EU Online Age Verification (Age assurance) been enforced from 21st July 2025

corkie

Yes I know VPN's exist and there is alternative DNS servers. (illegal streaming user know)!

But Any country regulator can prevent access to some websites with altered/restricted DNS servers.

And no starlink as an alternative is not an affordable solution for most people, plus unless you have mobile phone that connects to it. You wouldn't have access out and about.

I am hating all the clickbait articles coming out, that say people have found loopholes/exploits with the laws only to mention VPN's.

Also VPN to london again and I witnessed Reddit age gate in action. I created a new account to check my NSFW content on my own sub. Stupidly set it to private, but it showed my age gate process on my inconsequential pages is an effective deterrent, because nobody reported to me they couldn't access.

• Reddit Age check for legacy account's with years of use is not yet age gated.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123669663#Comment_123669663

I am hating all the clickbait articles coming out, that say people have found loopholes/exploits with the laws only to mention VPN's.

It really does demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the Digital Services Act, in that it was always only making large online platforms and service providers responsible for measures which would prevent children being exposed to inappropriate content. The only way platforms and service providers could do that was by adjusting their algorithms to base the content shown to the user based on their age.

Whether users are using VPNs or not doesn’t matter, as it’s the platforms and service providers are responsible for ensuring their measures are effective, not the users, regardless of how they’re accessing platforms and services.

How long VPNs based in Switzerland will remain in Switzerland is anyone’s guess as they’re about to have to make the decision as to whether they stay or should they go -

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Switzerland-plans-to-ban-anonymity-and-data-retention-by-decree-10377287.html

As for the EU, well, between GDPR and the DSA, the intention is to ensure consumers are protected from large online platforms and service providers often unscrupulous practices when it comes to user’s privacy, data protection and exploitation of minors. The EU has been far more active in the area of promoting and protecting digital rights than other jurisdictions, even when it makes the DPC squirm -

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/22/facebook-fined-mishandling-user-information-ireland-eu-meta

The DPC didn’t want to do it, they were made do it (by the watchers who watch the watchers!) -

https://www.lawlibrary.ie/viewpoints/meta-dpc-case/

TikTok weren’t let off the hook so easy either -

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/02/tiktok-fined-530m-for-failing-to-protect-user-data-from-chinese-state

corkie

Okay sorry for an additional post today but news I just came across from Yesterday!

Age Assurance on X

We are required by regulations including the UK's Online Safety Act, the Irish Online Safety Code and the European Union Digital Services Act, to verify your age for access to certain types of content.

Below, we outline our age verification and estimation methods which are designed to be privacy-focused and user-friendly.

I was right to state that 'Musk' would follow the rules!

• Account creation date: If an account was created in 2012 or earlier.

^^ mine is from 2009

Has anyone heard of the Adult Cartoon Website 'Rule 34'? I had not but it is explicit adult content!

Instead of following UK rules. They enforced a block on the site for UK ip address. Can see other sites following suit, if implementing age restrictions is too expensive as they claim.

Outside the scope of this thread, but VPN's are handy utility for your privacy and accessing things, but do your own research on the ones you use free/paid!

"vpn a quagmire of security risks"

~ some can log your activity and give reports to law enforcement requests etc

corkie

Not much new news today, most articles just rehashing the same information.

So general thoughts myself as the issues were raised in the thread.

Restricted access to websites based on ip!

Okay I was asked today if the EU/UK guidelines had robustness of age verification in there documents.

So I went looking for the proof to confirm, what I already thought I had read previously. (Probably on external websites see below).

First problem I was hit with, was to do with the ofcom website:-

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/age-assurance

Not resolving the link on purpose, that website and other uk official websites need to be accessed by UK ip!

Not a problem for me, fired up a London Server VPN to get access.

That was easy because I have a VPN that has that as an option and I knew what country I needed to access to get the information. Now less expand this further if foreign websites to EU/UK start blocking ip from the region because they don't want to comply with the rules. To gain access to them sites from the EU, I would need to know/have a few things to use a vpn: -

• What countries is the website allowing access to their website?
• How to find out since blocked from accessing it in the first place?
• Does the VPN service I have provided one of those countries as an option?
• Probably other things I haven't thought about yet?

The point of the above is instead of having an open and accessible World Wide Web, if websites start restricting access to specific regions, we are probably looking at very restricted web experience. So not as easy as just fire up a VPN and get access. Yes there is free services with limited country options and even paid versions only have certain amount of servers available depending on plan or provider. (Note: Already mention having caution about using VPN's)!

As I said in opening just some musing's I leave you with this social media posting to ponder
^^ (by the same social username ~ I provided logical answers to the faults in this statement)?

if u found yourself moving backward thru time and tried to shuffle a deck of cards ud actually end up unshuffling it

AndrewJRenko

I, for one, am hugely surprised to see that it's a bit of a mess;

https://www.techspot.com/news/108819-brits-circumventing-uk-age-verification-vpns-death-stranding.html

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123672907#Comment_123672907

Ofcom uses Cloudflare. It doesn't restrict access to UK IP addresses (just checked). I think that Cloudflare can block on a country range basis. Identifying a user's country and location by the IP address is a complex business because the IP range owner may not have accurate details in the WHOIS lookup and they are often the main nets rather than geographical subnets. Some crude lists simply use the main range owner's details and ignore the many subnets that are often allocated to other range owners that are using that range. Netflix had problems with Virgin Media/UPC as new Virgin ranges used to appear first under the main owner's WHOIS details and they were in Austria. Netflix still uses a crude list that has problems with small networks below /24 (a Class C or 256 IP addresses).

There is also the problem of webscrapers VPNs using data centre ranges are easy enough to identify. Some webscraper operations put false ownership data in the IP ownership records that are then checked by the list builders. They often pretend to be ISPs but the activity from those ranges is completely unlike that of an ISP. Webscrapers have adapted and many use mobile phone proxies running a proxy via a compromised app or using mobile subscriptions in some low-cost countries. Cloudflare and other providers try to measure the ratios of human versus bot traffic.

Services like Cloudflare are just one layer in how websites protect themselves. They can also use IP checking against a list of permitted countries. That can often be coded into the webserver's configuration files so that a user from a blocked country will get a 403 message or custom message. It is also possible for a website to deny access at an IP level so that the server will never see a request from a blocked country.

I tend to be very cynical about the bureaucrats behind this, GDPR and NIS-2. GDPR made the Web less safe. Approxinmately 90% of the gTLD domain names have no visible contact details. NIS-2 is an attempt to undo some of that and it has introduced some utter stupidity that would potentially consider the solar panels on a house as being critical national infrastructure because the house owner has a connection to the local electricity supply network.

Regards…jmcc

corkie

Just checked on mobile and could connect. So must have been just my eir broadband IP or my tight nextdns filtering blocking it! I use the same nextdns on mobile so strange.

I was sure I read before that UK gov sites where blocking non uk IP's.

Edit: - Must have read something wrong at some point to get that idea. Just a glitch with cloudflare yesterday that caused it. Try again on incognito and looks like 'Portmaster' is restricting cloudflare/website from loading.

In summary, although there has been discussion about blocking (mainly related to scam phone calls or content piracy) and speculation online, there are no substantiated reports of official UK government or Ofcom web resources being intentionally blocked for non-UK visitors. Any impressions to the contrary likely arise from misunderstandings about scam call blocks or confusion with unrelated issues like copyright blocks or browser security warnings.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123674316#Comment_123674316

It may have been a transient issue. The problem with a lot of the reporting on blocking and IP addresses is that most technology journalists are not Techies. They have very shallow or limited understanding of IP issues and the whole IP address issue is a lot more complicated than it appears.

For example, there are about 855K websites on Irish IP addresses. But not all of them are Irish websites (Amazon and Microsoft data centres). When it gets to the UK, some of the biggest players in the UK webspace are US operations who either operate there or have acquired UK web hosting companies. US IP addresses are also used by Chinese Cloud operations to the effect that China seems to have a much lower number of gTLD websites than it should have. Some Chinese Cloud operations like Tencent and Huawei also have IP addresses that are flagged as countries other than China (including Ireland). Hong Kong has more websites (6,3 million) than the rest of China (2,9 million) simply by IP address and many of those IP addresses have been acquired from IP addresses originally intended for use in Africa. Those are mainly gTLD website figures. China itself has about 20 million .CN domain names. A website might be associated with a particular country but it does not necessarily mean that the website is hosted in that country. With Cloudflare, the country of the IP addresses that the user sees can vary depending on the user's location.

Regards…jmcc

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123672907#Comment_123672907

The point of the above is instead of having an open and accessible World Wide Web, if websites start restricting access to specific regions, we are probably looking at very restricted web experience.

We should have been looking at a restricted web experience decades ago if Governments had gotten regulation in order; there wouldn’t be the mess there is now that they’re trying to clean up.

To put some context on it, a VLOP under the DSA is classified as follows:

The DSA classifies platforms or search engines that have more than 45 million users per month in the EU as very large online platforms (VLOPs) or very large online search engines (VLOSEs). The Commission has begun to designate VLOPs or VLOSEs based on user numbers provided by platforms and search engines, which regardless of size, they were required to publish by 17 February 2023.

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/dsa-vlops

You asked earlier corkie has anyone heard of Rule 34, I have, it’s not an adult content platform per se, it’s one of the ‘Rules of the Internet’, a meme that goes back decades (I can’t remember was it the 90s or 00s, and it seems they’ve been added to considerably since then!) -

• Rule 34: If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions.

https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/Rules_of_the_Internet

I see that one particular adult content aggregator platform has put out a statement about the effect that new legislation is having on its operations, though being honest, as much as I knew ten year olds wouldn’t be remotely interested in VPNs or finding workarounds to combat the measures these platforms are required to implement, I’d still take their figures with a pinch of salt (actually, they’re really, really salty 🤨) -

What will happen?

We’ll have to implement AV wherever it is legally mandated. It’s not like we have a choice. Legal challenges were our only option — but now, even the courts have been swept up in the hysteria.

The largest established adult sites, such as ours, will be immediately destroyed.

We know that only about 10% of the user base will remain after AV is implemented — and the 10% who stay (thanks, by the way) are very costly to verify.

So much so that we expect to operate at a financial loss.

[Added July 4th] Here are real numbers that are the results of currently running AV tests : 
July 4th : verification rate : 10,5% (89,5% of users gone)
July 3th : verification rate : 9,7% (91,3% of users gone)
July 2nd : verification rate even lower due to technical issues.
However, keep in mind that the drop of users is (maybe significantly) higher than shown, because the ones who simply don't return (because they know there is an AV wall), are not counted.

https://pornbiz.com

Saying that, it does offer a pretty good summary of how these large online platforms are being brought to heel by legislative measures in countries where their services simply aren’t wanted as they contribute nothing positive to society. I don’t know what they imagine people are going to do by attempting to portray themselves as the little guy fighting big Government, when they are clearly anything but.

banie01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123673056#Comment_123673056

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123675562#Comment_123675562

sad state of affairs when one needs a license to wánk 👀😉 (The swear filter here really is puritanical)

The ease at which the proposed verification is circumvented makes a mockery of the proposed gating process. As another poster pointed out, users will shift to platforms with less intrusive checks, outside the EU, or use VPN or smart DNS to present themselves as originating from check free jurisdictions.

corkie

@One eyed Jack Thanks as always for informative contribution to the thread.

With Rule 34 I was referring to one specific website with a triple x domain. Blocking UK ip's.

As with the opening of the thread I have been following this since April 2024 (or before) and know that definitions of VLOP, but it is additional information that readers of the thread might appreciate.

As for young people as a non parent adult, I'm not one to know what they will not or not be doing online and how. But most are probably more tech savvy than the parents of same.

Most of the reasons brought up in thread as why age gating won't work or easy to enforce, I have heard since last year, when I was trying to raise awareness of it (most people weren't interested, and nearly had the DSA thread shutdown.) Forgotten most of it, but my memories where triggered by discussions on here.

Now I have raised the point that VPN's will be the next possible target by the powers that be. And again people are quick to write it off as not feasible to achieve. Time will tell.

On VPN's it is been reported that there are topping the iOS UK Store but not for Android, that's because android users more likely than not have at least 1 or 2 on there device already.

https://app.sensortower.com/top-charts?os=ios&device=iphone&country=GB&category=0&date=2025-07-27 ~ Option to switch to Android as well.

Hoping this will be in Print tomorrow? ~ It is Page 6

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-41676551.html

I didn't see much today on the Sunday papers for Ireland (Online) .

Except this opinion piece (read my sister's paper):-

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/naoise-dolan-my-brain-on-social-media-is-the-only-brain-i-know-and-sometimes-that-scares-me/a385913507.html

^^ archive.ph (whitelist)

And RTE Clarity platform has yet to feature it, even given it would be an ideal place to feature content on it.

@banie01

Why the FOCUS on 'PORN', as a mature adult and know what the body looks like and have memories and fantasies that cater to my needs. Don't go out of my way to look at it, but get a trills when I come across it.

But side effects of the restrictions on platform is not just about porn, it is also locking out access to DM's (eg Bluesky ~ ways around it). I'm not a bigger user of them, but are still handy at times for one to one private chats with developers to debug things. I am certainly not going to use 'KWS' if bluesky use it for the EU!

I am only human and as shown earlier I can get things wrong, I don't have all the answers and don't claim to know everything and not out to prove a point about things.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123675748#Comment_123675748

As for young people as a non parent adult, I'm not one to know what they will not or not be doing online and how. But most are probably more tech savvy than the parents of same.

One doesn’t need to be a parent corkie to have a fair idea at least what children are doing online and how. Large online platforms for example will have a better idea than most ordinary people, because they have the data which informs their decision making processes, and their entire business model depends on both children and adults being completely ignorant of the technology which their platforms use to gather and collate data on their users and use that data to make their platforms even more addictive and influential than they already are.

For further context following on from my previous post, we know that the DSA specifies 45 million monthly active users before they come under the enhanced scrutiny of the DSA, but what does that figure of 45 million monthly active users mean? In order to give it context, we would have to look at the monthly active users figures for these large platforms in order to understand their influence within the EU and why the DSA was necessary in the first place (I’ll leave links down below).

In 2023:

YouTube - 401m

Google Search - 332m

Google Play - 274m

Facebook - 255m

Instagram - 250m

Twitter - 100m

TikTok - 100m

Snapchat - 98m

As you can see from the figures, these platforms have considerable influence within the EU, and the reason they are arguing that it is consumers need to take responsibility for their own behaviour is because they’re quite aware already of consumers behaviour patterns and how to exploit them to their advantage, in order to expose them to even more advertising without having any regard whatsoever for the fact that some of their consumers are children. Large online platforms don’t want that responsibility because it’s simply bad for business.

The advertisers are the buyers, the consumers are the product, and large online platforms don’t want to risk losing revenue, which is why they are opposed to any means of them having to be responsible for their consumers welfare. That’s why Governments should have stepped in long ago to regulate these online platforms before they became as large as they are, and why online platforms are just as keen to prohibit access to their content by anyone using a VPN provider service either. Not remotely curious, but the fact that they can manage to block VPNs, while they’re also keen to find fault with age verification methods and declare them useless, demonstrates exactly where their priorities lie.

Why the FOCUS on 'PORN', as a mature adult and know what the body looks like and have memories and fantasies that cater to my needs. Don't go out of my way to look at it, but get a trills when I come across it.

But side effects of the restrictions on platform is not just about porn, it is also locking out access to DM's (eg Bluesky ~ ways around it). I'm not a bigger user of them, but are still handy at times for one to one private chats with developers to debug things. I am certainly not going to use 'KWS' if bluesky use it for the EU!

To be fair, ‘twas me who focused on porn, precisely because Xvideos are a large online platform with 160m monthly active users globally, and Pornhub are a large online platform with 100m monthly active users globally, who claim that it is they who are being targeted by the EU (in spite of all evidence to the contrary), with Xvideos claiming that their monthly active users figures will fall to 10% of what they are now (that’s still 16m monthly active users) as a result of them having to implement effective age verification methods.

Obviously you’re not one of those users, but the 16m users who are, will still include children who are being exposed to inappropriate content. That’s why even when VPN service providers like Proton make a song and dance about increasing sales by 1,000% and they have an existing base of 1m, it’s important to put figures like that in their proper context - an extra 1,000 monthly active users users is nothing, in relative terms. Similarly, I’m not surprised the media has made a song and dance about the multitude of workarounds there are for age verification as though these methods will be employed at anything like the scale of the figures for monthly active users of these large online platforms.

Bluesky with its 38m monthly active users are to be commended for their efforts to introduce effective measures required by the DSA without meeting the criteria which would require them to do so. There are of course the side-effects you mention, but the positives IMO, for everyone, by far and above outweigh the negatives for a small few adults who should understand why the measures are necessary, as opposed to being preoccupied solely with their own individual freedoms which they feel are under threat by Governments reining in the influence in society of large online platforms.

They can take comfort from the fact that the UK Government had their knuckles rapped recently when they tried to have Apple create back door entry specifically for their use, and then tried to keep it on the down low. The Courts were having none of it 🤨

Sauces:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-twitter-meta-face-tougher-eu-online-content-rules-2023-02-17/

https://musically.com/2023/02/20/youtube-meta-twitter-and-spotify-sort-of-reveal-their-eu-user-figures/

https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/companies/arid-41294437.html

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/instagram-now-more-users-than-facebook-eu/731951/

https://www.thatawesomedigitalagency.com.au/blog/chatgpt-eu-users-41-million-search/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgn1lz3v4no.amp

AndrewJRenko

My VPN had chosen UK as the fastest server without my knowledge, so Bluesky was prompting me to enter the age verification process this morning. It brings it home to you when it pops up on your own screen.

The whole focus on porn for children is of course nonsense, a handy distraction. The real harm on the Internet isn't porn. The real harm on the Internet is the manipulation of the slightly gullible minds that allowed the results of Trump 2016 and Brexit elections to be bought. The real harm on the Internet is thugs like Tate and McGregor persuading large numbers of young men that their problems are caused by confident women. The real harm of the internet is the use of expert psychologists to ensure that social media and gaming apps are absolutely addictive, destroying attention spans of children and adults. The real harm of the Internet is the abuse by unscrupulous governments to bring us back to the 1950s.

None of the real problems of the Internet will be fixed by age gating of porn.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123677059#Comment_123677059

None of the real problems of the Internet will be fixed by age gating of porn.

It isn’t just porn that’s being age-gated though? In the list of issues you’ve outlined above that according to your assessment are the ‘real’ problems of the Internet, are being contributed to in a large part by the proliferation and influence of large online platforms which advertise adult content. Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, is owned by the rather oddly named Ethical Capital Partners, who acquired Aylo following their legal issues -

The move comes as MindGeek is being sued over sexually explicit videos of minors found on its so-called tube sites, which much like YouTube rely on users to upload content. 

And it wasn’t that adult content aggregator platforms are being discriminated against or being targeted or any of the rest of it, it was because they were found to be advertising content which was, well, obviously, illegal -

MindGeek has since confirmed that Mastercard reinstated access to its subscription sites but not for its advertising arm TrafficJunky, which was cut off by the credit card companies last year when a court ruling found Visa could be held liable for illegal content on tube sites.

…

Visa has, alongside MindGeek’s former owners and the company itself, been named in a lawsuit alleging that MindGeek earned money from illegal videos featuring people under the age of 18 on its user-generated sites by placing advertising next to them.

https://archive.ph/oM68f

The incidents which you offer as evidence of the real problems of the internet are nothing more than the symptoms of an underlying issue, disguised by the way social media works in shaping people’s world views. Children and adults attention spans aren’t being destroyed, certainly not by social media - humans attention spans were just never that good in the first place.

In that context it’s perfectly reasonable to conclude that the real problems of the internet is all the things you see as problems, and none of the things you don’t (I’m not going to be so obtuse as to suggest you don’t see the issue with the portrayal of confident young women taking footlong subs in every orifice, no need to go to that extreme), and how that influences yours or other people’s perception of how men should behave and how women ought to be treated. It’s also not unreasonable that other people would not share your perspective and can see many, many examples of circumstances where the real harm of the proliferation and influence of adult content is in shaping people’s world views is blatantly obvious -

https://archive.ph/m8C7V

https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0725/1525398-woman-tortured-dublin/

Was age-verification ever suggested as a silver bullet, by anyone? I’m not sure it was, but what it does do, is reduce the influence of large online platforms in any society, thereby reducing their ability to shape people’s world views. That’s the point of age-verification and the many more measures in legislation which aims to reduce children’s exposure to harmful content, so that by the time they’re adults, their world views haven’t been shaped through a myopic lens.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1339

corkie

@One eyed Jack There are of course the side-effects you mention, but the positives IMO, for everyone, by far and above outweigh the negatives for a small few adults who should understand why the measures are necessary, as opposed to being preoccupied solely with their own individual freedoms which they feel are under threat by Governments reining in the influence in society of large online platforms.

At least the process to verify is not as bad as I anticipated back last year. I have no insecurities about handling over my information (passport/bank details) to trusted providers that handle the information securely and privately without unnecessary sharing to third parties. It maybe a small inconvenience to me but if in the process the online world because a safer place for everyone, especially minors all the better.

It is the lack of knowledge about the systems, or how they operate is flagged by people not knowing the process involved and raising worries about it. An example is the sub payment, secure method used by 'Stripe' for boards, people had to be told multiple times that the information to verify that you were right person to initiate payment was done securely between that and your bank. That information would have been a major violation of the service if it was passed to the merchant! (if exposed it would mean others could initiate and repeat bogus payments from accounts, untrustworthy merchant!)

I went out of my way to get a up to date passport in case I needed for the process. Unneeded so far with been a legacy user on the likes of youtube, X, reddit etc. Demonstrated in the thread that I will use it where necessary. someone went to the trouble of warning me it was a bad idea. ~ (Or in the example unnecessary but wanted to test the process)

When I was younger I was paranoid about means to protect my privacy and use to maintain my own hosts file and other things. Later on just realised, I have not much to hide, and been 1 of many had it's benefits of the been obscure in the mass of information. Saying that still use DNS filtering out of trackers etc.

corkie

Another side effect of these is going have an effect on Android Custom Roms (is that still popular?) and sideloaded APK's because to comply with the Age Verification Rules, your device/apps has be verified and supported by the google play ecosystem!

https://www.talkandroid.com/512861-eu-age-verification-app-google/

Independent and RTE have reports on 'Xitter'

My parent comment was to highlight that I have no first hand knowledge of what minors get up to online, and didn't want to commenting on that, yes I read/watch media and can grasp in theory what they may do. What I meant by kids been more tech savvy than parents, is if parents went to trouble of putting monitoring/restrictions on the devices, the kids would find a way around it from there friends.

As I said, I can get the information, but no personal first hand information, so will refrain from commenting on theories of what children or young teens are doing.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123677910#Comment_123677910

What exactly is the connection between the woman tortured by drug dealers and online pornography?

"but what it does do, is reduce the influence of large online platforms in any society, thereby reducing their ability to shape people’s world views. "

Nope, it's going to do the absolute opposite of this. It's going to leave the real influencers (Facebook, TikTok, Twitter) almost completely untouched and unscathed so they can continue to steer election results in their preferred direction, while giving a false sense of 'oh we protected the children from porn' to political classes.

It's a nonsense distraction, a repeat of all the stuff we had in the 80s and 90s about video nasties and hidden messages in satanic metal music and video games - while the real destructive forces continue unscathed.

corkie

Again another side effect of the rules!

I know you could possibly connect with a VPN, but what if in theory they also block payment from UK/EU accounts!

"It's mass tracking and censoring in the guise of "protecting children"."

I have seen this or variations floating around online, is it just another conspiracy theory? It doesn't help when Privacy Organisation (eg EDRi) have been putting out things like below since 2023:-

https://edri.org/our-work/policy-paper-age-verification-cant-childproof-the-internet/

Counter argument of the above from 2024:-

https://www.myprivacy.blog/age-verification-and-child-protection-online-a-legal-perspective-based-on-the-aepds-guidance/

The DSA recognizes that enforcing age verification is essential for complying with data protection regulations, but it also warns against over-collecting data under the guise of verification. Recital 71 explicitly notes that platforms must not be incentivized to gather more personal data than necessary to determine the age of users, ensuring a balance between child protection and privacy.

The AEPD also notes the risks associated with improper age verification practices, which could lead to profiling, surveillance, or the creation of identity schemes that could be abused. For instance, a flawed implementation of age verification could result in a monopoly or excessive control over user data by third-party providers of verification services, creating systemic risks for both individuals and the wider internet ecosystem.

^^ Looking at you 'KWS'(/Epic Games)

Edit 15:17: -

X loses High Court challenge against Online Safety Code

https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0729/1525964-x-high-court-coimisiun-na-mean/

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123679886#Comment_123679886

What exactly is the connection between the woman tortured by drug dealers and online pornography?

I already explained the connection?

In that context it’s perfectly reasonable to conclude that the real problems of the internet is all the things you see as problems, and none of the things you don’t (I’m not going to be so obtuse as to suggest you don’t see the issue with the portrayal of confident young women taking footlong subs in every orifice, no need to go to that extreme), and how that influences yours or other people’s perception of how men should behave and how women ought to be treated. It’s also not unreasonable that other people would not share your perspective and can see many, many examples of circumstances where the real harm of the proliferation and influence of adult content is in shaping people’s world views is blatantly obvious

And as if to demonstrate your point about the effects of social media on people's attention spans, and the effects of pornography and how it influences men's attitudes and behaviour towards women, you appear to have missed the point of the example I provided, and why I provided it -

Rice accessed her Facebook account, demanded her mother's address and threatened to rape her 17-year-old daughter who was staying there.

He started hitting her across the head with a metal pole before he "lost control" and started hitting her all over her body, the court heard. McMahon held a hatchet up to her face while his son Keogh, referred to in court as 'Sparky' hit her across the head with a pole.

Conroy kicked her in the face.

While the woman was being hit and kicked, Rice burned her by heating up the head of a hammer and pressing it "over and over" against her bare legs

At one point, the woman heard the men on the phone to their "boss" who told them to "strip her off and get her into bed and bugger her".

They didn't do this but they told her a "black man" whom the woman said they referred to as "a monkey" was coming to rape her.

In text messages read out in court today, one of the men boasted to a friend that they had a "hostage" and had "cut her up", to which this unidentified man replied: "quality".

Phone video footage taken inside the flat that day was also played in court, which showed the woman bloodied and distressed and a hammer being heated up on a hob.

They were just two of the most recent examples in Irish society, of many, many examples of pornography's influence on society.

Nope, it's going to do the absolute opposite of this. It's going to leave the real influencers (Facebook, TikTok, Twitter) almost completely untouched and unscathed so they can continue to steer election results in their preferred direction, while giving a false sense of 'oh we protected the children from porn' to political classes.

It's a nonsense distraction, a repeat of all the stuff we had in the 80s and 90s about video nasties and hidden messages in satanic metal music and video games - while the real destructive forces continue unscathed.

How… can you have read the discussion and still be operating under the impression that the DSA is going to do the opposite of it's intended aims? Your point just doesn't make any sense, because what they are doing is targeting large online platforms, whether it's a search engine, a social media platform, or indeed an adult content platform, which has over 45 million monthly active users. Adult content platforms are not exempt, nor are social media platforms which have been subject to fines already. You're veering close to conspiratorial nonsense territory with that 'political classes' nonsense when it was you brought up the election of Donald Trump, Andrew Tate and Conor McGregor… while failing to mention the more obvious connection between all three of them is their legal issues caused by their attitudes and behaviour towards women.

Very few people give a fcuk about grown men gurning in front of their webcams to verify that they are indeed, an adult. The EU certainly doesn't give a fcuk about platforms with an insignificant online presence, so fill yer boots with any amount of pornography you want. The EU makes the large platforms responsible for their content, as should have been done decades ago. It's standard practice that any business providing a service to consumers that the business is regulated by the laws in the jurisdiction they wish to operate in. If large adult content platforms want to do business in the EU, they know what is required of them, it's no skin off the EUs nose to say au revoir if the people behind those large online platforms imagine that they can operate on their own terms. Then they absolutely need manners put on them, in the form of regulation.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123680184#Comment_123680184

"It's mass tracking and censoring in the guise of "protecting children"."

I have seen this or variations floating around online, is it just another conspiracy theory? It doesn't help when Privacy Organisation (eg EDRi) have been putting out things like below since 2023

It doesn't even rise to the level of a conspiracy theory. It's nothing more than childish rhetoric in the form of "I know you are but what am I?" The EU are perfectly capable of mass tracking and censoring already, they have never needed to disguise it under the pretence of protecting children. It just so happens in this particular context, that the new laws are about protecting children, and adults.

corkie

@One eyed Jack The EU are perfectly capable of mass tracking and censoring already, they have never needed to disguise it under the pretence of protecting children.

Made the same point on reddit just recently, in response to this:-

Well, internet access only with a valid ID (see Australia, though not everywhere yet) is a heavily dystopian development, which would have been called an conspiracy theory just a year back. You'd have to be a special kind of naive fool to believe any of this is for "our own safety".

I linked the papers I provided above. And include this in reply:-

So easy for people online to sprout the Government surveillance line, who haven't researched and looked at the strict privacy rules of the legislation?

There is easier ways for government to track online users that they are interested in and maybe have need.

Irish times has more details on the 'X challenge of the rules':-

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2025/07/29/x-loses-high-court-challenge-brought-against-coimisiun-na-mean-safety-code/

^^ Archive.ph {whitelist}

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123681290#Comment_123681290

At risk of stating the obvious, but you've just done it again. You've stated there is a connection, and not shown any connection. You've mentioned an incident involving horrific violence, and you've mentioned pornography on the Internet - but you've not shown any connection.

Is there any connection, or do we just assume now that every incident of violence is caused by pornography?

corkie

@AndrewJRenko Are you trying to imply their is not a connection? Bit of internet search would throw up results.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/10/17/porn-consumption-is-fuelling-high-levels-of-violence-against-women-and-girls-report/

Sorry to but in with your disagreement but I am sure @One eyed Jack can also provide evidence of same?

And NO NOT every incident of violence is caused by pornography!

Extract from above link. If your paywalled feed the url to archive.ph

Depictions of violence in pornography “actively distort and break the boundary between ‘sex’ and ‘sexual violence’”, the report says, and impact negatively on adults and young people – leading directly to sexual violence, unhealthy relationships, hostile misogyny and a compounding of gender inequality.

“There is a significant body of research evidence demonstrating the relationship between consumption of pornography, in particular regular consumption, and the perpetration of violence against women and girls,” the report notes.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123681966#Comment_123681966

If not every incident of violence, what is it about this incident of physical (not sexual) torture that connects it to pornography?

Grayson

It's worth remembering that this doesn't just cover porn. In the Uk they're blocking reddit subs that give advice because they deal with mature topics. Basically anything that they think a child shouldn't see.

And the verification process is bollox. You either upload your ID or photo to the site or you give it to a third party provider. And the third party providers are all selling your data. But selling your data is the best case scenario.

I'd say there's hackers in North Korea and Russia that are salivating right now.

Here's a site that provides verification for dating apps. It was hacked last week. https://www.teaforwomen.com/cyberincident

So we're putting ourselves in a position where we're offering up loads of extra data to loads of sites because some karen hates porn.

The internet has become a lot more dangerous.

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123681910#Comment_123681910

The worst part of this is that the people who are campaigning the most for these sort of restrictions are also the people that are most against educating kids.

In the other thread where people were discussing blocking porn I honestly felt like I was the only one advocating for more education about sex, relationships and consent.

We desperately need to educate kids on this stuff. The fact that some young men think that the stuff they see in porn is how people have sex is disturbing. But all this law would do, if it even worked, is mean that they get no porn and no education until they're 18. At which point they get access to the porn.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123681966#Comment_123681966

When did we decide that porn was to blame, and not just good old fashioned violence in the media, which of course the new 'won't someone please think of the children' regulation will leave untouched?

Is this gang violence related to media portrayals of gang violence or unrelated porn?

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2003.pspi_1433.x

corkie

@AndrewJRenko And your point about violence in the media is what exactly. 18+ Movies (/R rated)?

AUS: The portrayal of violence in the media: impacts and implications for policy

Gang behavior and movies: Do Hollywood gang films influence violent gang behavior?

But this line of conversation is kind out of scope what the thread is about?

Gang violence predates modern media doesn't it?

Back on topic, many online are wondering why they in various parts of the EU are been age gated especially on 'Xitter'.

And searching it about age verification just throws up a lot of grok replies to people questioning about it.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123684395#Comment_123684395

My point is that making a connection between horrific gang violence against a young woman in Dublin and pornography is absolute nonsense.

Pornography predates modern media. If 18+ ratings are the solution, why don't we just rate all porn as 18+? Job done, right?

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123681910#Comment_123681910

I’ve demonstrated the connection twice, and noted in your above post that you ask this question -

If not every incident of violence, what is it about this incident of physical (not sexual) torture that connects it to pornography?

Deliberately attempting to exclude the details which provide context, which are provided in the article, which I provided here in support of my argument that the influence of pornography is blatantly obvious, when it is -

At one point, the woman heard the men on the phone to their "boss" who told them to "strip her off and get her into bed and bugger her".

They didn't do this but they told her a "black man" whom the woman said they referred to as "a monkey" was coming to rape her.

In text messages read out in court today, one of the men boasted to a friend that they had a "hostage" and had "cut her up", to which this unidentified man replied: "quality".

The degradation of women is a common theme in pornography, though given your efforts so far I can only reasonably conclude that’s not something you were aware of either, a perspective which I’ve already accounted for when I stated earlier -

It’s also not unreasonable that other people would not share your perspective and can see many, many examples of circumstances where the real harm of the proliferation and influence of adult content is in shaping people’s world views is blatantly obvious.

It’d be bad faith bullshìt on my part were I to point out that EU citizens have no influence on the election of Donald Trump, as though I didn’t know you were of course referring to American citizens. Clearly you’re unwilling to offer the same courtesy when a reasonable argument is presented with supporting evidence, of the influence of pornography on society and the way in which it normalises behaviours and attitudes which influence how people’s world views are shaped. From my perspective, it’s less about thinking about the children, and more about society as a whole. That starts with adults, who act as role models for children. It’s the children however, who will choose their role models, and the likes of the men you present as examples, while they are not good role models for anyone, they are as I said but a symptom of an underlying issue.

One that the DSA aims to address by making large online platforms responsible for ensuring that children are not exposed to content which is inappropriate for them. This includes your point about children’s exposure to violent content which is deemed inappropriate or harmful, as opposed to the idea that there are exceptions being made and the idea is only to target pornography -

When did we decide that porn was to blame, and not just good old fashioned violence in the media, which of course the new 'won't someone please think of the children' regulation will leave untouched?

Is this gang violence related to media portrayals of gang violence or unrelated porn?

It was decided that pornography is a contributing factor to the outcomes which are witnessed in society where adults engage in the degradation of their fellow human beings, kinda like the way Cathal Crotty imagined his behaviour was acceptable. Personally, I’ll never understand why the Judge declared that he would impose a suspended sentence as a custodial sentence would be detrimental to Crotty’s career in the Defence Forces, as though the Defence Forces would want someone like that among their ranks when they are in the process of cleaning house themselves -

https://archive.ph/yHOCL

It’s no small irony of course that another one of the aims of the DSA is also to combat misinformation in the media and online.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123682175#Comment_123682175

And the verification process is bollox. You either upload your ID or photo to the site or you give it to a third party provider. And the third party providers are all selling your data. But selling your data is the best case scenario.

If the verification process actually IS bollox, and notwithstanding the fact that online platforms operating within the EU or the UK are not limited solely to being reliant on any one particular method of verification; rather they are required to ensure whatever verification methods they use are effective, it wouldn’t be in their interest, nor in the interest of the third party verification provider to operate outside of other regulations which are already in place to protect consumers privacy and personal data, such as GDPR regulations.

Of course it’s a different story in the States where consumers have to rely on services providers like ‘delete me’ and ‘incogni’, both of which can be linked back to NordVPN, one of the more popular VPN provider services, which claims to protect consumers privacy and offers protection from data broker services which are indeed big business, legal too, and unlike the salivating hackers in North Korea and Russia scenario, NordVPN are based outside of the EU and the US, in Panama.

https://youtu.be/iX3JT6q3AxA?si=nn8bXhh4ir14SeKL

Their parent company, Nord Security, is based in The Netherlands:

https://support.nordvpn.com/hc/en-us/articles/19441152966161-Where-is-NordVPN-based