A number of adult websites have begun blocking users in Australia in preparation for new codes requiring age verification from Monday.
Guardian Australia has confirmed RedTube, YouPorn, and Tube8 all had notices on their sites when visited from an Australian IP address on Friday stating they are “not currently accepting new account registrations in your region”.
The news was first reported by Crikey.
From Monday, adult sites, among a range of other services including AI companion chatbots and app stores will be required to implement age verification for users attempting to access pornography, extremely violent material or self-harm content.
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The Australian online safety regulator has warned that platforms that are not in compliance with the codes could face fines of up to $49.5m per breach.
The parent company of the sites restricting access, Aylo, said the company would be in compliance with the law.
“Aylo’s video sharing platforms will be restricting access to adult material before the deadline on March 9th,” the spokesperson said. “Australia is following a similar approach to the UK, which all our evidence shows does not effectively protect minors, and instead creates harms relating to data privacy and exposure to illegal content on non-compliant platforms.”
Other sites such have not yet implemented any restrictions. That includes one of the largest sites, Pornhub, which is also owned by Aylo.
On Friday, the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, welcomed the introduction of the codes.
“We don’t allow children to walk into bars or bottle shops, adult stores or casinos, but when it comes to online spaces where they are spending a lot of their time, there are no such safeguards,” Inman Grant said.
“But that changes for Australian kids with these codes, which simply bring those same, commonsense protections we all grew up with to the online world of today to ensure children are having age-appropriate experiences and not being exposed to potentially harmful content too early.”
Sex worker advocacy group Scarlet Alliance has warned the requirement risks having a “chilling effect” on platforms willing to host online advertising for their services and content, and could lead to over-filtering of content including sexual health information due to concern about being in breach.
The head of digital policy at Unicef Australia, John Livingstone, said the codes would stop children accidentally being exposed to pornography.
“Early accidental exposure to pornography, violence, self-harm and eating-disorder content can have real and lasting impacts on a child’s healthy development,” he said. “And we know parents can’t realistically monitor their children all the time while they are online.”
The method of verification is up to the platforms to determine, but the eSafety commissioner has said it could include credit card checks or government ID checks.
The eSafety commissioner has said that the companies must “minimise the collection of personal information” and comply with privacy laws, but there are no restrictions beyond those that exist for other companies regarding the collection of personal information.
When the UK last year implemented a similar age verification system for adult sites, in the first week of it launching, four of the top five downloaded apps in the Apple app store were virtual private network (VPN) apps, with Proton reporting an 1,800% increase in downloads of its VPN app.
VPNs allow users to appear to sites that they’re in another location, which could bypass age check requirements in Australia.
However, people in the UK were urged not to use VPNs, amid calls for the age-assurance system to be expanded to require VPN companies to check ages.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
