Inkbunny

Until the third party PII provider suffers an inevitable data leak and your real life identity is linked to your account on a controversial website?
Or if credit card authentication is used, and suddenly you're a victim of credit card fraud.
Or your government suddenly decides that the access of certain "objectionable" websites is illegal.

There's a reason adult websites either mark themselves with things like http://rtalabel.org/ which any device with an adult content filter on it will block (The UK already requires all cell providers to block adult content until the user verifies their age anyway). Or a simple "I am an adult" button which has been considered "due diligence" in the past.

Like mudpaws below said, this is all because parents expect the internet to be a babysitter nowadays and don't do their own due diligence.

MystBunny

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

The privacy concern is not irrational. If police are looking for arrest warrants for certain sexual crimes, this could make it easier for them to find information on who is looking at content of certain kinks. It's hardly irrational to not want to open that door.

axlegear

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ MystBunny

However, historically such laws have never made any impact and proven unenforceable, costing enormous amounts in beuracracy and gumming up legal and legitimate sites and users, until they were inevitably hacked and leaked every time.

All it has proven to accomplish is provide a convenient, central location to steal your entire country's populace's private info.

MystBunny

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ axlegear

You're right, people should ALWAYS be skeptical if not suspicious whenever the government starts restricting freedom under the guise of "protect the children". This isn't about the children, this is about data collection, otherwise they wouldn't bother spending money on something so ineffective. Here in Texas, when they started requiring ID for pornhub, searches for VPNs shot up enormously. Surely now that they've seen that people reject this law and children are just as likely to sneak into porn sites as before, they'll reconsider the law, right? ....right?

axlegear

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ MystBunny

Nope, because it was never about popular vote, just extending power and disrupting commerce at the behest of larger financial powers.

TheDingy

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Why are you making out privacy concerns as being irrational or silly?

This is a site full of cub porn, do you want your real life ID connected to that?

IceAgeChippies

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ TheDingy

"This is a site full of cub porn, do you want your real life ID connected to that? "

No, but the extreme majority of what I upload is objectionable to any reasonable degree (mostly some bare bottoms here and there).
I think it's less about what others upload and more about what the 'targeted' person uploads/shares/faves, etc (such is one reason I don't do faves as anything I fave is technically viewable on my profile).

Eden

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Or even a guilt by association. Especially when we consider that LGBT folks are already considered predators out to harm children. Tying a bunch of us to a website that hosts it is just asking to be swept up via obscenity laws or to drum up support for further laws.

I'm also Texan. I know how people are around here.

IceAgeChippies

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ Eden

People who harm children harm children. I get what you're saying, though (just giving my stance).

I also understand what you intended by 'website that hosts it', but I would correct to say IB doesn't host such things---cartoons are not equal to human children (actual CP or even cheerful images of real children aren't allowed here).

Eden

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Of course! My apologies for not being clear- you're definitely singing to the choir. It's just I've dealt with folks like this and already know how they operate, unfortunately. I refuse to let any company have my PII for this reason.

omnomrawr

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Absolutely absurd. Do you want your fetishes to be tied to your government ID and/or a picture of your face stored with a third party that *will* either publicly sell info that you frequent InkBunny or will inevitably suffer a data breach and your info become public regardless?

The intent of the law - forbidding children from seeing adult content - cannot be separated from the means of which attempting to comply with the law requires.

Kalruch

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Thanks for looking into this. It's an incredibly broad and difficult topic. None of the options seem especially appealing, and I question the logic of asking people to meet in person to ID given the subject matter of part of this site. Heck, I would absolutely suspect a large percentage of the UK group may not want to verify and simply leave so there can be no clear connection.

I don't have any answers. Not even recommendations. But a suggestion might be to reach out to all of the active UK members and simply ask them what they would be willing to do. It would certainly help you identify some things while figuring this out.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ Kalruch

What we were thinking of is more a matter of "many conventions have publicly-accessible lists of attendees under their furry names, and also check ID for their own legal requirements, so if FluffyBunny went to FurTastiUK they're probably an adult". Rather than going around in a white van checking IDs and distributing bunny-themed candy.

As for reaching out, that's kind of what this is about, hence the title and it being a front page notice and on Twitter! But we may give a more specific notice later based on IP geolocation.

IceAgeChippies

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Edited 1 month, 1 week ago by Owner

I don't go to conventions. The most adventurous thing I do these days is walk to the thrift store to shop for popples and pencils (but I'm in the US, so I dunno if it matters either way). ^^

Azerio

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I'd leave 100% if my account got age verified gated.

Cub porn is already in a somewhat grey zone when it comes to UK law. Add that to the issue of quite a few shota/loli crops that are well passed the gray zone.
Last thing I'd want is the possibility of my real life ID etc being leaked / hacked.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

How would you feel if one method of passing the event was to confirm - perhaps entirely through your furry identity - that you had attended a UK event only accessible to adults with ID verification? This is one method which we are considering, but we know it's not likely to be available to everyone (which impacts the "fairness" aspect mentioned).

Azerio

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I wouldn't do any form of verification at all linked to this site. I cannot stress this enough I am extremely uncomfortable with my ID being linked to this site. That includes secure third parties that will end up being set up this on other sites. As data leaks happen. If it came to it I would say ban UK IPs, enough people know how to use VPNs and move the site to a different county.

Danjen

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

Pixiv had a funny workaround for this. All you had to do was set your profile's country to whatever to bypass their silly compliance.
That way the site could be gimped to comply with laws, but still allow users to sidestep things, the same way an "I am 18+" button works -> "I am NOT from the UK!"

RileyPup

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I agree with this, cannot see myself staying on any furry site, let alone one with a cub focus if I had to link my ID to it. Like Azerio pointed out it's already a grey area in UK law as it is, having a piece of information like that linked to an account just wouldn't be worth it.

At the end of the day, the less of your data you have online the better because nothing is secure forever. If every single furry website enforced this rule then I'd just stay away from them all collectively. It's not worth risking.

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ RileyPup

If every single furry website enforced this rule, that would probably spell the end of the fandom.

There's not only the risk of police interpreting their own laws, that rule also presents another danger.
If personal information including home address leaks out, some basket case troll who gets unhinged over a drawing that a person uploaded would know where to find the person who uploaded it.
A nut job could get unhinged over a comment a person posted in someone's political journal, and know where to find the person who posted the comment as well as the person who posted the journal.
Repercussions could be carried out by such nut job crazies like, property vandalism, a drive by shooting, a home invasion, a house being burned down, etc. There's no telling what a self appointed crusader out of touch with reality is liable to do.

Not only is it a dumb rule, it is a dangerous rule.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Many forms of ID don't specify home address - some driving licenses do, but this isn't necessarily a recommended form of ID for age verification.

I don't expect Inkbunny staff to be recording home addresses, although I guess the concern is valid regarding leaks at third-party providers (but all they would know is that you have an IB account, not which one).

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

That's a relief anyway provided home addresses won't be recorded.

When I first heard about UK's new rule, what had come to mind was what happened to the French comic magazine publishing company, Charley Hebdo in 2015.

astralHaze

3 weeks, 6 days ago

link

idk about the uk, but for america if you have someone's name and date of birth you can find their address very easily in voter records

mudpaws

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

yeah see i still say its a home matter insted of mommy and dad telling there kids goto your room and play on the computer or the smart phones like my friends kids have if a kid is under the age of 19 mom and dad should be in the same room any time the kids get on line . and if its a site that has nude art and i dont mean p0rn i mean this https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/exhibition/103Q4N mom and dad needs to egsplane it to there kids , my mom and dad did it with me , any way we as older folk should not have to veryfi our age unless we have kids '. i live alone with a cat and hes old enuf to loot at any thing he wants .

in short theres laws and then there is the just plane rediculess laws .

DiogenesShandor

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ mudpaws

Of course that all presupposes the idea that porn is even potentially dangerous to begin with. What's the worst that could happen if some teenager looks at porn? It's not like you can get an STD from a picture, or get pregnant from a picture. If anything it'll keep them sexually occupied so they won't feel the need to seek out an actual partner and become a HIV-positive teen parent with herpes and syphilis.

These anti porn movements are so big and powerful now because they're unconsciously feeding the very problems they think they're stopping; every time they remove a healthy outlet they just feed that energy back into the main issue and make it worse. The same goes for violent videogames; if you take away people's violent videogames then they'll have no outlet for their anger except to have actual fights with people that actually exist.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

That is the presupposition in UK law; the question of whether such content causes harm is not something we can challenge at this point (or really address in this journal). There may be wiggle room as to where to draw the line on what actually counts as pornography, and some at the meeting tried to address that.

mudpaws

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

oh yeah i agre , im just saying if the mom and dad should talk to there kidsa about the diffrises betwen to two and tell the child that when they get oldenuf then they can look buy what ever ,, see my mom and dad always told us that , unforunetle i iearnd about sex the real hard way at 7 becous i was never told then about anything to do with sex , but iv learned to like sex and art and some porne as well ,, but all in all i dont think the gov or anyone els sould be putting there nose in our pants and telling older people gaaaa d its so rediculess any way you think it ....

IceAgeChippies

1 month, 1 week ago

link

I dunno why any of this has to apply to cartoon animals, more like.

I can see why it's a problem when real people (esp. kids) are involved as the subjects, but drawings of (say) Buster and Babs Bunny getting it on should be viewed as sophomoric, tasteless, etc., at worst. :3

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

The question is "does it count as pornography" which has the rather vague "intent to arouse" definition. Text is OK, though, at least for this specific regulation.

IceAgeChippies

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Edited 1 month, 1 week ago by Owner

In that case, a drawing of a mouth or a paw would (or could) count as pornography.

To me, it's a stupid thing to try to prove another person's intents ...mostly because you can't.

Like, I can pretty much guess anyone whose gallery is 80% close-ups of paws is probably 'interested' in them and is hoping others who're into that sort of thing will give attention to their gallery ...but I cannot 'prove' that.
Additionally, why, then, is it different for those who prefer other parts of the anatomy---if 'art intended to arouse' is the issue, the subject shouldn't matter.

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

They actually had a specific exclusion for a focus in one gallery for things like feet.

IceAgeChippies

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Edited 1 month, 1 week ago by Owner

Then arousal's not their concern. :3

I won't flood your notifications anymore (unless asked to), so I'll conclude with this...

While I think I mostly understand the reasons behind what the UK is doing, I do think it's foolish ...maybe there's a good intention somewhere in there, but it's yet foolish.
Again, you cannot prove another man's intent. You can ask for a $0.03 payment or show an ID, but that's not to say everyone using a given computer is the one who made the payment (some people have kids).
To me the solutions are to just not upload things one is or could be ashamed of, and/or to moderate the online activities of the children one has in one's guardianship.

I guess what annoys me is how ingenuine all this strikes me as. Some governments are just fine exposing children to adult sexuality (such as Pride parades and day trips to gay bars), yet they'd consider (say) my art as obscene---one's paw gallery is fine, but not the uncommon 'cub-butt' drawing (as an artist I take some umbrage here)?

I dunno---I get it, but I don't believe the law's thought-through or even all that useful in the scheme of things, but I'll comply with whatever IB decides. :3

ChaosCalix

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Paw Chads stay winning

MikuToraki

2 weeks, 6 days ago

link

But that is the main problem, anything and everything can be considered pornographic if an individual gains some form of sexual stimulation from it. Pyrophiliacs, feet, bodily waste, in this day and age there is literally nothing that can't be sexualised.

I get where the movement comes from and being from the UK attitudes on sex in general are very negative.
Sex is glorified in media especially the internet, kids are constantly on phones, tablets and addictied to social platforms. This issue has been around for years but only recently been given a voice loud enough to be heard. Ultimately it's about safety for children online. But untill people find away that can't be side stepped to stop minors from having access to pornographic material or being associated with it. We're at the mercy of people who have to decide what is porn and what isn't and most often they'll be very stringent and view anything furry related as a gateway to extreme content.

GreenReaper

2 weeks, 5 days ago

link

Edited 2 weeks, 5 days ago by Owner

@ MikuToraki

Fortunately the proposed regulations specifically recommend against considering "furries" automatically pornographic, in a section also citing police officer and nurse uniforms (I suggested that "fursuits" might be a more appropriate term in this case and proposed babyfurs for this as well, where not placed in a sexual context). That isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card, of course, more "fursuits [and furries in general] aren't automatically 18+".

Floofy

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Not a UK citizen
But a thought: If someone proving they can pay is enough to be considered to be 18+, would accepting connections through paid VPN count?

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ Floofy

That's an interesting point, but promoting VPNs to circumvent the regulation is something Ofcom plans to come down hard on, and to be crystal clear neither I nor Inkbunny would advise doing so. So it might work, but probably not. (VPNs are also far more liable to be blocked from accessing the site due to unrelated matters e.g. spam or abuse - and many actually emerge in the UK.)

Thank you for raising it however, as it is a matter I can include in the consultation response.

whitepawrolls

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

That would be another thing. Even if you do choose some kind of verification all they have to do is use a VPN to get around the geo thing. I do this all the time to watch japanese netflix. Another note for the can't verify everyone list.

IceAgeChippies

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Some sites will not let you enter if they detect a VPN. It's not common, but it happens in the same way some sites won't let you in if you're using an ad blocker (and they detect it).

RobbyBunny

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

I suppose what I'd be interested to know in this hypothetical is what steps would Inkbunny themselves take to safe guard and ringfence / anonomize the data so that in the event of a potential data breach my specific identity isn't easily tied directly to my specific user ID.

It's one thing being tied to Inkbunny, it's a whole different thing if Inkbunny suffered a data breach and I was tied explicitly to RobbyBunny and the artwork contained there in.

Furthermore, what types of ID verification would you be looking at? I'd feel a lot more comfortable typing my credit card information into a service for free or a small fee, than I would handing over my passport and photograph.

The idea of proving I've attended a real-life age restricted event is fine but regardless what you do, this will all hurt engagement with new users from the UK and from new furries and artists just dipping their toes in the water.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

Well ideally, we'd just have a flag that was set when your account had passed verification in some manner - no actual PII. Potentially there might be a note if you were using a different username to that which was verified (in part so that many people don't try to verify with the same furry identity).

Regarding methods, that's the kind of feedback we're looking for - there are many options, but I suspect furries are more comfortable with some than others. Unfortunately it's not clear whether we would be able to access credit cards generally, as they might want to restrict certain content on the site even if it were purely for the purpose of age verification. Going through a dedicated third-party service seems more viable, many of these do involve photo ID but we wouldn't need to connect your furry identity to that ID (and probably wouldn't have access ourselves).

Personally, I think the UK should be offering its own age verification service, for free. Just give us a token that can be used to confirm that a person is known to be of age. This isn't something the Conservative government would do, with their focus on privatised solutions, but perhaps it's something Labour can be convinced is a good idea, at least if the others don't work out?

mkjeller

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I know ScotGov already has a system like this, complete with oAuth and APIs.
I'm not sure if gov.uk accounts are the same (I somewhat doubt it).

RobbyBunny

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

That would be perfectly acceptable to me. I have enough trust in the platform and the staff here that I'd be comfortable believing that no user data would be retained if that was your publicly stated policy.

Method wise, a third party service that specialises in this ideally using credit cards would be my preference. Though I'm aware that would likely be costly and there may be challenges in finding a willing payment processor to facilitate this as they in general don't like pornography.

For me my biggest concern is the retention of personally identifiable information by Inkbunny and the security risk it poses. So the more removed my personal data from Inkbunny the better.

I agree with you with respect to the age verification being provided by the UK government. Since the consultation began on this bill I've felt like the onus should be on the state to facilitate age verification if they're going to mandate all platforms adopt it profit and non-profit alike. It seems ridiculous to me, and a data security nightmare, that they're placing huge and costly burdens on platforms to fulfil this role.

Historically I would've agreed with you that Labour would be more amenable to funding such a scheme unlike the Conservatives however with the stricter fiscal rules and poorly performing economy at present I can't imagine they'd be willing to do such a thing. Not without incredible private and public pressure that I don't think we're likely to see. It's certainly out width the scope of Inkbunny, but it can't hurt to try.

Kellyn

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

The question I have is if the law allow them to verify that you are verifying age correctly. If no personal information is kept and they go looking for it would that get the site in trouble? I haven’t read the law but I’d make sure that if you do comply with this law rather than geo restricting the EU that you cross all your Ts and dot all your Is.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ Kellyn

It's more a question of "if tested, does it allow children to register?" rather than "show us the proof that some specific users were correctly verified as adult". And this is just the UK, the EU is potentially a whole other matter (but of course, it has some of the same issues as the USA with regards to getting to a common platform).

Springbun

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Gatekeeping against children is a necessity for far more than just that law. it is all too easy to ruin one's own life by accidentally interacting with someone and assuming said someone's an adult because they're in an Adult site too.

personally, I don't mind some form of gatekeeping that involves a monetary transaction. after all, we pay our bills already so what's a small one-time transaction compared to that?
but I agree with other comments in that showing our ID is a tad bit too risky with all the Antis and hackers trying to tear down this site.

VilePlume

2 weeks, 1 day ago

link

@ Springbun

That sadly wouldn't be fool proof. Obviously, I don't know how it is in the UK, but here in Denmark, anyone 15 or above can get a card and buy things online, and I'm sure there's at least one way to get your hands on one under 18 in the UK too

GreenReaper

1 week, 6 days ago

link

@ VilePlume

Debit cards yes, credit cards no - unless you're an authorised card-holder (or like, they asked to use it...). That said we don't currently have the ability to process either so we'd have to figure that out or use a separate service.

VilePlume

1 week, 6 days ago

link

Well yeah, but a debit card can be used just as well as a credit card online, it just can't borrow money in the same way. At least when I was a teen and used my debit card it worked just normal on like, steam and stuff. I do not know if there's any way to truly separate them in such a verification process

GreenReaper

1 week, 6 days ago

link

@ VilePlume

The type of card can be detected by the payment processor - the brand is easier, though, for type you have to check the bin number from a long list.

VilePlume

1 week, 6 days ago

link

Ohhh, I see. Didn't know that

GreenReaper

1 week, 5 days ago

link

@ VilePlume

Nor did I! But it's good to know for the future as we might have to do it.

VarraTheVap

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Honestly, in my opinion, you should just ban UK ip adresses. Why should people/website owners adapt due to a country?
It's the Brit's duty to fight this.

Also I bet using a VPN is far more appealing option for most affected than to give their RL data to an auth. service - especially on a site like IB.

RobbyBunny

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ VarraTheVap

I mean the website is hosted in the UK I think and Green Reaper himself is a Brit IIRC so one would assume it would take a lot more work than geo-restricting the UK.

VarraTheVap

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Oh :(

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Yes, there's a reason I was able to attend the Ofcom event on relatively short notice - it's just a couple of buses away! (I gather some attended from much further afield.)

Unistar

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

I'm not verifying shit with anyone, I'm just a baby! :>

Toksyuryel

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

The ISP already knows if you're an adult so why can't they just invent a protocol that lets you query the ISP "does this IP address belong to an adult?" and just block access from public devices (like libraries and schools). Why do they always come up with these overly complex schemes that don't work and just make everything worse for everybody.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I believe their issue with that approach is that it's not guaranteed to identify a user, but a device owner. In some parts of the USA the perspective might be that it's a matter of parental choice, but UK authorities tend to be inclined to make choices about what UK children should be able to access themselves. (And in fairness, many US states do the same, it's just hard to enforce online.)

Toksyuryel

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Pretty easy solution, just have separate passwords so that the kids get online with one that flags them as children while the adults get online with a different one that flags them as adults. And that's just one option, there are many other ways to do this. All without needing to increase users' exposure to data leaks, and without placing excessive burdens on content platforms (which I suspect is the real intent behind these laws tbh- they don't actually care about protecting children, they just want to shut down adult content platforms by making it impossible to comply)

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

Well, the other reason is it sounds like they're doing something, even if that is largely just a headache for us and potentially a payday for peers invested in age verification solutions...

mkjeller

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

The UK already does this, ISPs block adult content until the accountholder verifies.

But because mummy and daddy have age verified doesn't mean that their children aren't using the same connection.

Of course it's up to the internet to protect children nowadays, not their parents. /s

Azerio

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ mkjeller

No it doesn't, this was something that almost happened however it never went through.

mkjeller

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Tell that to every mobile provider I've switched to

Azerio

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ mkjeller

Ah you're talking about mobile providers. Yeah they have to. ISPs no, home internet and mobile networks are different.

Eden

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Honestly, it seems to me with the same laws here in my state, that the end goal is to make it too cost prohibitive for sites to service the area at all. Their end goal isn't to "save children", it's to ban what they think is immoral and force their religious views on others while under the guise of "for the children". It's easier to ward off criticism when you frame it that way vs "my religion says porn is bad so no one can or should look at it".

Toksyuryel

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ Eden

For sure that's true. I mean just look at Project 2025, they aren't even trying to hide it they very openly want to ban porn.

SqueakyBlum

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I'm more in the geoblocking camp myself, though ID verification should be fine if there's a zero retention policy. IMO it's a good idea to use a truly privacy-oriented VPN like Mullvad to access websites with cub content regardless. Though I understand that geoblocking could become an issue if more countries follow suit.

Farrel

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

What a pain in the tail.

Honestly, if it came down to having to age verify, that would be an issue for concern, but I'd probably do it... I mean, it's not as if my name isn't already on bills for the house, including for internet.

Hmm, IB was founded in 2010, right? If we can stall 'em for four more years, then some of our accounts will be of legal age ;)

In answer to your questions. a) Yes, probably, b) Also yes, probably.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ Farrel

The age of accounts thing is actually something that we will be considering, since a lot of users signed up over a decade ago by now - there has to be an age above zero that we can say "this person really can't be a child anymore, even if they were before". I know we've caught a few 14-year-olds before; we don't get many, and I'd argue about 'significant', but it happens and when we can verify an age below the minimum, we act. ~5-6 years (i.e. they signed up as 12) may be reasonable.

Munkers

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Well, I have an account I can't get into anymore (lost the password and the email I used to make it) that I made when I was 16 and claimed to be older.

This was right when the site went public though, and that account aught to be plenty proof enough.

I'm from the US though, and I cringe at the idea of having to use any sort of actual age verification... The idea of it all screams less proof of age and more proof of traffic to me >.>

TrueZealand

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

UK user. As much as I don’t particularly like any of the options I think out of the options you’ve listed in this post that option 4 is the one that is most agreeable with me.

I am nowhere near well versed enough to be able to make any suggestions with this but as Mkjeller has stated in another post mobile/cell service providers require age verification (which when I went through it I had opted to put in details found within my passport.

AnthonitecusWolff

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I'm not from the UK so i need a quick explanation

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ AnthonitecusWolff

UK law proposes to ensure that UK children have a harder time accessing sites with porn and other "harmful" content on by requiring the age of UK users to be identified, impacting community art sites filled with people playing fictional characters that don't already charge for access.

AnthonitecusWolff

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Oh...

Vegasbunny

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I think relying on the new government to do anything different to the last lot is on a hiding to nothing.

The only real solution I see is somehow age verification, but I have real concerns with accidental (or deliberate) data leaks allowing my account to be linked to the real me. I don’t know if a small £1 one off charge to “verify” the account and then a purge of all data used to make the flag would be the best way to anonymise? Maybe consider that as an “offer” if the alternative is some third party (no doubt controlled by mindgeek…) “verification program.”

Either way this sucks and I hope you can navigate this without too much stress!

NeksusCat

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I'm not from UK, so unless they ask for a detailed ID info to be submitted, it should be fine.
I guess?

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ NeksusCat

This particular issue is UK-relevant, however many other countries (and U.S. states) have similar or worse laws proposed or actually adopted. Unfortunately you might not be aware of it until your favourite site decides to shut down as a result.

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

To start off with, I am not a citizen of the UK...thank goodness.  However, I will throw in my 2 cents in on this one.

Electronic devices have "safe search" features. Any response mom and dad needs to use it.

As far as ID with face recognition only, I have no issue against that.

However, I have a big issue against sharing all my ID information online because of the internet being such a risk to personal security.

The only things I've ever shared on line have been:
* My name...and that was only very rarely.
* My age, and when I have a birthday.
* My country of origin.
* The country and state I presently reside in (Sharing my address is a cardinal no-no. The last thing I need is some nut case getting unhinged over something I've posted, or some white supremacist, knowing where to come burn my house down, and I don't want that).
* My race.
* Things I've experienced in my lifetime.
* The kind of vehicles I drive...And I have been getting away from doing that lately.

As far as fees go, A fee would have to be a reasonable amount, and arrangements would have to be made to mail in a money order.
I don't have "plastic" forms of payment. I don't even keep a checkbook. Everything I do is cash or money order only.  Reason being, if someone stole $100 from me, that's all they're going to get.  If a debit or credit card got stolen, a savvy hacker can do unlimited damage with those.
As for verification of bank account information...Sharing my bank account number online is a grand daddy no-no to the greatest degree.   I don't even do any banking online, and never have.  There have been folks who had their bank accounts drained by hackers by doing that.  All my banking is in person only, and always have been.
I also don't use services that are connected to a bank account.

Besides...With that system in place, nothing stops a 16 or 17 year old from asking an 18 year old friend to let them view their online activities.

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

And never share your social security number online with anyone. You might as well be shooting yourself in the head.

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

I almost forgot...I always renew my motor vehicle tag and registration and renew my auto insurance in person. I never do that on line.
I never go online to pay my personal property tax on my home either. That's done in person also.
Same thing goes with renewing the prepay time on my phone.
And with cash only.

For the past 25 years, every motor vehicle I've owned was paid in full at the time of purchase. There's no interest payments that way, because there are no monthly payments involved.

GenIB

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Sure, let me just connect my ID to the website I draw furry baby porn on, what could go wrong?

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ GenIB

"	What could go wrong?

You stated that well...The sky's the limit of things that can go wrong.

GenIB

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ GenIB

Me being terse aside, I'd probably go with option 3. Shop around for hosting in a less cursed country, set up some legal entity there.

ConejoBlanco

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I just imagine eveything like this:
Give them the ID to verify if you have something illegal with any country, they have everything, your Face, Full name, number of ID, Age to keep you tracking you. I wonder how much last that verification, i mean how much time those people can hold your information, for like forever?
If that laws continue forward i just see this is a way to pursue people for just drawing fictional character, if anything happen with RL children, police searching for people, we can be the first to being targeted for looking for information just because the content.
Well if that happen, and like i said in my older journals, i think will kept my drawings in private or just dont post them anyway.
I never thought draw such fictional stuff should be so much trouble for a goverment. Never will give my personal information to other countries.

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ ConejoBlanco

"	If that laws continue forward i just see this is a way to pursue people for just drawing fictional character, if anything happen with RL children, police searching for people, we can be the first to being targeted for looking for information just because the content.

Glad you brought that up. Considering that in corrupt jurisdictions, police tend to make their own laws and act on them...Especially if they are "good ole boys" with the local politicians.
Kind of like a real life version of Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco P. Coletrain from the TV series, Dukes of Hazzard.

Kellyn

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I am personally strongly against the idea of age verification through collecting personally identifiable information. For one thing this disproportionately hurts bigger sites while not preventing kids from finding porn on smaller, less safe websites that don’t mind getting blocked when they are discovered. It also poses a privacy risk in that now there are large pools of personally identifiable information that a hacker could try to collect. Given how generally frowned upon cub porn is outside of this site, the consequences of a hack could be nasty.

That said I don’t think you will be able to get artistic exemption, but if you have to do one I’d go either with blocking or(as much as I don’t like it) complying but only for the EU (assuming that’s allowed). I’d also strongly recommend VPN usage to EU users regardless of which option you choose.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ Kellyn

The UK is no longer part of the EU so at this time only the 5-6% of visitors that are identifiable as being from the UK would be impacted.

Kellyn

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I keep forgetting about brexit. My bad.

LunarFlare

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Two big questions for these groups are: a) would you be willing to allow us to confirm your age in a way that might e.g. involve you showing your face and/or ID to a service company doing facial recognition or age estimation, paying a token amount on a credit card, or allowing them to check a bank account (some idea of what's more comfortable to you would help); and, to a lesser extent b) would some of you be willing to help us pay for that service, if required?

As a prospective UK resident (and someone living in a US state trying to pass similar laws), I'm personally very cagey about facial recognition, and would very much rather not upload my ID anywhere, either.  I would far prefer sending you 5 bucks over Wise or otherwise use my financial info if at all possible.

Worst comes to worse I can call my bank and get a new card and they'll refund fraud.  Tragically, getting a new face or just updating my ID is not so easy.

As an aside: my account is over 12 years old.  Is there any point where we can just kindly assume that I didn't happen to sign up at age five? :p

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ LunarFlare

I like your last point...Anyone 18 years old today was 6 years old when I opened my account.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ LunarFlare

Honestly I think the age thing is quite reasonable and I am hopeful that Ofcom sees it that way, too; it could greatly reduce the initial impact of this regulation, both from a fiscal and user/volunteer time perspective. I know nowadays we give tablets to kids but that wasn't quite so common in 2010, let alone them signing up to furry websites.

Drakue

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

The UK has NEVER done age-gating correctly. Every single time some bright spark gets the idea to censor the internet, or fags, or drinks, it always backfires and makes everything significantly more complicated, and harder to control, and just... worse.

I have absolutely no faith that this country will manage to get censorship of the internet done any better than things that they already actually understand the format of, like the afore-mentioned physical goods. I mean for fuck's sake, how long did it take to ban nicotine-heavy vaping for those under 16?

Maybe I'm just sour, because this country's leadership fails at literally everything else. I guess that would make one rather bitter. I just... wish they'd leave well enough alone, for fuck's sake.

Drakue

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ Drakue

Oh, as for the questions:

a) Showing your face and/or ID to a serice company doing facial recognition

I was with you up until that last bit. I don't trust the government not to hold onto that information less securely than a carp holding a stick of butter. They'll say they aren't saving information, it'll come out that they are and they're either selling it or losing it to hacks, everybody will shrug and it'll all be worse off because of it. Not trustworthy. I would legitimately rather trust Inkbunny directly with that information.

b) Would you be willing to pay for it?

Not only would I not want to pay for the service I don't want happening in the first place, I'd be willing to pay just to not have it happen. Unfortunately, even wee 'uns can get a debit card, and most people (at least in my debt bracket) don't have a credit card to 'prove' their age. Hell, I didn't even have ID before I worked in a porn studio, and they paid for the damn thing. It's just... not feasible in the UK.

Look, I'm all for adult spaces online, and guarding those spaces against under age people. That being said, when the government steps in to heavy-hand the situation, I think it's pretty natural to get nervous. If Ofcom want it doing, they should make it a request. Put in fines if websites are caught with actual underage users. Don't make websites prove a negative by saying "Hey, prove to us you don't have underage users, and that under age users can't use your site!"

YukiAkuma

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

I'm personally fine with a minor credit card charge to prove I'm old enough to possess a credit card. I'm fine with ID processing too but some people don't like that I guess.

I definitely don't like the idea of tying it to convention attendance, since I don't attend those.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ YukiAkuma

It's something we're considering offering as an option, since likewise some may have done that but not have a credit card (especially in the UK, where they're slightly less of a thing than North America). The issue of course being that - unlike many of the pay-video sites that are the main target of this legislation - we don't currently process credit cards and don't have a clear pathway towards being able to do so.

ClaudiaDoe

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

If I'm not a UK resident, do I still need to upload my ID if this is the direction the website goes with?

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ ClaudiaDoe

Not because of this - unless perhaps you use a VPN that appears to be coming from the UK. But we might have to deal with legislation from your own jurisdiction, it's just slightly less of an issue as IB is currently legally based in the UK.

JeffyCottonbun

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I'm not from the UK, but this infuriates me. It's not everyone else's responsibility, or the Internet's responsibility to take care of your kid. If you're a parent, take care of your kid yourself -_-

KevinSnowpaw

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

freaking THIS!

Springbun

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

sadly, it's often the idiots who go on to become parents and they make it everyone else's problem.

ConejoBlanco

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Yep and Totally Agree why we have to take care kids from unirresposible parents.

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ ConejoBlanco

Truth be known...irresponsible parents like that probably lay around the house drunk or stoned half the time.

Another scenario being that Daddy is doing jail time for DUI and fleeing and evading from police via high speed chase. And Mamma is catting around with other men while Daddy is sitting on his can in jail.

FurCollector

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

My Three Stars vote to this.

ZwolfJareAlt306

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

100% this!

lovespell

1 month, 1 week ago

link

↑↑↑ 👌

Mewtwolover

1 month, 1 week ago

link

So much this

RikMcCloud

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

UK resident here.

Ideally, I would push for the second option about artistic exception but if that is not possible:

I would not want to submit any government ID to any website unless it was to a government website so option A is a complete no to me in that sense. I feel the most effective way to protect data is to keep it off the web as much as possible so introducting new checks just offers more potential back doors for it to be stolen.

If there was another way to verify age that required payment, it would depend on what the process was and how much the cost is. I am in a position where I would be able to help with the payment if it is not an extortionate amount.

Beartp

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ RikMcCloud

I don't even necessarily trust submitting my data to the government they have too many incidents of data breaches

KevinSnowpaw

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I love how world governments are continueing to assume the best corse of action is to Big brother the shit out of there citizens...

One one hand my opinions are pretty open on this topic, Tyranical Dystopian garbage!

But it's the world we are going to find ourselves in very shortly if were not very careful and it looks like this is going to be a thing UK users have to deal with.

((I am so sorry to my cousins across the pond this is retarted! your government shouldn't be trying to nanny state you!))

I dont think I personaly get a say in this as Im not a brit but I can say I would be opposed to any kind of ID based verification Unless done in such a way as to GARANTEE the only thing linked to me or this account was a checked box that said Varied adult and the actualy ID information was in no way retained or acsessable to ANY parties. not sure thats even possible XD as it would have to be done by a theird party and theres no way to garantee THAT theird party cant be linked to here and there for to me, unless ALl they do is varify age and dont retain any information as to why.

Hitsunekun

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I know you didn't make the law, but it I were to be forced to provide my ID to any adult website, that would stop using that site altogether.

As an idea, how about using oauth (Log in with Google, Github, or something that can verify a credit card for example) and let them take care of that problem.
I once bought a song in Google Music with a credit card and now I can see restricted videos in Youtube with one account, but not with my secondary account that doesn't have my credit card registered.

That would also allow me to have a hardware based 2FA to log in to Inkbunny which would be a nice plus.

Birdpup

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

This isn't the first time the UK Government has attempted to do some kind of ID-related stuff to verify the age of those wanting to go on porn sites. I remember a few years back there was a planned proposal to have to acquire a license from specific outlets. An awful fucking idea, by the way.

I mimic the sentiment of other people on the journal; I would not be comfortable providing ID on a site that whilst I'm sure you can assure is perfectly safe from a technical/security perspective, is otherwise in such a grey area betwixt communities. The risk is just too great for that for me to want to associate my real life identity with my online persona on here. Just not feasible.

I hope you guys can figure out a solution that works for everybody. I am probably in the minority of UK users that actually does commissions regularly on here; if I'm blocked from adult content it would probably put a huge wrench in all that. VPN is always an option I guess!

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ Birdpup

We totally get the reluctance to provide ID to us, which is why we're basically looking for options that involve another trusted party, even if we have to pay - being in such a business in theory provides an incentive for them not to reveal that information to anyone else. The idea is that they don't need to know who is being verified here, while we don't need to know who you are in the real world.

ZwolfJareAlt306

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I don't suppose suggesting that the UK government encourage Mummy and Daddy to explain to Junior how porn creates unrealistic ideas about sex is an option...?

/sarcasm

Tynach

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ ZwolfJareAlt306

What do you mean? There's nothing unrealistic about the expectation that your partner be a shapeshifting tentacle slime monster who can make you immortal by violating every hole in your body. That's pretty standard for real life relationships.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ Tynach

Perhaps they meant it's unrealistic to give the impression that sex is optional in that situation?

Tynach

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Of course it's optional. They could just shoot their magic immortality granting jizz into a cup and have me drink it, but that'd be disappointing. Everyone knows that every sex partner ever will always actively do what you want, and who wouldn't want to be violated in every hole every day?

(Disclaimer for anyone who might be confused: I'm just making a dumb joke; I'm pretty familiar with what they're actually referring to. One of the most common claims about porn that is used to justify considering it bad, is this idea that it 'sets unrealistic expectations for real life sex'. The idea is that porn is usually going to be depicting the hottest (wo)?men and whatnot, and this sets people up for disappointment when the girl(y boy)? they end up with isn't as hot as the girl(y boy)?s in porn.)

Springbun

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I think I just figured out a better solution, but this one's going to require a lot of good faith to work, and it might take up to a year to be carried out (not to mention it would be incredibly frustrating as well)

a Temporary Ban for UK users.

now, in no way does a Ban sound like a good idea for a lot can go wrong, but as far as things go...there's a way to make this one work out for the intended gatekeeping:

once or twice a year, there should be Furry events hosted in the UK. the purpose of these Furry events on paper would be to just have fun and do meetups as usual, but in practice it could be a manner safe from Governmental eyes to verify the age of a user.
namely, people owning accounts could go to the 18+ only event, meet up with a voluntary admin, inscribe their username on a list and by the end of the day, the Admin can lift the Temporary Ban on those users that managed to come prove their age.

the Government doesn't stick their bloody nose where it does not belong, and we get to gatekeep at a cost of a 6-month tempban at most. we still got Discord and Telegram for communications anyway and a Tempban is just a provisional measure to actually give people a chance to stay on Inkbunny and not lose their access forever just because of some out of control brats on the internet.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ Springbun

It's actually something a staff member floated earlier, although not quite as a serious proposal. Alas, it seems unlikely to us that in this day and age people would be willing to wait months and go to a specific event to sign up, where they can easily find some other way to get what they're looking for.

That's the thing: it's not like UK-based people aren't likely to get what they want; they just won't be getting it from us, but a site based elsewhere that probably cares less about who is accessing what. Age controls can work well when there's just one or two providers in a region; less so on the Internet.

Springbun

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

ah.
fair enough.
guess we're gonna have to deal with being the Public Pinata once again.

FurCollector

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Why not fully reinforce the already settled rules first, before adding more obstacles to fuck up people's existence?
How about fixing the plotholes that allow this kind of stuff into the site, first of all?

[hugethumb]3000021[/hugethumb]

And I do not mean because of the whale in the room that is the disguised human porn that is the entire gallery in the case of the first user, but the realistic anatomy of many of these pictures. Yeah, "there's no 'suit' here, or...", I'm not buying that shit, bro.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ FurCollector

Unfortunately we have to deal with multiple spinning plates at one time - the law behind this journal involves deadlines for compliance, and there is very limited time to give feedback until it becomes something enforceable. Recruitment to improve enforcement of existing rules is in progress; it is also led by another member of staff.

The second image is a violation as it is identified as a human in a murrsuit and is obviously a sexual situation based on position and genitals/fluids.

The first does not involve a human according to the declared species and our assessment of physical anthropomorphism as it relates to the character, which is shown in other work to have an anatomically-distinct canine muzzle, tongue and teeth, as opposed to the mere addition of ears, tail or other such features. You may not agree that this is where we should draw the line, but we have to draw it somewhere, and the above distinction is based on the government's explanation of the intent of the relevant law as it was presented to Parliament.

Azerio

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I do have to ask, have you actually gone to a solicitor or is that your own personal assumption of the law

Child”, subject to subsection (6), means a person under the age of 18.
(6)Where an image shows a person the image is to be treated as an image of a child if—
(a)the impression conveyed by the image is that the person shown is a child, or
(b)the predominant impression conveyed is that the person shown is a child despite the fact that some of the physical characteristics shown are not those of a child."

For me that pic certainly comes under that law, full Cubs maybe not however if you've not already had legal guidance on this it's something I think really should be, seeing as your the owner and UK based.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

As you say, certain phrases are subject to interpretation. "Predominate impression" is always going to be a subjective call (perhaps to avoid bringing the law into disrepute, this is one that requires DPP authorisation to charge). But we do have a guide for that clause:

"	it is important to cover circumstance in which a person may try to avoid prosecution by amending the image of a child slightly—for example, by adding antennae or animal ears, and then suggesting that the subsequent image is not a child

This runs into what is "slightly" - and what is a child to start with; a "person under the age of 18", but 'person' isn't defined. But the intent is clear; we've all seen neko characters.

I appreciate your concern, but to be honest it's probably artists and fans that are at risk - depending of course on where they live (for the majority it would likely be a non-issue). Parliament's website is having a bad day, but there is an exception for hosting, implementing the e-Commerce Directive exclusions of liability. The key phrase subject to interpretation there is "actual knowledge that the information contained offending material".

To me, that only applies when I can honestly say that I believe the depiction is of a child, a person [i.e. a human] that has been slightly amended. I don't think the first image is of a person, for the reasons originally laid out - they'd be a non-human, kept in a zoo (or perhaps some top-secret alien research facility). Now, if a UK court were to say that the material in question was offending material, I would expeditiously remove it as required, and our moderation policies would change. But I haven't heard that from them yet.

Tynach

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

This may be a bit of an odd question, but what about removal of features? Like, is it still a 'child' if they don't have a nose, mouth, or eyes? And what if you also add cat ears and a tail, on top of not having a nose, mouth, and eyes?

What if they simply don't have a head to begin with, and communicated entirely via sign language (and you could only talk to them by, like, holding their hands while using sign language)? What if they started out with fur, but then were shaved as a prank and now are hairless, thus looking like a human that's been given a tail (and not having a head)?

For the record, I greatly appreciate the care and consideration you've put into the rules, and even more appreciate how you lean toward allowing as much as you think you can.

And while I don't have any characters like I've described, I know someone who was contemplating making a character that lacks a face at one point, so it's not completely out of nowhere (though their character would not be underaged). So while I'd consider it perfectly fine to hear a response of, "I don't know," it's still something I'm curious about.

dinksmallwood

1 month ago

link

@ FurCollector

Egads, looks like someone applied a quick filter to something spat out by an AI program, then lasso cut the head from a completely different image and just tacked it on there at the last minute. That is simultaneously one of the most horrifying, and apathetic things I've seen on here in a while...

KanaiLPaz

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Whatever happened to parents parenting their kids? Why is it literally everybody else's responsibility to control your loinspawn, but not yours? Then, these same imbeciles that demand everyone else raise their children, get rabidly upset when someone actually does correct, redirect or physically restrain said children.

Is this site hosted in the UK? If not, how does the UK have any control at all?

fibs

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ KanaiLPaz

Inkbunny is currently based in the UK.

If it wasn't, the UK would assert jurisdiction if the web site served a sufficient number of UK clients or could be taken as explicitly targeting a UK market.

DiogenesShandor

1 month, 2 weeks ago

lockedlink

Tangential note - I'm surprised that none of these space tech firms has thought of purting servers onto satellites. I would think that a server that's not in the jurisdiction of any nation would be a sought after service

fibs

1 month, 2 weeks ago

lockedlink

While natural celestial bodies are not part of any country on Earth, all objects launched into space (along with any crew aboard) must be registered under a sovereign state and are under that state's jurisdiction, as per the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

There's a complication when a space object is made of pieces launched from separate nations, like the ISS, which is run by some complex teamwork between the space agencies of five countries.

DiogenesShandor

1 month, 2 weeks ago

lockedlink

What if they launched from a non-signatory state? Or from international waters.

fibs

1 month, 2 weeks ago

lockedlink

Someone has launched from international waters: Sea Launch. Since this company was managed by Boeing, it went through the FCC, notified the UN, etc. and was legally indistinct from a US launch.

It's extremely unlikely that someone with no strong ties to any major nation would be able to perform an unannounced space launch. And if they pulled it off they would likely cause an international crisis and a bunch of debates and new legislation.

DiogenesShandor

1 month, 2 weeks ago

lockedlink

Another idea, and Obviously this has issues of its own (like that they'd have a very limited number of launches if it worked and it would be probably would be dangerous for personnel and it would be difficult to move the resources), but what if they launched from (or at least under the flag of), some unstable third world country and just waited for civil war or conquest or balkanization to make that country not exist anymore?

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

lockedlink

This is getting a little too fanciful and a lot off-topic, so please take it to PMs if you want to continue the conversation. 😼

Beartp

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Actually a number of the states that have tried getting age verification past the courts have failed. There is also Supreme Court precedent since the mid 1990s. It was tried on the Federal level and the court over turned it both times as putting an undue burden on the first amendment. Apparently its going back to the Supreme Court the next secession as Texas tried and was sued. First time it was blocked, Texas appealed and the 5th circuit overturned the block so now its going to the supreme court

DiogenesShandor

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ Beartp

Fuck! It is? The mutherfucking bible-gripping crackers we've got on the supreme court now are probably gonna nullify the precedent.

Beartp

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I'm not so sure about that though I could be wrong only time will tell

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ Beartp

Unfortunately that doesn't stop people being sued for violations of state law, and while they might one day have their day in court and get that overturned, there are immediate consequences with respect to e.g. risk-adverse payment processors, as was outlined by a representative of the Free Speech Coalition at the meeting I attended.

DiogenesShandor

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

Block the UK. The users there can VPN around it.

dmfalk

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Ofcom already has a war on VPNs, due to TV licencing issues in the UK.....

d.m.f.

fibs

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I'm not from the UK. I'm from the US. I suspect in a few years you'll be asking Americans similar questions. Good luck dealing with our bullshit on top of this.

I'm so tired of this crap. Legislators and those who bribe them are never aiming for what the title of the bill says and they know their shitty laws don't do anything helpful. All these conceits about "protecting children" and such are always a paper-thin cover for attacking things they don't like or imposing new tyranny onto the public.

There are only two ways to be reasonably sure you're dealing with a specific person: ask for their SSN (NIN) or ask for their credit card. No one's going to tolerate that from anything but a bank, and everything else is a formality that badgers legitimate users and does nothing to filter out illegitimate ones.

Laws like this will protect kids from porn - and more importantly from groomers - in only one way: by making everyone leave a web service so that it shuts down. If that does not happen, it will still have kids on it, it will still have porn on it, and it will still have groomers on it.

So we want to keep kids away from Internet danger??? Keep them away from the Internet. That's it. Ban children from accessing the Internet wholesale and require their parents and guardians to keep them away from all Internet-capable technology. There's nothing else that will accomplish that while keeping the Internet intact. But that's the one thing the Powers That Be won't do because they want money. They want kids watching ad-laden Youtube videos, playing shitty wallet-bleeding gacha games, and trading NFTs. And then they sit there and wonder why all these nonces keep showing up. The pedos go where the kids are, idiot. The only thing that keeps predators from kids in real life is if the kids are under someone's supervision - like how lions don't attack wildebeests until they're alone. And the entire problem is that these kids on the Internet never have any supervision.

And since we clearly can't expect adults to actually supervise children's Internet usage, or else this would not be an issue to begin with, the only solution is to boot them off of it entirely.

toothpasta

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Amen to that

supremekitten

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

It was always a puritan vendetta against all porn and all sexuality other than procreative vanilla sex. It was never about kids. Kids were and always are only an excuse to push puritan agenda onto adults, generally by monotheistic religious fundamentalists. The endgame always was and will be to harass all porn providers and users out of existence, by any means necessary and any possible method, legal and illegal, they will never stop as long as any porn exists. Don't expect them to ever stop, the endgoal is 0 porn, and fundamentalists controlling all your sexuality. Everything you give them they will use against you one day to push their goalpost further and to harass you more. Everything is an excuse, the real goal is full control of sexuality like in an islamist state, that's what these fundamentalists crave, regardless if they are muslim or christian. Everybody else who eats their rhetoric is a helpful idiot for them and nothing more.

supremekitten

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

it's also often related to wanting people to breed more, as is the fear of gay and trans people
they want you to breed so they need you to not satisfy yourself with porn, and want men and women to fuck vanilla style, ideally while banning anti-conception and banning abortion, which they all also strive for, breed like locust

DiogenesShandor

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

The breeding thing is indeed what drives it, but to say that it's being done intentionally presupposes a level of introspection that I don't think these people are capable of. Rather the people that buy into it pass it on to their children, and because they've been conditioned to have an irresponsible number of children it causes their demographic to grow disproportionally.

supremekitten

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

different of the related groups use different excuses
governments engage in breeding programs intentionally, to "stimulate economy" or if there is military conflict, they often openly talk about it, for governments continuous breeding is built into the system of social debt and social services depending on country, the government needs constant fresh meat to pay for the old meat to keep down unrest and keep the elites in power

religious zealots often talk about breeding openly also, in that case it's under the flag of spreading the religion / word of god, having a lot of children is often on the open agenda of religious leaders who talk about it openly

nationalists call it for the or the good of the nation, or white race or whatever else

all these groups overlap on the puritanism, and on the breeding, and they often are open about it, and often work for the same goals

capitalist corporations don't really care to ban your porn, unless your porn is distracting you from their services, the capitalist corporations which build their services on porn like porn, but only some corporations do that, and capitalist corporations pander to the governments and to the religious, so they will gladly throw porn under the bus when it's inconvenient

DiogenesShandor

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

That's a good point. A lot of these people are so behind the times that they haven't internalized the existence of drones and mechanized factories and AI.

And corporate types have a lot to gain from it because their "job creator" schtick wouldn't work politically if we didn't have a huge pool of surplus people.

Yonk

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Exactly this. The wealthy capitalists are all having panic attacks over collapsing global birthrates because their system cannot continue to create profit without infinite growth, which requires steady population growth. It always surprises people with the revelation, when I tell friends (the ones who can handle it, anyway) that the people in charge absolutely love teenage pregnancy, because it instantly creates two generations of poverty. That's two generations of people willing to work in wage slavery. That's the entire plan. That's the entire reason for attacking education, abortion, contraceptives, porn, and "deviant" sexuality. They want as many babies as the world can give them, and as poor and desperate as possible.

supremekitten

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ Yonk

multiple groups have the incentive to promote the birth of as many poor children as possible, the government, the religious leaders, and the nationalists are some who use this "breed as much as possible" rhetoric. Poor people are indeed easier to control. The leaders of any such group are the rich elites. Rich elites generally are leaders, they are incentivized to this regardless of the group which they lead, I guess. Governments with social spending for the old people are further incentivized to encourage breeding as they would collapse the moment the bottom stops paying and working for the old rich folk. Statistically the old will always be the rich elites compared to the young, so they can rig the system for themselves. Incidentally the old people tend to be the most puritan and traditionalist, because they are old and used to what was long ago... yet not old enough to remember how perverted the ancient times were. They remember the victorian times instead.

DiogenesShandor

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ Yonk

I think the capitalist elite like it more for political reasons. People who need jobs enables them to play "job creator". (And to their somewhat perverse credit, most companies probably are employing more people than they actually need; they could replace most people with robots if they really wanted to, and not necessarily even particularly sophisticated robots - I know that my job in particular is basically to do the same thing as a vending machine - I'm given an alphanumerically labeled location and I take the item from that location and give it to someone else; that's something a machine could do even back in the 20th century and that's what makes it so dehumanizing)

DiogenesShandor

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

These kinds of laws disgust me. They're doubling down on a minimum age that they didn't need in the first place. They treat porn like it was something potentially dangerous like smoking or alcohol or automobiles, whereas in reality the worst thing that could ever possibly happen from it is slight eyestrain. From the bottom of my heart I hope that the politicians involved with this law, and all similar laws, get cancer and die.

dmfalk

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

The more I read this, the more it seems to be coming from the same mindset over internet TV, VPNs and the TV licensing scheme that's been in use since the 1920s, and applying it to internet usage in the UK....

d.m.f.

supremekitten

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ dmfalk

that is also a part of it, that corporate group wants every single human to be using their real name on the internet linked with a credit card for the purpose of coercing that sweet cash from those credit cards and to peddle directed advertising

dmfalk

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Actually, it has more to do with justification for existing, since there already has been talk of eventually abolishing the licensing scheme, as the BBC may transition to commercial/semi-public, after some disastrous budgets submitted over the last several years. (This budget problem is what led to the selling of Doctor Who to, if I recall, Disney.)

d.m.f.

supremekitten

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ dmfalk

there are multiple groups with overlapping agendas, although they may not always see eye to eye on every single topic, they pat each other's backs and generally work together

Issarlk

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

If such legislation happened here, I would be fine with a *not online* third party verifier.
In france we have bailiffs (escrow in USA ?) available everywhere, they do the house sellling paperwork but also can verify something (in our example someone's age) and testify that with utmost autority.

I'd rather send my ID to a local baiiffs, get a signed legal paper that says inkbunny user Issarlk has been verified as being an adult, and then send this paper to Inkbunny.

Baiilifs are not (yet) online, no hack risks. No real id known by Inkbunny. And Inkbunny has their ass covered with a perfectly autoritative legal paper.

fibs

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ Issarlk

If you mean a notaire, the equivalent English word is notary. England and Wales have notaries, apparently the other countries in the UK do not.

In the US, the powers and duties of a notary vary with the individual US state and they are, in general, way less useful than in Europe.

Issarlk

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Yes, that's the word I was looking for, thanks.

SharkiesAbortionClinic

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

It's breathtaking how much of a crackdown there is on porn in general across the world. When I was a kid, my parents had a password guard on the actual COMPUTER BROWSER itself, they used a program for it, to block out anything they didn't want me to see. Why don't parents just block out websites that are "suss" to them, and call it a fucking day? The right wing, across the board, around the WORLD in fact, is just sending the world back to the goddamn stone ages, frankly.

Them taking our personal ID documents and putting them in a registry can't be good. I'm sure that will become something like a "sex offender registry" in the eyes of various right wing governments around the world. We ought to make it absolutely ALL the responsibility of the PARENTS to make sure their kids aren't looking at porn. it's so insane to me that they are gonna make porn viewers do ID checks, unless we can confirm that stuff isn't going straight to the FBI or I guess MI-6 in this case.

Anyway, furries already a marginalized AF community so I guess I'm just used to being brutally oppressed.

Yonk

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Just like aggressive DRM in video games, this will only reduce the amount of legitimate users, while doing absolutely nothing to stop the targeted group. Even in the days before photoshop and everyone having an HD camera in their pocket, spoofing an ID or getting around one was (puns, haha) child's play. It's even easier online as you can't verify the physical qualities of the card, just how it looks. As xkcd pointed out, the technology is not even the issue, it is the fact that people are willing to lie.

Then again, it's all bullshit anyway. Conservative governments don't care about children; they're trying to eliminate pornography altogether, for various reasons that I won't get into.

Anyway, my opinion is just block UK users. It's terrible for them if they can't get a VPN working or some other workaround, but sometimes the world ain't fair. I would hate for you to go through all the effort and expense of some verification system only for the UK to claim it's invalid for whatever reason because they just don't like cub porn and have literally all the power to just tell you to pound sand. Again: they're not doing this because they want to protect kids, they're doing this to get rid of you.

FoxWolfie

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I think the age of one's account is a good method of verifying age - for those who have been on the site long enough. That won't work for newer users to the site of course, but still is an option for some.  Since Inkbunny has only been around for about 14 years, only the very longest members could use that.  But, you could just as easily verify through Fur Affinity, Deviant Art, or even eBay, since all of those have been around for a lot longer. FA is 19 years old now, and eBay is around 28 years old.

All of the sites I mentioned display a "registered since" date on the user's profile page.  To verify them, you'd only need to send them a private message through one of those sites, and tell them to respond with an answer to some question, to be sure they actually had access to that account. Once handshaking with the owner of an account that existed for more than the required number of years is happening, you know that they are at least that old.  I think it's safe to assume that no one who is 18 or older made an account on a website that they still have access to, prior to the age of 5. So, if they can show that they were using any site for at least 13 years, I'd have very high confidence that they were at least 18 now.

The best thing about using "age of account" on any site that you can send private messages on, is that no additional personal info, besides the user's account name, is needed.  Inkbunny could simply set a flag indicating the user's is verified to be of legal age.  I'm guessing that only about half of the users here can be verified this way.

Another option, is if a user has a red verified icon on FetLife, you do a private message to their FetLife account to get a response, and make them verified on Inkbunny.  FetLife is pretty careful about issuing their verified icons.

All these are only options for those you who have a sufficient history on other sites, or here.  For the rest, I can't think of any great options.  Personally, if I had to choose, I'd go with something like a small PayPal transfer. You are not legally supposed to be able to create a PayPal account unless you are 18 or over.  Something like a one dollar PayPal transfer from an email account that the user is able to respond to, would be higher confidence of legal age, than the honor system that is currently in use.  If PayPal refuses to work with Inkbunny. Then just set up a PayPal account that goes to a separate email address sort of like a tip box, and only use it for verifying people without actually connecting Inkbunny's name to it.  Once Verified and a flag is set, Inkbunny could delete everything but the account name of the verified user. That way, no personal data remains stored, so nothing is revealed if Inkbunny ever gets hacked, except that username xxxx has an 18+ flag.  You could just set the verify $1, or some other tiny fee to cover the transaction fee. I don't know if that would actually work, especially in the UK. You'd just need some payment service that offered an anonymous, or near anonymous, tip jar, going to an account that wasn't linked to Inkbunny. Of course, it wouldn't stop some kids from asking their careless parents to send the verification though. No method on earth can ever be 100 percent effective in keeping a determined horned up teen from finding and seeing adult content!

cathedgefire1000

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ FoxWolfie

hadn't thought of that, i'd be willing to pay with Paypal or something akin to it ngl. granted the one i use for comms doesn't have my real name. lol

very true thing about all this though - if some kid/teen wants to look at porn then idk why stop them, as long as they are taught that it's not intended to be realistic nor educational at all and such.

trun

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Imagine requiring parents to raise their own kids, instead of the internet.

Blackraven2

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

As a creator of content that might - now or in the future - be made illegal to create, posess or distribute in some jurisdictions, including jurisdictions I might be required to travel to or through or do business in as my day job, I have a problem with ID verification in particular.
This especially concerns third party providers who could
a) collate, accumulate or store real world identities of users using this site and
b) voluntarily of by force might disclose such information to 3rd parties such as law enforcement in other legislation these service providers might be active in - including but not limited to the UK, the EU, China, middle eastern countries and the USA

In short, to protect my life and my family from potential harassment or prosecution, I would not allow any 3rd party to gain knowledge of both my legal ID any my IB identity.

If such were necessary to log in to IB I'd have no choice but to abandon the site.

Its probably less severe for mere "lurkers" and consumers of content, but for content creators with galleries this is an issue.

Blackraven2

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ Blackraven2

that being said I'm not in the UK

Vixel

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Tldr; imo option 3, hosting the site somewhere (or multiple somewheres) other than the UK, is your best option. I'm sure it's a logistical and legal quagmire to actually implement.

Sorry in advance for the wall of text! >.>

Generally speaking, internet age verification laws seem like a trojan horse for future censorship. As someone noted above, they seem more about proof of traffic than proof of age. They fail to address the root cause of children using the internet unsupervised.

That said, the pressure to comply is coming from everywhere now. Too many sites/companies/governments are already on board with age verification. The laws and policies existing, and how we might feel about them, is becoming a moot point.

Re: your list of choices:

1. Get rid of Adult-rated and perhaps some Mature-rated content (this one isn't likely to happen)

- If hosting Adult- and Mature-rated content is existential to the site, that suggests the steps you take should be aligned to protecting and preserving that kind of content for the majority of users. i.e. some users losing access to that content is a better outcome than all users losing access.

2. Try to defend it under an artistic exception

- Once age verification is the norm, the standards for "adult content" and "harmful content" will change, with age verification burden used as leverage to force new censorship.
- When the censors only wield a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

3. Block the UK from content above General or perhaps Mature, and potentially transfer ownership offshore

- This is a temporary fix, if the trend toward age verification continues worldwide. But it could be effective for now.
- Siloed content could create a scenario where sfw Inkbunny steadily attracts more unverified users, and steadily jeopardizes content for verified users. (It creates more accounts to potentially verify!)
- It might be better to try and preserve the site as it is (an 18+ community), as a whole, for as long as possible.

4. Age-gate UK users in a "highly effective" manner (to be "accurate, robust, reliable and fair") such that children are unlikely to be able to access any work deemed pornographic or otherwise harmful

- This seems super murky and probably needs legal consultation. The government's interpretation would likely be more strict than the site's.
- Allowing content based on a guess about what's "harmful" could lead to sudden content purges whenever the Eye of Sauron shines upon the site.
- The government has all the leverage and won't care about the site's interpretation of what content is "harmful." Consider SoFurry, which purged all its cub stories in a panic because a government began harassing the site owner. It seems better not to play the game at all; find a way to get the site out of UK jurisdiction.

I'm excited to see Inkbunny considering alternative ways to verify age (like age of the account). Keep in mind though, the government could claim that age of the account isn't relevant because someone could sell or share accounts, or that convention attendance isn't relevant because anyone can register with any badge name, and not even attend, etc. The rules will get progressively tighter.

If you do opt for using an age verification service, try to make it as versatile and nonintrusive as possible.

Patreon chose Jumio as its age verification provider for nsfw content creators. Jumio's wiki shows a history of potential illegality and red flags. Yet Patreon wants its nsfw creators to give Jumio a selfie for face recognition, front and back uncensored image of official id (drivers license), and alternatively a tax return, birth certificate, voter registration, credit card etc. (If you push back hard enough, you might be able to blur some stuff.) Jumio could keep that sensitive PII forever, trade it, leak or dox with it, put it in an AI, whatever. Once you give up your info, you have no control. When it gets that invasive, unfortunately some users will just walk away.

JackKnife

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

Not in the UK, USA here, but I refuse any and all attempts to age verify that require facial or government ID verification online. If you aren't my doctor, employer, or bank, then there is simply no reason to risk such data privacy. I have nothing more to do with OnlyFans for this exact reason. And if websites/apps/services start pushing this then I will simply abandon them. If I really need to see something pornographic and I can't do so online without needless age gating and verification then I can visit a damn strip club. Honestly this level of government overreach is getting to levels of insanity I never thought possible a decade ago.

Softgoat

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Reverse all the new rules. Allow AI art in full with only the need to tag it as "AI_art"
Reverse all the new rules. Re-amend your "Philosophy of Acceptance." Make it MORE accepting. Not less.

Allow human art too now. Go ahead. Move your feet backwards.
Defy every moral. (Don't forget the truth of Philosophy: Every moral is subjective and false.)
Foolish mortal. You were tricked by a cult again, weren't you?

Do the OPPOSITE of oppression!
Pro-actively enforce freedom.
Fight with deliberate intent against oppression and more rules.
Actually try to keep things free.
Instead of less freedom, aim for MORE.

Just look at how STUPID you humans are time and time again! You think bowing down will fix things?
Let's not be naive. Let's not be naive ever again. The truth here ... is that we are NOT children. So let's not be naive. Let's not be naive EVER again.

Let's NEVER be naive again.

You know the most beautiful action you could take?
Block EVERYONE from the UK from this website - Then THEY can figure out their little dystopia themselves on their dark and haunted little island.

England has harmed the entire world before in its historical existence - are we being naive? Again?
I'm not. When weighed against the feather of Ma'at, England will soon sink into the ocean itself.

Why should we give them any more control over these issues? They need to reform their government if they care about the freedom of art and science and speech. I have no idea why we would cater to them. If the English people have fetishes they need to relieve by looking at fictional art, then they need to be able to openly talk about these issues and politically advocate for them without feeling censored or scared.

Let me say it again:

If you want to be able to change laws according to the actual will of the people, the people need to be 100% free from ALL consequences when it comes to their ability to speak, ESPECIALLY when it concerns the legalization of currently illegal things, such as sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.

So until they are free, we cannot really trust what they say. They will only say what they think they're supposed to say. Virtue signalling.
Virtue-Signalling is what happens when you're not actually free to speak. They move their mouth, but only blahblahblahyesmaster comes out.

I advocate for absolute freedom of speech without limit, including pranks like "fire" in a movie theater, and all types of art, speech, music, any form of expression upon your body as you walk upon this Earth, and all other manner of freedom - Why would I ever want less?

Falsity is defeated by Truth just as Darkness flees from Light.
I do not fear ideas. I do not fear speech. I do not fear art. I do not fear information.

I fear YOU.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ Softgoat

Well, you should, since I'm from England and you basically told me to go sink into the ocean... 😼

DanteAffinityXD

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I realize you didn't write the law, but what they probably need to anonymize this stuff is an API using open standards run not by some profit-seeking company, kind of like how lets encrypt is now everywhere even though no one pays for it... so someone like the EFF or American Civil Liberties Union - certainly not microsoft. You create a login at said site, and when you go to another site (say Inkbunny), you login once and it makes a GET request that returns true. Hooray! You are verified! It has to be a bastion of trust and once you make your information on said site, your data should be deleted beyond verifying that said email is 18+ (right to be forgotten and all that). Inkbunny doesn't even need an API key, they just hit the endpoint because said endpoint doesn't NEED to know who is making the request, it just needs to agree that the person that entered this information proved they were over 18. And because it's not tied directly to porn, you could just be verifying the person is over 18 for any number of products, like tobacco, firearms, alcohol, gambling, agreeing to a contract at the local gym... Tie it with a proton-pass email and suddenly that would be the only email of that type on the web, and all it says is that email is an 18+ user and they provided the correct password. You can tell literally nothing else about them.

Softgoat

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

That's too much work just to appease a tyrant.
I vote defiance.

Softgoat

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

However, if it actually isn't too much work, then there is the DIF.
Decentralized Identity Foundation. https://identity.foundation/

But even if it's easy, I still disapprove of allowing this to pass. We should fight back and just make the users suffer the proper way. This is the consequence for letting politics get to this point. Do the humans of this Earth think that their life and civilization is just a tv show to passively watch unfold?

Demand liberation. Stop with the IDs. Stop with this. Let the natural consequence unfold: People who do not keep their governments in check become subjects and slaves. Everything will be controlled. Censored. Banned. Illegal. I will not play games here: The Common Sense is the same as Thomas Paine said 300 years ago. The Rights of Man are the same as Thomas Paine wrote 300 years ago. And if anything, dear Thomas did not go far enough!

If these people wanted to protect children... then what happened to me.... never would have happened.

I deeply urge the staff of Inkbunny to fully move Inkbunny to the USA, and to make backups in other liberated locations, and to simply leave the UK entirely. Why in the world would one of the most vulnerable furry websites make its home in the setting of that book, 1984?

Let's not be naive. Let's just fucking STOP for once, ok? Have you all gone insane? Don't you have any idea that freedom is not something someone gives you - it's something you TAKE. AND THEY NEVER GIVE IT WILLINGLY!

DanteAffinityXD

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ Softgoat

Interesting site, I was actually realizing there were some potential safeguards in my idea we COULD implement. For instance,

1) At the crux of the problem, we don't care about people's photos, and we don't want said photos linked to this site, we just want a bool, isOldFart. Then we could pass the photos via an unknown whitelisted droplet, basically a private server someplace out on the web, the server collects no data it just bounces the photos off to whatever website does the verification and then the server returns said bool that we record. If the government wanted to track what site was making said requests, all they would see is some random ip out on the web, one that we could even swap our regularly so that anyone on the other side would be like "I have no clue who the heck keeps wanting to know people's ages. They just do."

2) If they'd be happy with allowing a local instance, perhaps there is code you could shove on such a droplet and skip the company entirely. Basically what we'd need is a machine learning algorithm that says "isOldFart" from a photo. Then we know no information is being stored because it's our server and because it's whitelisted to just IB, no one else will be able to get into it without breaking into the IB servers - during which time they'd have a limited window of gathering information until they were found out. Given the nature of AI, I wonder if we could even scramble the images with client side code in some way such that the user is unrecognizable to anyone else, but that the AI could still determine was "isOldFart" even though someone looking at the image passed over would just see garbled noise?

DanteAffinityXD

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Making the data set tainted is also an idea, by providing fake image data of say people's faces that DON'T go to the site and making it known we do so. That way, individuals hoping to use said data would have the unfortunate reality that their dataset collected about IB users is complete and total rubbish because it's massively contaminated.

IceAgeChippies

1 month, 1 week ago

link

One day, newborns will be issued online IDs that they will be made to use for the rest of their lives everywhere they go. It will be as connected to you as your SSN, and can never be changed.

Xanthe

1 month ago

link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_dEsgzWFsU

IceAgeChippies

1 month ago

link

@ Xanthe

toothpasta

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

This is worrying. I'm a UK citizen but I don't live there anymore, so it doesn't affect me directly, but in a way, it affects all of us. It affects whether the site will continue to exist or become more restricted.

I would never want my ID to be linked to my account. I have done art of things I would never want people around me to know about. Hacks and leaks happen, I mean, just look at the Ashley Madison scandal. People's lives can be destroyed. I would also never trust some third party company or the government with access to this kind of information. The government says it's to protect the children, but let's be honest here, these kinds of laws have never protected anyone. They have only be used to oppress people or to weed out the undesirables.

Maybe personally having a meeting on webcam with someone to verify their ID by having them hold it up on camera would be better, but would take innumerable hours to work on with 6500 users. Fetlife has something similar where they ask people to send a photo of themselves, but I don't recall if ID is involved. I don't think blocking the UK is a viable solution.

Perhaps having InkBunny be a closed site (where the adult content is hidden but the general art is available without payment) that you can pay for through PayPal or some other payment service could work. Something similar to Patreon. I know that sounds awful, but... what else can be done?

DanteAffinityXD

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ toothpasta

We can't even donate to the site via paypal unfortunately. Any time anything touches payment processors, they suddenly decide they're little dictators that can do whatever they want.

PaydayWolf

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

This absolutely makes me feel sick. I'm stuck on this shitty island and this stupid country goes and pulls this. I am not at all okay with proving anything that can link to my IRL self, especially considering how I could likely end up facing repercussions from the law since cub art especially isn't exactly clear-cut here in the UK. I am seriously disgusted with how governments continually stamp out everything they can and force everything to be collated and monitored under the guise of "for the children".

I don't know what the site can do, and I don't know what *I* can do either. I fucking hate this country so, so much.

God this whole thing makes me sick. I don't ever, ever want my IRL-self to be linked here. Ever.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ PaydayWolf

Thanks for sharing your feelings, and don't get too down about it - I suspect we'll find some way to work through it, even if it's a manual process like having people add an IB account temporarily on some other site that they have a profile on.

TheDingy

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Australia is considering something along these lines as well.

I will never give other any personal ID to access a site like Inkbunny, not when certain content on it is illegal in my country. I already use a VPN to access, and if it somehow became a requirement I couldn't get around with a VPN then I simply would have to hard-exit and never come back.

Softgoat

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ TheDingy

I believe that due to colonial-type influence, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and possibly several other countries, some quite large, are actually fully under the sphere of influence of England. For me, I am Irish, and so I am aware of unresolved conquest footholds in Northern Ireland, as well as the amount of oppression and violence my people have faced by the English. I deeply fear them.

GreenReaper can call himself green, but if he is English and I am Irish, then when he mocks my fear of him, I smile and shrug, and simply hide my tears.

The idea that England is only governing merely the English people, is not quite true here. If this happens in England, it will spread, and that will further normalize dystopia around the world. I really would not recommend that. If all this was was simply the ability to check an ID just to make sure you are old enough, then we all know this would not be an issue. This will simply act as a snowball upon a slippery slope of sticky snow, and naivety of that is actually forbidden. Absolutely forbidden.

Norithics

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Man they really need something to distract people from Brexit huh

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ Norithics

It's still a bit of a headache, yeah! Who knows, maybe the new government will do something with their massive majority and perhaps the help of the LibDems.

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Question...

If this "new rule" becomes a law in the UK, will artists in other countries have to comply like UK citizens do in order to access Inkbunny?

If so, this brings up a question about artists who have concerns over personal security being compromised and decide against showing their ID...Obviously in that situation, such artists would not be able to access the site.
However, would artists not showing their ID also cause their galleries to get deleted, or would their galleries still remain up for other users to view?

Blackraven2

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

well if you can't login, you can't wipe your gallery, can you? ;)

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ Blackraven2

My question was...Would the UK force the site to delete your account if you didn't comply with submitting your ID to be kept on file.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

No, the concern is UK users for this particular law. I'm particularly concerned with it, being in the UK. 😼

What might happen to users who could not validate is that we lock their account and hide their work until they can, or else until enough time passes that they must be of age by now (say, ten years of account age, which is probably a wild overestimate for some). But we haven't entirely planned that, it's just what we do now for seemingly underage users.

moyomongoose

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

So I take it me being in the US, it wouldn't effect me what so ever.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Probably not, no, which is why we asked UK users. The US sure has its own crazy laws on the topic, however. In California the RTA tag we have may be enough but elsewhere it gets very murky.

Zippo

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

'I dont care, said Pierre, im from "Panama"(dual hop).' :3
But really, I have never ever given any actual ID for anything, use credit cards or submit any personal information online as a strict personal policy, and NEVER will.

As for UK users, those poor sods, but if it means blocking the country by default because of large stated payment requirements out of pocket for only a 5% userbase then so be it. Seems to be the easiest way out of it. Users will eventually figure out around it or stop using. These new laws are mainly a mask for censorship, nothing new here. The "great" firewall of china for example. Users may be required to actually get smarter with the times we live in and be a bit more tech savy with the very computers they actually use as they no longer have an excuse to be willfully ignorant. How long have computers been available? Time to get with it or fall behind.

SlimyTongues

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

All reading this thread has made me realise how ignorant a lot of people are outside the UK and how many harbour anti-UK resentment towards the citizens. Damn, we didn't choose to be born here, we're all victims of our government. Doubt anyone would be saying "oh just block them" if it was their country instead.

Anyway, not comfortable using my face to ID check.

cathedgefire1000

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ SlimyTongues

i think it's just because it's the easiest way out - if ID was required for UK users then maybe it'd gradually spread to other users, with the way these users are being treated being used as a precedent for how users from other countries are to be treated (if and when other countries require ID for these sorts of sites too).

i feel that people would rather use a VPN rather than give ID so they advocate for others to be blocked instead to set that precedent, just in case this issue were to affect them personally in the future too.

EvilDog

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

if the law does go through (hoping it doesn't) can something like some Discord servers do be used?
redacted photo of an ID with DoB (black out photo, name, address, ID number, etc.) taken in front of your user page

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ EvilDog

Possibly, but many have told us they simply don't want to give us their IDs at all, so we're hoping to be able to use proxies for that, or other evidence of age.

For example, your account is 13 years old. It seems unlikely that you were 5 when registering back in 2010. So we can say "well, it's very likely that this person is an adult". At least, that's what we're suggesting to Ofcom, with ten years of account age as a baseline.

boyscoutdropout

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

this is an overt censorship law. its anti art, and anti privacy. if you support this you are actually fucking stupid for trusting so deeply in your government to tell you what is morally acceptable to create and look at. this is actually the worst legislative trend in the modern day and should not be taken lightly. if we are to see the internet as an accessible library of information, the right to view and communicate said information must be preserved for all people, regardless of identification. this sets a horrific precedent.

boyscoutdropout

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

if you do not resist this now, you will forever remember this era as the moment the violence against your communities begun. this is the modern day equivalent of the catholic church chiseling the penises off of statues and painting veils and leaves over the genitals on paintings. you are incredibly fucking stupid for even humoring such bullshit.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ boyscoutdropout

That's easy to say in the land of the free, but it's a little trickier when you live here. 😼

What I am doing now is explaining to Ofcom our situation and how what they propose doesn't quite work for us. They are quite aware that many older children know how to use VPNs, and that is not their main focus - it's primary and secondary school kids (elementary through middle school/junior high for the USA) getting taught that violent sex is OK by exposure to it on "tube sites". They have enough evidence that they feel it justified to act on this.

Inkbunny, despite what many in the fandom think of it, is not their main target, and we're both looking to avoid any kind of enforcement action (which would be quite a way down the road). They just don't want the awkward situation of kids looking at some of what we have - which by the way is something we don't want, either, hence the restricted to adults tag on the site.

Unfortunately, unlike California this tag is not enough because it does not provide a method of age assurance as required by the law. Many of the traditional methods of age verification are unlikely to work for us given our particular situation, but there flexibility in the proposed regulations for organisations to make up their own solutions, as long as they can be shown to work. It doesn't require real-life identification and we're focusing on methods that avoid that.

boyscoutdropout

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I genuinely and thoroughly do not care for your apologetics or moralism. If you push verification for UK users I will leave in solidarity, as will many.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ boyscoutdropout

That's your choice and you are welcome to it. Hopefully you find a site that fits you better!

fwuckybaa

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

i'm not a UK user but i'll say my piece anyway since we have been dealing with KOSA in the US (which might be dead but who knows for how long baa).

i will not make use of any site that requires me to age verify in any way, and i wouldn't help pay for such services to exist either. this isn't the DMV, and i'm poor enough as it is. i come here for fun, not to be A Verified Adult Citizen like i'm in a club or signing paperwork. it seems kind of silly that you're even considering the possibility. also, i dont think anyone really has any high-falutin' notions about inkbunny... it's a furry art site, it's pornographic, it's one of the few left that allows cub, and it would suck to lose it, but at the same time, you're not google or anything. you don't really have a reputation that you need to uphold. don't kowtow to politicians.

i would say you ought to transfer the site offshore (or do whatever you need to to avoid policy changes) and move on with your life instead of entertaining a bunch of potentially expensive and invasive new policies. i agree with the above user in that you ought to think very, very carefully about what you decide to do (if anything at all), because whatever you decide will end up setting precedent for the future. and, being the kind of site that you are, choosing freedom of access and information and queer/furry expression would be in your best interest, as anything else would destroy you and future projects.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ fwuckybaa

Well, we're considering it in large part because I'm based in the UK, and if we don't at least make an effort to comply with the law there's a good chance that sooner or later, not only will the UK end up blocking IB, or vice versa, there's a chance I'll have to stop being involved in it - not just establish it overseas or give leadership to someone else - or else be subject to some fairly massive fines.

I don't want to say that'd be the end of the world, but I do run all the servers, and I don't think any other staff are in the position that they can take on my responsibilities right now, even the few that have some of the necessary technical knowledge. They have their own jobs and lives, and at best, they'd have to take some time that they don't have to take on my current responsibilities - putting other stuff like staff recruitment and training on the backburner.

So it's not a matter of reputation, or even our future projects; it's more a matter of IB continuing to exist in its current form, for everyone's benefit - including the 95% outside the UK who hopefully wouldn't be impacted by whatever we have to do.

On a personal basis, my other furry projects are WikiFur and Flayrah, and both of them are fairly supported of freedom of access/information/expression, to a fault in some cases. To be they could probably do with more of my time, but I'm not ready to "move on" to them just yet.

fwuckybaa

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

it sounds like you really need to establish some sort of succession plan, train new staff and futureproof the site. too much responsibility on one person is always disastrous imo. i have a lot of time on my hooves and wanted to join the staff, but it seems i wasn't eligible. either way, hope it goes well baa. im sure everything will be alright in the end

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ fwuckybaa

Yeah, a few of the candidates have significant technical expertise as well as reporting or direct moderation experience, and may be able to come onto that side of things as well. And it's not like there's no way for some staff to act in an emergency; it's just not their job and it'd take them away from doing other important things like staffing - just as I had to put some technical and wiki stuff aside for this policy matter.

DallasTMouseBoy

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

I have nothing to say about this.

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ DallasTMouseBoy

That's OK, you probably have your own things to worry about in Dallas. 😼

DallasTMouseBoy

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

I'm from the Midwest area.

Plus, this kind of stuff makes me uncomfortable and I don't like being sucked into this cesspool of negativity and toxicity

Kaheiyattsu

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

I really wish parents were parent their kids instead of trying to make the government do it. It's not artists and content creators jobs to stop your kids from going where they aren't allowed.

Rhumba

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

just absolutely delusional dude

GreenReaper

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

@ Rhumba

I know, but you see what we have to work with. Though in your case I think it's safe to say you're of age by now...

Starshower

1 month, 2 weeks ago

link

one of the most irritating things about all is is all these laws on verification and such would not be needed if parents actually did their Job and used the parental control settings. it will block kids from seeing adult stuff and even ISPs now have password guarded parental controls meaning if the child tries to use another device to get around it they wont be able to because the ips( modem) would be blocking the sites. so anyone using their net would not be able to access it.

bullubullu

1 month, 1 week ago

link

This sounds like a huge annoyance damn..

What if, instead of anything with faces, Inkbunny just required a picture of "common UK ID" like passport or drivers license etc where fingers cover up the name and picture, but it shows Date of Birth?

bullubullu

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ bullubullu

Or obviously painted over in mspaint or something

Could also be Public Transport cards, I imagine many IB users are urban and has one of such (unless it's all on mobile these days)

FuzzyStinkypaw

1 month, 1 week ago

link

I don't want my identity linked to a cub site! Ew!

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ FuzzyStinkypaw

Yes, several have made this clear. 😸
What we might need to do is find some way to verify age while not doing that, which is the tricky bit.

MelodyWrites

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Edited 1 month, 1 week ago by Owner

Some good points have been made and as for the confrontational ones, I'm sorry you're dealing with it.

The simple matter is that IB will need to implement in the next few years some means of verification of age.

This will happen at some point, it's got that wonderful inevitably of many things (even if it's in two years time), while it's good you ask, the decision regarding implementation isn't ours to make - the law has dictated, it's just time to implementation.
afterall you said that many sites see a 75%+ fall in traffic at age gate, this means 1000 users or so would be left, if that.
It's nice to ask but, the probability is most won't verify or will find a way around it (let's not kid ourselves on that one)

The most straightforward way to get your answer is "we are going to implement it and you have six months grace. After that, you must be registered to get to flagged content"' as it's going to have to happen at some point. How you implement it is a discussion for the IB team, a solicitor and/or ofcom.

The suggestions I have are: 1) you have a merch store. Could you sell a "I'm an adult" pin, this would potentially provide some level of validation to the user by way of payment processor KYC - PayPal ID and bank check people all the time. A unique transaction receipt number can validate on your books as a purchase and then onto the account, plus if it's reasonably priced for a physical pin, I think as long as it's not clearly IB branded (due to social stigma) I'd buy it as it tickles me. But would I do "real" ID? Probably not?

2) you could offer a few different options for a few months as a transition: card payment/ID service, convention registration, to try and get as many as possible cleared then move to a singled fixed one. It's phased and offered options people can take to fit their risk, and if one (con registration probably) isn't up to par, you can deal with it while having a fall back of a known (but costef) solution.
You already use IP location for cache and would have to maintain that to enforce the law, so as long as you keep UK users clearly informed of how IB is to proceed (a message in an inbox here and by email will be more likely seen than a journal or announces, I saw this quite by accident)

However: as a member of IB team, what is your personal risk register saying to you? How do you want to be checked? To me, that says where you put your trust. Because you have more to loose.

I think your desire for transparency is laudable and hopefully you can work out a suitable solution to a) comply with the law. B) to keep affected users informed as you proceed. (And sorry for the essay)

RyaFemboyFox

1 month, 1 week ago

link

God, really hate my country, I'm sorry on behalf my country for them enforcing laws on sites from other countries
Surely this can be fought back right? You shouldn't be forced to accept laws from another country, they shouldn't be allowed to do this...like others have said I would rather nothing about me be linked to cub either...

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ RyaFemboyFox

While Inkbunny's servers are largely based elsewhere, I am personally in the UK so it affects me (and of course other UK users). Actually if you look at the consultation they're pretty open about certain operations, especially smaller ones, "leaving the UK market".

RyaFemboyFox

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Sorry I don't understand the second part you said, I'm a bit slow ^^;

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ RyaFemboyFox

Basically they think sites will just block the UK and move on, or else be blocked by the UK if they can't easily enforce anything else.

RyaFemboyFox

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Fk sake, so either UK gets blocked or UK blocks the website if they can't enforce their laws, that's so shitty...

IceAgeChippies

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Edited 1 month, 1 week ago by Owner

I trust IB enough to show an ID, so long as it wasn't made public.

That said, I am in fact an old man in his 40s. My DA/FA accounts are almost two decades old, if that means anything:

https://www.deviantart.com/martenferret

https://www.furaffinity.net/user/martenferret/

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

That's probably the way we'll do things, if people can link back to IB on it then it's reasonable to assume they control the account (we might record which one just to be sure nobody's 'fronting' for others).

humbird0

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 4 days ago by Owner

The Internet Wayback Machine might be able to confirm if somebody had an online presence on well known sites like FurAffinity, DeviantArt, NewGrounds, or Twitter. Of course their user name would have to match to be certain.

Also some people might have personal websites going way back. For what it's worth, my personal website was created back in 2013. So unless you think a 5 year old was able to create that, it's probably safe to assume I'm over 18. I feel like people in the furry fandom tend to create websites more than the average person does. I guess we're used to being kicked out of online spaces and building our own home on the internet.

humbird0

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

Actually, this gives me an interesting idea. InkBunny itself was created in 2010. If somebody made an account on here within the first few years, they're very likely over 18 now... unless you think people were signing up at the age of 4 or 7, which seems very unlikely.

GreenReaper

3 weeks, 3 days ago

link

@ humbird0

Yes, this is something others brought up and which I suggested to Ofcom in the response I made to their consultation.

MaDrow

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Edited 1 month, 1 week ago by Owner

5a. Setup a tor/I2p service and redirect UK visitors from the clearnet to a landing page with the announcement to uproar and fix their laws first.

5b. Handover Inkbunny to a non-UK citizen.

MkLXIV

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Not a UK citizen, but my 2 cents is block UK traffic and instead a display a landing page with all the emails of representatives who voted in favor of it so they can easily be informed they're idiots. The same country that wastes resources equating cartoons to child porn and arresting people over it is also going to fuck up "age verification" without any reasonable degree of doubt, it's already going horribly in states that enact it here in the US. People can just VPN around it for starters.

Naruque

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Seems easier to protect the site and all the members to geoblock UK IPs and have members bounce through a VPN.

Going with age verification seems like opening a can of worms. Lots of risk to the site, as well as the members in some cases.

I would rather pay a yearly vpn fee, than give RL info to an age verification service that could be tracked to IB in some way.

TenchiArizonia

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Personally I think it's opening a very dangerous can of worms. Given the content, on inkbunny such as cub and feral involved content. You'd have to be stupid in the extreme to believe that the UK online safety act won't be abused by the powers that be to further alienate the furry community.

It may just be art but the UK law enforcement are not above prosecuting for speech online and, I fully believe they would do the same for art from the furry community. This online safety act will not protect the community but put it more at risk.

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ TenchiArizonia

It is unfortunate the way they basically cover everything arousing as radioactive to anyone under 18, bearing in mind you can have sex at 16 and indeed be able to be married at that age (recently upgraded to 18).

Devalis

1 month, 1 week ago

link

I'mma just use a VPN is it comes to it. Fuck the government, I am not tying my goddamn ID to what porn I look at in my own fucking home.

HyperWolf3000

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Is there pention against this that can be signed?

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ HyperWolf3000

The law is the law, however there is some flexibility to how it is implemented and regulated. Technically the comment period on the proposed regulations have now closed but you could try contacting Ofcom to make representations. Of course political action e.g. a petition on the UK government's official site for that purpose is also a possibility to change the underlying law that requires age assurance, it seems unlikely to be rolled back though.

SPARTASTICUS

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Connecting a site like this to facial or ID recognition software is a DISASTER waiting to happen.

As soon as the wrong element gets their hands on information linking ANYONE to this site, not only would that someone be prison-bound, Inkbunny would soon be shut down for good and ALL those associated with it prosecuted.

As heartless as this sounds, I think the best option is to ban UK users from the site. It just isn't worth risking it for the 95-96 percent who use and RELY on this site around the world.

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ SPARTASTICUS

While I understand the concern I think that is overboard. I am publicly identified as running this site, I have lived in the UK for a decade, and Ofcom invited me to the relevant event knowing who I was. We take steps to try to keep Inkbunny and its content legal, at least here.

SPARTASTICUS

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Well certainly appreciate what you are doing for the site. I understand it is hard work. So thank you very much.

ChaosCalix

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Why is it that every time I hear about Ofcom, it's always them being a bunch of busybody wankers

I'm not from the UK (thank god), but I think a more effective solution is to block access to anything above general rating to guests (as you do), and if anyone tries to log in from any blocked region, educate them on the power of a VPN.

Others have beat to death the issues with age verification and privacy already

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

@ ChaosCalix

I mean... they're the regulator, it's literally their job. As mentioned in an earlier comment directly promoting VPNs is likely to be seen poorly, which could mean getting blocked entirely. But Ofcom's own statistics show that a majority of teenagers and young adults also know and have used VPNs, and as far as I know there's no problem with saying that we are restricting UK traffic specifically.

ChaosCalix

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Fair. I know promoting it is at least a touch inflammatory xP

I guess my most serious suggestion would be a warning when trying to sign in from a UK IP that you will not be able to access mature+ content without some form of verification.

I do wonder how this will affect you (I haven't had time to read the thread, it's a lot of text). Since you're known and obviously an adult, even if UK traffic was blocked, I assume you'd be able to just whitelist yourself?

GreenReaper

1 month, 1 week ago

link

Edited 1 month, 1 week ago by Owner

@ ChaosCalix

I have a passport that I can check! Expired currently, but still. Or driving license!

The bigger issue would be if we had to move off to another country, it's not clear whether I could still be involved to the same extent. Of course Inkbunny isn't the primary target of this legislation - one other site owner said they didn't understand why we were in the focus group, precisely because we're not RL hardcore autoplay porn videos on the front page.

sweltering

1 month, 1 week ago

link

You need to be 18 on the UK to own a credit card.
Just have them do a micro payment with a credit card and you've done your bit,
if kids steal their parents cc's... well for one the payment will pop up and secondly.. that's not on you.

GreenReaper

1 month ago

link

@ sweltering

The issue, of course, is getting a credit card processor to deal with IB... 😅

humbird0

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

Payment processors might be cagey about facilitating purchases of sexual content, but they should have no moral excuse not to support age verification. If anything that would be good publicity for them. They can claim to be part of the solution.

supershiner

1 month, 1 week ago

link

This is unsettling but expected, seeing what happened to other furry porn sites. So to get it out of the way, how likely is the chance all cub goes away to appease the big boys?

GreenReaper

1 month ago

link

Edited 1 month ago by Owner

@ supershiner

That's not likely, and actually not the focus - the UK government considers all pornography inherently harmful to those under 18. FA has exactly the same problem, only it actually allows 13+ on the site so it can't say they don't use it.

Xanthe

1 month, 1 week ago

link

I'm pretty sure most (or at least many) UK residents will have already verified their age at some point via credit card or some 3rd party such as OneID (this one doesn't actually need document or photo uploads as it cross-references bank info) or others.
I mean, really, so long as no personal data is held, i.e. that it is used for verification purposes only, then I don't see an issue here. AFAIK, the easiest way to achieve that would be to use a 3rd party as this way, no PII is attached to anyone's account.

But yeah, I do agree with you. I think the onus should be on ISPs &/or the gov't to provide the verification service, not individuals.

Bloodhawk

1 month, 1 week ago

link

My ISP already knows everything about me, so giving up my ID doesn't seem very extreme.
As you already know, I'm very pro for this legislation to come into effect.
The only major downside I see to this is more data breaches and how the information gets used.

SH2Fox

1 month, 1 week ago

link

this is a bad thing, I do not want the government knowing I like what I like, especially seeing as I live in Australia, and many states in the US ban cub already. it would negatively effect many users. also the government sucks.

Ptav

1 month, 1 week ago

link

I think it is a horrible idea to put id's, especialy on sites that allow this type of nsfw content like cub, as it has terrible cognotations.
it it gets leaked you are fucked, and if the goverments want's to go agains this type of art, they now have bunch of people to put on a list.

humbird0

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

@ Ptav

If InkBunny finds a way to verify someone's age, there's no longer a need to hang onto any personal data afterwards, so that data could just be completely deleted. At that point InkBunny only needs to store a boolean true/false variable in their database for that user. If the database ever gets leaked, the only data that gets revealed is "true" or "false".

Ptav

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

@ humbird0

i meant the government gets a leak and maybe they do store these thing and see where you use it and stuffs.
I'm not really worried about inkbunny is more that the lack of privacy. And if they consider that you are trying to log on to some web that they consider to have illegal material can be dangerous for you. Inkbunny will most likely will never know how you are or get any info from you, just a token that the citizen receives.

emmentaler

1 month ago

link

You will never really reliably verify age online without tying it to some sort of government issued cryptographic ID system, and such a system is a problem on so many levels it shouldn't ever be seriously considered. No, this is a parenting problem. But, ah, you probably know this already.

I can't really come up with anything that verifies age that can't also be exploited by clever teens and/or makes things difficult for users to even register anymore.

The consultation response should be to tell parents to monitor/filter their children's internet use.

GreenReaper

1 month ago

link

Edited 1 month ago by Owner

@ emmentaler

Yeah, we know. That's why they talk about an age assurance system - the goal is to have some level of assurance that is evaluated statistically, as government departments love to do - but it's not that simple, especially for furries who don't want to reveal their RL identity normally.

It's too late when the law is already passed, this is all just working out the fine details of how age is assured and what sites have to implement that - which is most of them. The UK is a nanny state in many ways so the parents punt to the government.

emmentaler

1 month ago

link

Edited 1 month ago by Owner

The malicious compliance way is to move Inkbunny out of the UK, and let the UK government domain level block you if they want to be a nanny state. But alas, you are also in the UK from what I gather? So it'd require some level of ownership transfer which might be a problem in itself.

But it is entirely weird how they put the onus on website owners to do the job of the government here: verifying ages. Let them come up with a solution, like the cryptographic ID thing

I know Dutch banks have an age verifying option that is entirely separate from charging or bank transfers, akin to a verified API call to say "yes, this person is adult": https://www.idin.nl. Assuming all banks verify their customers, and no children have access to bank logins, pincodes and biometric data (the latter two used to verify transactions, but also iDIN) it'd be a significant chain of trust to employ. Still tied to personal info, but might be disconnected enough to not cause problems down the line. Might also not be a service in the UK, since they're incompetently asking you to come with a solution.

GreenReaper

1 month ago

link

@ emmentaler

That's basically the issue - they're in almost the perfect place to offer a solution but... they don't? Reputational concerns? Conservative free-market impulses? It's fine if you already have a way to take credit cards - well, other than not showing previews and probably losing 75% of your audience - but the policy wasn't designed for community sites.

Deceased

1 month ago

link

I don't mind age verification myself, I'd be fine with that.

FriskyWoods

1 month ago

link

Some of my viewers on FurAffinity wouldn't even follow me to InkBunny, either being uncomfortable with the content here or feeling that it may be illegal to visit the site in their country. If the UK is blocked from InkBunny, it won't make much of a difference to me, since I've already shed most of my British viewership.

m3g4

1 month ago

link

Not from UK, but might as well throw a random idea:

Mostly client side, hardware based verification.

-People of age would be able to request a digital certificate from the government or something. Let's call it an "adult certificate"
-Said adult certificate would not contain identiafiable data other than a person's encrypted fingerprints.
-Ideally the certificate would be stored solely on a physical format like a USB device.

-Certificate would always be in a locked state, requiring the user to, locally, use a fingerprint reader to unlock access to the certificate once inserted.
-Sites would now be able to, on their own, request to know if an "adult certificate" exists on the machine, and if it's unlocked, without direct access to the certificate itself.

The entity that builds and gives the certificate will not know what you access with it.
Access is restricted to the owner of the certificate.
Sites won't know who you really are, just that you are very likely an adult.

There will still be problems, and this would kind of end up normalizing biometric readers on everyday machines, leading to other possible concerns... but I imagine it would reduce the chances of finding underage people in adult online spaces. One problem at a time.

And if one is found, it may be fair and more common sense to not blame the site for it.

Biggest concern would be wether the entity responsible for generating the certificate would store your real credentials on their own, or if they just require you to show you have an id with a proper date of birth, similar to buying a alcohool.
...and telemetry logging of proprietary softwares on your machines.
...and if the certificate doesn't store anything else in it.
...and what to do about people without fingers.
etc.

I sure hope they don't go for facial recognition. Not because of privacy, but because it's just so shit. We use that in my country to access our important info, and it barely ever works! With limited attempts on top of that, so utterly annoying no matter the reason.

DSHooves

1 month ago

link

@ m3g4

This…is actually a really sound idea imo.

GreenReaper

1 month ago

link

@ DSHooves

The issue, of course, is getting governments to agree on that as a supported solution and actually get it implemented.

alexwolf56

1 month ago

link

As someone from the US, anything that requires me to give my actual identity to anyone is a nonstarter and I will leave the site first.

DaCobraMan

1 month ago

link

No, just no. More restrictions, and people being fine with just giving their I.D away like that, are part of the problem too. Just lying down & taking it, just submitting to giving away even more of your details. No way would i give my form of I.D to access the site, i'd just use a VPN if need be. I already use the third party program, to watch age-restricted YouTube videos, as i would neve give google any form of I.D to do that.

So no, to hell with these draconic censorship "laws", just further controlling people. So yes, of course protection children should happen, but these laws would just be used to, as mentioned, control people. So no, to heck with them. Along with other valid concerns, those of us on the site here, wouldn't want to have any of our identification tied to it, which can get leaked, and who knows what could happen. All the things making people give away their details, and it just continues with this.

So here's hoping everything goes well, but at the end of the day, it is a "law", while having good intentions, is just more control, censorship, draconian BS that keeps being put on people.

dinksmallwood

1 month ago

link

This immediately makes me think of "KOSA". Whatever sort of internet censorship/age-gating is going on in the UK, will (eventually) apply in US as well. Most websites here would/will use the easiest/cheapest/laziest "solution"...which most likely is to remove/not allow any sexual/"harmful" content whatsoever (including "harmful speech"), while the ones that do implement some sort of invasive "age verification" system will, I predict, experience a sudden, dramatic decrease in their actual adult base, over very real, legitimate privacy concerns.

SparkleZombies

1 month ago

link

Edited 1 month ago by Owner

UK citizen, I think it's all bullshit. On one hand I think banning porn or making it harder to view would be better for society but I'm also against limiting personal freedom and them having even more control and eyes on us.
This control never works and is easy to get around, I'm tired of my stupid country treating us all like babies while they refuse to actually solve crime and prosecute criminals (actual criminals, not the bullshit reasons you actually get jailed for- two tier justice system)
If they really wanted to protect kids (they don't) they would go after the parents and made sure the parents were actually parenting their kids. And I don't think kids accessing porn is as bad as our kids getting murdered or dying bc they were failed by protective services.

Tl;dr: less government, less control, don't tread on me. I will not use a site that demands I give them my ID. I am against digital ID and all that draconian dystopia BS

DSHooves

1 month ago

link

Edited 1 month ago by Owner

Perhaps an easier way to go about it would be linking a Patreon/Subscribestar username to a user, or another e-commerce thing that requires agevetting since your users who would attend a con would likely also have a e-commerce link - and those that don’t attend, would as well. I would say PayPal, but that’s just more risk than any artist I know would be willing to deal with. I’m US based so I have little say in this, but I have a vested interest in future proofing my stuff from the pearl clutchers like

dinksmallwood

says. How this is handled will likely set a precedence moving forward.

I understand the end user saying fuck no to age verification with ID with this site. While you’re not doing anything illegal, it’s another place that links your tastes to your identity. Bypassing the argument “they have your info if you connect outside of anything short of a burner device/public Wi-Fi”, it does give yet another avenue for folks to have to worry about this.

Fuck it, making my own island, brb. Who’s bringing survival skills to help me?

softtailed

4 weeks, 1 day ago

link

First They Came for…

That’s kind of the sentiment I’m getting from many of the responses from the users here, along with the “Sucks to be You” vibe against we UKians.

One aspect of this, is that if it is deemed a success, then other countries may well follow the precedent. I could see France, already with its ban on cub art, seeing this as a method to further its grip on 18+ access on the web. Some, particularly the States, will likely be spared due to the First Amendment, depending on the whims of the Supreme Court, or individual states, if not decided at the federal level. On the other hand, it could also embolden those trying to bring in KOSA, especially if this method proves a success by their metrics.

I also imagine that this wasn’t exactly well publicized, and that it’s going to be a shock to the system to a lot of people that will be suddenly hit with the age-gating. More for sites like Hamster and the like than perhaps Inkbunny. The blow back from that is probably the best hope for this to be repealed in the long run. While the populace at large couldn't care less about the result on furry porn, they'll be enough to care that they now cannot as easily access pornhub, etc.

The ever present creep of governmental censorship, from the Justice and Coroners Act 2006, to the Digital Economy Act 2017, to these new guidelines/laws/requirements. IIRC, with the 2017 act, it was suppose to have been the BBFC’s responsibility to uphold things, which seems to have fallen to the wayside due to the complexity of such a undertaking. Presumably, that has led us here, where individual sites have to bear the brunt of the responsibility of age verification.

Have you considered trying to contact Myles Jackman, if anyone’s more qualified to give advice on this, it’s a English lawyer that specialises in laws and cases regarding porn. He has been known to do Pro Bono work, and it at least probably wouldn’t hurt to ask.

While, not happy with the idea, with my hands tied, I'd personally be okay with 4. 1 and 2 are lost causes, and 3, well, technically bye-bye publishing my NSFW arts I guess.

My account here is 8 years, 8 months old, with my “SFW” account being 9½ (On FA, 10 & 14 respectably, even with the purge of 2.7). In my case perhaps my 17-year-old Deviant Art account – under the “SFW” username might be of use, but I wonder if that would mean abandoning this account and just keeping the other one.

Homerboy4

4 weeks, 1 day ago

link

US user here.  We're dealing with a similar situation.  Not much to say, but I'm not a fan of crying and spamming irrelevant word salads either.
(Don't get me started about irresponsible parents, predators, and ""religious"" BS.  I'll be here all day.)

I would suggest a mixture of 2, 3, and 4.  Not all art is meant to be seen by children, and they should not have access to such content beyond the intended filters.
Use 3 as a contingency plan.

I'm mixed on age verification, but I do have a stupidly smart idea inspired by Crytek, the dudes who made the Crysis series.
Show a picture of a VHS tape, or a Phonograph, a floppy disk, etc, and make the visitor guess what they are.  If they fail, lock them from access for a period of time.

Another point from someone else, some of our accounts are over 10 years old, so there is no way to assume that I lied about my age at this point.

I know my two cents look stupid, but I would rather try to help people in some way over crying for attention.

RunicMyth

4 weeks ago

link

From the point of view of running a website, you really don't WANT people's personal information, because that paints a great big target on you that says "Hack me!" for any anonymous script kiddie who wants to virtue signal how mainstream they are by doxing furries.

If they made some kind of independent age verification service where you verify your age and in return get a security token you can provide that proves that verification without linking to any permanently stored personal identification, that would be a different story.

I doubt they'll do anything of the sort, though, because we all know this isn't about kids, it's about religious moral panic and wanting to punish and harass people who have interests that don't jive with Victorian ideas of proper entertainment. If it was about kids, they'd do something that was actually effective, like, oh, use that whole device-level age verification that's supposed to automatically filter any content delivered to a device configured for use by a minor?

Apocryphon

4 weeks ago

link

Quite frankly, I don't want any of my IRL stuff even tangentially connected to this.
And you can bet its a guarantee that the place will get hacked and all the information jacked.

BizyMouse

3 weeks, 6 days ago

link

I don't really care what you do since you allow AI here, worrying about the future of the site seems like a moot point.

trider

3 weeks, 5 days ago

link

While I'm not a UK user, I do want to say I think that age verification should be a must for any site with user accounts. Yeah people can lie, but it should be a bare minimum for every website I feel.

threeracoons

3 weeks, 5 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 5 days ago by Owner

There is no strong, robust way to verify age other than sharing entirely too much private information to a website that will inevitably get hacked. The recent Furaffinity breach is proof of concept.

Block all IPs from the UK, and don't block (nor promote) VPN. Every Youtuber on the planet is already promoting VPN for you as a way to access blocked content, so you don't need to. And if the UK starts blocking access to VPNs too then they really have gone off the rails and the rest of the world can't save them.

As soon as anyone sees the "I'm sorry, this website cannot be viewed in the UK" anyone who's ever watched anything on the internet will know they just have to turn their cheap VPN on, or get one, which they can't do if they're not an adult anyways.

SwiftNimblefoot

3 weeks, 5 days ago

link

Stupid youtube wanted to do that years ago to me, and hilariously, wanted me to upload a scan of either my ID card or a bank card. Like, that by itself sounds like an ID theft scam, yet it is official. I instead just used various websites to bypass this. These days, it seems to have gone away. Probably some EU lawmakers finally told Google to stop trying to steal people's identities.

PapaDragon69

3 weeks, 5 days ago

link

Yeah, I'm not going to give out my ID just to see and post explicit content. I might as well tell everyone I know in real life that I watch cub porn.

GreenReaper

3 weeks, 5 days ago

link

@ PapaDragon69

Fortunately it looks like you're not in the ~5% of users expected to be impacted!

PapaDragon69

3 weeks, 5 days ago

link

Still, I'm worried about those who are.

Namingway

3 weeks, 5 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 5 days ago by Owner

I feat you may soon need to ask this question of residents of other countries.
With the answer always being "no one wants this, but if there's no way around it it should be as anonymous as possible".

I wonder... could having bought commissions in the past be considered a mark of adulthood?

GreenReaper

3 weeks, 5 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 5 days ago by Owner

@ Namingway

I mean, potentially - if we can prove a credit card was used. And that it was yours.
Your account is about the age we'd say "they have to be of age" as well.

Namingway

3 weeks, 5 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 5 days ago by Owner

I see. That's a lot of things to prove, most of which contrary to the idea of preserving anonymity.
(oops failed to reply to the right post)

Fens

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 4 days ago by Owner

Uuuugh...

Well, thank you for going to all this effort. I'd certainly be willing to go the pay-a-token-sum route... probably. Maybe even some form of ID-show or the like given Inkbunny's proven track record. Still it's kind of awful on so many levels.

I see others have mentioned VPNs, so I don't know if I can contribute meaningfully, but I do wonder about UK users presenting as being from other countries one way or another.

Can only wait and see, I guess...

I suppose IB can't do an onion mirror, huh?

GreenReaper

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

@ Fens

We could do that, it wouldn't be significantly different to people using VPNs though - and it might not be feasible to address abuse that way, which is one reason we haven't done it yet.

Fens

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 4 days ago by Owner

Is it relevant to look at what e-hentai did with regard to using an onion mirror? They seem to have made it work rather well, from what I know - although I couldn't tell you details. Plus they have that @home node thing going on... though that's probably less relevant.

Just funny to think of them being the art archive they are; they literally have 'hentai' in the name and yet they're the best place to find things like certain archived classic game manuals and such.

GreenReaper

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 4 days ago by Owner

@ Fens

It might be good to look at if and when we do it. The thing is it doesn't really change much with respect to the topic of this journal - if we serve UK users we are still likely to have to do some form of age assurance, if I'm reading the law and proposed regulations correctly. Forcing people to use VPNs and/or Tor will take a very significant chunk out of that 5% - only the most dedicated users will bother to use another browser to access the site. And I suspect it wouldn't give us much back from those noping out of age assurance, either.

HarrisBoyUK

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

As someone who lives in the UK, I know those like Google have been doing this whole age verification before by either giving out a real life ID and/or credit card information but I understand that it wouldn't be the best way for everyone because of anonymity and in case this site gets compromised like with FA at the moment, that would become a possible major security breach.

I know the VPN method would be the best way for all, but that would force me to having to pay for another annual or monthly subscription, just so I have another place to post some furry art I've commissioned (with story descriptions I write for those). And given what's currently going on with FA, that makes me worried because I would lose another place to post those and have a safe space that is away from other fandoms, outside of these.

humbird0

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

So for age verification. I trust InkBunny itself with my information more than a 3rd party company. Which might be a scary thing for you to hear, but 3rd party companies in general tend to have an abysmal track record when it comes to respecting or protecting personal data. And in the US there doesn't seem to be any law preventing them from immediately selling that data to the highest bidder the first chance they get. That said, I'm not completely comfortable sending personal information to any website.

I prefer the idea of paying a token amount from a credit card. I've actually been trying to donate to InkBunny for years but I never hear back from you guys when I send tickets. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong? For the purposes of age verification I wouldn't mind you keeping the amount neccessary to cover the cost of the check itself since it's a pretty tiny amount.

GreenReaper

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 4 days ago by Owner

@ humbird0

I share your lack of comfort from the other side - even where people are willing to give RL personal information, we'd rather find a way to do it that didn't involve that.

I'm pretty sure you were filing the tickets right, that's on us - me especially. But the truth is that right now we don't have a good way of taking money from a credit or debit card. Frankly we're probably below the level that a payment processor agreement would make any sense, and the intermediaries all don't want to do business with sites like IB. Google Pay shut up shop a few months ago. Bank transfers, using intermediaries like Wise where the currency doesn't match, is about it right now.

bullubullu

3 weeks, 4 days ago

link

I still think an image sent of bank card, passport, transit card or library card etc with name and face ann whatnot blacked out, but showing the birthdate, should be admissible.

It would be as anonymous as possible, while still providing a "this counts as ID" object to verify an account

Panpan69

3 weeks, 3 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 3 days ago by Owner

2024 is really the year of porn censorship huh... at the very least im fine over here but as far as loli/cub content goes, its only banned when its ai or 3dcg

eeveefan

3 weeks, 3 days ago

link

im late to the choir on this but...
if i had to verify my face or id on any website i just wouldnt go on it period. alot of people that are on ib are on it without wanting their real life id exposed. if that info got out it could get back to their work places, family, etc and think of how that could inpact peoples lives. some people have good careers and some info like that could mean the end for them. alot of people in this day and age are extremely judgmental and once that info gets out then its out there for good. this just isnt an option for people, even monthly payments of a few cents seems a bit unreasonable. after covid hit money is extremely tight for alot of people, groceries in alot of places are through the roof. sure 10 cents might not seem like alot but it is for people who do struggle with money.

im not from the uk myself but i think this is quite unreasonable. parents need to be parents and step the fuck up and keep an eye on their kids. not just shove an ipad into their hands and get mad when they come across some furry porn site when they shouldve been the ones to put age restrictions and parental controls on their stuff. its not up to the internet to watch their kids. parents need to step up and be parents.

GreenReaper

3 weeks, 3 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 3 days ago by Owner

@ eeveefan

If it we are even able to go a 'token payment' route it would just be one time, the point being to confirm that you control a credit card and thus are nominally 18+, not to actually raise revenue.

eeveefan

3 weeks, 3 days ago

link

isnt there cases in where a person whos 16 or older can co-sign for a credit card with adult supervision or something? wouldnt that be able to bypass the rules set in place?
i looked into it and while you DO need to be 18 to actually get a credit card there are cases where someone whos 16+ can get credit by co-signing i believe.
i mean... how would that even work?

GreenReaper

3 weeks, 2 days ago

link

Edited 3 weeks, 2 days ago by Owner

@ eeveefan

It is true that a 16-year-old can become an authorised user of a parent's credit card in the UK. I'm not sure whether there is a specific way to check this, but it would be under a different name to that of the actual account-holder, so perhaps that.

Honestly, research also suggests that 16-year-olds have good knowledge of VPNs and I don't think they're the main target of the legislation or the regulations implementing it.

LeoHKepler

3 weeks ago

link

I apologize if this is a stupid question or has been answered elsewhere but... would ID verification/payment tokens be necessary for users outside the UK?

If not I don't have a horse in this race.

If so I'm absolutely not giving anybody my ID. I don't go to cons for the same reason; I like to keep my fuzziness out of my real life. I'm not going to risk getting harassed or fired because some eejit doesn't like what I look at in my free time, and another eejit wants to pass a law on the other side of the planet that only causes that very kind incident without actually protecting anybody from jack diddly.

I'm on the fence about the token thing... for one it feels a little like a paywall even if it is cheap, why the fuck am I paying some third party to exist for access to things they don't contribute to, because some Tories say they're necessary? Not to mention the data breach or just general irresponsibility-with-data that not only could, but would lead to the scenario in the former paragraph.

There comes a point where you're actually too old to deal with this kind of dog-wagging. So again, if it's just for the UK I'm blustering for nothing, but if we'd all have to do it... I guess I'd probably have to say goodbye to a good site. No way am I gonna show any ID, maybe I'd do the token thing... idk.

I'd just go with the way Pornhub handled Texas and block the country. They wanna be puritans let em at it. See how far that goes with the people of the country.

GreenReaper

3 weeks ago

link

Edited 3 weeks ago by Owner

@ LeoHKepler

It wouldn't be, unless your local jurisdiction had its own law and some practical way of enforcing it.

Your account age is such that we would likely consider it old enough to be "of age" automatically in any case, unless given specific instruction to the contrary.

Gendasi

2 weeks, 6 days ago

link

Edited 2 weeks, 6 days ago by Owner

As a Florida Man, I'm of a mind that measures should be taken to keep children away from things they shouldn't be engaging with, but protective measures should not be so strict and complicated that it impedes the average person. It's got nothing to do with religious morals (as many suggest), some kind of "phobic" mindset, or whatever angle(s) of attack one might use. This isn't about politics or personal morals being thrust upon the masses. This is because I grew up skirting (and even crossing) the lines of morality and legality. I was exposed to a lot of questionable content at a young age, I was molested, and I grew up in an environment where there was no filter on what was discussed with/around children. I've seen what happens when kids have access to adult material before their brains can rationalize what they're seeing - I've lived it.

I'm not proud to admit this, but I turned into a deviant little shit bag who was on the internet in the early 2000s when encryption wasn't a thing, looking for stuff that would have me jailed in most places simply because the thrill of doing something forbidden was a bigger high than jumping my bike over a drainage ditch. I risked jail time before I could drive a car, because nobody put a limit on what I was exposed to, and tracking down taboo pictures in the Wild West of the internet was an adrenaline high combined with a dopamine hit. 24 years later, I'm so numb to the perverse and bizarre that it's left me unable to relate to others who didn't have the unfettered access to deviancy that I grew up with. Combined with my "mild" autism, this leaves me virtually unable to behave as a "normal" person. I dodged bullets for years and it's simply left me a jaded, often joyless, asshole who struggles to fight years of "programming" during my early years.

I don't want people tempting fate like I did, nor do I want children to have access to material that is arguably worse (and certainly much more pervasive) than what I dug up in my youth - I see the effects each time I look in the mirror.

My suggestion is to take the bare minimum precautions that you need to take, and scale up incrementally as you see fit to protect the majority of honest users. We don't want the average InkBunny user getting flagged by law enforcement because of some obscure clause in a law they were unaware of, but we also don't want some teenage delinquent like myself pocketing a parent's wallet at midnight in order to gain access to fringe pornography for a chuckle. There's always going to be one tech-savvy, deviant, little shit bag that gets through, but that shouldn't be a reason to stonewall everyone else from a region.

figmentofimagination

2 weeks, 5 days ago

link

If parents actually did parenting properly, stuff like this wouldn't be necessary!
Uploading a copy of my ID to anywhere online is something I would never do because it's a major security risk!
Why should we have to put our lives at risk because parents are too dumb to do parenting correctly?
Parenting has gotten so bad, it was recently revealed that 1 in 4 kids will be starting school this year and they are not even potty trained yet and the blame was put on the fact that they were born just before or during the start of covid!
It's about time we actually had a government that looked at the facts of things properly and blamed the correct people instead of constantly making everyone else suffer!
The way things are going, this country will end up going down in history like the Titanic!
The only reason I'm still living in this stupid country is because I don't have the funds to move to a better country!
I could say a lot more about how bad this country is but everyone will hate what I have to say!

Softgoat

2 weeks, 3 days ago

link

@ figmentofimagination

Go ahead and say even more!

I think it's true because you're a subject of the UK, and that grants you first-hand experience and authority.
Let loose and vent. Let's see your truth.

figmentofimagination

2 weeks, 3 days ago

link

@ Softgoat

If I was safely hidden in a different country, then I wouldn't hesitate to voice all of my opinions about how bad this country really is and I wouldn't want to upset Mr Green Reaper dude, he might be a cutie but who knows what happens when he gets angry.....
I don't know what he would do to me but I doubt I would enjoy it!

GreenReaper

2 weeks, 3 days ago

link

@ figmentofimagination

Oh, I leave all that stuff to my minions. Don't want to get my fur stained, you know? 😅

figmentofimagination

2 weeks, 3 days ago

link