Must be.

On major mobile networks in the UK, SIM cards/data plans by default have an adult content internet filter enabled. Blocks stuff like pornography (obviously) and even some other various adult age-focused content like gaming websites. (I've seen the EA Battlefield/Call Of Duty websites blocked before)

Usually if you try to access, say, pornhub.com, it'll redirect (ala. WiFi captive portal style) to an internal network page and you have to enter a credit card to disable it on your account. A debit/bank card won't work. I'm over 18 now but at the time I came across this (also over 18) I didn't have a credit card but I ended up bypassing this with a Curve (Fintech 1->many card thing) card which seems to identify as a credit card on the network's system.

Alternatively, if you don't mind never seeing the assistant again (jk.), you can go into one of the network's shops and ask the assistant to turn it off by providing some ID like a passport/driving licence.

This only reinforces my image of the UK as a long since resigned totalitarian police state — that, along with the huge 1984-esque CCTV posters with giant eyes hanging watchfully over a dreary autumn midday in London.

It's hilarious. If this technology existed 50 years ago you can be sure they'd be filtering out any homosexual content. "We must protect the children from filth" after all. Good old nanny state.

The posters I referenced were from 2002 [0]... I can only imagine how much worse it's gotten since then.

> Attention Londoners: Big Bobby is watching. That's the message of posters plastered along London's bus routes earlier this week to assuage riders' crime fears.

> But the posters are having the opposite effect on privacy advocates, who say the artwork is creepily reminiscent of the all-seeing authority described in George Orwell's 1984.

> The posters show a red double-decker bus crossing a bridge as four floating eyes stare down from the sky. The eyes' pupils are the symbol of Transport For London, the city's mass-transit provider.

> "Secure beneath the watchful eyes," the poster says. "CCTV and Metropolitan Police on buses are just two ways we're making your journey more secure."

[0]: https://www.wired.com/2002/11/londons-privacy-falling-down/

YouTube does just this[1][2].

[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/lgbtq-...

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/4/17424472/youtube-lgbt-demo...

The whole "asbo" thing that they had for a long time was also in a similar vein. And the ability of even fairly low ranking police commissioners to declare some area as having "high chance of violence" temporarily, which allows them to stop and search people without warrants or anything like that - basically like stop & frisk in NYC, but without the pushback.

On the upside, following UK police twitter accounts can be sorta hilarious in a sad way, because they regularly post stuff like this: https://twitter.com/MPSRegentsPark/status/974645778558980096...

All that said, it's not really totalitarian. A police state for sure, and an authoritarian uber nanny state, but totalitarianism is a whole different ballgame.

I see much of the hardline Islamic substrate in the UK as deeply totalitarian. See this BBC Panorama documentary on Sharia courts functioning as a separate legal system for an example of what I’m talking about: https://youtu.be/4gZCFdHkd4A.

If the all-powerful, authoritarian UK police and the (currently underground) Sharia courts ever collide or end up working together, that’s going to be one hell of a totalitarian trip. Not good at all.

Though France has similar religious demographics, I think France might at least stand a better chance of holding back the influence of Islam, given the country’s strong and storied secular tradition.

In all Western countries that I know of - including UK - those courts are effectively arbitration courts, so they're very limited wrt the kinds of rulings they can make, and even then both parties have to agree to abide. So they're not really a separate legal system.

Unfortunately, many of them hand down rulings which conflict with UK and other local laws. At the very least they are conflicting systems — to what degree is a point of contention among legal scholars in the UK, as outlined in the linked BBC documentary.

There's no real conflict there, because the proper courts always have priority, same as in any other arbitration arrangement when the parties don't agree to participate.

I set my age to about 3 months old in Skype and got locked out. They need my CC to verify my age because of COPA (child online protection act in the US) or something.

Skype is not Apple though

Anything on an iphone is Apple. They dictate content, UI design, architecture and moderation policy for all the apps on the device.

No, Apple doesn't dictate credit card verification requirements. Actually they are quite opposed.

>No, Apple doesn't dictate credit card verification requirements.

that's the point parent was making; Apple made a decision about such things when allowing an app within their ecosystem that makes such choices (Skype, in this case).

Allowing something to happen isn’t dictating IMO.

It is when you're very strict about what you allow to happen. (which is the case with iOS apps.)

Apparently they have specifically allowed it in this case. Otherwise there would be no iOS Skype app.

But other websites don't do this, so I don't think it's a COPPA thing.

That would be COPPA.

> In 2019, the Government of the State of New York sued YouTube for violating COPPA by illegally retaining information related to children under 13 years of age. YouTube responded by dividing its content strictly into "for kids" and "not for kids". This has met with extremely harsh criticism from the YouTube community, especially from gamers, with many alleging that the FTC of the United States intends to fine content creators $42,530 for "each mislabeled video", possibly putting all users at risk.[58][59][60] However, some have expressed skepticism over this, feeling that the fines may actually be in reference to civil penalties, possibly intended for the site's operators and/or warranted by more serious of COPPA violations or specific cases of "mislabeling videos."[61][62][63] As of July 2020, nobody has got the $42k fine.[64]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Pr...

I had this happen on a gaming forum, they upgraded to new forum software and pushed users through a 'update your account' flow. I accidentally set my year to the wrong number and ended up locked out of what had been a long-term username.

It was bad, actually, because they had developed a system where your username on the system was tied to your in-game nickname as well so I ended up locked out of both and had to create a new username/nick.

The admin of the website literally said "there's nothing I can do". I'm sure this isn't to do with the law specifically but just some limitation of their tools.

> The admin of the website literally said "there's nothing I can do". I'm sure this isn't to do with the law specifically but just some limitation of their tools.

At the gaming forum I helped to run around 10 years ago we consulted a lawyer and this [asking for birthdate but not allowing birthdate changes] was the only way to keep out of serious trouble and to not need ID verification.

Hah, that probably explains all the age-disclaimers on dating sites. I had assumed it was just "login with Facebook" people not being allowed to change their birthdate by Facebook, but as it turns out that may have been unjust (though FB itself might also prevent bday changes for the same reason).

It is definitely that at least with Tinder.

tv.apple.com did for me when trying to play a video

What videos are free to watch on there?

I don't know, I have a free year of it. It plays in the app without asking, but not on the website.

Did you sign in on the website?

No, I already had an account but it doesn't have a credit card on file.

Not an EU thing.