- What is it they do now?
(both click fingers)
- Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel.
I'm Hannah Witton and today,
I have with me Jazza John,
and we are going to be talking about the UK porn block.
- It's a thing, it's real.
- It's happening.
- Sorry.
- (laughs) It's not your fault.
So Jazza's here to talk about it with me
because he's an avid porn user.
- Well no, I am. - But that's true.
But also, Jazza talks a lot about politics online
and is generally down to have
these kinds of conversations with me.
And actually, he's the reason why
I discovered this was happening.
- Yeah, you're welcome.
- So this video is going to be in three parts.
First of all, what you need to know.
Top line, what the hell is happening.
Secondly, some points of interest
that we have about this,
diving a little deeper into some of these issues.
And then three, some questions from some of you
on social media, Twitter and Instagram that you sent me.
So we'll do a little quickfire round at the end.
- Quickfire Q&A.
- Here's what you need to know.
Number one, this is a UK only thing.
So it's the UK government that is implementing this
and it will only affect you if you are trying
to access porn from the UK.
Or if your IP address is in the UK.
- Is in the UK.
So this came in as part of the Digital Economy Act
that was passed in 2017.
Sounds like a really innocuous
and maybe a positive piece of legislation.
- Yeah. - Not so much.
- Not so much.
And these laws were supposed to come in in April 2018
but it has now been postponed to April, spring-ish, 2019.
We still don't know.
Any day now.
- You know it's bad when they start saying
that the release date is in seasons,
rather than actual dates.
- Bit like Brexit now.
- Ugh, the B word, the B word.
- Sorry.
Number three, what the hell is this block?
It is age verification.
So basically, you will not be able to access porn sites
without proving that you are over 18 years old.
And there are different ways that they might do this.
- So first of all, you will have to be using
a age verification software or an age verification gate
that is approved by the UK government.
One of the biggest ones is called AgeID.
- AgeID. - AgeID.
- So what information do you have to give AgeID
to verify your age?
- So they would be taking a photo of your driver's licence,
a photo of your passport,
and then an email and a password.
It's also possible for you to go to a corner shop ...
- Your newsagent. - ... to a newsagent
and buy a porn pass
that will give you access on your specific device.
So who knows?
Maybe this is going to rekindle the newsagent economy.
- I love a good newsagent.
Other things that also might be used but we don't know
are credit cards, or like a social media check,
where you log in through Facebook or something
and it does a big scan of your Facebook
and guesses your age somehow.
Obviously, there are lots of issues with all of these.
- So number four.
There obviously has to be somebody who decides
what is porn.
- Who is controlling this?
- In this case, it's the BBFC,
who are traditionally here in the UK
deciding whether or not a film is PG, like 15 and 18,
or even an X.
The problem is, they aren't really hugely equipped
for specifically dealing with pornography and deciding-
- No, they do films.
- Yeah, yeah, exactly. - They do films.
And they're also the body that will have the power
to block sites and find sites if they're not complying
with the new rules.
Number five.
This does not affect social media sites.
So you'll still be able to access your porn
on Twitter and Reddit, but not Tumblr,
because RIP Tumblr.
All of those social media sites make their own rules,
and Tumblr made theirs.
- Yeah.
Tumblr I bet is kicking itself in the ass now.
They could've had-
- I know, they could've had the monopoly on internet porn.
- Yeah, exactly.
Would've been great.
Oh well.
- Oh dear.
Do you wanna do number six, the scary one? (laughs)
- So probably one of the scariest things about this
is who is implementing AgeID?
Who has been paid by the Government to implement
the go-to age verification gate?
- Who made this software?
- So it's a company called MindGeek.
Cool name.
- Cool name. - I'd work for them.
- Who are MindGeek, Jazza?
- So what will you not find anywhere on their actual website
is that they're actually the owner
of a large number of the largest pornography sites
such as Pornhub, RedTube, Xtube.
- YouPorn.
- Yeah, all of the greatest hits.
So these are the guys that have created the problem
and they're now presenting the Government with the solution.
And they are actually using
the most advanced types of encryption
to protect people's data.
But we know that data
does get leaked,
and people who want to hack into accounts
and to perhaps expose people's porn habits,
that exists and people are always trying to do that.
That is what worries me in terms of a privacy standpoint.
- And another question that we should ask
is wait, hang on, a company that owns loads of porn sites,
wouldn't they be trying to get this law repealed,
rather than actively collaborating
with the Government on this?
So what is their reason behind that?
Well, they can then sell that software to all of the other
smaller porn sites.
- Because they're estimating 25 million users
using AgeID, the service that they're providing,
in the first month.
That's an awful lot of money that they can sell
this to other porn sites.
They are smart.
- They're smart and mischievous.
So those are the top line things that you need to know
about the porn block.
And a few points of interest,
you brought one up already,
is the privacy issues.
And Jazza has done a whole video on his channel
all about the privacy side of things and the data.
So if you wanna get into the details of that,
go and watch that.
I'm also gonna be in that.
- Yeah, I'm gonna go in depth about how you can
get around the porn block,
which we're gonna mention in this video as well.
- Yes.
- But if you wanna go more into depth there,
hop over to my channel.
We'll have a chinwag for a little bit.
- Yes.
So other issue, this is not going to work, because ...
- Spoiler.
- ... VPNs exist, which are virtual private networks.
- Well done.
- I got that right.
You have a VPN and it means that your access
to the internet is encrypted.
And you can access a VPN anywhere you like.
You can be like I fancy being in Belgium.
Ooh, how about the USA.
And then, you are no longer
trying to access porn from the UK,
which is where the porn block exists.
You can access it from wherever.
- You will have perhaps been using it
to get through regional-
- Netflix.
- Yeah, so to get around regional blocking for Netflix
or for Amazon Prime or whatever.
- It's how I watched the entirety of Parks and Recreation.
- Yeah, great.
It's how I watched all of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars.
It does basically make this whole law redundant.
- Yeah.
VPNs are legal, for now.
- Yeah, for now.
- One of the huge questions is why. (laughs)
- (speaks in foreign language)
- Why?
- Well because porn is bad, Hannah.
- Well that is a very nuanced debate for another time.
I actually did a whole video on the benefits of porn
so you can watch that if you like.
As you've said, the Digital Economy Act came in in 2017
and in 2016, the NSPCC,
which is the big national children's charity in the UK,
commissioned a study,
which found that 53% of 11 to 16-year-olds
had stumbled across porn on the internet.
And the media went batshit.
It was headlines everywhere, porn panic, moral panic.
Won't somebody think the children panic.
- Little Timmy may have seen a boobie.
- That outrage is what we think prompted
the Act coming in in 2017,
and now us in 2019 dealing with the consequences.
- One of the problems with this study
is that it was
not carried out to the highest stringent standards
of social sciences.
It was a bad study.
Don't put too much weight on it.
- And then the other thing is that
this was commissioned by the NSPCC
but if you actually go on the NSPCC's website ...
- I love this.
- ... and you look into what they're saying
about porn, about children, and about sexual development
in young people,
let me get this right,
the NSPCC says that "Between the ages of 10 and 12,
"part of healthy sexual development
"is looking for information about sex,
"which might lead them to porn."
And then, "From age 13+, it is healthy to actually
"be seeking out sexual imagery or porn online."
That is a healthy part of young people's sexual development.
A natural curiosity about sex, about body parts,
about genitals, about their own body and pleasure.
There is a lot of issues obviously with the fact
that porn is often the first education
that a lot of young people get about sex.
But their curiosity about sex shouldn't be punished
and is totally normal and healthy.
- This government, we've bashed it a little bit,
but this government has the potential and is capable
of actually being quite progressive
when it comes to sex education.
Compulsory sex education is gonna be in schools from 2020?
- Yeah, September 2020, it will be compulsory
for relationships and sex education in school,
relationships education from primary,
and then relationships and sex education
from secondary school.
And I just hope that pornography has its place
in the sex ed curriculum.
- We know that you can be good, UK government.
We believe in you.
Be better.
- Be better. - Be better.
- For all of us.
For the children.
So now ... (laughs)
- I'm sorry.
- So now, we're gonna answer some quickfire questions
from social media,
because not a lot of people know this is happening
or the implications and details.
So quickfire.
Also, we don't have the answers to some of these questions
but I think it's valuable for us to ask them anyway
in case any of you guys know the answers
and you can leave them in the comments,
or just as a general consciousness raising exercise,
to be asking these questions.
- A thought exercise.
- How exciting.
- "Why don't parents just age restrict
their children's devices?"
- That's a great question.
- "Why is the age verification 18 and not 16,
which is the age of consent in the UK?"
- That's a great question. (laughs)
- "Are there any other countries trying to do this?"
- We're in great company.
- Russia. - Russia. (laughs)
- I do go into this in my video a little bit more.
- No, you should check it out, yeah.
- Where we are becoming one of the most regressive
countries when it comes to internet policy
in not just the developed Western world
but globally, compared to some of the
really, really strict, closed-down regimes, like Russia.
This is really worrying when it comes to the fact
that we were the country that spawned the man,
Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the modern world wide web.
- What would he say to this now?
- He is alive.
- What is he saying to this now?
"How will I still be able to watch porn
"anonymously for free?"
- VPN.
- Get yourself a VPN.
- I would recommend
not getting a free VPN.
I would recommend paying for one and seeing it
as an add-on to whatever internet plan you have.
The free ones tend to be really dodgy
when it comes to your privacy.
- "Where does the money from porn passes go to?"
- That's a great question.
- Don't know.
- It will end up going into the-
- Probably taxes, part of tax government funding?
- Yeah, it's not uncommon for this kind of legislation
for it to be ring-fenced for something specific, but that-
- Like sex education, like maybe training specialists
or teachers so that they can deliver
the compulsory curriculum from September 2020.
- Listen to Hannah.
- That could be a good place to ring-fence that money.
"What about audio only porn or erotica?"
- That's a great question.
- Yeah.
And finally, "Why is there a stigma around watching porn?"
- The culture.
- Just the general shaming of sexuality,
of sex, of having any arousal and desire for it.
Any kind of shame around any kind of sex
that isn't for reproduction.
Thank you so much for watching.
We hope that we answered some of your questions
and also raised some more questions to ask yourself,
to ask your friends, your family, your children.
Make sure you go and check out the video
on Jazza's channel and go and subscribe to him.
I'm also going to leave a lot of links to resources
in the description, a lot of stuff that we watched and read
to do our research for these videos
and the things that we learnt along the way.
There's a lot of stuff
that we haven't mentioned in this video
that we've learned, and I want to share.
So do check out those resources.
Give this video a thumbs up if you don't want
the porn block to happen.
- It's gonna happen.
- It's gonna happen, but if you disagree with it.
- But who knows what happens after it happens.
- And subscribe 'cause I make new videos every week.
And we'll see you in the next one.
Bye. - Bye-bye, too-da-loo.
- Too-da-loo.
Enjoy your porn watching.
(funk music)