This week saw the publication of a report of a conference which I organized with the help of The Reward Foundation. What did we look at?
- With the enormous advances that have been made in recent years in the field of neuroscience, what new insights do we have about the impact of pornography on the development of the adolescent brain?
- How is today’s pornography industry set up and is the content they are producing anything like that of earlier years?
- How do age verification technologies actually work? Can they preserve the privacy rights of both adults and children?
- What actually happened in the UK that led to the implementation of its age verification regime for commercial porn sites being delayed?
- More importantly, what wider learnings are there from the UK experience?
- Which other countries are moving towards age verification for pornography sites?
Government officials, academics, activists, technologists, educators, researchers and regulators from 29 countries on five continents gathered in a Zoom to exchange experiences and ideas. And plan and plot for the future!
There is no doubt online age verification is an idea whose time has come. In a different guise it was even debated yesterday in the UK’s House of Lords.
I hope you find the report useful and if you want to know more please get in touch with me or The Reward Foundation.
Desiderata 