This adds little to the debate.
A really interesting question would be to ask Aylo -- the world's largest pornographer -- why they are complying with the UK law and working with the regulator (population ~70M), but blocking whole states in response to the French law (population ~70M also) and Texas (population ~30M).
Because there obviously is some nuance and realpolitik here, when Aylo could very easily just block the UK too.
Has anyone done this journalism?
You can just go to their press releases [1].
> For years Aylo has publicly called for effective and enforceable age assurance solutions that protect minors online, while ensuring the safety and privacy of all users. The United Kingdom is the first country to present these same priorities demonstrably.
At least according to their release, the UK worked with them on it.
They also have an updated statement on France [2].
[1]: https://www.aylo.com/newsroom/aylo-upgrades-age-assurance-me...
[2]: https://www.aylo.com/newsroom/aylo-suspends-access-to-pornhu...
I mean, in the second or third round of this with the tories in 2016, Aylo (Mindgeek) were offering up their own solution for age verification. So they are not exactly unconflicted.
But the fact remains here that the world's largest porn company is not presenting this as a big civil liberties issue; they have moved on from that.
I think it's important to understand that Ofcom isn't just imposing nonsense policies without any consultation with the very people they are trying to regulate.
They may not be succeeding, and people can disagree with the policy outcome, but there's a huge amount of misinformation suggesting that this is simple thoughtless autocratic censorious wishful thinking, when it is in fact an attempt at a policy of industry self-regulation backed by penalties, which is how the ombudsman system is meant to work.
Also I think a lot of US commentators don't understand that mobile phone providers in the UK block adult content by default and have been moving to that position over the long term because it is the only practical parental control mechanism that exists in a market of devices with different operating systems, menus, and often absence of on-device parental control mechanisms at all.
Perhaps they earn more from the UK market? Or decided it was easier to comply with that specific law.
It was a partly rhetorical question.
They have an age verification business.
But they also have a policy position about this and I'm not sure anyone has asked them to talk about those three decisions in the same sentence, as it were.