Spoken on behalf of the Government on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury wants pornography gone from the UK on the basis of protecting women's and girls safety and fighting misogyny in society.
Bear in mind, this is separate from the Online Safety Act about to be enacted and the age verification plan any website not "suitable for children". Also bear in mind VPN's operating in the UK are also required to comply with the law.
The UK Government is about to go to war on pornography and appease both the feminists who believe it is exploitative and harmful to women while turning men into misogynists and the traditional conservatives who also believe it is harming masculinity, encouraging bachelorhood and contributing to the decline in birth rates.
I'm not sure it is. I suspect most people in society think pornography = bad, relationship = good. And they would believe that doing this will straighten "misogynists", "weirdos" and "perverts" - the outgroup of the current moral panic - out into dating, marriage, protect women and that will get them votes away from Labour who will try to out-do them as we're now entering into an election campaign season.
As a video I am currently watching says, pornography is a symptom of a societal problem that we're not acknowledging at best, at worst, we're diverting attention away to others.
Like I say, it will only deal with the symptoms and not the cause. And then what will happen if it's successful and men have no outlet and no chance of success in the dating market? Now you have men with nothing to lose. And that is a grim prospect for society that will bite everyone in the backside.
I can imagine a lot of entrepreneurial car boot sellers selling USB sticks from overseas full of content, no questions asked, should VPN's be completely blocked or banned.
Pretty much the 70's and 80's all over again. With a shitty and subpar cyberpunk veneer.
We are in neo-puritan times where moral panics and witch hunts are the order of the day.
I have a sneaking suspicion it'll end up like prohibition only more authoritarian because they'd need to monitor communications EVEN more to ban pornography and even bigger criminal element with how weak police and authorities are in the UK.
The only way the Conservatives can win the next election is either ALL of Labour are caught having a pedophilic orgy at their next party conference or they deploy the military to the coast to stop any boats with force if they don't turn back.
The fact the former seems more likely out of the two shows how screwed they are so they're throwing everything at the wall to pander than do the obvious.