"An age-check scheme designed to stop under-18s viewing pornographic websites will come into force on 15 July.
From that date, affected sites will have to verify the age of UK visitors.
If they fail to comply they will face being blocked by internet service providers.
But critics say teens may find it relatively easy to bypass the restriction or could simply turn to porn-hosting platforms not covered by the law.
Twitter, Reddit and image-sharing community Imgur, for example, will not be required to administer the scheme because they fall under an exception where more than a third of a site or app’s content must be pornographic to qualify."
Personally, I can understand the effort to keep porn out of the hands of very young children given how ridiculously widespread tablet/smartphone usage has become in their age bracket. And how the consumption of hard-core pornography is likely to have a long-term detrimental effect on the very young.
But this won’t work. At all. If anything it will simply become a method of ID theft for those over the age of 18 and a minor road block for a tech-savvy 12 year old.
If it did work though, would it be a good idea? Is the method simply wrong, or should the internet always remain a place of relative anonymity?
Can’t say i’m convinced the anonymity is going to serve modern society well long-term, regardless of this particular Govt policy. Our mask of anonymity is just enabling the kind of behavior without consequences that is breaking apart modern discourse, imo.
But this isn’t the right first step to take to even begin to address that problem.