Joined: 6 May 2017 Age: 27 Gender: Female Posts: 3,231 Location: England
30 Jul 2025, 6:15 am
Quote:
The UK Government say it has 'no plans to repeal the Online Safety Act', in response to 380,000 strong (and counting) petition
Quote:
The Act currently expects users to verify their age through private companies. This has sparked alarms at the safety of the information being shared, which in some instances could include copies of someone's passport or ID. It could also be a picture or full scan of someone's face to estimate their age.
This information is being shared with companies outside the UK, even outside the EU, which some fear will leave their information up for grabs. The act has also, at various points, been seen to threaten end-to-end encryption, with further risks to user privacy.
The problem is that good intentions don't necessarily make good law," said Matthew Feeney, advocacy manager at Big Brother Watch.
"I don't doubt the intentions of those who are supporting this act.
"The fact is that it's unclear that this will actually make children safer because they can just drive themselves to VPNs or to parts of the dark web to access this content anyway.
"In addition, adults are going to find themselves in a position of having to upload biometric data or identification in order to access completely legal speech.
"I think that's a significant cost to incur in a liberal democracy."
People do appear to be turning to VPNs to bypass the new rules.
Joined: 8 May 2025 Age: 36 Gender: Female Posts: 2,657 Location: England
30 Jul 2025, 7:08 am
I heard that this is a ruse to give police your details so that they can track down what you post and arrest you at your home if you share a tweet that isn't quite left-wing.
If parents would do some parenting, we wouldn't have this problem.
What's worse is here in The States, there's a similar bill in the works. Actually it's been shot down in the past and now it's been resurrected.
_________________ I am sick, and in so being I am the healthy one. If my darkness or eccentricity offends you, I don't really care. I will not apologize for being me.
There is no such thing as perfect. We are beautiful as we are. With all our imperfections, we can do anything.
Joined: 26 May 2025 Age: 30 Gender: Female Posts: 144
03 Aug 2025, 9:22 am
While I don't think underage people should be seeing that sort of content, it should be the responsibility of parents to prevent it, not the government. This whole thing has very quickly turned into a very big mess. Tons of people in the UK and outside of it are against the OSA, from the articles I've seen. It's lead to a major increase in VPN usage and people have been using Death Stranding to get past the face scans without actually sharing their face.
While I don't think underage people should be seeing that sort of content, it should be the responsibility of parents to prevent it, not the government. This whole thing has very quickly turned into a very big mess. Tons of people in the UK and outside of it are against the OSA, from the articles I've seen. It's lead to a major increase in VPN usage and people have been using Death Stranding to get past the face scans without actually sharing their face.
I've seen people bypassing facial ID recognition using Garry's Mod. Now that's funny. I'm waiting for someone to try it with GoldenEye 64 next.
_________________ I am sick, and in so being I am the healthy one. If my darkness or eccentricity offends you, I don't really care. I will not apologize for being me.
There is no such thing as perfect. We are beautiful as we are. With all our imperfections, we can do anything.
Joined: 8 Jun 2011 Age: 37 Gender: Male Posts: 22,045
03 Aug 2025, 11:37 am
I think as long as VPN's exist/as long as there are ways to bypass restrictions, it isn't a terrible thing.
The biggest effect of age restrictions for online content and having to prove identity, will be to make it difficult/more effort for people to bypass such measures, who aren't necessarily technologically savvy. A lot of people who might fall into that category are older people, for whom age restriction - they can legitimately bypass anyway and also younger people who need to prove their identity, who might be average or low in IQ and who find using VPN's undesirable. As easy as they are to use, a lot of people find these simple applications to be difficult.
I think there is a moral case for censorship with regards to making it harder for young people to access adult content. It isn't healthy for say, 7 year olds or even 12 year olds to be on social media. I think even the current age restriction of 13 for places such as Facebook is way too low, considering how damaging social media can be for mental health - and even for adults, but especially for sensitive development periods. Raising the age limit for social media to 18 y/o seems more sensible to me, such places where there is a focus on sharing photos and effectively having a person craft an often curated image of themselves, for online purposes.
_________________ “I was ashamed of myself when I realized life was a costume party and I attended with my real face” - Franz Kafka
Last edited by blitzkrieg on 03 Aug 2025, 11:46 am, edited 2 times in total.
Joined: 26 May 2025 Age: 30 Gender: Female Posts: 144
03 Aug 2025, 11:39 am
Aspiegaming wrote:
I've seen people bypassing facial ID recognition using Garry's Mod. Now that's funny. I'm waiting for someone to try it with GoldenEye 64 next.
I imagine it would probably work with any game with realistic enough avatars. inZOI would probably be spectacular for it since it looks like it's basically just hyper-realistic Sims (Sims 3 with some CC would probably work fine too) and it would get past duplicate recognition as well.
Joined: 8 Jun 2011 Age: 37 Gender: Male Posts: 22,045
03 Aug 2025, 11:42 am
Pornography should definitely need some sort of age verification. I mean, if I had kids, I wouldn't be comfortable with having them view pornography, even at age 15 or something like that?
There are so many areas of the internet that children shouldn't be viewing and parents can't be relied upon to police their children reliably.
_________________ “I was ashamed of myself when I realized life was a costume party and I attended with my real face” - Franz Kafka
Joined: 8 Jun 2011 Age: 37 Gender: Male Posts: 22,045
03 Aug 2025, 11:52 am
One thing I am not happy about in all of this, is the possibiltiy of a backdoor to encrypted messaging services.
Adults especially should be able to have private conversations without the government having ready access to everything that is being said, especially adults who are not engaging in any sort of criminal behaviour.
_________________ “I was ashamed of myself when I realized life was a costume party and I attended with my real face” - Franz Kafka
30 Jul 2025, 6:15 am
