Scan and Rise

A young teen throws his cell phone in panic as his mother opens his bedroom door.

A sharp political poem about Britain’s online age-verification laws, digital surveillance and the unintended consequences of trying to police the internet. As users turn to VPNs and other workarounds, the poem questions whether restrictive technology can ever control what people ultimately find online.

Imagine signing up to a porn site, and
They ask for age, a passport, and your face!
Miscreants guard your erotic land and demand,
Your proof to enter such a freaky place.

You click submit and bots swarm through your gate:
Thousands of cookies lurk, bold with no shame.
Just endless spam, and your details they’ll take.
The young ones slip masks on, dodging this lane.

VPNs and cloaks, stealth schemes in play,
While mother hears screams from the bedroom door!
Thus the law begets the thing it sought to do away:
Too late to police, a flimsy net on the shore.

Highlighting what they tried to monitor in vain:
The clever slip through. Hear the screams again.

A smartphone displays an abstract woman with pink hair on a dark background.