We speak a lot on this channel about child predators and how they are basically taking over parts of the internet. And what we've established across all of these videos are that governments around the world are completely powerless to stop this problem. Not because they don't actually have the power to do something, but rather because they constantly make the wrong decisions and continue to put children at risk. Here in the UK, the government recently introduced the online safety act, which intends to protect children from harmful content online. It puts the responsibility of user safety on the companies themselves, making sure that they will then take the proper precautions to make sure that everyone using the internet in the UK doesn't see content which they should not be exposed to. Companies who don't obey these rules can be fined up to £18 million or 10% of their worldwide revenue. And for American viewers, that's almost $24 million. And in the most extreme cases, the UK also have the power to make sure that credit card providers, advertisers, and internet service providers stop working with the site. Basically meaning that not only would that site make no money from the UK, but people living in Britain wouldn't be able to access it at all. And despite a lot of backlash on the subject, tech Secretary Peter Kyle has defended it, saying that these are the most significant protections for children since the internet's creation, even going as far as to say that people who are against it are siding with predators. So, let's talk about how this act is actually being enforced. Websites like Reddit, Blue Sky, Discord, and also The Hub, can't say the name on YouTube, but we all know what I'm talking about. They all now require photo ID or facial scans. And all of this is to access our age restricted content. So in practice, what you're basically doing is being forced to hand over your private information to privatelyowned companies, a lot of whom aren't even based in the UK. And I don't even think I need to personally explain to you the data and privacy risks of giving over this information to foreign companies or any private company for that matter. And although websites who don't comply can get met with a fine, there is another solution that a lot of them may choose to follow. And that is simply blocking off the entirety of the UK users access to their site. This is something that I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see happening because it can take a lot of money to first of all introduce that verification and then also if it goes wrong then you could also be putting yourself at risk of that massive massive fine. But still, even if they don't choose to comply, they may still fly under the radar. But we'll talk more about that later. But the main part here is that children in the UK and worldwide aren't stupid. They aren't as stupid as the government thinks, and they know how to get around this. And that's why VPNs on Apple's App Store have started to rise in the charts, with almost half of the top free apps being them. One developer even reported that their VPN had a 1,800% increase in downloads. And look, if you watch the videos on this channel, you will probably know my opinions on the adult industry. I'm not exactly supportive of it because I think that it's inherently harmful. And I think exposing minors to that stuff is incredibly wrong, disturbing, and it should not happen. But with that being said, this raises a whole lot of new concerns because as we've established in the videos I have created, there are many child predators hiding everywhere on the internet. From social platforms that you use every day like Blue Sky, Instagram, or Twitter to gaming platforms that are used by people of all ages like Roblox, predators are always waiting and they will pounce. So, not only are kids being put at risk on mainstream platforms like this, but there are of course also more obscure forums and websites which are hidden from the public eye. And although a lot of these will be on the dark web and require places like tour to actually access, there is no doubt in my mind that you can still find some of these just on Google. And of course, these obscure illegal forums of course aren't going to obey this UK law. Instead, they will make sure that they continue to fly under the radar so that they can harm more children. And that's one of my major concerns here, that children are going to be swayed away from going on mainstream sites trying to beat the age verification and will rather go down a darker path that could lead to them seeing genuine CSAM or a path that could lead to them being abused themselves. So, that brings us to the question of is this really safety? Let me make this very clear. Age verification does not equal safety. Teenagers who want to access this stuff can do so by putting in VPNs, fake IDs, or even shared accounts that someone has already verified on. People are even using video game characters like Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2 to bypass these checks. Any modern video game where you can move your character's head or get them to open their mouth has a very good chance of being able to beat the system. But these systems are so flawed that even older games like Gmod where the character models look like this are still managing to beat their verification system. It just doesn't work. And this is not the answer to safety. And of course, like we've mentioned already, these checks involve the sharing of sensitive information like your identification. And with all this information being stored, you are put at risk of identity theft if there were to be something like a database breach. And although that may sound far-fetched, I'm afraid to say that that has happened already. An app for women called Te recently suffered a massive database breach. By using the app, you were required to upload a picture of your face and also your ID. But it was discovered that the developers were not keeping this information safe, but were rather storing it in what would turn out to be essentially a public spreadsheet. All it took was adding the word attachments on the end and suddenly you could view everything that anyone had ever uploaded to verify. And of course the incels of the internet ran with this and they were doing things such as comparing the looks of women who were using the app running polls about who was more attractive. But apart from the absolute disgustingness of the internet yet again the big concern here is the data privacy. Cuz if an app like that can make that massive mistake, then who's to say the apps that we're uploading our data to right now aren't doing the same. And realistically, this is all just for show. This is at the end of the day a PR move for the British government. But don't think it's just the Brits that should be worried about this because no matter where you are, places like the EU and also the United States of America have started to take notes. And there are some talks that they could plan to introduce an act of their own. And this is almost surely directed at parents who think that laws like this will completely eradicate the risks when realistically that is far from the truth. As we've already mentioned, rather than going to mainstream platforms, miners may be more inclined to go to less regulated sites. And not only does this make it so they could be going to completely unmodderated wastelands, but they're going to areas of the internet that the law does not monitor. And what's even more scary is that this act could start to break end to end encryption. The UK government are actively trying to get access to private information of Apple users that not even Apple themselves can access. And it's really terrifying that our right to privacy is being destroyed. Even our entire internet activity being monitored is terrifying because at the end of the day, all this is doing is normalizing powerful surveillance tools. And it's not only me that's saying that because even groups like digital rights advocacy groups have started to say that this is normalizing it. They are very much against this. And it's very clear to see why. And the problem is even if this were to solve any issue for even a small amount of time, if there's one thing we know about predators in the internet, it is that they can adapt. We know that predators operate using platforms that already aren't bound by UK rules. Take Telegram for example, which I've already made a full video on. Predators use that to exchange incredibly disturbing content. And apps like Kick are also responsible for being the place where thousands of kids were groomed. And even if these big platforms were to start to be moderated, smaller ones are just going to start to pop up. And realistically, with how long it's already taken to even introduce rules like these, which aren't fully thought through, there is absolutely no way that the government could act quickly enough to tackle more fringe apps. And these smaller apps are not going to have any sort of moderation. And of course, your privacy could be at risk by even using them. And we already know that the moderation on social media size isn't good at all. Twitter especially has had a predator problem for over a decade at this point. And yet, it's like they still do nothing. For every hashtag they ban, 10 more pop up in its place. And it's always the same disturbing, incredibly illegal content. And yet, platforms like Twitter continue to lay off moderation staff or outsource it. You can never solve a problem by trying to save money. Shouldn't we start to make sure that you can actually tackle your own problems first? Because laws like this come with many unintended consequences. But do the government even care? Like we've mentioned, many services may choose instead to block UK users from using their platform rather than complying with the rules. And that is having the unintended consequence of making sure that people in the UK simply cannot access places that they could before. I have a personal example for this. When one of you guys messaged me on Blue Sky and I physically couldn't read the DM because it was asking me to verify. I tried to comply and I gave my ID and I also gave my debit information so they could verify my card. And what happened? The check failed. Not because of me, but because their system was down. I tried multiple times over the span of 3 days and it was never working. It was only after I bought a VPN that I could finally bypass a system. And I think that even needing ID to verify in the first place is incredibly controversial. There are tons of people who may come from low-income households who may not have access to official identification. So I genuinely think that with this, there is also a level of classism that the government hasn't thought about. The internet is really the last free place in the world. So, if we're completely cutting certain groups of people out of it, then doesn't it become a place that is yet again controlled by the 1%. But it's not only social media I'm worried about, especially for low-income households or other places like that. Because this bill has not only affected social media, but it has affected support groups for people who have been going through things like rape or abuse. This is obviously incredibly dangerous because these places offer a place where you can be surrounded by people and speak to people who have also gone through what you have. It can be an incredibly lonely time to go through something like that. And support groups, I would say, are necessary. These are a safe place for so many people. So for it to be snatched away by a government who simply haven't fought this through is absolutely disgusting and really really concerning. It's the same with LGBTQ plus youth who realistically have always found a safe place on the internet. If you are in an abusive household as a child say and you want a place where you can be yourself and talk to people like you then the internet can be that place. I'm sure it was the case like that for a lot of you guys, myself included. So, to have to verify your ID to access this content, even for content like sexual assault resources and LGBT support resources to be considered 18 plus, that's shocking. And this is the first step in silencing this type of content, even if it may be an unintended consequence. And this has also led to the censorship of news. News about Israel's genocide on Palestine, for example, is actively being censored by this act with platforms like Twitter popping up messages saying, "We are working to estimate your age." Now, no one has been asked to upload any ID or anything. They simply get this message and get told to check back without a later time frame. So, when will we eventually be verified? When will I be able to see content that I was able to see just fine before? And this begs the question of how are they even estimating your age? If they're looking through your posts and stuff, does that make it now illegal to be a little bit silly on social media in case Twitter thinks you're an 8-year-old? So, what actually keeps kids safe? I've always been a massive advocate for speaking out against these type of things. And I think that making sure that kids are literate when it comes to the internet and aware of how predators operate, that will be the first step in maybe potentially tackling this problem. I think it is the most effective defense because like we've already said and like we've spoken about many times, predators continue to adapt and move to new places with new secret tactics. So as long as we the public are outspoken against it, that can maybe even go a tiny way in making sure that one less child falls victim. We need to teach the children how to be safe on the internet and why they need to be. That will always be more effective than trying to hide the entire internet from them. We know the catfishing that goes on. We know the image abuse that goes on. It all starts with a timeline where you need to recognize this first and then you need to act. But without recognition, how can we truly act on it? Especially the younger people among us. So my point really is that we need to make sure that children understand the internet better than predators do. It's always been said that a very good safeguard to prevent kids from falling into grooming is being able to have open and honest conversations with them. When kids feel ashamed of what they're doing online or feel as though they may be punished for accidentally doing something that they shouldn't have, then that can make them much less likely to speak out or seek help. And yes, I am talking from personal experience. And that's why I'm scared that this law is going to make parents think that they don't have a job to do anymore. The first step is making sure that your kids understand the internet and how to protect themselves on it. A parent's job when it comes to internet safety doesn't end just because a new law has been introduced. And this again all comes back to the second most important thing apart from making sure that your kids feel personally safe. And that is making sure that platforms can moderate. Platform moderation keeps kids safe. And that's why parental controls exist. I've said it before and I will say it again. Platforms need to do better. I watched a video by some ordinary gamers on this topic and he said that he thinks that platforms are doing enough to make sure that illegal content is dealt with and to be honest I vehemianly disagree with that. I do not think that platforms are doing enough because illegal content is has been and will continue to thrive because nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. Just because we have to submit our ID to make a joke about sex doesn't mean that child predators cease to exist. Platforms need to step up and this is not the way to do it. And in my opinion, this will backfire again. This is going to lead kids to platforms with absolutely no oversight. And when they're using VPNs, it can almost be impossible to track them because of it. Over 437,000 people have signed a petition to repeal the online safety act in the UK and the government responded 10,000 signatures. So they actually have and they said the equivalent of lol no because what they basically said was that they have no plans to repeal it and will instead be working to implement it as quickly and as effectively as possible. And this makes the UK not a democracy. The people have spoken and the government are refusing to act. And the party in charge of this, the Labor Party, are tripling down as well because they are now going on the attack against anyone who is against it, saying that they are on the side of predators. They even attacked another political leader, Nigel Farage, saying that he was on the side of Jimmy Savile, a notorious British fail. Nigel Farage runs a party called Reform UK, who are the biggest bigots and racists you'll ever see in your life. But what I'm now afraid of is that Labor are basically handing them a free victory in the next general election. Their support was already far too high. But with this absolutely horrific move, they've basically confirmed that they have doubled their seats. And when the government has to resort to calling their own citizens predators for simply being against this act, then we have a really big problem. There are also murmurss that behind closed doors, Labor may be considering a ban on VPNs. And while I don't think this will actually come to fruition, the fact that these talks are even allegedly happening is incredibly concerning, especially as someone who is studying in journalism, having a VPN can be quite a big part of your job, especially if you're investigating an individual and you don't want them to accidentally have access to your IP. So, in a country where we're meant to feel safe, we now can't even go in the internet without feeling like the government are monitoring our every move. So, if you are based in the UK, I really urge you to contact your local MP and make your opinion known. Sign petitions, contact your MPs, but most importantly, personally push for smarter laws, not stricter. Because if we just focus on being strict, then we will never solve the problem. The first step comes with real education. And to be honest, I don't trust the government to do that. But thank you so much for making it to the end of this video. I really appreciate you. Don't forget to like, subscribe, share the video, do all that good stuff if you did enjoy. Thank you so much for 20K. It means the world to me. Here's to even more hopefully. Let me know in the comments what you think of this whole situation and if you think this act is right. Don't forget to check me out on social media. I have Instagram and Blue Sky. And if you want to get involved with the community, you can join my Discord server with the link in the description. Thank you so much to my Patreon supporters and YouTube members. Brooke, Entrepreneur, Mory Gan, K4 Silver, Alex Rod, Face Finger, Carmela, Shoska, Frozen Rosies, Midnight Kitty, Kleti, Cat Food, Moonbird, and Brier. I'll be back very soon with another video.