🚫 Regrettably you have been locked out of diamond geezer pending age verification protocols.
You may be UNDER 16 YEARS OF AGE and therefore you must not read anything here UNTIL YOU CAN PROVE THAT YOU'RE NOT.
The government is taking urgent action to ensure that children are no longer able to access harmful social media apps. At the personal behest of the Prime Minister a raft of carefully thought-through definitely-not-rushed non-kneejerk policies designed to restrict inappropriate content is to be introduced forthwith.
There is some absolutely terrible stuff online, much of which has already tarnished the minds of innocent youth. It is therefore imperative that all potentially terrible stuff must now be wrapped in a secure plain cover and placed on the digital top shelf. It's for everyone's own good.
diamond geezer has been accessible to minors since 2002, indeed had a toddler in nappies surfed by in its earliest days they would now be 25 years old and could have been entirely corrupted by the content. There are confirmed reports of young teenagers taking an inordinate interest in public transport and outer London suburbs, both plainly unhealthy obsessions, and we must not let a new generation become similarly tainted.
Under 16s must therefore be kept away from all electronic content with the potential to damage their young minds, existing instead in a 20th-century-style bubble of larks, japes and old-fashioned fun. Children should not be infinitely scrolling when there are still Enid Blyton books to read, conkers to flick and board games to play. Simple ID protocols are thus to be introduced, an additional layer of government interference because that's easier than trying to get multinational companies to regulate what they do.
The government intends to call time on a system that fails our young people by taking bold action to give every child the best possible start in life. The only practical way to do this is to assume that everybody in Britain is under 16 and place the onus on everyone else to prove they're not. This may affect your ability to access sites you've used without incident for many years, suddenly hiding everything behind an irrational screenlock, but the Prime Minister must be seen to be doing something important and you are merely sideswiped collateral.
Any blog can become a gateway to permissive or inappropriate material. Self-publishing bloggers have no editorial safeguards, just a daily news template to fill, thus could potentially publish something a 15 year-old should not read. No matter that this has never happened, save perhaps that filthy post about Dickerage Lane, therefore we must ban all social media equally including entirely wholesome material.
To commence the authentication of your diamond geezer ID account, please stare into this roundel so that your age can be directly verified.
One sure way to prove that you're an adult is to send a live image of your face to a foreign company. Never mind that this entire issue exists because children were sharing personal images inappropriately, we now need everyone to activate their camera and hope nobody shady is keeping a sneaky record. Another way to prove you're an adult is to give your bank account details to a stranger. It's long been drilled into us that we should never do this but you need to think of the children, otherwise you'll end up being treated as one.
Self-certification will not be permitted, nor the fact you've been reading diamond geezer since 2009 therefore must be over the age of 16.
It's scandalous that Facebook sets an age limit of 13 in the UK so we must unilaterally increase this to 16. It's appalling that adults share their innermost thoughts on Snapchat, a service no cool teen would ever use. It's disgraceful that Instagram includes AI slop and distorted political narratives, but Meta can't possibly be expected to weed those out. It's reprehensible that Tiktok has more visibility in teenage lives than non-Chinese media, so let's close that door before communism takes hold. And it's abhorrent that some 15 year-olds use YouTube to learn about the world and revise school subjects when they could be watching the racist violence this government initiative will shut down.
Purchasing the Daily Mail will remain legal across all age groups.
A particular danger occurs where children are allowed to enter unsupervised chatrooms with anonymous adults. The comments on this blog will therefore face the fiercest restrictions, ensuring that nostalgic anecdotes and nitpicking pedantry cannot be accessed by young impressionable minds. Therefore in future comments boxes will not pop up unless you are over 16 (or our ID software mistakenly thinks you are) as you can easily test here. comments (17)
Please note that this blog will cease to exist each evening after 8.30pm UK time, a simple measure to ensure that vulnerable 16 and 17 year olds can safely wind down before their bedtime Horlicks.
To facilitate the authentication of your diamond geezer ID account, please provide this extremely sensitive information.
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postcode: This information is essential to corroborate your bank details and we promise not to misuse it or sell it on.
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password: Your password must have at least 12 characters at least seven of which must be in upper or lower case, at least three of which must be non-alphanumeric and at least two of which must be from the Cyrillic alphabet. We know this means it'll be entirely unmemorable and you'll forget it later but hyper-strong password security is more important than long-term practicality.
Children are renowned for following rules so will not attempt to find ways around these restrictions, neither will they be able to. Evidence from Australia suggests that only 43% of children were able to find ways to avoid new age-gating systems, and Britain's children are surely more resourceful so this percentage will be lower. All onboarding features will thus be designed to incorporate foolproof child locks which are nevertheless transparent to adults, for example by asking questions like "Do you remember watching the London 2012 opening ceremony?" or "What shape is a banknote?"
It would of course be preferable to go back to 2006 and encourage the tech entrepreneurs to incorporate content moderation policies and practical age verification protocols from the get-go. However it's taken almost 20 years for anyone to notice this ghastly loophole and no company bosses have any intention of listening to a few furious British parents whose offspring have been irreparably harmed. The government is thus insisting that social media companies introduce specific intrusive measures solely for a UK audience, for example adding spy software everywhere on everything, and will scream impotently should this Orwellian imposition not happen within three months.
The government is determined to take the side of parents against the big technology companies, mainly because it's entirely impotent against the latter. People rightly expect action and any action will do, not necessarily capable or practical action just whatever's been cobbled together in the fortnight after a public consultation. Never mind that adults can be just as corrupted by the evil propaganda and racist tropes they see online because this cannot be stopped and the downfall of civilisation is assured. To protect our children it is therefore essential that you do not read anything on this blog until you've been checked out, no matter how impractically stupid it may seem.
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