alt Hacker NewsPlease also fight mandatory age verification with prison sentences. The European Parliament has already voted in favor of a law that mandates age verification for pornography with a one year prison sentence. It was included as a last minute amendment into this bill [1]. See "Amendment 186". It has been completely missed by news organizations and even interest groups.
The full accepted article reads: "Disseminating pornographic content online without putting in place robust and effective age verification tools to effectively prevent children from accessing pornographic content online shall be punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 1 year."
It's not law yet, as the first reading is now sent back to the Council of the European Union, but I don't think it's very likely it will get a second reading.
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2025-011...
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News organization welcome any barrier to social media networks, they are heavily biased on these topics. The "modern" journalist of today doesn't really care about freedom of information either.
Speaking of which, the EU is also working on a "free speech" law for journalists and against them being arbitrarily banned by platforms. One would think this law could easily be extended to everyone since it is not at all trivial to determine who gets these benefits and who doesn't.
Most outlets today are some form of court reporter in one way or another. That trust in media is sinking is quite expected and in many cases reasonable too.
Maximum of at least one year? Is there some kind of award for how nonsensical a law can be?
As a citizen of an EU country, I am really piss* off that the EU Parliament just gets to set the law in all countries. Do we have independent countries anymore? It does not seem that much different between federal government and states. It feels like occupation.
While this is a specifically awful article, for obvious reasons, I find the idea of encoding specifics on carceral terms into any EU-level directive a bizarre overstep.
Am I insane for being somewhat in favour of this? I think the accessibility of adult content on the internet is a disaster.
The standard for robust and effective age verification is extremely low, given how I’ve seen anyone do age verification. It’s also pointless if we’re talking about the internet, you are essentially outsourcing your porn production to foreign countries
A little more context: that article 3 paragraph 2.a. was added by parliament (not proposed by the Commission). But paragraph 1 (same article) was altered to this text:
> Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the intentional conduct referred to in paragraphs 2 to 8 is punishable.
(Emphasis being the change.)
So they only mean the intentional act of putting up pornography without age verification? Just feign forgetfulness, I guess. How is a negative act an intentional one? Or moreover; how do you prove it? I know neglect and gross neglect are things, so I assume they mean if you don't do it after being asked to.
That's not only asinine but also poorly worded. How is this getting approved?
I personally support age verification for porn. However, age verification for almost anything else, e.g. Reddit, is a terrible idea.
EU is like:
We will protect your sensitive personal documents so that only trusted government institutions and ones held to the highest standards of privacy (such as banks) may have access to it. This is to prevent abuse and identity theft.
Also please upload them to BigBootyXXX.com if you want to have a wank