Could this community still work if…

[Ed]

…no nudity was permitted in photos and videos?

With vague new laws coming into effect this summer and potential site hosting restrictions (I might need photo ID for every naked person soon), we may need some drastic changes to keep going. There’s no way I can ask for ID and it has GDPR implications.

We can still have the forums, polls, etc, but the Master Dare List would no longer have published photos and the galleries and videos would have to go too.

Is that viable?

[Julie]

I think it still has a place as a discussion forum, if it doesn’t cost significantly for hosting. I’m not here for photos. I’m interested in the strange in-between world of nudity that’s not sexual, yet still feels challenging and maybe taboo? A bit different to full on signing up as naturist, but I’m not a voyeur or an exhibitionist. I’m basically puzzled.

Matt likes this

[Julie]

I’m interested to know what these rules are — but concerned about creating a very strange search history by looking for them!
I already know that if a person in an image appears to be underage, it’s going to be the downloader of the image who is asked to prove that they were old enough! It’s quite possible to get in serious trouble without anyone actually proving anything was intended.

[Ed]

I have to be able to prove that anyone naked on the site is over 18 (regardless of how they look – it’s the documentation that counts).

The annoying thing with all of this is anyone who is dodgy and doesn’t comply with existing laws, just won’t comply with this one either. It’s everyone who is above-board and following the rules who will suffer all the extra hurdles to stay legal. We’ve already lost almost two-thirds of the UK adult industry. This change will probably wipe out much of the rest.

[ptHarry]

Do bank standing orders have the same problem?

• Is Patreon inventing rules that are over and above what UK regulations require?
• Do bank standing orders have the same problem?

Web sites that serve the UK are supposed to be regulated by Ofcom, not by arbitrary rules imposed by payment processors. Patreon doesn’t seem to be regulated (at least, not under UK law) but I would hope that if any UK bank tried to impose restrictions over and above what ofcom and or UK law requires, the UK FCA or other regulator should insist that the banks handle all lawful payments.

[Ed]

Online card transactions happen entirely under the rules of Visa and Mastercard. They have VERY strict rules. Any company that doesn’t want to follow those rules can just choose not to sell stuff online. There is no alternative. If you don’t comply, they can shut you down instantly. Patreon won’t risk losing their entire business.

Sadly, there are no British card processors left.

Patreon must comply with their processor’s rules (which are dictated by Visa and Mastercard). UK law doesn’t really apply.

UK banks have been debanking people for adult content for years (I’ve lost 2 bank accounts and 3 online-billing accounts over the past 15 years). This isn’t a sudden change, but the rules have been steadily tightening up and UK law is adding more restrictions too, especially regarding age verification.

To clarify, the reason for possibly moving site content onto the Patreon system is so the age-verification requirement (UK law – July this year) becomes their problem rather than ours (mine). See: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/roadmap-to-regulation

[Since1980_v2]

As for the age verification of people posting. Mastercard are behind the payment thing that got patreon to change. Other payment providers will follow suit. Making only it almost impossible to pay membership to an adult site without an age check on all performers. Both MasterCard and Visa took a stance against porn hub and other a while back stopping taking payments.

 

The new UK laws basically make it so you cant access any porn explicit website without age verification and a simple check box to say you are old enough isn’t enough anymore.

It won’t have to be id related but then it might require banking info or something so it basically becomes if again for any users who will see explicit content.

 

Let’s remember this is all about keeping people safe online and stopping children accessing porn. We had a lot of discussion here about dare 16 and consent. If u agree or not with the stances taken considering the amount of underage people access content and the amount of content of people illegally sharing other people LS photos this is probably a good thing if it works..

I just don’t think as it is it will work properly

 

The new UK la

 

Ed likes this

[GeekFireball]

Yeah this whole thing is a shitshow. Nobody is going to upload their personal ID to browse porn, beacuse everything gets hacked eventually.

Would patreon provide enough cover to prove 18+, you could make the patreon sign up 18_+, could you have two levels, an annual fee of not much to get what is here now, and the higher fee as it is today. .

Then a free site with comments but no photos?

Fucking UK nanny state, this is completely stupid, does nothing, and every kid under 20 will work out how to use a VPN within about an hour.

Ed likes this

[Ed]

Patreon only allows nudity with photo ID to prove consent and age of those being posted. I’ve looked at getting an 18+ clearance on Patreon and it’s too complicated. If I was running an adult site, it might be worth it, but working with volunteer participants, it’s just not viable. None of this part is anything to do with UK law.

UK law is bringing in a ridiculous and unrealistic age-verification requirement. If anyone manages to get in who isn’t of age, I will be liable. Right now, this is going to force AMOC and SGC to close.

[Since1980_v2]

You have stats for hits on landing pages, page views and things. can you see what sort of level of hits are to pages with photo/video content bs that to non photo forum pages.

I came here first off years ago for the dare challenges. I was looking for something that had a list of challenges to do. That’s what drew me in.

I stay for the conversations in the forums. I guess I’m trying to say for existing users for me personally I would miss the photos but it wouldn’t drive me away from the site if we lose them. We can always host on other places and link to to content?

My guess is it will be hit and miss for new users if there is no photo content to draw people in. So the current community might be it with very little extra growth. does that still work for you with hosting and running the site for the current community? (Please say yes)

[Ed]

The main Master Dare List page (not the results table) gets the most visitors by far, then the blog (ie main landing page) comes a  second. As a distant 3rd, with less than a quarter of the visitors, we get the MDL ranking table, followed closely by the forums and then the blog categories “Video” and “Photos”. After that, it’s a list of individual forums getting less than 2% as much as the MDL.

I’m not sure how popular the Ranking table would be with just results totals and no links to photos. How many people would take part without photos being published?

We can run the conversations (forums) on Patreon itself with their “Community” section. The site’s Patreon page actually gains more free members every day than visit the actual website so expanding posts and forums there would make sense. Without the videos/galleries on the site however, how many people would still become patrons?

ptHarry likes this

[Since1980_v2]

So I’m guessing then on google searches people are asking about naked dares and hence that page comes up most often. Seems like it doesn’t do enough to drive people to the ranking page though so I don’t think the site will get much new attention without photos.  The attention span of people nowadays if it isnt in front of you on the landing page then they just don’t care enough to search further. Also kind of makes me feel having photos doesn’t make that much difference to people hanging around unless they are on the main page. So without photos the community is unlikely to grow then it’s just a case is the people already here and how do they feel. I’m happy to stick around. I enjoy the talk as much if not more than the photos.

 

ill still take videos and photos. Just load them somewhere else.

ptHarry likes this

[John]

Let’s see what actually happens before we panic. Governments have a habit of making bills sound a lot worse than they are, so we just accept them when it’s not quite as bad as feared.

Not many of us post photos, it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to work something out.

Personally my favourite bits are the dares, the forums and the experiments, if we ever got them off the ground again.

Your main issue would probably be the footage you post on the blog, they are the only people in here anywhere near 18

Ed and ptHarry like this

[Ed]

Having photo-ID for “performers” is a requirement for financial transactions, so I get no say in that. If I don’t comply, Patreon will not process for me. It doesn’t matter how old people look – it’s the documentation which is required.

When AMOC and SGC close, this site cannot continue. It would need to increase its income many times over to cover the hosting cost – although I would gain considerable storage space, so it’s not all negative.

[Since1980_v2]

If I read the forms right. We would need to fill out a consent form and sign it send it to Ed with a copy of our ID but Ed only needs to share that with authorities if there is an issue in the future. But he has to maintain forever basically. That’s a Patreon thing because of using the payment providers but that effectively means and site with paid services using payment services would have to do the same.

I’m guessing crypto would be out of the range for most people and is probably too much of a volatile system at the moment to be used widespread.
the Patreon terms are already there on their website so do we need act more quickly one way or another on this. Looks like Patreon updated the consent stuff 4 months ago.

Ed likes this

[Since1980_v2]

Just thinking quite a few people who have posted on here have been willing to be part of an experiment if we ever get one going. The requremenys for that are to bring ID and fill out a consent form so for a lot of people on here there’s nothing really stopping us from carrying on posting we just need to take that step to send the docs and do a teams call with Ed to have the looklike test for the ID. In fact I see that bit as an opportunity. If people have to do a photo or  video call holding their id to prove it’s them. If it’s video then there is a contact time that could be made use of. I still think one thing that would be cool to have is a video of Ed asking people questions as they strip off to certain keywords or maybe after each question so there are like 6 questions or something so everyone ends up naked at the end of a video. Ed can blur the video easy enough if needed. But then there is content for paid members to watch the video. Obviously cut the ID part out of the video.

GeekFireball and John like this

[John]

I like that idea, nice bit of subversion.

[ptHarry]

Ed: “It doesn’t matter how old people look – it’s the documentation which is required.”

There ought to be some way of challenging that. We have a well established rule (in supermarkets etc) that if a person “looks over 25” they don’t have to provide any ID.

• Does UK law (which as I understand it, Ofcom is still drafting) actually say that ID must be provided even if it is totally obvious that the person is over 25? If it does, Ofcom needs to be strongly encouraged to redraft it along the lines of the tried, trusted and more intelligent over 25 rule.
• Has Patreon invented the requirement itself, or because of pressure from Visa or Barclaycard? The UK Payments Service Regulator is currently responsible for regulating Visa and Mastercard in the UK. PSR it seems is about to be merged into FCA. When that happens, FCA should probably be asked to step in and prohibit Visa and MC from abusing their dominant position by inventing stricter rules than UK law requires. They should also, perhaps, consider requiring Patreon to be FCA regulated in respect of transactions involving UK based services or UK customers, and thereby impose the same requirement directly on Patreon. Or, if they’re not willing to regulate Patreon directly, FCA could do it indirectly by telling Visa and MC to bar service to any payment processor that fails to perform a transaction that’s legal in countries of the sender and recipient.

But all of the above hinges on the assumption that Patreon/MC/Visa have invented the silly “must provide documentation even if obviously over 25” rule. If that’s not the case, then it’s Ofcom that needs to rethink, and not (yet, at least) a matter for FCA.

Anyway, back to Bank Standing Orders. They’re nothing to do with either Visa or Mastercard.

Roughly speaking:

• when a transaction uses the 16 digit card number, that’s a visa or MC transaction
• but ordinary transactions (including Faster Payments and Bank Standing Orders) that use sort code and account number don’t go via either visa or MC. I don’t know the exact mechanism, but they probably go direct between the banks concerned or use a different intermediary.

The distinction is confirmed in PSR’s own document at https://www.psr.org.uk/information-for-consumers/ways-of-paying/

That also confirms that PSR (and presumably FCA when PSR is merged into it) is responsible for regulating both types of payment. So, if a UK bank tried to impose arbitrary restrictions over and above what the law requires of the bank,

Bank standing orders are probably not quite so convenient for the sender or recipient. A standing order needs to be set up on the bank’s web site rather than the recipient’s. And I’ve never received a standing order payment, so I’m not sure whether the recipient would be notified if a standing order payment failed, or was cancelled. But because visa and Mc are not involved, it’s worth considering if the unrealistic rules are purely the result of unnecessary interference by Visa and Mc.

[ptHarry]

Oops, an unfinished sentence there 🙁

It should say “That also confirms that PSR (and presumably FCA when PSR is merged into it) is responsible for regulating both types of payment. So, if a UK bank tried to impose arbitrary restrictions over and above what the law requires of the bank, FCA could in theory remonstrate with the bank for abusing their dominant position.

I found an example of where either the FCA or the Chancellor (then Jeremy hunt) seemed to be worried about banks abusing their dominant position, with the FCA reply:

banks are subject to the Payment Accounts Regulations which require that a consumer’s access to a payment account is not denied on the basis of a range of characteristics, including legally-held political views.

That would seem very similar to “performing a legally permitted activity” which is what we would be asking the bank to do, though I’m not aware what that “range of characteristics” actually states, or the question that was originally asked. But it does rather suggest that either FCA or the Chancellor wanted to ensure FCA had the power to stop the banks abusing their dominant position.

[Ed]

Patreon states in their terms that their billing company sets the rules.

UK law simply doesn’t matter on this. Visa/Mastercard are outside the UK. They are a private company so they can set rules for customers. If a customer (eg Patreon) doesn’t meet those rules, Visa and Mastercard are not required to process for them. Visa just locks and then terminates their account. If it was a bank in the UK, it would be different. If UK banks made a fuss with Visa or Mastercard, they could just stop processing in the UK which would wipe out economy in days. No-one can risk that.

You could argue that there should be a British card processor, but the UK Government has not done anything about that.

It doesn’t matter what the law is. If Patreon sets a rule (whatever its source), I have to comply with it or they close my account. They cannot be compelled to keep my account open, especially as they are not in the UK either. They don’t mention how old someone looks. They specify the requirement to record ID.

I’m not in any position to protest anything. I don’t want to keep discussing this, it’s depressing me and there’s nothing at all I can do about it.

 

[Since1980_v2]

Did we get a clear consensus how many people were happy to share their id with Ed to continue having their pictures posted on here.

Is the whole video call with Ed thing an option even for some people to keep your photos online?

I’m game to do an interview and share my ID.

I guess if not enough do though all the links to pictures and videos are gonna have to go missing soon. And we get a real test of the site working or not without them.

[John]

From his last post, Ed ain’t ready to fight right now. I’m sure he’ll let us know if and when he is.

I’ve deliberately not posted all week, and look at when last comments were posted this week.

If people want to save this site, they need to make it worth saving and keep the forum active, or do some dares.

If I was Ed, I’d have given up and shut the page down by now. I’m as guilty as everyone else, we go away for a few weeks come back and expect everything to be great.

 

 

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