I was mostly familiar with laws that required porn companies to verify their user's age. That is a lot more targeted and less offensive than UK Online Safety Act Regulations IMO. I mean it's already illegal to distribute porn to minors - that's just requiring them to enforce it at the expense of porn watcher's anonymity. Whereas the UK Online Safety Act is more like a backdoor for content moderation across the internet.
The online safety act being a more well thought out step on this slippery slope doesn’t mean it isn’t leading to the same horrible end. We are just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
- Increases barrier to entry for smaller competitors
- Reliable user data (age, race, who knows what else) derived from video age verification
Anecdote:
My mom recently visited Spain. The process of buying a local SIM card was as follows:
• Show your US passport at a major local cellular provider’s store (Movistar) to have its number associated with the SIM.
• During SIM activation, open a browser page that accesses the phone’s camera.
• Scan the first page of your passport.
• Point the selfie camera at your face, then close your eyes and smile when prompted.