Freedom and truth falter in France Founder of Telegram app speaks of persecution in France as he refuses to kowtow to French
demands for censorship and surveillance
At least someone would have enjoyed our censorial times
The Digital Economy Act 2017 threatened to introduce strict age verification for internet porn access coupled with ISP blocking for websites that don't comply. However the legislation was fundamentally flawed by its voluntary approach
to privacy and security. After a series of delays, the age verification section of the bill was put out of its misery in October 2019.
The censorship of internet porn returned via the Online Safety Act which has wider ambitions on the censorship
of the whole internet. The bill was discussed during 2020 and scrutinised by parliamentary committee in 2021 before being passed into law in 2023. Internet censor Ofcom is currently implementing the censorship law with a major milestone of 25th July 2025
when rules about child protection and age verification for porn kick in.
In 2021 Ofcom considered and extended EU VoD censorship under an updated AVMS directive. After the Online Safety Act (OSA) came in the few remaining British VoD
companies became subject to the OSA instead.
Meanwhile the Information Commissioner's Office has published wide ranging age verification requirements for most websites in the name of data protection for children. These ICO rules came into force in
September 2021.
