The Government has just announced the trigger date for the new rules concerning age verification and access to commercial pornography web sites. It is 15th July, 2019.
This closes one chapter and opens another.
Now the hard work begins.
Will everything work perfectly from Day 1? Probably not. But we will learn and adapt.
The internet is the home of innovation and this is an example of it.
There is always an alibi for inaction. If you don’t try you’ll never succeed.
I am sure the new system will work well enough to keep graphic sexual images away from the eyes of young children. That is something the porn companies said they cared about but actually did nothing to deliver. Now they will be compelled to do so or risk losing money. They really care about money.
And adults’ privacy rights will be respected.
Will people with ideological objections to the whole idea try to break it? Probably they will. They will fail.
Someone famous once said, in relation to the internet, we should “move fast and break things.” Here we are trying to move fast and mend things.
Desiderata 