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UK Bill Seeks to Protect Children From Online Porn Through Required Age Verification

Photo by Hugo Sousa via Unsplash

UK Bill Seeks to Protect Children From Online Porn Through Required Age Verification

By Movieguide® Staff

The UK Parliament recently announced the advancement of a bill that would force pornography websites to verify viewers’ age.

The Online Safety Bill seeks to protect children under 18 from exploitation and viewing explicit content. According to BBC News, the bill also holds those adult sites liable with the threat of fines or a complete URL ban in the UK.

“Parents deserve peace of mind that their children are protected online from seeing things no child should see,” Digital Minister Chris Philip said. “We are now strengthening the online safety bill so it applies to all porn sites to ensure we achieve our aim of making the internet a safer place for children.”

Andy Burrows of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) welcomed the new laws but said that the UK government should further protect children.

“It’s right the government has listened to calls to fix one of the gaps in the Online Safety Bill and protect children from pornography wherever it’s hosted,” he said. “Crucially, they have also acted on our concerns and closed the ‘Only Fans loophole’ that would have let some of the riskiest sites off the hook despite allowing children access to extremely damaging material.”

“But the legislation still falls short of giving children comprehensive protection from preventable abuse and harmful content and needs significant strengthening to match the government’s rhetoric and focus minds at the very top of tech companies on child safety,” Burrows added.

The Christian nonprofit advocacy organization, Exodus Cry, celebrated the bill as a step in the right direction.

Ever since journalist Nicolas Kristof released his expose that condemned PornHub’s abuse and exploitation of children, Exodus Cry’s efforts to #ProtectChildrenNotPorn gained momentum.

“Massive steps are being taken in the UK to protect children from porn sites, and we are thrilled at these developments,” Exodus Cry wrote on Instagram. “For far too long, the multi-billion dollar porn industry has been allowed to recklessly feed the most violent and degrading pornographic content to our children with absolutely zero accountability—and to make money off the web traffic.”

“If the UK’s Online Safety Bill passes, it would establish critical protection for millions of children and set a foundational precedent towards developing higher standards for the global porn industry,” the post reads. “Implementing required, ID-based age verification on every single porn site is one of the most effective ways to protect children from the life-altering effects of early porn exposure.”


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