On Friday, the “Age Verification” clause of the UK’s Online Safety Act officially came into force. The result was a sudden surge in discussion, and a lot of people realising – finally – what the law really means.
People have been googling “VPN” a lot. That’s a good thing; we’ll get to why later.
Unfortunately, much of this is stable doors and bolted horses. We’ve been warning about the OSA since it was first mooted (by the Conservatives, just to remind you that “sides” are an illusion), and we’re rather past the point where awareness would have mattered.
The new law essentially forces companies to put any even potentially “adult content” behind an ID wall – meaning a user must prove their age before they access it. The ways of doing that vary; you can use a credit card or let an AI-powered system scan your face via webcam to guess your age.
Don’t worry, it won’t store the data, and it’s only guessing your age, not scanning your face and uploading it to some data storage centre. They promised they wouldn’t do that.
The really vital part here is what exactly “adult content” means. It evokes – and is indeed intended to evoke – pornography. The act was sold as a tool to prevent children from accessing the near-infinite amounts of porn scattered across the web, but pornography is the least of it.
“Adult content” can also mean violence, suicide, animal cruelty, war, drugs…or any news coverage and/or discussion of the same. It could also mean “conspiracy theories”, especially those which could “expose children to harm”, like anti-vaccine sentiment, or cause “radicalization”.
In fact, it can potentially mean anything it is required to mean, which is exactly the kind of thing they LOVE to put in new laws.
But I don’t want to rehash these points here. You can read our previous coverage of it HERE HERE HERE and HERE.
Today I want to talk about how the OSA is going to spread, and why it might not matter if it does.
Over the weekend, it was widely noted on Twitter/X that Elon Musk’s platform was putting EU-based users behind the age restriction, not just British ones. People made jokes that the US-based platform couldn’t differentiate between the UK and Europe.
Far more likely, they are preparing for when the EU launches its own age verification scheme in the near future.
Hellbound and Down 