How it works: website blocking in the Digital Economy Bill

Blocking takes two shapes, after the Lords debate.

Websites

Firstly, websites that either don’t use Age Verification, or supply pornography that the new national censor, the BBFC, deems “non-conventional” can be blocked. In addition, if they use an Age Verification technology that seems inadequate, such as credit cards, this could lead to a block, although we believe this would be less likely as it would seem a very harsh response.

Ancillary services

Secondly, “ancillary services” is now clarified to include Twitter or other platforms where an account is used to promote a pornographic website. Here, a block could only be applied if the BBFC has decided to sanction the website for non-compliance. This would mean it could block an account from a website that publishes “non-conventional” pornography, or one that doesn’t provide Age Verification, or only uses credit card verification. However, other similar accounts from sites that had not been reviewed cannot be blocked under this power.

Blocked Twitter feeds would not need to be displaying pornography, they might just provide links.

As a further example of where this might go, we have also included DNS results in the table. Provision of DNS results for a pornographic website could easily be included in the expansive concept of an “ancillary service”.

BBFC classification and blocking will be selective

To complicate matters further, blocking can only take place if the BBFC has decided to classify a website. So the whole process is limited by their capacity to review hundreds of thousands of pornographic websites. Furthermore, the BBFC cannot block “non-commercial” websites.

This incredibly complicated picture of course risks being perceived as extremely arbitrary. That is the inevitable result of pursuing censorship as a legitimate sanction against regulatory compliance, rather than limiting it to clearly illegal and harmful material.

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Our summary of what will be blocked

Type of pornographic related content Type of age verification Can it be blocked Will it be blocked in the UK Major website with US style legal pornography {1} Credit card or none Yes Yes Website with BBFC-compliant content (2) UK approved (4) No No Website with BBFC-compliant content Credit card only Yes Maybe Non-commercial site with US style legal content None No No Major website with US style legal pornography UK approved Yes Probably First thousand websites by market share, reviewed by BBFC (3) Credit card or none Yes Probably Next three million websites by market share, not reviewed by BBFC Credit card or none No No Twitter feed for BBFC approved commercial website None No No Twitter feed for a website deemed non-compliant by the BBFC None Yes Probably Twitter feed for the millions of websites not classified by BBFC None No No Non-commercial Twitter feed None No No DNS result locating website None Yes Possibly

Notes

1 This table uses “US style legal content” as a shorthand for content that may not be legal in the UK, or legal but not approved by the BBFC.

2 BBFC-compliant means approved by the BBFC, a more restrictive concept than legal in the UK

3 Or whatever number of websites the BBFC feels able to classify. We assume they wll aim to cover market share, so 1000 websites seems a reasonable number to target

4 By “UK approved” age verification we mean systems that meet BBFC requirements. These are currently undefined other than that they must verify age. Privacy and interoperability requirements are absent from the bill.