The legislation, which came into force on July 25, mandates that websites verify users’ age – often using facial recognition or photo ID – before granting access to adult content such as pornography, violence, or material on self-harm and eating disorders. Heather Burns, a tech policy specialist and author of Understanding Privacy <https://heatherburns.tech/book/>, told The National the UK Government and Ofcom had been on a “full-scale media blitz … really hammering down on the lines that this is about children and it's about pornography”. However, she said: “It's not. It applies to any service provider anywhere in the world whose services could theoretically be accessed in Britain. It applies to a bare minimum of, the last figure I saw was 60,000 companies. “What we're seeing over the past week is six years of narratives collapsing into reality in real time.” Burns warned of threats to journalism and freedom of information, noting that sites like Reddit have begun age-checking users accessing “things like forums about war crimes in Gaza <https://www.thenational.scot/topics/Gaza/> and Ukraine <https://www.thenational.scot/topics/ukraine/>”. “This is escalating quickly,” she added. “We're one week in and platforms are censoring news content – because they have to. “I think we're going to see more journalistic content blocked or age restricted before we get a resolution here, and that's scary.” The issue has seen Wikipedia launch a court case <https://www.courthousenews.com/wikipedia-seeks-to-shield-contributors-from-u...> against the UK Government because, Burns explained, “they've been thrown into Category One compliance requirements, which is full-fat, full-on, on the grounds that Wikipedia has articles about self-harm, suicide, and eating disorders”. “If young people can't find straightforward, factual, curated information on an encyclopaedia, where are they going to go? They're going to go to the really nasty places you wouldn't want any child looking at.” She added: “History tells us that it's never a good idea when governments start demanding censorship of encyclopaedias.” Continua a leggere qui: https://www.thenational.scot/news/25354060.tech-expert-called-paedo-home-off...