The UK honestly believed it could save children from seeing naked adults online by forcing website owners to introduce an age verification system.  Apparently this was because age verification systems proved so good at stopping online drinking.

Now they have admitted that the whole concept was flawed from the start after countless difficulties with implementing the policy, which would have required all pornography websites to ensure users were over 18.

Methods would have included checking credit cards or allowing people to buy a "porn pass" age verification document from a newsagent.

Websites that refused to comply with the policy -- one of the first of its kind in the world -- faced being blocked by internet service providers or having their access to payment services restricted.

The culture secretary, Nicky Morgan, told parliament the policy would be abandoned. Instead, the government would instead focus on measures to protect children in the much broader online white paper. This is expected to introduce a new internet regulator, who will impose a duty of care on all websites and social media outlets -- not just pornography sites.