The fact they keep trying despite repeatedly being humiliated by market realities, though, indicates the lobbying pressure by pro-censorship groups is quite high. This is bound to produce something eventually.

Are they being humiliated though? Feels like they get lots of press when announcing this kind of stuff which sits well with some target part of the electorate, then when the whole thing gets abandoned it happens with almost no attention. The current government seems to be well aware that most of the time announcing a policy has a much higher ROI than actually implementing one (cf all the times pre-existing spending commitments get recycled in new announcements)

But you can only perform this act so much before it wears out and backfires. See for example the recent defections of "red wall" Tory MPs after the announcements you mention - they know the situation is becoming indefensible in the eyes of their electorate, since they keep promising money which then fails to materialize.

Have they reached this point with the "online moral-indignation brigade" yet? Maybe not, but it's been 5 years since the Snoopers' Charter, I don't know how many since the porn-blocking promises and about 13 since the first pledges in this area by a Conservative party, with no significant progress to show for it. That's a lot of time even in political terms.

> announcing this kind of stuff which sits well with some target part of the electorate

I really dont see anyone in the electorate clamouring for any of this stuff. Announcing the same policy being told it is a shit idea and announcing it again 6 months later is much harder to sell than the recycled spending (which they tend to just lie and say it is in addition to the last lot they announced anyway). That said, the electorate dont actually care much (unless it is a penny off the price of a pint or something) so it is hardly a humiliation when these ideas go nowhere and it makes the government look busy.

I can only assume that the driver is the security services, or just recycling past homework to look busy. As noted in many other comments they try all sorts of seemingly stupid ideas in this space - banning all encryption has failed countless times, adult verification is already a thing on mobile networks, and logging every online activity has slipped through and passed.

If you say you're going to do this often enough, and keep getting thwarted for whatever reason, eventually you won't have much credibility with anyone.

Unless your constituents want this. In the US, humiliation from other districts doesn't mean anything as long as you keep being voted in.

It happened in the EU. Why wouldn't it happen in the UK?

What happened in the EU? You don't need a credit card to access porn or Facebook in the EU.

You need a credit card to watch age-restricted videos on YouTube.

Sorry, which videos? I mean it really, I'm from EU and have never found one. To watch some videos I have to login but have never ever asked me for a credit card that I recall. I'd like to know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0LBi1MHoaU is age restricted :)

Blaming the EU is a common escape strategy, but I don't believe it in the slightest. Mind, I wouldn't believe anything coming out of the modern Google except "we want to make tracking you easier so we can sell more expensive ads".

Edit: if the evil EU "forced" them to require a credit card or my ID to watch Samuel L Jackson saying "motherfucker", why hasn't the same evil EU forced them to make it easy to opt out of all tracking?

Wow.Thank you. I have not found one of these before. Only some that asked me to log in but no one with these restrictions , even if I used Google pay in the past, many years ago, is asking me for a credit card after logging in.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5GDrJEGkVk

I suppose if you have verified your age in the past (for example if you bought something from the play store?) then you can watch the video freely. Try and watch it while logged off.

Thank you. I have not found one of these before. Only some that asked me to log in but no one with these restrictions , even if I used Google pay in the past, many years ago, is asking me for a credit card after logging in.

It's a Google thing, in some cases ( probably A/B testing), and it has nothing to do with the EU.

No, it's not a Google thing. It was mandated by the EU. https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/using-technology-more-c...

It should be noted that this is also the case in the UK today.

is this true? did not know this…

Absolutely not.

Google's support page says otherwise

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10070779?hl=en-GB#...

This says ...or a valid id.... ,which is a lot more common than a credit card.

Credit cards in the EU are not very prominent as a payment method, mostly for paying USA companies.

This is basically the same as the UK proposal which the Register article is talking about - that's also credit card or valid ID, they just chose to focus on the credit card part in the article.

When I said credit card I thought it was obvious I meant that debit cards are also acceptable. Turns out it wasn't!

Even if you include debit cards, you're still wrong.

You don't need anything. At all. According to Google, in case they suspect you might be lying about your age, they _might_ require age verification. This can be done with a credit card or an ID card.

So no, you don't need a credit card to watch age-restricted videos. You don't need a debit card either. You probably don't even need an ID card or anything at all.

You don't need to be of legal age to get a debit card, but you do for a credit card, hence why credit cards are often used as age verification.

A valid ID or credit card. So you don't need a credit card.

I think the age restrictions are bullshit as well, try this userscript: https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restrictio...