this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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Troll has a point.
Disregard for a moment it's 4chan doing it. Once I do so, I feel like their approach to this matter is close to ideal: they're highlighting that the entity in question is stepping over its legal boundaries, they're taunting the lawyers trying to bully them into submission, and they're ridiculing both the entity in charge of the bullying and the law being used to do so. A shitty law that we know to not be about protecting children, it's using children as hostages to kill internet anonymity.
I wish more sites did the same.
[BTW there's a similar law here in Brazil, the "lei Felca". Equally ridiculous. But given this is Latin America, and law enforcement in LatAm is notoriously sloppy... so far it changed absolutely nothing for me.]
Surprised it wasn't a pepe
Nice to see civil disobedience of such a stupid law.
I’m tired of hearing all this talk that “every single company will follow age verification.”
Blindly following orders is what leads us off a cliff.
I hope the UK one day becomes a less anti-freedom country because I would really find it interesting to travel there, but things like this are killing my desire to do so.
John Perry Barlow got it right 30 years ago: https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence
The UK has banned books. Full of nanny state vibes.
Paywall.
Sites deploy these based on an uptick in views and where your IP is based. Set your VPN to Iceland, it's not locked at time of writing. Try another location if it is.
I noticed 4chan is not doing age verification checks, even though they host pornographic content.
Kids always learn how to get around those checks. Even back in my day when there were very few sites that had checks, I quickly found my way around them, and for a millennial I'm considered barely computer litterate. I'm certainly no hacker by any means. I won't even pirate shit, cause I don't trust myself not to fuck something up. Like the whole ID thing? Id just grab dads ID if it doesn't require a credit card.
If you're a millenial then practically every single porn site you would've visited "back in your day" would've had, at most, an "are you 18 or older?" popup as age verification...
Well that's accurate lol
I was more talking about sites that required pay.
Still the case today for the sites I visit.
My parents' porn VHS collection didn't ask for my age and neither did my grand-dad's titty magazines hidden in the tractor shed. Internet wasn't even a thing for most people then yet I had already seen plenty of porn before I turned 10.
It clearly did affect me and I don't deny that but I doubt it would've made much of a difference had I have to wait untill I was 18 for the flood gates to open. Nobody would've seen me for months if that was the case.
so does steam, who the fuck cares.
Steam does age verification though
...insert a random date that isnt stored, zero actual verification
it's effectively the same as doing nothing
Do you live in a region that requires it by law? Because steam enforces it there, not just a dropdown box.
Yes, and Steam decided to just block all pornographic content instead of complying.
Check steamdb.info's "restricted_countries" field for any such game
Companies – wherever they're based – are not allowed to sell unsafe toys to children in the UK.
This sounds very much like
You wouldn’t download a car
checks to prevent children from seeing pornography
Give me like 15 seconds and I could find cartel execution via pitbull on that ratfuck of a website. Being exposed to porn is just not on the list of things that matter
4chan is scum.. But the real criminals* authorised that fine, while not fining the soon-to-be trillionaires.
Yes I know a crime is defined by the law and whatever they decide to enforce, I'm using it to refer to those who exacerbate the already dismal lives of the majority by way of the global economy and poverty, by not taxing the rich and using it constructively.