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Porn sites are banning Texas
51–60 of 65 posts
Re: Porn sites are banning Texas
#52I think what they wanted was proof of age. Which isn’t wholly unreasonable. The problem is doing it in a way that protects privacy. These debates happened in the 90s too. Every porn site had an age verification or warning that you had to electronically assert you were age of majority plus. I wish we could all agree that, this is important and we shouldn’t be allowing minors to watch pornography. The porn sites don’t…
From Texas HB 1181[0]:
> (b) A commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material on an Internet website or a third party that performs age verification under this chapter shall require an individual to:
> (1) provide digital identification; or
> (2) comply with a commercial age verification system that verifies age using:
> (A) government-issued identification; or
> (B) a commercially reasonable method that relies
> on public or private transactional data to verify the age of an
> individual.
The issue is that:
- Asking porn sites (whose traffic is mostly nonpaying lurkers subsidized by very horny whales paying for EVERYTHING) to scan licenses, is technically non-trivial and extremely anti-privacy, and
- Leaving (B) undefined means means exposure to way more lawsuits
Reducing this law to "proof of age" misses a big part of what these govs are really trying to achieve (tar-and-feathering people who privately enjoy spicy entertainment)
So given the ubiquity of VPN services that users can use to actually privately enjoy the world's oldest form of entertainment, it is easier for Mindgeek et. al. to IP block and create an even bigger problem for these governments to deal with (introducing a semi-private communication channel to people who didn't know this was an option).
[0] https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/html/HB01181H...
Re: Porn sites are banning Texas
#53lubbock is at the top of this list. while this city is very conservative, it is also the home of one of the biggest colleges in Texas (Texas Tech). so them topping this list is not at all surprising.
all of the other cities on this list are very (relatively) large east texas cities.
Re: Porn sites are banning Texas
#54The Netherlands is banning library genesis, Spain was banning telegram.. soon the icky way to use the internet will be via 24/7 VPN. But in what jurisdiction? It seems like everyone is banning something now.
VPNs will be highly regulated at some point. I'm somewhat surprised that this hasn't occurred already. I suspect the reason is that there's not been a catalyzing event that governments usually need in order to make restrictions palatable to people. This is probably designed to be that event. Enough people will buy the "think of the children" angle used to ban porn. And that legal framework can then be leveraged to re…
VPN providers will make smarter VPNs.
Re: Porn sites are banning Texas
#55Is this not what Texas wanted? What I think will happen eventually is that the websites will cater to government restrictions in the name of profits. They may complain and protest but the money generated from pornographic viewing online is too great.
na; whales will just use VPNs and call it a day.
Re: Porn sites are banning Texas
#56I think what they wanted was proof of age. Which isn’t wholly unreasonable. The problem is doing it in a way that protects privacy. These debates happened in the 90s too. Every porn site had an age verification or warning that you had to electronically assert you were age of majority plus. I wish we could all agree that, this is important and we shouldn’t be allowing minors to watch pornography. The porn sites don’t…
There's not a privacy preserving way because children are smart. I don't think we should enable more surveillance for the flimsy "think of the children " argument.
Speaking of "think of the children", I have a conspiracy theory that the PMRC[0] was less about Dee Snider and Cyndi Lauper and more about creating a labelling regime that could ensure english-lyric Eurodisco[1] tunes wouldn't get any US distribution.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center
Re: Porn sites are banning Texas
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
VPNs will be highly regulated at some point. I'm somewhat surprised that this hasn't occurred already. I suspect the reason is that there's not been a catalyzing event that governments usually need in order to make restrictions palatable to people. This is probably designed to be that event. Enough people will buy the "think of the children" angle used to ban porn. And that legal framework can then be leveraged to re…
> VPNs will be highly regulated I had hope for efforts like Freenet and Tor and I2P that are both censorship _and_ regulation resistant, but I've had hope for them for 25+ years and have yet to see them gain significant mindshare.
It's because they're such a sick cesspool. It puts off normal people just looking for a bit of privacy or a breath of air from all the restrictions.
Especially the onion verse is bad.
It's like the nazi bar. Once there's a few the bar gets a name and atmosphere and nobody else wants to do there anymore.
Re: Porn sites are banning Texas
#58I think what they wanted was proof of age. Which isn’t wholly unreasonable. The problem is doing it in a way that protects privacy. These debates happened in the 90s too. Every porn site had an age verification or warning that you had to electronically assert you were age of majority plus. I wish we could all agree that, this is important and we shouldn’t be allowing minors to watch pornography. The porn sites don’t…
The big difference between using an ID to buy alcohol and using your ID to access a site is data retention. I can get a drink by showing my ID, the person serving me doesn’t need to keep my information to keep an auditable record. Without an accountable third party auditing solution (some sort of accredited lab situation), I wouldn’t trust a website to take my ID and not save/redistribute that information for other purposes.
What is the result of this sort of regulation though? Now the sites which don’t operate in the US will simply skirt the regulation. What is Texas going to do, sue xHamster? Why would they bother to comply? Does Texas now start limiting the type of traffic allowed through the infrastructure within the state?
Re: Porn sites are banning Texas
#59I think what they wanted was proof of age. Which isn’t wholly unreasonable. The problem is doing it in a way that protects privacy. These debates happened in the 90s too. Every porn site had an age verification or warning that you had to electronically assert you were age of majority plus. I wish we could all agree that, this is important and we shouldn’t be allowing minors to watch pornography. The porn sites don’t…
The big difference between using an ID to buy alcohol and using your ID to access a site is data retention. I can get a drink by showing my ID, the person serving me doesn’t need to keep my information to keep an auditable record. Without an accountable third party auditing solution (some sort of accredited lab situation), I wouldn’t trust a website to take my ID and not save/redistribute that information for other p…
Nothing requires that they keep your info, any more than a bar or strip club is required to.
Re: Porn sites are banning Texas
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me tell you about this video's sponsor, NordVPN. NordVPN lets you change your country of origin. I like to watch Sherlock on Netflix, but Netflix in the USA doesn't have Sherlock, so I switch my country to the UK, and look, there's Sherlock!
Yeah, it's going to be an easy sell to regulate VPNs more strongly when Nord and others actively advertise that they can be used to avoid regional licensing of content.
It seems like the problem here is the regional licensing of content. If people go to such length to get around it, we should just eliminate the enforcement of arbitrary rules that want to prevent this isn't a global economy.