Yes I agree the way the UK is going about this is fucking silly and unlikely to even work, however I haven’t seen much debate about the motive behind the act.
I feel like this community has generally been pretty critical of the porn industry and particularly the effect of the massive proliferation of easy to access internet porn on young men (“porn brain” was a pretty common term around here). But when the UK tries to ban it I’ve suddenly seen a lot of defense of teenagers right to see pics or boobs on the internet.
I would also point out this is an ML dominated community, most people here are pretty fine with socialist governments censoring content or restricting access to good that are deemed harmful to the common good. But I have noticed a trend on here where when a liberal capitalist government tries to do the same thing everyone suddenly start sounding very libertarian about porn/booze/slop movies/what have you.
On a practical level: No. No “porn block” will be ever be implemented thoroughly enough that kids can’t find some shit online. And now that they can’t use pornhub.com, they’re instead gonna share links to undergroundfuckedupshit.com and see some really fucked up shit.
On a theoretical level: Still no. Sexuality is a natural part of life, and that still holds true for minors. I don’t think even a magical perfect censorship would help at all, it’s the equivalent of ‘abstinence-only’ education. Keeping children ignorant of sex is just a recipe for even more disaster.
I’d like to see massive regulation and cultural changes for porn industries such that they aren’t exploitative (unlikely to ever happen in capitalism). And I’d like to see massive changes to sex ed so kids can actually be taught about porn and how it’s unrealistic. Those changes would go 100x further to making lives better.