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That enforcement won't be consistent, either: while it's hilarious to imagine the BBFC trying to watch all the videos on PornHub, in reality the censor can't possibly watch everything. It will perform checks, notify non-compliant sites, then issue fines or block them entirely. Given the literal impossibility of watching all the porn on the internet, the likely consequence is that producers and performers will self-censor and hope they don't get a letter through the door.In the past, laws like this have disproportionately affected smaller, independent producers. Pandora Blake, an independent porn producer and outspoken campaigner against the law, had her porn site ordered offline last year because she depicted consensual kinky acts like spanking and caning. She appealed the decision and won, but this new law is far harder to comply with, and has much harsher consequences.Pandora explained: "The cost of age verification will be borne by website owners; and the cost of age checking every site visitor will be prohibitive. For instance, my website Dreams of Spanking is a niche feminist BDSM site with only a couple of thousand visitors a day, and yet the cost of age-verifying each user will add up to more than my total monthly turnover. Users will be asked to surrender identifying personal information, accumulating in a database of our personal sexual tastes. Worse, the new amendment proposing ISP blocking of non-compliant sites sets a terrifying precedent for government blocking of legal websites, and would put the UK's internet on a par with Iraq, Saudi Arabia and China."
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