UK government to regulate online smut, launches PORN.GOV.UK

The government's War on Porn continues to gain pace, with an announcement today that they will make porn filtering mandatory (effectively banning pornography for consumers) and replace it with the government-controlled website PORN.GOV.UK (which is not yet operational).

Very closely modelled on the existing gov.uk site, porn.gov.uk will be available to people who sign up for a Government Gateway account.

At the end of the year, each subscriber will receive a statement of which pornography they viewed, and the costs for this will be added to their annual tax bill, either through PAYE or Self-Assessment.

The government did release a preview of the site (see the image below) which is refreshingly free of filth on the home page.

Visitors can either use the search box to find what they are after, or they can browse for approved pornographic material by category.

It's worth remembering that all material must meet the new British Standards for Pornography set up by the BSI as BS 6969. The BSI will shortly start advertising for Pornography Analysts on their careers page.

Although many sources may object to the perceived censorship, it is surely common sense that wholesome state-approved pornography will be better for everyone. Government sources say that the legislation should be passed before the election with an expected go-live date of 1st April 2016.