July 30, 2024 |
FSC's Alison Boden Gives Keynote at Ofcom Age Verification Event |
CHATSWORTH, Calif.âAlison Boden, executive director of adult industry trade group the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), on July 16 delivered the keynote presentation at a meeting on age verification hosted by Ofcom, the U.K.âs communications regulator. The first-of-its-kind event was designed to facilitate discussion with the adult industry on Ofcomâs implementation of the Online Safety Act (OSA), including the age assurance and illegal content requirements for adult content platforms, both expected to come into force in Q1 of 2025. Bodenâs keynote on the age verification mandates being passed in the U.S. focused on the many reasons that they should not act as a model for other jurisdictions. Setting aside the unconstitutionality of the U.S. laws, Boden highlighted the strange ways content is defined, patchwork of age verification mechanisms prescribed, and disproportionate enforcement methods authorized by the 19 state age verification statutes in the U.S. Boden outlined the serious barriers to compliance with these laws, including the enormous cost of implementing age verification services and the near-total refusal of consumers to age-verify to access adult content. She finished with four suggestions for regulators: ⢠Make compliance requirements extremely clear and realistic for websites.⢠Make efforts to improve consumer trust in age assurance.⢠Take action to limit competitive advantage of non-compliance.⢠Reduce the financial burden on businesses. âIf regulators want to keep minors from accessing age-inappropriate material, itâs essential that our industry be at the table,â Boden says. âRegulations that are unevenly applied, that discourage compliance, and are rejected by consumers will inevitably fail. Iâm thankful to Ofcom for inviting me, and to those in our industry who joined me to help educate the regulators.â In March, FSC submitted a detailed critique of the age assurance guidance proposed by Ofcom under the OSA, which requires sites to ensure that âchildren cannot normally encounterâ pornographic content by implementing some form of age assurance technology. The event was designed to facilitate discussion on the proposed regulations. The hybrid event was attended by representatives from a variety of platforms that host adult content and began with remarks from Ofcomâs Online Safety Group Director. She related that the regulator hoped to create a "no surprises" compliance and enforcement regime that harmonizes with international standards and best practices. Next, the attendees worked in small groups to provide feedback on Ofcomâs definition of âpornographicâ content, which is vaguely defined in the OSA as âcontent of such a nature that it is reasonable to assume that it was produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.â Ofcomâs attempt to clarify what content is and is not âpornographicâ seemed complicated and vastly over-inclusive to many of the attendees, who encouraged the regulator to narrow and simplify the definition. The event also included a presentation on what âhighly effective age assuranceâ means in practice, which was largely a recitation of the criteria outlined in the proposed guidance. This was followed by a panel featuring representatives from Aylo, WGCZ, and Hammy Media discussing the trust and safety measures each platform employs. The final presentation focused on how websites can prevent non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), also known as ârevenge porn,â on their platforms by using StopNCII.orgâs hash lists. By simply integrating StopNCIIâs API, services can check user-submitted content against their database of image and video hashes. Any platform wishing to thwart intimate image abuse by integrating the tool should email [email protected]. In her closing remarks, the Online Safety Supervision Director announced that Ofcom will be launching an awareness campaign in the fall to inform the industry about their obligations under the OSA. To facilitate this, Ofcome has created a one-stop landing page for adult content platforms at ofcom.org.uk/adultsonly with the proposals themselves, as well as ways to check whether the rules apply to a website. Platforms are encouraged to provide Ofcomâs Porn Supervision team with feedback. "FSC is pleased that, unlike the vast majority of policymakers, Ofcom is making a concerted effort to engage with the industry to understand our concerns," the organization said in a press statement. "We hope that this will result in a workable policy for adult content websites and encourage all FSC members to reach out to Ofcom with feedback on how the requirements will affect their businesses."
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