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

kslnewsradio.com

611–620 of 1001 posts

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

#611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have seen this fail very hard in practice.

Because most kids can get there parents credit card number, and the "small nominal fee" is often too little and also often too cryptically booked for many parents to realize what is going on or to ask their bank about it.

And because it's just a "small nominal fee" many kids are also not worried about causing any harm when doing so.

Additionally with the credit card e-comerce system becoming more dominant in the world it becomes increasingly more likely for not-quite adults to have something which looks like a credit card for the shop (but likely acts a bit different behind the scene).

Lastly it potentially leaks _a lot_ of private information, which in some contexts is okay but in others is not. Which is also why the small nominal fee trick works, it's often not just based on "only adults have a credit card" but on "let's use the credit card number to get a lot information about the user including if they are adult".

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

#612
This law is so nonsensical. There is no way to block all the porn in the world behind "legitimate and law-abiding" porn providers. The right way to approach this problem (if you even see it as a problem) is to filter on the device.

Just make content tagging mandatory and make a device level filter that can be turned on by parents and locked with a password.

Done.

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

#613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said there was a constitutional issue (I don't think that there is). The difference between showing ID to a clerk and this sort of thing is recordkeeping. A clerk is only checking the DOB on the ID, not keeping a record of your identity[1]. Online age checks keep records. If there were some way of doing an age check without having your identity attached to it or having to expose yourself to some commercial th…

> constitutional issue As a foreigner, it's kind of strange that violent movies (and political propaganda disguised as violent movies) are protected speech and pornography is not.

In Europe, parents fear that violent media might effect their children, but worry less about sexual media.

In America, parents worry that sexual media might effect their children, but worry less about violent media.

I'm of the opinion that both are half right and both are half wrong. Both violent and sexual media effect the people who consume it. We are what we eat. There is no kind of media that doesn't effect consumers of that media in some way. Also, it bears mentioning that a lot of pornography is both sexual and violent...

(In case it isn't clear, those two trends I list above are gross generalizations. When I was a child in America, my mother would not allow me to play with tin soldiers or GI Joes, nerf guns, or watch cartoons more violent than Arthur. Not a typical American childhood, but nevertheless still an American childhood. Generalizations always have exceptions but I think they can be useful nevertheless.)

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

#614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consequence of exposing a kid with a peanut allergy to a peanut can be death. Watching hardcore porn won't kill a kid.

It will harm a kid, and asking a website to figure out how to verify an age is far less burdensome than taking PB&Js out of kid lunches.

>It will harm a kid

*Citation needed

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

#615
post #591
post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might see a lot of that personally, but the Utah legislature has a dearth of "health bro influencer" types, especially in its Senate. The chief sponsor of the bill went to BYU.[1] The co-sponsor of the bill went to BYU [2] [1] https://senate.utah.gov/sen/WEILET/ [2] https://house.utleg.gov/rep/PULSIS/ Edit: spacing

I didn’t suggest if it is happening in Utah it isn’t for religious reasons, but I don’t think criticism of porn is strictly a religious issue.

[flagged]

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

#616

Pornhub forced to block Utah, but not Iran. One state is a democracy, the other is an undemocratic clerical state. Now, close your eyes and try to guess which is which.

The answer to your riddle is: Utah is the democracy. Plain and simple. The democratically-elected representatives of Utah are passing legislation that represents the interests of the majority of its population.

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

#617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need a policy? Why aren't parents doing basic things like setting up content filters?

I posted this in another thread, but how are parents supposed to set up content filters for social media sites that allow pornography? Reddit's posts are ~40% marked nsfw, and they host hardcore porn of all types on the same domains as discussion forums for minecraft and roblox. Apparently some policy is needed to allow content filters to work in the first place, especially as everything is using TLS these days and i…

> posted this in another thread, but how are parents supposed to set up content filters for social media sites that allow pornography? Reddit's posts are ~40% marked nsfw, and they host hardcore porn of all types on the same domains as discussion forums for minecraft and roblox.

https://www.cisdem.com/resource/block-reddit.html

It's called being a parent

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

#618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's addictive for one. There are increasing number of support groups for men who are struggling with pornography use and for their spouses in dealing with having a dependant partner. It creates a space for people to explore and normalise their distressing sexual interests without questioning the root causes. Producers will often intentionally seek out vulnerable young women and groom them with promises of fame and r…

> It's addictive for one. Citation needed. Porn addiction doesn't exist [0]. [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/porn-addiction

I know someone who struggled with porn addiction. The person you replied to admitted to struggling with it. It's real, as an empirically observable fact.

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

#619

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I don't understand - if I did this kind of thing as a kid I'd just lose progressively more and more privileges. My parents never put technical obstacles in my way - there were just clear consequences for braking the rules. If your son keeps braking the rules you've set....surely there comes a point where he loses his phone/PC or whatever? No?

tldr: if your kid keeps breaking the rules, ramping up enforcement is not going to change that for the same reasons that punitive punishment in the judicial system is not effective. Your kid has to understand why the rules are if they're ever going to function well within them, and that also requires a level of parental compassion and understanding that often isn't present. > If your son keeps braking the rules you'v…

I support the education driven approach, but I still think there is room for content filtering. In the next few years, I hope turning on suite of content rules across platforms will mitigate explicit material from automatically being included in normal content feeds and prevent casual searches for porn. I have no expectations that blocking material from enterprising children will be effective and consider it a more of a parenting strategy failure anyway.

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

#620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws against murder haven't stopped murder, so I guess those laws are useless. Gun control laws? Japan's ex-PM got blown away by a wacko with a homemade shotgun, so I guess gun control laws just don't work. Nevermind the rate of gun violence in Japan.. it's all or nothing.

This doesn't directly add to or take from your point, because obviously laws have a purpose - that assassin was motivated by an extreme religious affiliation to the lawmakers. There is irony here.

I'm not seeing the irony, unless you believe that opposition to pornography being available to kids must necessarily have a religious motive. I oppose it, and I am an atheist.
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