Online Safety Act's effects on the site

[Azrael Winter]

We might need to be more worried about the UK regulations for online safety affecting the site:

Online Safety Act: explainer

www.gov.uk

The Act's duties apply to search services and services that allow users to post content online or to interact with each other. This includes a range of websites, apps and other services, including social media services, consumer file cloud storage and sharing sites, video-sharing platforms, online forums, dating services, and online instant messaging services.

The Act applies to services even if the companies providing them are outside the UK should they have links to the UK. This includes if the service has a significant number of UK users, if the UK is a target market, or it is capable of being accessed by UK users and there is a material risk of significant harm to such users.

 

[Tikigod784]

The best thing any website can do at this point is treat the UK like China: either don't put your services there and actively block access, or have a specific branch of the service that complies with that country's regulations.

 

[Metempsychosis]

NGL, between this and the blanket banning of NSFW stuff on Steam and itch.io at the bidding of Visa/Mastercard, things look really dire.

 

[Tikigod784]

Well, we all learned this lesson as a society in America when prohibition was a thing. Sadly, the boomers in office have gone senile and don't realize they're repeating history.

At first it will be multiple walled-gardens, but off the books stuff is about to get way more profitable. If people though current generations growing up on the internet were jaded, just wait. It'll get so much worse now.

 

[Soupervan]

NGL, between this and the blanket banning of NSFW stuff on Steam and itch.io at the bidding of Visa/Mastercard, things look really dire.

Click to shrink...

That's probably not going to be a problem, even if the massive backlash they're facing doesn't make them back off I'm sure a decent NSFW game site will spring into being or one of the lackluster nsfw game sites that can't shine because of the big dogs will grow into a behemoth.

 

[Connamer]

People sometimes forget, but porn is one of the biggest, most profitable industries on the planet. Pornhub alone is bigger than any streaming service. So far there's been no pressure on the industry to do anything regarding payment or access because by and large they've been able to use existing infrastructure, with maybe a tiny nod towards age verification here and there.

But if payment processing or access is genuinely threatened, if there's legitimate pressure placed on the industry that begins to threaten profits, then it's almost guaranteed that something will be done. Either existing infrastructure will be bypassed (VPNs, an increase in the availability of pre-paid cards), new infrastructure will be created (new payment processors, new satellite internet services), or legal pressure will be placed on the currently-used services to re-open access to porn providers.