In what can only be described as the 124th political quelle surprise of the past week, the Tory government’s plans to implement an online identification system to ensure those under the age of 18 can’t access online pornography have been dropped. Hear that? That’s the collective cheer of 16-year-old boys (and girls) everywhere, punching the air in excitement!
Yep, it was back when David Cameron was in Number 10 that the idea was floated amongst the Conservative party, who clearly saw the accessibility of adult sites as a key issue oppressing young people today. Not, you know, austerity, the housing market and a dismal level of access to mental health services. The ban was meant to come into place in April of last year, but since then-Prime Minister Theresa May was focussing on trying to sort the whole Brexit thing out, she conveniently sidelined it, and everybody was left to stay horny in peace.
Truth be told, such an ambitious plan could only have been dreamt up by a series of politicians who had next to no understanding of how the internet works, with all of its loopholes, VPNs, and the multiple viable platforms through which adult content can be filtered (Twitter is one of the largest social networking sites; it also hosts hundreds of thousands of pornographic images and videos).
It seems they’ve finally clocked onto that some four years later, as the Tory party’s Digital Secretary Nicky Morgan said: “The government’s commitment to protecting children online is unwavering.” The ID filtering system probably would have done more harm than good: storing everybody’s private information in a mass online database, which we’d have to enter to access adult sites, is surely a set-up for some embarrassing disaster later down the line.
So there we have it: you won’t have to scan your passport to sign in to XNXX or Pornhub (other adult sites are available) in the near future. Wank away, queens!