that "come at me, bro" is the best response to legislation like this, but that's not my decision to make...

Jesus Christ, this is 'Mary Whitehouse' all over again. Like the 'clean up our screens' campaign the 70's I dare say it will be outrun by technology. I think dear old Mary wanted Tom & Jerry banned back then because it was too violent!

Yes, dealing with the cartoon men in bowler hats who run our civil service getting defensive and aggressive won't work. Not that half of them are not tied up in dungeons and being pied anyway at the weekends.

What we need is a simple approach. Why can't one of you site owners set up a UK based UMD and register it as a UK company. Would be better to have done this in Monaco or Luxembourg but flippin' Brexit again. Some sort of deal would have to me hammered out with our US overlords (Derrick, isn't it?), but something must be done. Maybe a group effort.

If it took some help in setting it up I would do some part time work to help for free until it is up and running. Some moderation or admin task, etc.

I think it is really worth saving as. Yes, I know it is a commercial venture at the end of the day, but it's such a lovely crowd on here. I can safely say many of you have helped me reconsider my own suicide with you words and encouragement. I am serious on that point!

Just my ignorant tattle on the subject. What do I know! But let's find away, please
T x

Interesting

Companies getting sued in Texas might explain why Penelope wanted to branch out

In the UK, we have a situation where some Ofcom-regulated 24/7 local TV channels are only providing ten minutes of local content a day, even to the extent of filling those ten minutes of "news" by repeating the same report over and over to make it fill ten minutes, and yet their broadcasting licences are not rescinded.

Makes me wonder how hot Ofcom will be on enforcing this new act.

I saw OnlyFans doesn't even meet the age verification requirements:

> However, having reviewed submissions we received from OnlyFans in response to formal information requests, we have grounds to suspect the platform did not implement its age verification measures in such a way as to sufficiently protect under-18s from pornographic material.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/ofcom-investigates-onlyfans-age-verification-measures/

People could just use a vpn, but I am sure a lot of people would just find alternative porn sites that aren't blocked or doesn't require age verification. This will just drive traffic away from sites that either block or require age verification. Companies that implement age verification will be at a disadvantage against companies that don't implement age verification.

I wonder how this law will be enforced? Will they only target a few of the largest companies? Will they target thousands of companies broadly? Will they fail to enforce it, or are we going to see thousands of sites being blocked by ISPs?