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PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

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Re: PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

#231
post #218
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is pornography dangerous for minors? Has it been researched? What "dangers" are there? Do these apply to all age groups of "minors"?

Usually what happens in this environment is immature/ underage people are exploited. You don’t have to look far. The local track in your nearest city or megalopolises in India where adults sell off children, among other places in the world. In Mexico the local business guys go into the town plaza in the evenings and chat up young girls, in Japan you get “compensated dating”. These are all places where they let those…

You describe pornography depicting underage people. I'm sure there's consensus on why that is bad.

I was, however, questioning whether minors consuming pornography is (always, and/or provably) bad.

Re: PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

#232
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble for most people isn't age verification per se, it's the knock-on effects from that. Which do you prefer: 1) No age verification, or 2) Every access to online adult content is forever publicly associated with your personal information? I agree neither is ideal, but I think 1 is better than 2.

I don't think 1 and 2 are the only possible options. The thing is that thus far there hasn't been much incentive to develop technology that can verify people's age or other aspects of their identity in a privacy-friendly way, because the internet hasn't really needed it before. We should start by thinking about what we want to do: do we want to age-gate pornography? If so, why? If not, why not? And if we don't age-ga…

There could be some future in which computer security actually exists, but I just don't see our industry going in that direction right now. In any case, that technology doesn't exist now so the options today, with this law in effect, are as I stated.

Re: PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

#233
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

At the risk of starting a flame war, many of the current bills have absurdly broad language which makes it a crime to simply be in public dressed differently than your gender assigned at birth (i.e. somewhere where a minor _might_ be present). It's hard to argue the legislation that's being proposed (and passed) at a state and local level isn't having the effect of making it difficult to simply exist as a trans perso…

could you cite these bills? I am curious

Re: PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

#234

In the old days parents would have this responsibility. And this doesn't necessarily mean that the parents would prohibit it! But I guess if parents aren't parenting the way you want them to, you need to pass a law. (which I disagree with)

Before, parents oversaw things in the home and strangers/other parents extended that reach to the streets and the public square. These days parents barely have control over things at home due to how things can be circumvented, never mind outside the home.

It’d be like comparing an old style police stakeout and telling everyone surveillance is no different today because it’s just the police (ignoring the part where technology changes the calculus).

Re: PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

#235

The US is also planning a law that would make it illegal to use VPNs to skirt laws like this: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/could-tiktok-ban...

There are countless programmers, from self taught amateurs to professional SWEs, white hats, grey hats and black hats, who would immediately jump at the opportunity to create stronger VPNs, mirror sites, Tor nodes, and other tools to allow the public to bypass these restrictions. Trying to control the Internet in America is a losing proposition, for better or worse.

This is a huge problem, because it's another example of turning a wide swath of humanity into criminals for doing relatively normal things that should be allowed.

Of course they won't be able to enforce this most of the time. But if you end up in their sights for any reason, they may then notice you using a VPN and use that information to legally blackmail you.

Usually this goes with making the punishment very harsh: A stolen MP3 on your hard drive? 20-to-life unless you take a plea bargain down to 2 years and turn in 3 friends as well. Same deal now with VPNs.

Re: PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

#236

It’s probably only a matter of time. The internet became the only place where age verification wasn’t really a thing. I’m honestly more surprised this didn’t happen 20 years ago.

I'm honestly surprised that there isn't a "good enough" "is adult" verification browser api thingy. Where "good enough" wrt. correctness doesn't mean crypto-graphically pro-oven but only "you need to do some hacky things to circumvent it". Because IMHO for anything which doesn't also require to know the _exact_ identity of the user that is good enough. Where "good enough" wrt. privacy doesn't mean perfect, but means…

Quite a few places do age verification by requiring a small nominal fee in order to get an account. Most kids under 18 aren't going to have their own credit card or a credit card that their parents don't monitor.

Re: PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

#237

It’s probably only a matter of time. The internet became the only place where age verification wasn’t really a thing. I’m honestly more surprised this didn’t happen 20 years ago.

I believe it is not the responsibility of the government to police what your child is doing.

I believe that too... but you and I are very solidly in the minority.

Re: PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

#238
post #193

Just the fact that pornography is being taken seriously as something that's dangerous for minors is a good thing really.

But is pornography dangerous for minors? Has it been researched? What "dangers" are there? Do these apply to all age groups of "minors"?

> What "dangers" are there?

turning in to a pathetic, obese lech who sits at home alone blowing another paycheck on Onlyfans, clinging to the misguided notion that women want anal on the first date?

and even worse, when real life doesn't line up with six-minute videos, the even worse outcome of woman-hating manifests

Re: PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

#239
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cell phone operators offering age verification is an actual real thing that exists right now in Japan. No ID handover requires. You need to make a user ID (and have a cell phone). The impossible becomes possible real quickly when businesses decide they need it to move forward.

So your proposal is that every access to porn must be forever associated with your personal phone number?

Well... if you pay for this stuff, you're already having a credit card involved (for example. Maybe you're buying gift cards, and age gating can happen there!). If you're not.... maybe the decimation of free porn is not a bad thing for the universe.

I do believe in privacy rights, but... free porn just doesn't feel like a must-exist thing in the sense we are all talking about.

I do think that there's a universe where self-governance sort of resolves these problems. Many industries have done this! In a universe where basically you needed a credit card to access this stuff ~always, this law would likely not exist.

Re: PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law

#240

An identity provider can make verified age one of the claims on an OAuth token. It removes anonymity, but at least you don't have to provide your personal details to everybody on the internet demanding age verification. You provide those details to your trusted identity provider, they provide the claim of your age to the website. With that in place we can easily make beer, liquor, marijuana and tobacco sales on the i…

Where are you based? I can purchase alcohol from Amazon UK with no obvious age checks. Deliveroo require that riders verify your age but in reality they just ask you to type it in. And the major grocery stores deliver alcohol without any obvious checking too. I imagine teenage drinking is much easier these days thanks to the above :)

About a month ago I had my groceries delivered from Wholefoods and the deliver driver carded me for some non-alcoholic beer I had purchased. I tried explaining to him that he didn't have to do that, but he wouldn't unload my groceries until I let him scan my ID.
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