Not ideal. Reuters The UK government plans to censor "non-conventional" pornography — a move that has been criticised by free speech activists, and could see some of the web's most popular sites banned in Britain.

As part of the digital economy bill currently being discussed, the UK government would implement strict porn filters in the UK — forcing sites that host adult content to verify users' ages or risk being blocked in the country.

But the government plans to go further than this, and ban "non-conventional" porn completely, The Guardian reports— a classification that may include everything from female ejaculation to spanking (that leaves marks) and adult material involving urination or menstruation.

So what's going on? Right now, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is responsible for vetting adult content and certifying adult content sold via DVD, and it has strict rules about what's allowed. If it decides the material is unsuitable, it's illegal to sell — even if the acts depicted are totally legal.

As part of the new porn rules, the BBFC will also be responsible for monitoring content online. If it wouldn't be certified for DVD, it won't be certified online, according to The Guardian — and accordingly will be blocked entirely.

These are acts that are perfectly legal for consenting adults to engage in, or for other adults to watch. "It's mad that we regulate such material that aren't even criminal acts," Durham University professor Clare McGlynn told The Guardian. "If we are regulating things like menstrual blood or urination, that's detracting from a focus on what I think is really the harmful material, and that would be material around child sexual abuse, but also around sexual violence."

It's unclear how this could ever be effectively enforced

The internet is not neatly divided into porn sites and non-porn sites.

It's technically simple to block dedicated fetish websites. But plenty of sites mix porn with non-pornographic content — raising serious questions as to how a ban on "non-conventional" adult content could ever be enforced in practice.

For example:

Reddit lets anyone create new sections (called "subreddits") and is happy to play host to and link out to adult content of all (legal) kinds. (And even popular, nominally non-adult subreddits sometimes play host to adult content.)

Tumblr, the blogging service owned by Yahoo, has a large adult community.

Notorious imageboard 4chan has dedicated porn forums, "work-safe" ones where it is prohibited, and anything-goes sections like its /b/ imageboard, where varied adult and non-adult content can mingle freely.

Even Twitter is much more laissez-faire about adult content than family-friendly Facebook.