What everyone is missing about the "Online Safety Act" & VPNs

Have we forgotten the basic psychology of consumer choice?

You know things are bad in the UK when even I am blogging about it…

This week, the “Online Safety Act” began full enforcement. Websites hosting “adult content” now have to use age verification or face huge fines or even face being blocked in the UK. Overnight the UK’s internet changed in a way that would make Xi Jinping raise an approving eyebrow. It didn’t take long for backlash: a petition calling for the law’s repeal has racked up nearly 400,000 signatures, meeting the threshold for a parliamentary debate.

It’s not just about porn - though that’s what grabbed headlines. The “Online Safety Act” casts a much wider dragnet. The act hits anything from talking about alcohol, gaming consoles, listening to Spotify, debating politics, “legal but harmful” speech (whatever that means) and potentially even memes that could be considered offensive. Even speeches by MPs in Parliament have been censored from the electorate:

Nice-but-dim MPs, feckless commentators, boomer tier luddites and well meaning yet clueless parents have expressed their support for it.

I’ve watched much of the media commentary on it. If I hear one more person say that the “Online Safety Act” will protect children from accessing harmful content, I swear I will F**ING scream.

Sorry. It won’t, nor will it have any effect on porn shared in group chats, DMs, subscriber lists or other closed forums behind a login.

People’s (understandable) squeamishness at the thought of minors accessing pornography might now blind them to horrific alternatives they will turn to.

Whilst there’s rightfully been much discussion about how easy it can be defeated within seconds by using a free VPN or browser plugin, I think there’s a more concerning scenario that is inevitable. The unintended consequences are terrifying if you follow basic consumer behaviour…

What if the amount of children (and adults for that matter) accessing the worst types of illegal content could increase as a result?

Let’s explore 2 scenarios which don’t even involve VPNs:

1. Let’s say it’s before the “Online Safety Act”, a 13-year-old boy (let’s call him Little Timmy) tries to access that well known “hub” website. You know the one, don’t pretend you haven’t heard of it. He watches Bonnie Blue doing what she does… making her way through a group of seedy men the size of the population of Nuneaton. Little Timmy does… well frankly… what 13-year-old boys do.
   Obviously minors accessing porn is harmful, but which is more harmful… this scenario or the next one?

2. Knowing that the notorious “hub” website is no longer accessible, consumer choice kicks in. Little Timmy instead enters the website address of an alternative foreign website which (and this is the crucial bit here) isn’t regulated by UK, EU or US laws. A porn website from the wild west of the global internet, separated by the imaginary white picket fences we foolishly believe divide it.

So, what if these websites don’t voluntarily follow the “Online Safety Act”? Well, guess which other UK laws that they also have legal no obligation to follow?

Let’s have a look shall we…

Bestiality Porn
Offences Against the Person Act 1861, Section 69. Criminalises sexual intercourse with an animal.

Upskirting (Non-Consensual Sexual Photography)
Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019. Makes it a specific criminal offence to take a photo or video beneath someone’s clothing without their consent for sexual gratification or to cause humiliation, alarm, or distress.

Revenge Porn
Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, Section 33. Makes it a criminal offence to disclose private sexual photographs or films without the subject’s consent and with intent to cause distress.

Necrophilia & Extreme Porn
Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, Section 63. This law prohibits the possession of extreme pornographic images, and necrophilia is explicitly included as one of the banned categories. Also includes injury or threat to life in porn.

Rape Videos (Real or Depicted Non-Consensual Acts)
Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, Section 63. Bans possession of extreme pornography, including realistic depictions of rape (even if staged but appears real).

Child Abuse Imagery
Protection of Children Act 1978. Makes it an offence to take, make, distribute, show, or possess indecent images of children.

Do we really think people aren’t just going to go to another website as a result? Now, if you’re thinking “well surely these types of porn are illegal, they would be blocked by the online safety act” then I’m sorry to inform you that’s not how the global internet works. Websites are effectively “opt in” with age verification checks in order to be able to legally operate within the UK. Any website (in a global unregulated internet) that decides not to opt-in simply will not be blocked by the “Online Safety Act”.

The counter argument to this is that the government has the power to block any website in the UK which does not follow the new regulations. So surely the above scenario couldn’t happen? Well unfortunately it is a game of “Whac-a-mole”. For an example of this, look at how the UK government has failed since 2012 to block access to torrent websites such as The Pirate Bay. For every URL that gets blocked, a dozen new mirrored URLs will pop up instantly. There is simply too much internet out there to have any hope of blocking everything, everywhere all at once.

Right now, in the UK you can access a website that sells Cannabis online and have it delivered your door with next day Royal Mail delivery. At time of writing this website isn’t blocked by the “Online Safety Act” and has been accessible for over 2 years. Somehow this UK based business didn’t get the memo about implementing age verification. If they can’t block that, what chance do they have of blocking anything else?

Surely MPs realise the unintended consequences? Well, most of them don’t even understand the consequences of VPNs so I have no confidence they understand the second order consequences I’ve outlined above:

If you think that politicians have enough understanding of the “Online Safety Act”, how the global internet works or even basic psychology of consumer choice to have foreseen this, then please get in touch with me directly to purchase some MAGIC BEANS™. I’ll do a special price just for you my friend!

Don’t worry though, if you believe the act should be repealed then Peter Kyle MP (Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology) thinks you’re "on the side of sexual predators" and “on the side of Jimmy Savile”.

To conclude this absolute shitshow, I’ll let Benedict Spence summarise where we are at right now: