The ban on minors accessing pornographic sites started yesterday. The rules are announced and desired by Agcom. But it wasn’t implemented. Or at least, not on all sites. Codacons reported it and we verified it ourselves: on Pornhub you just have to enter a fake date of birth to make people believe that you are an adult and you can access hot videos, without other filters, without screenshots of documents, without reference to other certification platforms. Agcom explains: Italy-based companies (which are the smallest) have six months from now to comply. Those based abroad (hence big companies like Pornhub, Youporn and Onlyfan, which are the only ones to have taken the new course) will have three months, therefore in February.
Consumer associations raise doubts about the new filters in general: when they are actually active, they will also be easy to circumvent and “not enough” to protect minors from the world of pornography. “Pornographic content and videos of a sexual nature also circulate through social networks and messaging applications such as Telegram, a platform that can be accessed by minors without particular restrictions – explains Codacons -. It is also worth considering that the block imposed by Agcom only applies in Italy, while abroad there are no similar restrictions: via VPN (Virtual Private Network) it is actually possible to connect to foreign servers and easily overcome national restrictions.” What do the restrictions on sites that have not yet been implemented consist of? To enter any of the 48 sites with adult content, you must demonstrate that you are over 18 years of age. The law stipulates that age verification is not carried out directly by sites, but by certified third parties, telephone operators, banks or companies that have managed personal data and SPIDs to guarantee the protection of minors without violating user privacy. In theory, the system works thanks to the principle of “double anonymity”: those who verify the age do not know the site visited and the site does not know the user’s identity. But in practice, a few hours after the introduction of the new mechanism, confusion began to occur.
Many mature platform operators in Italy have not received operational guidelines or technical instructions on how to implement verification systems. Of course: it’s not that they are in a hurry to implement the new rules, but, especially the little ones, they simply don’t know what to do. And there are no technical protocols. If these new regulations prove strict (and they don’t appear to be), there are fears of business collapse, in the name of illegal browsing on pirated sites or use of VPNs, as has happened in the US. According to Ofcom, the British media regulator, traffic to major porn portals in the UK has fallen by almost a third in three months. “In the United States, the decline was 80%, accompanied by a surge in VPN use. In the UK, after the introduction of age verification, the sector lost 30% of its turnover. Laws like this mainly impact small production, while international giants have the resources to adapt. If there is no uniformity between countries, the system will not work: just move the server and everything will run smoothly.”
Agcom’s resolution comes after Caivano’s purposeful decision
to limit violence and lack of respect also by limiting access to pornography, “taking into account its potential to harm dignity and physical and mental well-being, which is a public health issue”.
