This isn't a new issue, and it predates the internet. There were publishers of magazines containing pornography (or anything else unsuitable for children). These were sold in shops. A publisher had to ensure that the material in the magazines was legal to print, but it wasn't their responsibility to prevent children from looking at their magazines, and it's difficult to see how that would even be possible. That was the responsibility of the people working in the shops: they had to put the magazines on the top shelf, and weren't allowed to sell them to children.

On the internet, people don't get porn videos directly from pornographic web sites, just as in the past they didn't buy porn directly from the publishers. The videos are split up into packets, and transmitted through an ad hoc chain of servers until it arrives, via their ISP, on their computer. The web sites are the equivalent of the publishers, and ISPs are the equivalent of the shops. So it would make a lot more sense to apply controls at the ISPs. And British ISPs are within the UK's jurisdiction.

And before anyone points out that there are workarounds that children could use to bypass controls, this was also the case with printed magazines.

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HankStallone 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I don't have a problem with holding companies responsible for the products they sell. But your analogy breaks down because the shop owner chooses the products to sell in his shop. The porn mags aren't in the shop unless he specifically arranges to sell them, so it's easy to say he's responsible for keeping kids away from them.

An ISP doesn't do that. A better match for an ISP would be the trucking company that hauls magazines (porn and otherwise) from publishers to shops, or the company that maintains the shop's cash register.

	▲	DonaldFisk 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> I don't have a problem with holding companies responsible for the products they sell. That's why I wrote, "A publisher had to ensure that the material in the magazines was legal to print." Web sites should also follow the laws of the countries where they are based, but not be required to follow other countries' laws. In the specific case here, a UK body is trying to collect daily fines from a US based web site (4chan.org) with no physical UK presence. > An ISP doesn't do that. For over a decade, they have been blocking traffic to/from web sites deemed unsuitable for children, by default. Which should make people wonder what this adult verification is actually for.

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IanCal 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> but it wasn't their responsibility to prevent children from looking at their magazines

They weren't made to guarantee no child could peek at them, no, but they do have age restrictions that are followed (a child who picks one up couldn't buy it) and they were often on the top shelf. The kind of thing a basic risk assessment would flag "hey we keep the hardcore porn in front of the pokemon magazines...".

> The videos are split up into packets, and transmitted through an ad hoc chain of servers until it arrives, via their ISP, on their computer. The web sites are the equivalent of the publishers, and ISPs are the equivalent of the shops

The pictures emit photons which fly through the air to the child. The air is the shop.

Or for websites your computer is the shop.

The ISP is not the shop. Nor in the OSA is it viewed as such. The company who makes the service has some responsibility.

> So it would make a lot more sense to apply controls at the ISPs.

This fundamentally cannot work for what is in the OSA, and if you cannot see why almost immediately then you do not know what is in the OSA and cannot effectively argue against it. It is not a requirement to add age checks to porno sites.