- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
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.
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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/
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.
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.
See also: The constant push by governments to take away our right to private (encrypted) communications.
somewhat legitimate concern (Minors having access to pornography).
Counterpoint: accessing pornography is part of growing up.
There’s A LOT of unhealthy porn, especially for kids. Especially for kids with no sex education. It’s also easier for them to get addicted.
You could also say alcohol is part of growing up, because for many it is.
Yeah, but the people banning porn are also banning sex Ed, so definitely seems more about control/abuse of power than concern for kids.
An oppressed and suppressed population is easier to control
Literally 1984
There’s A LOT of unhealthy porn, especially for kids. Especially for kids with no sex education.
Which is why comprehensive sex ed is so important.
Honestly learned more (and better) sex ed from porn than school. hentai specifically i could see putting age restrictions on, shit is horrifyingly accessible and has no semblance of consent as a concept.
Hentai is just drawn porn. Not all of it is rape stuff, and there’s loads of rape/incest/abuse roleplay in live action porn too.
Like spitting in an open asshole? Lets face it, the industry is pretty fucked up.
Just so I’m clear, porn should be available and these laws are privacy and security nightmares.
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.
“it’s for the children” is always a red flag
classic fascist tactic. there’s a reason half of the 14 words is about children
Except when it’s Wu-Tang!
step
- declare children don’t understand the world
- declare children can’t make reasonable choices
- parents and officials now get to decide what children do or don’t
- have obedient slaves.
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
Every time that a conservative equates the mere existence of trans people with sex, they’re just outing their own kink.
it’s mostly because the red hats love trans porn, and hate themselves for loving trans porn, and they just need a little help resisting temptation
Socially accepted mental illness
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.
Hahaha how easy it will be to fool the AI.
Why? Just take a picture of your neighbor.
What stops you from taking a picture of a picture of some random adult’s face?
Everyone should just upload a picture of Trump.
I rate they’re intending to keep those photos, but will stop when an exec with a little bit of humanity has a change of heart after checking the database when he realises he is looking into the eyes of a unkempt man with visible depression who is going to spend the next 15 minutes trying to settle on a video and another two minutes masturbating.
It might stop when the DB gets compromised and some exec gets threatened with the release of all his weird kinks going public.
Fascists view sexuality as a threat to their movements.
Fascists view knowledge as a threat. They use sexuality as another means of segregation.
sexuality is the core of human desire, and if you suppress that, you suppress the development of the individual’s sense of self-determination. that’s why it’s so important to the government so suppress sexuality.
there are other reasons, of course. for example, almost everyone nowadays is overworked, and of course that leads to a decline in relationships.
also, people are stronger together. sexuality brings people together. if you can suppress the sexuality of large swaths of people, you can basically hinder the forming of social coherence and community.
They view it as another tool to oppress us. They know it’s not a threat to them. The only threat to them is organized resistance.
Also: laughing, knowing things, joy.
“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
When I got my first smart phone, to access adult media and even Facebook, I needed to go in to a shop and verify my age using ID and they edited my account details, with this phone I had an instantly refunded penny charge on my credit card. There are very simple ways around it, which they apparently aren’t interested in.
Who is “they” in this context.
Honest question I promise. I don’t understand what’s going on…
I don’t know a lot either. By “they” I just mean those who are trying to ban porn.
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.
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.
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?
While privacy-focused age verification methods exist
verification methods may ‘exist’, but there are exactly zero which can guarantee security and privacy.
The are absolutely ways to have a 100% anonymous and private age verification. None of the parties here are interested in implementing them though.
“trust me bro” isn’t good enough for you? What’re you hiding?
Don’t you know the government is “If you have nothing to hide you should have nothing to be worried about”-pilled?
“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.
At the core of the debate is a genuinely thorny technical and legal question: how to verify someone’s age over the internet without exposing them to cyber theft or government surveillance.
Age verification providers are adamant that this is possible.
I agree that it is possible if you can guarantee absolutely zero corruption in the system. Which you cannot.
Proving, in a safe, privacy-friendly way, that you’re able to provide to some third-party website credentials proving that you’re an adult, is very easily doable. Most countries decided against the good version of it, but it is doable.
It does not, however, prove anything regarding the actual user in front of the computer. Let’s remind people that we live in a world where kids have access to their parent’s CC and regularly abuse it online. I doubt “more technical stuff” will prevent them from getting their hand on whatever certificate/token/thingamajig would be used for age check.
Unless we consider “good practice and proper communication”, or, parenting, to be a key point in this. In which case, there’s no need to do any technical implementation at all in the first place.
