The U.K. has shelved the “porn block” law, which would require citizens to provide official IDs when watching online porn.
After a lot of drama, the U.K. government has decided to drop their efforts to block pornography online, at least for the time being.
The measure, which was intended to protect children from accessing adult content, would have introduced age verification software across different porn sites. While this would make it much harder for kids to find and watch online porn, it would also require adult viewers to submit a passport or driving license in order to watch the content of their choosing, linking their documentation with their viewing habits.
The porn block, which would have gone into effect in July 15, 2020, struck a nerve with a lot of citizens and members of the porn industry who said that the law could have a chilling effect on free speech while also endangering people’s private information.
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Nicky Morgan, the U.K.’s Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport released a statement explaining why they’ve decided to shelf the ban, saying:
“The government has concluded that this objective of coherence will be best achieved through our wider online harms proposals and, as a consequence, will not be commencing Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 concerning age verification for online pornography. The Digital Economy Act [DEA] objectives will therefore be delivered through our proposed online harms regulatory regime. This course of action will give the regulator discretion on the most effective means for companies to meet their duty of care. As currently drafted, the Digital Economy Act does not cover social media platforms.”
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While the U.K. porn block has been temporarily shelved, the British government still appears concerned with porn websites and enabling some sort of censorship. Still, given all that’s going on with British politics, it’s unlikely for a porn ban to be drafted and become effective any time soon.
