What the US PornHub ‘ban’ is really about
What the US PornHub ‘ban’ is really about
Age verification laws designed to block children from online porn sites are sweeping the US, Io Dodds writes. But do they actually protect children, or is there another agenda at work?
Summary
Several U.S. states have enacted laws requiring pornography sites, such as PornHub, to implement age verification to prevent minors' access, prompting the site’s parent company, Aylo, to block access in affected states.
Proponents argue these laws protect children, while critics highlight privacy risks, inefficiencies, and potential censorship.
These measures reflect growing social conservatism, with some advocates aiming to restrict adult content broadly.
While privacy-focused age verification methods exist, regulatory clarity is lacking.
Critics warn these laws may suppress responsible platforms, favoring unregulated alternatives, and escalate broader culture wars around sexuality and LGBTQ+ rights.
It's a classic tactic, use a somewhat legitimate concern (Minors having access to pornography). And blow it far out of proportion, and use it as an excuse to crackdown on what you're really after. You will see people defending these bans because the "reasoning" they're being presented SEEMS rational, but unwittingly they're supporting a mass crackdown on their own rights.
With this method, users take a photo of their face which is then analyzed by AI to estimate their age. Tombs says this involves no analysis of the user’s actual identity, and that all photos are deleted once the check is finished. Hence, neither Yoti nor the porn site ever needs to know who you are.
No. Fuck no. Just… wow.
Right. "Protecting children". Meanwhile, lowering the age range for child workers...
"No beating off! You need to save your energy for the night shift."
https://clockify.me/learn/business-management/minimum-working-age-by-state/
While privacy-focused age verification methods exist
verification methods may 'exist', but there are exactly zero which can guarantee security and privacy.
Fascists view sexuality as a threat to their movements.
"it's for the children" is always a red flag
they keep saying its about trans people but then they keep blocking porn so i don't know what it is. i think christians and conservatives are stupid as fuck
don't even for a second think this is in favour of you.
it's some weird christian idea that the human must be "purified" and watching porn stops that. it's about an ideology, not about you or your wellbeing.
We miss you, Larry Flynt. (Not really, he sucked in other ways a great deal, but he at least fought the good fight in this domain)
So no one wants to talk about how maybe we should just be talking to our kids about sexuality? This is just the absence only crowd again. And of course it's taking the rest of our liberties with it but can we stop framing this has tech was of protecting children here? It's Trojan horse bullshit.
They're compiling a list and they'll find a way to use it against you. Anyone who thinks the age-verification services won't share their data with the states is naive. Use a VPN and only pay using an anonymous prepaid card, and if that doesn't work, pirate the content.
While privacy-focused age verification methods exist
What might those be, and have they been reviewed by anyone with actual knowledge of security?
The most surprising thing to me is that PornHub is owned by a multinational Canada based private equity firm Aylo. I guess surprising might not be the right word, maybe morbidly reassuring that no one escapes from the slimy hands of late capitalism.
There are thousands of porn sites. Blocking pornhub doesn’t even register. If someone wants to find porn it is no more difficult than it was the day before the ban, it just won’t be pornhub porn.
"Another method, used in Germany, lets people show their ID card at a post office and get a unique ID to access adult sites. This could potentially be done without logging the person’s identity, but as CNIL points out such systems require much work to set up."
This exactly what I was thinking of while reading the article. It's just like going to a bar and getting carded. As long as no info is stored, I would be fine with this if were seriously looking for a solution for the kids
Mad conservative computer scientists: "Yes, using the fear that kids might see porno, we will soon require the implementation of the impossible device: Anonymous age verification! Since no one will be able to implement it, we will ban all pornography off the internet!"
Mad liberal computer scientists: : "Using generative AI, anyone can now produce any porno they want, even offline! And the interface is so easy that even a kid can use it!"
Porn companies: "We will have the computer take a picture of you and analyze your age to grant access."
Users: Uses generative AI to generate fake pictures to get access to real porn.
"While privacy-focused age verification methods exist, regulatory clarity is lacking."
It's not lacking clarity. Privacy-focused age verification is simply not wanted by big tech and politically (because money from big tech) as they wouldn't be able to collect and make money with building profiles of what you do online.
It’s there like, 3,000,000 other porn sites people can use? I don’t hover how this is a victory in any form.
There's no reliable way to verify age without extensive face verification with liveliness checks. A child can easily upload a parent's or some other adult's id card photo to get 'verified'. Also nothing stops kids to explore porn corners of social media (including lemmy) and thousands of porn sites operated not by the Big Porn. Porn is fundamental to internet.
Edit: I purposefully omitted vpn, that being the most trivial solution.
That's all besides the point however.
If a young kid is motivated by highschool seniors to watch porn, it is s parenting issue. If some adult encourages some child to watch porn as a grooming technique that's a much more serious case of child abuse. If a teenager is porn addict and doesn't do anything else, it is a major mental health concern, not a porn concern itself.
It is kind of accepted fact that many late teenagers are familiar with porn and explore it like any other sexual aspects of their life. Whether that's harmful is upto debate but teenagers/adults do many things harmful everyday and banning everything with law isn't realistic either. It is not end of the world if a teenager has sex or watches a porn movie. Children have greater dangers in general where they get abused by their relatives, teachers and even by their own parents and are continuously attempted to be programmed not to critically think by the religions.
I'm gonna be honest, I think it is good to restrict to make sure its not so easy to access for kids. Also, I think porn just demeans women and pushes that they're just a piece of meat.
A conversation can be had about if the way the restriction was done was good or bad or if it can be done in a better way.
Several U.S. states have enacted laws requiring pornography sites, such as PornHub, to implement age verification to prevent minors' access
Doesn't seem too unreasonable. When I buy alcohol I have to provide verification that I'm over 21.
The thing is, how do they enforce it? People in those states can still access pornhub through a VPN. Plus, what about all the other many, many porn sites?
I get what they're trying to do, but I think there are some logistics that haven't really been thought out.
Its about VPN sales.
I’m curious what this graph looks like compared to states with legal weed.