‘Scan your face’ laws for the web are having unexpected consequences
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From washingtonpost.com: Did you know that a new age verification law in the UK has led to a surprising surge in traffic for certain websites? Last month, the UK mandated that thousands of websites verify users' ages, aiming to protect minors from adult content. While compliant sites required users to show government IDs or scan their faces, the scene quickly shifted. As compliance took a toll, traffic to these law-abiding sites plummeted. In stark contrast, major pornography sites that ignored the age verification rules saw their audiences explode—some even doubling or tripling their visits compared to last year. This unexpected twist raises questions: Is strict regulation driving users to less responsible platforms? The implications are clear: while the law aims to protect, it inadvertently boosts traffic to non-compliant sites. What does this mean for future regulations? Learn more about this at washingtonpost.com.
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Read Original →When the United Kingdom began requiring thousands of websites to verify their users’ ages last month, one group saw an enormous burst of traffic: pornography sites ignoring the law.The sites that complied — by mandating that users show their government IDs or scan their faces through their webcams, so an algorithm could estimate whether they were adults — saw visits from British internet addresses collapse. But some of the biggest porn sites that disregarded the “scan your face” rule entirely have been rewarded with a flood of traffic, a Washington Post analysis found. Some have doubled or even tripled their audiences in August compared with the same time last year.