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Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

arstechnica.com

61–70 of 121 posts

Re: Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

#61
post #53
post #5

Is there a way to prove your age without being identified/logging in? Surely some kind of OpenID style protocol can be invented for this with zero knowledge of personal information ending up with pornhub or which sites were being given age verification?

Why not turn this around? 1. Introduce a X-PEGI HTTP header that sites can use to change the content. This would also be useful for other contexts such as cybercafes and whatnot. 2. Mandate that porn website abide by these headers. 3. Have responsible parents, lock their children's computers and add the appropriate header. The adults then have access to the adult internet with no extra restrictions.

> responsible parents

There's yer problem right there.

Re: Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

#62
post #3
post #2

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Strawman. PornHub doesn't argue against age verification, it criticizes the poorly designed implementation. Showing my ID at the liquor store to buy alcohol is not comparable to having to put my ID and PII in a poorly secured database. Databases that get breached again and again with virtually no consequences for the owner.

Pornhub could have implemented age verification a long time ago and didn’t. It didn’t suggest such a thing despite knowing underage kids were viewing their content. Now they try to act all reasonable. They aren’t a victim in this. They waited until a political solution was imposed to propose reasonable steps to combat the problem.

I’m all for reasonable solutions and don’t know the best way forward. I do know there is a problem with kids viewing content on these sites and I do know that these sites don’t care about that because none of them ever tried to do anything to prevent this.

Re: Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

#63
post #2

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I literally cannot remember the last time I had to show proof of age to buy tobacco or alcohol. I'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask. If I order alcohol, the reason I'm showing ID is to prove that yes, it was me that ordered it instead of someone else (and I'm showing my ID at the liquor store). I've only bought porn twice - once a video and once a magazine full of naked men. I didn't get carded…

> I literally cannot remember the last time I had to show proof of age to buy tobacco or alcohol. I'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask.

I'm older than you and I'm carded every single time I buy tobacco or alcohol. The policy on showing identification varies widely depending on region, both due to the actual law and store policy.

Re: Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not saying age verification is wrong, but dozens of skeezy sites taking in personally identifiable information who should have no business in taking in personally identifiable information is a bad idea. Pornhub advocate for devices to do authentication of ID (i.e. Apple has FaceID and a bunch of stuff for reading IDs already as part of their digital ID initiative) and then attesting the user is of age. This c…

Sure, that’s reasonable. Let’s implement this. In fact Pornhub could have implemented this on its own and staved off the “need” for a government imposed solution. It knew there was a problem and did nothing.

What problem?

Re: Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

#65
post #35
post #2

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No one is putting my name and date of birth into any database when I am buying alcohol.

I've found some places require an ID scan to sell alcohol. No exceptions even if you're obviously 65 years old.

Re: Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

#66

I am certain that Pornhub isn't doing this because they actually care about PII. However, I can think of a number of reason why they are taking this stance: * They don't want the work to do the verification to be their problem, and to be legally responsible when (not if) it goes wrong. * They know that age restricted devices are few and far between, so this is just an effort to kick the can down the road another deca…

> they are placing a lot of trust on reliable state-level geo-IP

Trust that could be contractually guaranteed, no? “We believe in our database so much that we’ll pay the fine if we’re wrong.”

Re: Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

#67
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that’s reasonable. Let’s implement this. In fact Pornhub could have implemented this on its own and staved off the “need” for a government imposed solution. It knew there was a problem and did nothing.

What problem?

Obviously children viewing hardcore porn on Pornhub’s sites.

Re: Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

#69

I am certain that Pornhub isn't doing this because they actually care about PII. However, I can think of a number of reason why they are taking this stance: * They don't want the work to do the verification to be their problem, and to be legally responsible when (not if) it goes wrong. * They know that age restricted devices are few and far between, so this is just an effort to kick the can down the road another deca…

> I am certain that Pornhub isn't doing this because they actually care about PII

> They don't want the work to do the verification to be their problem, and to be legally responsible when (not if) it goes wrong.

That's literally caring about PII. Quite a bit more than the state legislative sponsors of and "think of the children" advocates for these laws, too.

Re: Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

#70
post #34

This seems to be a Trojan horse for even further "personalizing" (de-anonymizing) the internet. If one site can require FaceID (or any sort of attestation) then either some, all, or arbitrary sites can require the same. I'm in the same boat... banking would be nice to support "non-anonymously", but why are they chasing against porn sites vs finance sites? It's such a slippery slope imagining requiring "age verificati…

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