How a British town became a hub for online porn and poker

November 24, 2016 9:36 AM

Still economically devastated by the closure of its steelworks in 1980, "The residents of Consett are key cogs in a booming online industry. A Reuters investigation has found they have served as directors of more than 1,000 businesses: poker games, pop-up get-rich-quick schemes, vendors of colon cleansers and healthfoods, and much more."
posted by mandolin conspiracy (12 comments total)

A steel town into online porn and it's not Scunthorpe?
Heh.
posted by farlukar at 10:14 AM on November 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

Make Scunthorpe S****horpe again.
posted by The River Ivel at 10:27 AM on November 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

Consett has come a long way since it was a major hub for Punjab airways
posted by Omission at 10:29 AM on November 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

vendors of colon cleansers

Better out than in?
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:29 AM on November 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

that's not so far from where i grew up. i'm sure thatcher would be proud of their resourcefulness.
posted by andrewcooke at 12:54 PM on November 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

We work the pink seam together
posted by thelonius at 1:26 PM on November 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

When I worked in the public sector an email obscenity filter was implemented. For a couple of weeks every email sent my employees of Scunthorpe Council was auto-trashed until someone clocked what was happening...
posted by dmt at 5:08 PM on November 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Maybe the "invisible hand" ought to be a new porn category.
posted by radicalawyer at 6:36 PM on November 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

Maybe the "invisible hand" ought to be a new porn category.

Go on
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:01 PM on November 24, 2016

If anyone would actually RTFA, it's not a plucky tale of entrepreneurship, it's people being named as directors of businesses they're barely aware of by one guy who's selling them as useful UK residents to dodgy off-shore companies that can't get approval to take credit cards otherwise.
posted by lucidium at 9:44 AM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

we did read the article. maybe you should read the fucking room?
posted by andrewcooke at 10:00 AM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Fair enough, my apologies for interrupting rudely.
posted by lucidium at 11:21 AM on November 25, 2016