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The other point is that recent polls suggest the British public are overwhelmingly in support of this legislation [0], which is not reflected in most of the nar

The other point is that recent polls suggest the British public are overwhelmingly in support of this legislation [0], which is not reflected in most of the narrative we see online. Whether they support how it has been implemented is a different matter, but the desire to do something is clear. [0] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/2025/07/31/91334/2 https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202...

__oh_es 1y ago
Odd - they also believe it wont be effective https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/2025/07/31/91334/3 https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202...
- ta1243 1y ago
  Yes it's quite possible for people to hold both those views.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  The moment the Russia Ukraine war hit, the top 10 apps in Russia was half VPNs. As long as websites don't want to lock out any user without an account, and as long as vpns exist, it'll be hard to enforce any of this. At least for now, that's one line big tech won't let them cross easily.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    It isn't a requirement to enforce this. All it does is to ensure that you will be more at risk of breaking the law and that little detail will show that you intended to evade the law so your presumption of innocence gets dinged: apparently you knew that what you were doing was wrong because you used a VPN so [insert minor offense or thought crime here] is now seen in a different light. Selective enforcement is much more powerful as a tool than outright enforcement, before you know it double digit percentages of the populace are criminals, that might come in handy some day.
  - type0 1y ago
    > top 10 apps in Russia was half VPNs... and as long as vpns exist, it'll be hard to enforce any of this. Russia found good way to enforce it, they changed the law and give out prison sentences for using VPNs
    - codedokode 1y ago
      Not yet - only for searching extremist and terrorist content, no matter using VPN or not. Oh, almost the same content that is regulated by Online Safety Act in UK.
physarum_salad 1y ago
The curtain twitcher/nanny state impulse is pretty strong
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
  The Home Office is full of fascists, many of whom may - allegedly - have questionable personal habits and interests. None of this has anything to do protecting the public. If that was the goal there are any number of other ways to manage this.
Ravus 1y ago
It's sadly an example of terrible leading question bias, to the point where I'm surprised that it even got a 22% oppose rate. The percentages would change dramatically were one to write it as, "From everything you have seen and heard, do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring adults to upload their id or a face photo before accessing any website that allows user to user interaction?" Both questions are factually accurate, but omit crucial aspects.
- Iulioh 1y ago
  "Do you want CHILDREN to be MURDERED by RAPEISTS online or are you a good person? Y/N
  - mcny 1y ago
    No
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - luqtas 1y ago
    then proceeds to the tea break and brainstorms on how to empower the monarchy and conquer the world
- andai 1y ago
  Yeah. It's the "foot in the door technique." The same is being done with Chat Control. It's very difficult to oppose a law ostensibly designed to fight CSAM. But once the law passes, it'll be easily expanded to other things like scanning messages to prevent terrorism. See also: > Concern over mass migration is terrorist ideology, says Prevent https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/06/concern-over-mass-migration-terrorist-ideology-prevent/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/06/concern-over...
  - nine_k 1y ago
    The problem is that one of the most secure places in the world is a maximum security prison. Hence many measures that drag us closer to the prison state do genuinely improve security. It takes some balls for the society to say: No, we don't agree to yield an essential liberty in exchange to actual real increase of security. Yes, we accept that sometimes bad people will do evil things, because the only way to prevent that would inflict even more damage on everyone. Yes, we are willing to risk harm to stay free. There is always plenty of people who are ready to buy more comfort in exchange for limitations of liberty that, as they think, will not affect them, because they are honest, got nothing to hide, always follow the majority... until it does affect them, but it's too late.
tjwebbnorfolk 1y ago
> Whether they support how it has been implemented is a different matter, but the desire to do something is clear. Isn't this the whole story of government policy? The stated policy so rarely actually leads to the hoped-for result.
- extraisland 1y ago
  They always name it the exact opposite of what it does. If they name something the "Protect Children Act". You can be sure that what it does is put Children in Danger. That means that on the face of it, it is difficult for someone to oppose.
- Henchman21 1y ago
  That’s because the bedrock principle on which modern government is based is… drum roll Lie whenever it’s convenient because the public are children anyway and won’t or can’t understand. Through this lens many things make more sense. They’re comfortable with lying because there are zero repercussions for lying.
  - _9ptr 1y ago
    They are not only children, but also goldfish who forget everything after 5 minutes
    - dboreham 1y ago
      tbf it took from 1939 until about 5 years ago for people to forget that fascism is a bad idea.
      - _9ptr 1y ago
        Let me tell you as a german: that's not what fascism looks like. Get your TDS under control.
        BlueTemplar 1y ago
extraisland 1y ago
People constantly cite this poll as it is proof that British people want this. You cannot trust the YouGov polling. It is flawed. > Despite the sophisticated methodology, the main drawback faced by YouGov, Ashcroft, and other UK pollsters is their recruitment strategy: pollsters generally recruit potential respondents via self-selected internet panels. The American Association of Public Opinion Research cautions that pollsters should avoid gathering panels like this because they can be unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole. The British Polling Council’s inquiry into the industry’s 2015 failings raised similar concerns. Trying to deal with these sample biases is one of the motivations behind YouGov and Ashcroft’s adoption of the modelling strategies discussed above. https://theconversation.com/its-sophisticated-but-can-you-believe-yougovs-startling-election-prediction-78701 https://theconversation.com/its-sophisticated-but-can-you-be... Even if the aforementioned problems didn't exist with the polling. It has been known for quite a while that how you ask a question changes the results. The question you linked was the following. > From everything you have seen and heard, do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring age verification to access websites that may contain pornographic material? Most people would think "age verification to view pornography". They won't think about all the other things that maybe caught in that net.
- cm2012 1y ago
  All polling has problems like this, but YouGov has the same methodology for everything and usually gets within a margin of error of +-8. Even if they have an especially bad sample, the UK probably really does support the law. Think about how many people are less comfortable with porn than tech interested males between age 18 and 40.
  - extraisland 1y ago
    > All polling has problems like this, but YouGov has the same methodology for everything and usually gets within a margin of error of +-8. The way the very question was asked is a problem in itself. It is flawed and will lead to particular result. > if they have an especially bad sample, the UK probably really does support the law The issue is that the public often doesn't understand the scope of the law. Those that do are almost always opposed to it. > Think about how many people are less comfortable with porn than tech interested males between age 18 and 40. It isn't about the pornography. This is why conversations about this are frustrating. I am worried about the surveillance aspect of it. I go online because I am pseudo-anonymous and I can speak more frankly to people about things that I care about to people who share similar concerns. I don't like how the law came into place, the scope of the law, the privacy concerns and what the law does in practice. Even if you don't buy any of that. There is a whole slew of other issues with it. Especially identity theft.
password321 1y ago
A good reminder that certain circles are just the vocal minority and under the surface society is mostly just NPCs.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  Not a great lesson to take here. 1. Policy by default will always be planned and implemented by a minority. As well as those who comment to policy, or online. 2. You'll have some 20-30% of people who will say yes to anything if you phrase it the right way.
johnnyanmac 1y ago
As always, the devil is in the details. Very careful wording: >do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring age verification to access websites that may contain pornographic material? "may" is doing the heavy lifting. Any website that hosts image "may" contain pornograohic content. So they don't associate this with "I need id to watch YouTube" it's "I need ID to watch pornhub". Even though this affects both. On top of that, the question was focused on peon to begin with. This block was focused more generally on social media. The popular ones of which do not allow pornography. Rephrase the question to "do you agree with requiring ID submission to access Facebook" and I'd love to see how that impacts responses.
- jagged-chisel 1y ago
  “Why yes I do either support or oppose those rules. Thanks for asking.”
- NewsaHackO 1y ago
  It's funny, I actually interpret it differently; by using "may" vs omitting it would actually imply to include sites like YouTube and Facebook. Without the "may", to me it would imply only sites that have a primary intent of pornographic material, not sites that could include it accidentally.
matt-p 1y ago
Ok and how about if it was phrased; "Are you in favour of requiring ages verification for Wikipedia and other websites" "Are you in favour of uploading your ID card and selfie each time you visit a site that might contain porn"
sdrinf 1y ago
Follow-up question is big lulz: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/2025/07/31/91334/3 https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202... "And how effective do you think the new rules will be at preventing those younger than 18 from gaining access to pornography?" -> 64% "not very effective / not at all effective"
steve_taylor 1y ago
Why are we conflating pornography and Wikipedia?
- Aloisius 1y ago
  Wikipedia hosts pornography.
  - steve_taylor 1y ago
    Are you referring to educational pictures of human anatomy? There’s quite a difference between that and porn.
    - Aloisius 1y ago
      No. I mean actual pornography. For instance, a full copy of Debbie Does Dallas is on its Wikipedia article [NFSW, obviously].
    - stackedinserte2 1y ago
      I had the misfortune of talking with a few potheads, and HN's reaction to porn addiction is the same of potheads, denialism, mental gymnastics, and everything but accepting that porn can actually be problematic. The only reason it doesn't have it's own DSM classification is a mere question of technicality, whatever it is a separate and distinct kind of addiction, or just a manifestation of other types of hyper-sexual disorder.

__oh_es 1y ago

Odd - they also believe it wont be effective https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/2025/07/31/91334/3 https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202...

ta1243 1y ago
Yes it's quite possible for people to hold both those views.
johnnyanmac 1y ago
The moment the Russia Ukraine war hit, the top 10 apps in Russia was half VPNs. As long as websites don't want to lock out any user without an account, and as long as vpns exist, it'll be hard to enforce any of this. At least for now, that's one line big tech won't let them cross easily.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  It isn't a requirement to enforce this. All it does is to ensure that you will be more at risk of breaking the law and that little detail will show that you intended to evade the law so your presumption of innocence gets dinged: apparently you knew that what you were doing was wrong because you used a VPN so [insert minor offense or thought crime here] is now seen in a different light. Selective enforcement is much more powerful as a tool than outright enforcement, before you know it double digit percentages of the populace are criminals, that might come in handy some day.
- type0 1y ago
  > top 10 apps in Russia was half VPNs... and as long as vpns exist, it'll be hard to enforce any of this. Russia found good way to enforce it, they changed the law and give out prison sentences for using VPNs
  - codedokode 1y ago
    Not yet - only for searching extremist and terrorist content, no matter using VPN or not. Oh, almost the same content that is regulated by Online Safety Act in UK.

physarum_salad 1y ago

The curtain twitcher/nanny state impulse is pretty strong

TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
The Home Office is full of fascists, many of whom may - allegedly - have questionable personal habits and interests. None of this has anything to do protecting the public. If that was the goal there are any number of other ways to manage this.

Ravus 1y ago

It's sadly an example of terrible leading question bias, to the point where I'm surprised that it even got a 22% oppose rate. The percentages would change dramatically were one to write it as, "From everything you have seen and heard, do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring adults to upload their id or a face photo before accessing any website that allows user to user interaction?" Both questions are factually accurate, but omit crucial aspects.

Iulioh 1y ago
"Do you want CHILDREN to be MURDERED by RAPEISTS online or are you a good person? Y/N
- mcny 1y ago
  No
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- luqtas 1y ago
  then proceeds to the tea break and brainstorms on how to empower the monarchy and conquer the world
andai 1y ago
Yeah. It's the "foot in the door technique." The same is being done with Chat Control. It's very difficult to oppose a law ostensibly designed to fight CSAM. But once the law passes, it'll be easily expanded to other things like scanning messages to prevent terrorism. See also: > Concern over mass migration is terrorist ideology, says Prevent https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/06/concern-over-mass-migration-terrorist-ideology-prevent/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/06/concern-over...
- nine_k 1y ago
  The problem is that one of the most secure places in the world is a maximum security prison. Hence many measures that drag us closer to the prison state do genuinely improve security. It takes some balls for the society to say: No, we don't agree to yield an essential liberty in exchange to actual real increase of security. Yes, we accept that sometimes bad people will do evil things, because the only way to prevent that would inflict even more damage on everyone. Yes, we are willing to risk harm to stay free. There is always plenty of people who are ready to buy more comfort in exchange for limitations of liberty that, as they think, will not affect them, because they are honest, got nothing to hide, always follow the majority... until it does affect them, but it's too late.

tjwebbnorfolk 1y ago

> Whether they support how it has been implemented is a different matter, but the desire to do something is clear. Isn't this the whole story of government policy? The stated policy so rarely actually leads to the hoped-for result.

extraisland 1y ago
They always name it the exact opposite of what it does. If they name something the "Protect Children Act". You can be sure that what it does is put Children in Danger. That means that on the face of it, it is difficult for someone to oppose.
Henchman21 1y ago
That’s because the bedrock principle on which modern government is based is… drum roll Lie whenever it’s convenient because the public are children anyway and won’t or can’t understand. Through this lens many things make more sense. They’re comfortable with lying because there are zero repercussions for lying.
- _9ptr 1y ago
  They are not only children, but also goldfish who forget everything after 5 minutes
  - dboreham 1y ago
    tbf it took from 1939 until about 5 years ago for people to forget that fascism is a bad idea.
    - _9ptr 1y ago
      Let me tell you as a german: that's not what fascism looks like. Get your TDS under control.
      - BlueTemplar 1y ago

extraisland 1y ago

People constantly cite this poll as it is proof that British people want this. You cannot trust the YouGov polling. It is flawed. > Despite the sophisticated methodology, the main drawback faced by YouGov, Ashcroft, and other UK pollsters is their recruitment strategy: pollsters generally recruit potential respondents via self-selected internet panels. The American Association of Public Opinion Research cautions that pollsters should avoid gathering panels like this because they can be unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole. The British Polling Council’s inquiry into the industry’s 2015 failings raised similar concerns. Trying to deal with these sample biases is one of the motivations behind YouGov and Ashcroft’s adoption of the modelling strategies discussed above. https://theconversation.com/its-sophisticated-but-can-you-believe-yougovs-startling-election-prediction-78701 https://theconversation.com/its-sophisticated-but-can-you-be... Even if the aforementioned problems didn't exist with the polling. It has been known for quite a while that how you ask a question changes the results. The question you linked was the following. > From everything you have seen and heard, do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring age verification to access websites that may contain pornographic material? Most people would think "age verification to view pornography". They won't think about all the other things that maybe caught in that net.

cm2012 1y ago
All polling has problems like this, but YouGov has the same methodology for everything and usually gets within a margin of error of +-8. Even if they have an especially bad sample, the UK probably really does support the law. Think about how many people are less comfortable with porn than tech interested males between age 18 and 40.
- extraisland 1y ago
  > All polling has problems like this, but YouGov has the same methodology for everything and usually gets within a margin of error of +-8. The way the very question was asked is a problem in itself. It is flawed and will lead to particular result. > if they have an especially bad sample, the UK probably really does support the law The issue is that the public often doesn't understand the scope of the law. Those that do are almost always opposed to it. > Think about how many people are less comfortable with porn than tech interested males between age 18 and 40. It isn't about the pornography. This is why conversations about this are frustrating. I am worried about the surveillance aspect of it. I go online because I am pseudo-anonymous and I can speak more frankly to people about things that I care about to people who share similar concerns. I don't like how the law came into place, the scope of the law, the privacy concerns and what the law does in practice. Even if you don't buy any of that. There is a whole slew of other issues with it. Especially identity theft.

password321 1y ago

A good reminder that certain circles are just the vocal minority and under the surface society is mostly just NPCs.

johnnyanmac 1y ago
Not a great lesson to take here. 1. Policy by default will always be planned and implemented by a minority. As well as those who comment to policy, or online. 2. You'll have some 20-30% of people who will say yes to anything if you phrase it the right way.

johnnyanmac 1y ago

As always, the devil is in the details. Very careful wording: >do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring age verification to access websites that may contain pornographic material? "may" is doing the heavy lifting. Any website that hosts image "may" contain pornograohic content. So they don't associate this with "I need id to watch YouTube" it's "I need ID to watch pornhub". Even though this affects both. On top of that, the question was focused on peon to begin with. This block was focused more generally on social media. The popular ones of which do not allow pornography. Rephrase the question to "do you agree with requiring ID submission to access Facebook" and I'd love to see how that impacts responses.

jagged-chisel 1y ago
“Why yes I do either support or oppose those rules. Thanks for asking.”
NewsaHackO 1y ago
It's funny, I actually interpret it differently; by using "may" vs omitting it would actually imply to include sites like YouTube and Facebook. Without the "may", to me it would imply only sites that have a primary intent of pornographic material, not sites that could include it accidentally.

matt-p 1y ago

Ok and how about if it was phrased; "Are you in favour of requiring ages verification for Wikipedia and other websites" "Are you in favour of uploading your ID card and selfie each time you visit a site that might contain porn"

sdrinf 1y ago

Follow-up question is big lulz: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/2025/07/31/91334/3 https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202... "And how effective do you think the new rules will be at preventing those younger than 18 from gaining access to pornography?" -> 64% "not very effective / not at all effective"

steve_taylor 1y ago

Why are we conflating pornography and Wikipedia?

Aloisius 1y ago
Wikipedia hosts pornography.
- steve_taylor 1y ago
  Are you referring to educational pictures of human anatomy? There’s quite a difference between that and porn.
  - Aloisius 1y ago
    No. I mean actual pornography. For instance, a full copy of Debbie Does Dallas is on its Wikipedia article [NFSW, obviously].
  - stackedinserte2 1y ago
    I had the misfortune of talking with a few potheads, and HN's reaction to porn addiction is the same of potheads, denialism, mental gymnastics, and everything but accepting that porn can actually be problematic. The only reason it doesn't have it's own DSM classification is a mere question of technicality, whatever it is a separate and distinct kind of addiction, or just a manifestation of other types of hyper-sexual disorder.