August 2025 PCG Article Discussion

[neogunhero]

Gabe Newell acquires yacht company building the $400 million ocean-fortress he'll pick up later this year, because he 'respects the sea'

I respect the sea. Where's my yacht company?

www.pcgamer.com

Is Gaben building The Borealis??? The brain science company, the yacht building company... Gaben may very well be forming a real-life Aperture Science.

 

[BeardyHat]

Gabe Newell acquires yacht company building the $400 million ocean-fortress he'll pick up later this year, because he 'respects the sea'

I respect the sea. Where's my yacht company?

www.pcgamer.com

Is Gaben building The Borealis??? The brain science company, the yacht building company... Gaben may very well be forming a real-life Aperture Science.

Half-Life 3 confirmed!

 

[neogunhero]

Nearly two-thirds of Brits surveyed about the UK's new age verification laws think the changes aren't effective, but even more support them being made in the first place

Best not to survey VPN companies, then.

www.pcgamer.com

"Two surveys conducted before and after the rules came into place, by a research and data analysis group, suggest that a significant portion of the British populace supports the new laws, but an equally large percentage also reckon that they're not very effective."

I think when it comes down to the purest form of this argument, it boils down to the fact that people absolutely do want to keep children safe online from viewing potentially harmful content and make it a safer space in general for children, but no one seems to know any other way to implement that. No one is arguing against providing measures to protect children online, but seemingly no one has a better solution than the ID verification method.

If there was a better method to protect children online that also respects the privacy of everyone else that uses the internet, we would have already seen it happen, or at the very least there will be a strong argument for a different method that people are rallying behind. Out of the seemingly countless posts, videos, opinions, and takes I've seen on this matter, not one single person proposed a different strategy. To make matters even worse, the ID verification method seems to be incredibly easy to bypass, making it not even very effective at the job it is supposed to be performing.

The larger implications of this are absolutely worrying and is without a doubt going to negatively affect the way everyone uses the internet. The worries about it creating a mass surveillance state are not to be undermined. Collecting any personal data of yourself and storing it on a server where you yourself do not have access to it is the recipe for disaster that we see countless times year after year after year. Just this past week there were reports of a women's dating app getting hacked with thousands of ID cards and other sensitive material leaking online.

It's very hard to figure out how I truly feel about this. On one hand, it really is for the greater good. I do not want to have children born into this world with the same unfettered, uncensored access to the entire internet like I did growing up. I think I have turned out mostly okay as an adult, but I cannot argue that the stuff I was viewing online as early as 8-9 years old did not have a negative impact on my mental wellbeing. No one around that age should ever have full access to BestGore, LiveLeak, countless porn websites, 4chan, SomethingAwful, and more like I did. I chalk it up to the internet still being relatively new around that time, so the impacts it had on children weren't as well-known as they are now. Raising a child in this day and age requires so much more restraint than when I was a child growing up.

But on the other hand, this is just another bit of our privacy gone and vanished completely without us ever getting it back. There are so many dystopian thoughts about the potential impacts of this, but it's hard to see them as being purely fiction. I hate to be this way, but unfortunately in this world there is no longer a sense of real privacy. You can do all you want to try to mask your actions online, but no matter what, there is still something identifying you. This is just going to make it a lot easier for the governments that implement this rule.

 

[Johnway]

Nearly two-thirds of Brits surveyed about the UK's new age verification laws think the changes aren't effective, but even more support them being made in the first place

Best not to survey VPN companies, then.

www.pcgamer.com

"Two surveys conducted before and after the rules came into place, by a research and data analysis group, suggest that a significant portion of the British populace supports the new laws, but an equally large percentage also reckon that they're not very effective."

I think when it comes down to the purest form of this argument, it boils down to the fact that people absolutely do want to keep children safe online from viewing potentially harmful content and make it a safer space in general for children, but no one seems to know any other way to implement that. No one is arguing against providing measures to protect children online, but seemingly no one has a better solution than the ID verification method.

If there was a better method to protect children online that also respects the privacy of everyone else that uses the internet, we would have already seen it happen, or at the very least there will be a strong argument for a different method that people are rallying behind. Out of the seemingly countless posts, videos, opinions, and takes I've seen on this matter, not one single person proposed a different strategy. To make matters even worse, the ID verification method seems to be incredibly easy to bypass, making it not even very effective at the job it is supposed to be performing.

The larger implications of this are absolutely worrying and is without a doubt going to negatively affect the way everyone uses the internet. The worries about it creating a mass surveillance state are not to be undermined. Collecting any personal data of yourself and storing it on a server where you yourself do not have access to it is the recipe for disaster that we see countless times year after year after year. Just this past week there were reports of a women's dating app getting hacked with thousands of ID cards and other sensitive material leaking online.

It's very hard to figure out how I truly feel about this. On one hand, it really is for the greater good. I do not want to have children born into this world with the same unfettered, uncensored access to the entire internet like I did growing up. I think I have turned out mostly okay as an adult, but I cannot argue that the stuff I was viewing online as early as 8-9 years old did not have a negative impact on my mental wellbeing. No one around that age should ever have full access to BestGore, LiveLeak, countless porn websites, 4chan, SomethingAwful, and more like I did. I chalk it up to the internet still being relatively new around that time, so the impacts it had on children weren't as well-known as they are now. Raising a child in this day and age requires so much more restraint than when I was a child growing up.

But on the other hand, this is just another bit of our privacy gone and vanished completely without us ever getting it back. There are so many dystopian thoughts about the potential impacts of this, but it's hard to see them as being purely fiction. I hate to be this way, but unfortunately in this world there is no longer a sense of real privacy. You can do all you want to try to mask your actions online, but no matter what, there is still something identifying you. This is just going to make it a lot easier for the governments that implement this rule.

yeah its the catch 22. I'm all for enforcing measures to prevent under 18s accessing porn etc, but its not the OSA.

As many people/articles point out the 2 problems are:


its not effective

kids are more savy and its flawed. use a vpn and its pointless. Right now other countries are trying to enforce it as well and it feels like a global conspiracy how they are all doing it at the same time. On top of that its too vague-wide. Things unrelated to porn are being targeted,like xbox chat and spotify, it just feels like a power grab and moving towards an authortrian enforcement. China style. Throw in the mastercard/visa influencing what we can/cannot buy and something is off.




its too intrusive... leading to Security concerns

When it comes to security its what you know, what you have and what you are. The latter is at play here and most concerning. identity fraud is a major possibility and its not the first time we've seen identification/personal information stolen and used for ill gain. Most relevant being the ashley madison scandal.

We don't need another opportunity/ threat vector to target the public. The thing is, all the company's used are foreign (ie outside of the UK) and would you really trust someone with say, a scan of your passport, drivers license or ID? What about your face? How about your credit card / banking details. Would you trust a stranger with those?

Sure they say that they encrypt all the data and its not kept, but atm we've only got their word. Its the "trust me bro, its totally true" . What if these companies had T&Cs allowing them to use your personal data for marketing? what if they also owned marketing/ai companies on the side? if not right now, what about in the future?



So what are the options?

Well, very little atm. I think its more down to parenting and implementing blocks to the main porn sites. maybe parents having the sex education discussion. I mean, its only natural i guess for children to be curious about this stuff, so i guess we might as well discuss it. But what lession do we want to teach regarding porn? Perhaps teaching healthy viewing habits and relationships and intimacy and how porn factors into it. But yeah, not sure.


At this rate, we might be going back to the analogue media. The return of Porn mags, sex shops et al. Exposure is bound to happen one day. Worse case scenario it goes dark and its mixed into an even more lawless situation.


On the flip side, maybe i'm in the minority and most adults are perfectly fine to just this to happen.

 

[Pifanjr]

Nearly two-thirds of Brits surveyed about the UK's new age verification laws think the changes aren't effective, but even more support them being made in the first place

Best not to survey VPN companies, then.

www.pcgamer.com

"Two surveys conducted before and after the rules came into place, by a research and data analysis group, suggest that a significant portion of the British populace supports the new laws, but an equally large percentage also reckon that they're not very effective."

I think when it comes down to the purest form of this argument, it boils down to the fact that people absolutely do want to keep children safe online from viewing potentially harmful content and make it a safer space in general for children, but no one seems to know any other way to implement that. No one is arguing against providing measures to protect children online, but seemingly no one has a better solution than the ID verification method.

If there was a better method to protect children online that also respects the privacy of everyone else that uses the internet, we would have already seen it happen, or at the very least there will be a strong argument for a different method that people are rallying behind. Out of the seemingly countless posts, videos, opinions, and takes I've seen on this matter, not one single person proposed a different strategy. To make matters even worse, the ID verification method seems to be incredibly easy to bypass, making it not even very effective at the job it is supposed to be performing.

The larger implications of this are absolutely worrying and is without a doubt going to negatively affect the way everyone uses the internet. The worries about it creating a mass surveillance state are not to be undermined. Collecting any personal data of yourself and storing it on a server where you yourself do not have access to it is the recipe for disaster that we see countless times year after year after year. Just this past week there were reports of a women's dating app getting hacked with thousands of ID cards and other sensitive material leaking online.

It's very hard to figure out how I truly feel about this. On one hand, it really is for the greater good. I do not want to have children born into this world with the same unfettered, uncensored access to the entire internet like I did growing up. I think I have turned out mostly okay as an adult, but I cannot argue that the stuff I was viewing online as early as 8-9 years old did not have a negative impact on my mental wellbeing. No one around that age should ever have full access to BestGore, LiveLeak, countless porn websites, 4chan, SomethingAwful, and more like I did. I chalk it up to the internet still being relatively new around that time, so the impacts it had on children weren't as well-known as they are now. Raising a child in this day and age requires so much more restraint than when I was a child growing up.

But on the other hand, this is just another bit of our privacy gone and vanished completely without us ever getting it back. There are so many dystopian thoughts about the potential impacts of this, but it's hard to see them as being purely fiction. I hate to be this way, but unfortunately in this world there is no longer a sense of real privacy. You can do all you want to try to mask your actions online, but no matter what, there is still something identifying you. This is just going to make it a lot easier for the governments that implement this rule.

I think the biggest issue is that the ID verification currently relies on third parties that are outside of the country of the person being verified. Why can't the government provide ID verification? I assume most governments already have some way of identifying someone online to, for example, allow people to file their taxes online.
And if not the government, maybe you could go through a bank. I confirmed my ID through my bank just today while ordering a new phone. It doesn't immediately leak your banking details, the only thing the bank needs to provide is a yes or no on whether someone is an adult or not.

 

[neogunhero]

kids are more savy and its flawed. use a vpn and its pointless.

Kids are using Death Stranding and Garry's Mod to upload pictures of characters faces to bypass it. It's hilarious how ineffective it really is.
The fact that this is all happening at once is a bit of a conspiracy, but to try to quell that, they have been talking about doing this kind of stuff for at least the past year or two, especially in Texas.

its too intrusive... leading to Security concerns

When it comes to security its what you know, what you have and what you are. The latter is at play here and most concerning. identity fraud is a major possibility and its not the first time we've seen identification/personal information stolen and used for ill gain. Most relevant being the ashley madison scandal.

This is where a lot of the frustration is coming from. We already live in a world that does not respect your privacy or security for your information, this is just another large step towards our diminishing privacy and opens a huge possibility for more security related concerns.

Well, very little atm. I think its more down to parenting and implementing blocks to the main porn sites. maybe parents having the sex education discussion. I mean, its only natural i guess for children to be curious about this stuff, so i guess we might as well discuss it. But what lession do we want to teach regarding porn? Perhaps teaching healthy viewing habits and relationships and intimacy and how porn factors into it. But yeah, not sure.

I'm not a parent (yet), but I can understand how tiring it must be. Parents around my age are increasingly becoming notorious for throwing a tablet in front of a kids face so they don't need to do the actual parenting themselves all the time. People started calling them electric babysitters. A parent who uses a tablet as a way to escape from the constant job of parenting probably doesn't care too much about what their kid sees as long as they are quiet and contempt playing on the tablet. This is a major issue for so many reasons even beyond the fact that the kid has mostly open access to the internet.

Again, there just doesn't seem to be any other way. We don't have computers that have the ability to know exactly what age the current user is, we don't have a way to know that information while keeping it 100% fully private and secure. This seems like one of the only option we have, and the effects are going to be very far-reaching. All that we can hope for is that these companies and governments truly do respect our privacy and security... ah who am I kidding.

 

[Johnway]

I think the biggest issue is that the ID verification currently relies on third parties that are outside of the country of the person being verified. Why can't the government provide ID verification? I assume most governments already have some way of identifying someone online to, for example, allow people to file their taxes online.
And if not the government, maybe you could go through a bank. I confirmed my ID through my bank just today while ordering a new phone. It doesn't immediately leak your banking details, the only thing the bank needs to provide is a yes or no on whether someone is an adult or not.

in the UK, besides your password, driving license there is your national insurance ID, but you get that around 15-16. But i say there is just no real fool proof method someone will find a way to see adult entertainment. i mean, an older sibling allows access to his account, they steal parent or someones id to quickly scan, someone has logged in previously and they hop on. At best its just to make it slightly more difficult.

This is where a lot of the frustration is coming from. We already live in a world that does not respect your privacy or security for your information, this is just another large step towards our diminishing privacy and opens a huge possibility for more security related concerns.

we need IDs to prove we're adults (or a wanking license). i thought the best way is perhaps a universal system where its just a blank card with a QR code that has a serial number that you scan it and it confirms you're an adult. The beauty is that there are no personal details on it; just a code that references nothing and is just a code on a database. Think of it as a key to a secret society or just an ordinary key.

The challenge is obviously keeping it out of the hands of kids. Maybe only can be applied online by adults and you have to get it from the government or something. After that you're given a random card and that is used for verification.

The really silly thing is that the legal age to have sexual activity is 16. We need to be 18 to view porn or to just communicate over Xbox live. or watch youtube videos because it has swearing or serious content.

its even more stupid deciding whether its a crime for an adult who is legally able to watch porn decides to use a vpn to bypass verification. Spotify certainly thinks so. Can't prove you're 18? your account gets deleted. Are you an adult using VPNs to get around verification? according to the Uk government, you support paedophiles or condone child abuse and not because of data privacy issues. Again stupid.