A new legislation, about porn websites, is to be implemented in UK in order to verify the age of those who want to see this content.
After the announcement of this law, some websites with pornographic content decided to close down as ‘’Dirty Boyz’’. Specifically, the publisher of this magazine announced in October that last month’s issue would be its last, saying that: ‘’Following the Conservative government’s decision to press ahead with new regulations forcing websites which make money from adult content to carry an age verification system, Dirtyboyz and its website dirtyboyz.xxx have made the decision to close.’’
The UK’s Conservative government takes new measures in order to ensure the protection of minors when they browse online on websites with inappropriate content like pornography. Their goal is to make the internet a safer place for children. Indeed, the new legislation constituted part of the Digital Economy Act 2017, but there was a delay in its implementation.
However, besides commercial porn sites, the impact on social media remains unclear. For example, Tumblr officially announced the ban of pornographic content and the implementation of new guidelines against ‘’adult content’’. Facebook has also received stricter measures to bar ‘’explicit sexual activity’’. On the other hand, pornographic content remains rife on Twitter. A Twitter spokesperson told GSN it was mindful of protecting young people from adult content. However, he supported: ‘’There is no simple solution to age verification, and while Twitter is not a service that has a youthful audience, we still have a responsibility as an industry player to contribute to the overall health of the internet space’’. Specifically, Twitter is a means of social networking, in which it is very easy for a visitor or a user to look up any adult porn performer and come across with graphic content with a couple of clicks.
This is a good example for which the government in UK, should take action to make this platform safer for any age and more readily accessible to such content.
