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Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

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81–90 of 121 posts

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

#81
post #2

[flagged]

We have a few different things going on here. First, age verification requires sharing a lot of PII with some of the dodgier companies on the web. Pornhub’s business past is shady…and they may be the least shady of the lot. Second, things like gay rights aren’t a solved problem. The most awful fact in all of this is that people can be killed for watching gay porn in many countries. If a country changes its policy dramatically, porn sites will have a database of people who have watched gay porn in their country.

When someone physically checks my ID, I can be reasonably sure that it’s not going to be in a database. You could do age verification without a database, but it would be one hell of a lot easier with a database. And again, we’re looking at some of the dodgiest businesses on the web.

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

#82

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.

That would be a device level change. Pornhub doesn’t own Apple - they’re two separate companies.

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

#83
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?

> Is there a way to prove your age without being identified/logging in? This comes up every time, but the purpose of the identity check is to ascertain (to the extent possible) that the person logging in is the person whose age you’re verifying. If you completely separate identity from age checking using some cryptographic method, the loophole is that a single identity token with an adult age can now be used by every…

Does the currently proposed method prevent someone posting their ID online?

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

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask. Your appearance is the age verification. One can obviously tell you are of age to buy the products in question by looking at you. That’s the age verification. Communities are permitted to determine what constitutes age appropriate materials and at what age those materials can be consumed. Such standards ought to apply to web content too. There is nothing spec…

I may be in the minority, but the community does not raise my child. I do. As such, I will talk to them, set our family’s standards after consultation and monitor appropriately. If it turns into a discipline situation, I have no qualms about going there. Or if it turns into a praise situation, I have just as few qualms about going there.

Government regulation cannot and will not replace parenting. If government regulation worked, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving would not have to exist.

Moral is - talk to your kids. If porn is too hard to talk about, you weren’t ready to have children. It’s time to start building relationships with trustworthy adults who can talk about porn, sex, consent and all those other wonderful things with them. Because guess what dude? If parents don’t, someone will and their intentions may not be good.

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

#85
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask. Your appearance is the age verification. One can obviously tell you are of age to buy the products in question by looking at you. That’s the age verification. Communities are permitted to determine what constitutes age appropriate materials and at what age those materials can be consumed. Such standards ought to apply to web content too. There is nothing spec…

I may be in the minority, but the community does not raise my child. I do. As such, I will talk to them, set our family’s standards after consultation and monitor appropriately. If it turns into a discipline situation, I have no qualms about going there. Or if it turns into a praise situation, I have just as few qualms about going there. Government regulation cannot and will not replace parenting. If government regul…

Communities set some standards of behavior. This has been always been true. While the government doesn’t replace parenting it does enforce standards of conduct. Like requiring parents to feed their kids or preventing businesses from selling porn to your child.

If government regulation worked, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving would not have to exist.

MADD is precisely the kind of community action that is successful. They made people aware of a problem and government stepped in to help provide a solution. Drunk driving fatalities were reduced as a result.

…you weren’t ready to have children.

Lots of people are ready to have kids and have them. A healthy society tries its best to prevent such kids from suffering too greatly from the misfortune of being raised by a moron. A healthy society tries its best to prevent morons from enticing kids of good parents such as yourself to do things that are harmful. Hence we try to keep people from selling drugs to kids. We don’t have 100% success at this but this isn’t a valid reason to not try.

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

#86
post #2

[flagged]

> It is already the case that for the most part whatever we do online is known by some third party entity. Online privacy is essentially dead and has been for many years. I’m not implying this is good or desirable but that it is just the reality of things. This is a very defeatist point of view. It is still possible to choose not to share the majority of your online activity with third parties. Online privacy is esse…

You think it is still largely intact but what you do is monitored.

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

#87
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?

In the US, DMVs could issue IDs with Common Access Card support, a cheap and widely available digital system used by the DoD. Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew we were interacting with a real person and not a chat bot?

the kids will just swipe a parent or older sibling's card

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

#89
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal government could offer it as a service, just like they do in the physical world with physical IDs.

Don't know about you, but I definitely don't want the federal government intervening between me and my porn. So many opportunities for abuse of power!

There could also be a constitutional amendment that the federal government API used to verify identity does not keep any records.

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

#90
post #2

[flagged]

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…

Then don’t visit dozens of sleazy sites if you don’t want them all knowing about your porn habit.

Or better yet, end your porn habit.

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