What’s happening? Are we living in a nanny state?
There are significant changes occurring in the adult/porn ecosystem. This is a lengthy but very important blog. You may already be aware of these changes, but we want to let you know what has happened, what is going to happen and how it will affect the way adults interact with adult services/content on the Internet in the future.
XXX Sex Contacts believes consenting adults should be free to make informed decisions about the sites they wish to visit and what services/content they want to access, without government, regulators, ISPs or mobile networks interfering/restricting an individual’s freedom of choice.
Nanny State
In principle, we agree that mobile networks should act responsibly when it comes to monthly premium spending charged to a consumer’s mobile phone account. What we are less in favour of is mobile networks imposing a blanket spend limit on every consumer regardless of his or her circumstances, past activity/payment record or wishes. As of 13th January 2018, this has been the case and has come about on the back of an EU directive.
It has yet to be seen what the outcome will be as far as consumers, adult service providers and the premium billing industry is concerned. But it might be the case that consumers become frustrated, service providers will on-mass shift to credit card payments away from mobile billing and this would result in a drop in mobile billing revenue for the mobile networks.
Nanny state: We feel that whilst introduced for good reasons, the unintended consequences will leave the credit card processors rubbing their hands. Not only have we seen imposed restrictions on premium mobile billing, but all adult sites will need to require age verification before allowing access to content/services.
Although we appreciate the need to protect minors from accessing inappropriate content, we believe the first step should come from good parenting and education. The implications of providing a credit card before being able to access adult content does not in itself guarantee the person is 18 or over, and it may result in a black-market for credit card fraud.
The position is complex. On one hand, there is the right of an adult in a western democracy to be free to make their own choices. On the other hand, parents are finding it difficult [impossible] to stop their children accessing porn on the Net.
Nanny state: Who is to blame for this?
Well, there is no doubt that some adult sites are at fault by depicting sexually graphic images in publicly accessible areas of their websites. It’s been a slippery slope that has been getting worse for years as sites complete to show more and more material which by any measure is extreme porn without any thought or care for who is viewing it.
Then we have the parental responsibility which in some households seems to be all but nonexistent – were parents rely on trusting their teenage son or daughter not to access such material, which is clearly naive – of course, they will access porn – curiosity and peer group influence both come into play. This is despite all the filtering software freely available to parents for both PC desktop and mobile devices. There is no excuse. The issue as far as good parenting goes is a matter of willingness [to implement family filtering] or education [where a parent simply doesn’t know about family filtering] or knowledge [where a parent doesn’t know how to use it].
Our position, as a responsible service provider of a private and confidential adult 18+ service, is that responsibility [social responsibility] is a sharing thing:
- Individual consumers have a responsibility;
- Parents have a parental responsibility;
- Those offering credit [i.e. mobile phone networks and credit card providers] have a responsibility;
- Service providers have a responsibility to act lawfully;
- Regulators have a responsibility [without employing over-the-top, unnecessary and over-bearing regulation];
- Government have a responsibility [to introduce legislation if absolutely necessary];
The Payment Services Regulation 2017
Privacy Campaigners have their say
Digital Economy Act 2017
Do you agree with what is happening? Comments welcome. We are always listening to what you have to say.