In the past few days/weeks, the rollout has begun of Age Verification regulations across multiple countries and states, forcing websites like youtube, porn sites, reddit, spotify, etc to go through an onerous process to have users verify their age with more documentation than just "click this button". Its a patchwork of different regulations in different jurisdictions, but some of it is requiring proof as far as submitting a drivers license or facial recognition, while others are rolling it out with targeted AI algorithms and all the utterly nonce output you'd expect (Google's AI asking people with a 19 year old account to prove they are over 18 years old)
Its estimated that 90%+ of users will simply quit websites when forced to go through such documentation, and its almost certainly going to get hacked and leaked from websites.
The UK's Online Safety Act covers not just pornography but also any site discussing suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, "promotion of dangerous stunts", use of harmful substances or "enabling bullying". Which frankly probably would include chat lobbies on pre-D2r battle.net, but hey the more you restrict users and their expression the less you have to enforce, WotC figured that one out with Magic Arena lmao.
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Measures under the codes include: algorithms that recommend content to users must filter out harmful material; all sites and apps must have procedures for taking down dangerous content quickly; and children must have a “straightforward” way to report concerns. Adherence is not mandatory if companies believe they have valid alternative measures to meet their child safety obligations.
The “riskiest” services, which include big social media platforms, could be required to use “highly effective” age checks to identify under-18 users. If social media platforms that contain harmful content do not introduce age checks, they will need to ensure there is a “child appropriate” experience on the site.
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Age assurance measures for pornography providers supported by Ofcom include: facial age estimation, which assesses a person’s likely age through a live photo or video; checking a person’s age via their credit card provider, bank or mobile phone network operator; photo ID matching, where a passport or similar ID is checked against a selfie; or a “digital identity wallet” that contains proof of age.
Meanwhile we have age verification laws going into effect in 24 US states, some similarly requiring a state ID or facial scan, with arbitrarily drawn regulations. For example Tennessee tries to identify pornography sites as having "33% or more adult content" in some way that can't possibly be quantified in any contested case- but also including an even more vague restriction on sites with "excessive violence", because the first and fifth amendments don't exist anymore and we can pass all the overly vague laws to restrict expression. Other states have passed nebulous "Harmful to minor" laws regulating content without defining it. The Mississippi law was allowed to go into effect by the 5th circuit and unchallenged by SCOTUS which had just upheld a Texas law. The MI law requires age verification on
all social media websites and restrict "harmful materials" and requires "parental consent" as if it was written to be the least workable piece of shit imaginable, at some point the restrictions on free speech are so absurd you can't even figure out how they'd be enforced.
So yeah