jayeff

Strictly speaking, since there is no law making it their responsibility, no. In terms of self-interest, possibly even probably. But therein lies a snag, namely that there is no satisfactory way (not even credit cards) to prevent their access.

Not only are easily by-passed measures likely to attract the scorn of our detractors, but in purely practical terms, I suspect that while deterring many "legitimate" adult visitors who won't have the patience or because of privacy/scamming fears, they might actually encourage underage visitors. I'm sure many are dumb enough to imagine that content behind some kind of protection may be more extreme than that which is easily accessed. Anyway I imagine that lieing about their age just adds to the fun.

A fairground ride can have height restrictions. A bar can have age restrictions. Not only because there are practical ways to enforce them, but also because, since they are applied throughout a locale, they do not result in loss of business. We are screwed on both counts and although you might argue that attempting to do something would be better than doing nothing, I'm really not sure I would agree. It would cost us business without changing the minds of anyone who wants to close us down.

What we more sensibly should be doing, is ourselves lobbying for a solution and for the application of that solution. It would be somewhat difficult to attack an industry which was itself calling for age verification and if we were involved, we would be able to impact on what method was used. Putting age verification into law is also the only way we could try to ensure a level playing field (at least within national boundaries).

The main flaw in that concept is that we are years away from being able to organise ourselves enough to be able to lobby for anything...