The website says 78% of people will avoid pregnancy in the scope of one year. Over the course of three years, you will more likely than not have an unplanned pregnancy.
What is the gold standard for age verification online? Is there one?
I could take my ID to the library / police station, have it verified, and then get given a USB stick with 16GB’s worth of signed government tokens from a big bucket of unmarked hardware. I guess a bad site could still narrow down who I am to my nearest library / police station though.
Proof-of-age tokens that aren’t tied to my ID have the downside that they are transferable. Kind of like a case of beer is transferable from an adult to a child.
Is there a better way of keeping are-you-old-enough separate from who-are-you?
ID has traditionally had a copy of what you look like embedded into the surface, but wouldn’t it be nice to have an ID that encoded what you sound like? If certain characteristics of my voice could be narrowed down to a QR code I’d feel a lot more comfortable identifying myself with a mic instead of a camera.
You could combine that with only one side of the ID showing the QR code and a some proof of age and keeping my actual name to the other side, hidden from the camera.
Have me say a random number, see if it matches the QR code for “en_US, male, tenor, southern French accent” to prove it’s me, here, and alive?
Doing it through banking or credit card infra sounds handy.
The site gives me a magic number and also sends it to their bank. I give the magic number to my bank and the two banks agree I am old enough without telling their respective customers (or each other) who is asking and who is responding?
So I'm in Texas and Pornhub already did the same thing here. What I don't get is all of the studio and professional aggregator sites that have existed for 30 years, well before user-generated video platforms were a thing, still operate in Texas. They use exactly the same age verification they've always used. Click yes on a splash screen before you can see free preview content, and submit a credit card to see paid content. If no one complains, we'll assume that was actually your credit card and you're thus 18.
Why is that good enough for every porn site in the world except Pornhub? I have still never seen a website ask for an actual ID except remote test proctoring stuff that popped up for IT certification exams after Covid closed the testing centers.
This might be a case of PornHub's popularity and position actually being detrimental to them, here. The smaller sites are going to operate on a "we'll deal with it when we have to" model whereas PornHub, due to being (or partially being) the reason for the laws in the first place, do not have the luxury of seeing if they are even discovered to be in violation.
My understanding is that every site other than pornhub is just ignoring the law and either hoping the state doesnt come after them or just operating offshore where the state has no jurisdiction.
Probably more out of caution around workplace-mandated anti-virus/spyware. I don't know if they're sophisticated enough to catch rhymes but it makes sense for general apprehension to surface.
That doesn't happen if you click on the wrong link once though. I've got the "Adult content is forbidden" Zscaler page many times at work and I didn't even get a call from HR :) Ususally miscategorised but still.
And why would they, because if you get this warning you didn't get to see porn, so it doesn't work. There is no point to keep on trying anyway.
How do they make money? What's their revenue stream? Who's paying $ when most content is for free, and when people really want to pay they go to OF. I know the phrase that when the product is free, then I'm the product, but even then, how do they make money from customers' mostly-incognito data?
PH purged all unverified content a few years ago and focuses more on creators like Twitch or YouTube does. You have paid memberships, premium content, tipping, and ads. They even do a pretty good revenue share. It's not the PH of the 2000s.
Their parent company, MindGeek, also owns at least 5+ studios themselves including popular ones like Brazzers so it works as promotion/marketing as well.
Pornhub is owned by the biggest porn studio. They push their studios videos, company makes money off subs to their content plus rev share for the independents.
I wonder what age verification system Pornhub would want. I mean if they actually do want one (dubious) and they don't want to deal with people's IDs (very sensible) then they could propose one.
I would have thought it's pretty easy. Have a government site that verifies your ID and just produces some kind of cryptographic token that porn sites can verify but reveals nothing other than the fact that you are over 18.
I mean realistically that's pointless because VPNs... but it's better than what they are currently demanding at least.
It's not really a question of what PH would want, but what the states will accept.
The government isn't going to provide an age identification program, because they really don't want to enable people to watch porn. This isn't about protecting the kiddies; it's about keeping porn out entirely.
And PornHub knows perfectly well that nothing they do will satisfy a state prosecutor looking to harass them. Even if they collected photo IDs, police will set up a sting with fake IDs.
So they give the government what it wants. They leave. As you said, anybody with a VPN gets their porn just fine, but the government cares more about the perception of morality than actual morality.
"Nebraska Legislative Bill 1092 went into effect on Friday making it a requirement for sites that show adult content to verify the age of users. This usually means some form of identification needs to be uploaded to the site to confirm the person using the site is 18 or over. "
Yeah, just upload your driver's licence to every sketchy site you browse to. What could go wrong?
I'm much more in favor of Leisure Suit Larry's approach:: give the user a quiz on things adults should know. Censor according to how well the user scores on the test.
How? It does absolutely nothing to prove the person is an adult. All it does is block actual, legally allowed users.
The whole purpose of the proof of ID is legal liability. The quiz doesn't do anything for legal liability.
Ideally, what ought to happen is the government sets up a system with cryptographic key pairs in a government database.
Adults go to a drug store / grocery store / whoever participates and is licensed to do this. The store clerk checks your ID. If you're an adult, they will give you a public key. The public key comes in an envelope that has been sealed at a government facility. No one can see it until you open the envelope. You can obtain as many of these as you want (you have to pay the cost of the printing / stationary / program admin costs at the time of purchase).
To go on pornhub, you need to type in the public key. Porn hub encodes a message with the key and sends to the government database to get a yes / no.
Governments can prosecute any store that gives out keys to minors (like with alcohol).
Governments can prosecute porn sites that do not adhere to this protocol.
This is good because it provides a lot of points where bad actors may fall afoul of the law, and these bad actors were probably the same types going to commit otehr crimes anyway.
But the truth is, this will never happen, because sites like PornHub are not interested in keeping minors off. They want to get young kids (boys mostly, although I hear girls are getting more amenable) addicted to their porn.
At what point of my proposal did the government keep track of shopping habits. The government issues cards to stores; kind of like transit cards at grocery stores.
In my city of Portland, if you want a youth transit card you have to show proof you're a kid. Or if you want a senior one, proof you're over 65.
Still, the government doesn't actually know who you are. It's just a number. The number is similarly hidden until you open the package. I don't think anyone could track it.
Why would the store need to track proof of ID? Clerk looks at card. Clerk checks date. Just like liquor in many states where they don't scan cards. No record is kept.
The county might randomize testing to catch stores issuing cards to minors. If such a store is caught, all cards issued by that store (which are tracked) are invalidated and you have to go to a reputable store. Stores would be required to reimburse you if you have a receipt, thus discouraging this behavior.
This is similar to cigarette sales in Oregon. There's no tracking, but you have to prove you're over 18. If a store is caught selling to minors, they are banned from selling cigarettes and fined heavily.
Porn should not be any easier to acquire than cigarettes, et al. Some things are for adults. I'm confused why this is remotely controversial. Should children be allowed in strip clubs?
It just sounds like building a system that's going to be used to coerce and blackmail the public in the future. Why on Earth would you trust that your embarrassing habits will not be monitored and used against you?
Not that I agree with the parent comment but this is pretty much the only thing that laws do. If you start with the assumption that something is legal and only think differently when there's a law that says it's not, then you're not too far off from the practical reality.
In every state, it's illegal to sell or supply alcohol to minors, and it's illegal to drive without a license, which can't be accessed by teenagers younger than 16. It seems analogous to require age verification for porn.
The thing is, age verification that consists of more than a simple button of "yes I'm over 18" is privacy intrusive. Who wants to register as a porn viewer? Especially in the US where this is stigmatised.
It's stigmatized for good reason. The amount of abuse within the pornography industry is immense. Anyone with any decent of ethics would refrain from consuming this material.
>>Anyone with any decent of ethics would refrain from consuming this material.
What, like....all porn? There are plenty of amateur couples who upload incredibly tender, loving and respectful videos of their love life to PH. Why are you bundling everything together with the exploitative stuff?
This is the "I buy from a local farmer raising their own cows" argument that people use to say eating beef is fine.
The local cow that you knew (and will eat half of), and the couples having a good time on video are not the majority by a long shot. It's a fig leaf that, at times, is grounded in reality, but often isn't what people are consuming.
They're bundled together because that's the majority of consumption. I'm not going to shame people for it; hell, I had a hamburger yesterday. That's simply what the majority pay for - the product that's created in an environment lots of people aren't comfortable talking about, and generally don't want to see.
No but I as a parent have the responsibility to monitor and decide what my children see and don't not the state. freedom of expression is a guaranteed right and onerous laws like this are just a end-run around anti-censorship laws just as much as the think of the children claim is a end-run around rational thought.
Every one of your responses fails to actually engage with the comment you're responding to. You're directly missing the point here. You should not create alts just to engage in low-effort argumentation.
One of my friends worked in this for a while for a major studio (not as an actress by the way) and she didn't see any sign of it. Everyone was quite happy, the atmosphere was relaxed. They'd rent big villas for the shoot and go skinny dipping in the pool after, she said it was lots of fun.
And no the actors really aren't all stepbrothers/sisters :)
Or.... "The amount of abuse within the [phone manufacturing, shoe manufacturing, textile manufacturing, palm oil harvesting, lithium mining, etc.] industry is immense. Anyone with any decent of ethics would refrain from consuming these products."
Does it make sense use the abuse within the porn industry to defend this when a lot of porn these days comes from individual creators? OnlyFans seems to be huge and I just checked PornHub's front page, of the 3 first rows, only 3 videos out of 12 seem to be from the "industry".
You can't do it without turning your site into a panoptical dystopia where even more of your personal data ends up with the NSA, third party data brokers, or hackers on the darknet. None of that's worth people's silly moralism to me.
This is good news. Here's hoping for a federal law that makes age verification for pornographic content a requirement across all states.
There's no reason why these sites shouldn't shoulder their share of the responsibility to prevent children from accessing this content.
It's really quite telling that Pornhub is removing itself from all markets where it's mandated to do this. Like all dealers of addictive and abusive substances, they want to hook their users in while young and impressionable.
If you feel that some pornography site would be invading your privacy by asking for age verification, then just don't use it. It really is that easy.
No-one's forcing you to watch porn. It's not a necessary consumption.
And if you consider the abuse that is rife within the pornography industry, then really it is better to not increase demand for this material by consuming it.
>>And if you consider the abuse that is rife within the pornography industry, then really it is better to not increase demand for this material anyway.
The abuse within Hollywood is legendary at this point, hope you never go to cinema to see any films, better not to increase demand for this stuff /s
Like the privacy invading practice of requiring drug stores to check IDs before selling Playboys?
I'm sorry, Playboy is way tamer than Pornhub. There's no reason PH should have less strict access requirements. There's no 'right' to access porn anonymously. For goodness' sake, most states monitor your alcohol consumption by tying purchases to your ID!
If all drug stores everywhere colluded to record your ID permanently, the analogy might make sense.
There is a right to access porn anonymously if both parties consent. You need to prove that the government has an overriding need to insert itself in the middle.
I'm not sure about Nebraska's law, but the law only states PH acquires proof, not keep a record of the license. That means PornHub could hire people to view the license on a live feed and then click yes / no.
Saying "Just bankrupt yourself to comply" isn't really an option. It's much like laws restricting abortion that are unsecretly trying to make it de facto illegal.
Yes, several states like Virginia only sell liquor at government-owned stores. Others like Oregon require that liquor stores are separately run, and they'll scan your ID everytime and it'll get sent to the state alcohol bureau.
Of course then you also have states like Louisiana with drive-through Daquiri stores.
Yes, surveillance is a classic element of dystopia. I don't consume pornography, nor do I drink or do many other things that I realize the government shouldn't have a say in, because I am capable of reasoning.
Do you have anything other than accusations to contribute to the conversation?
The issue with your idea, other than the obvious free speech stuff, is that it is not possible to stop offshore sites from posting content without an age verification. All this would do is move everyone from onshore sites like pornhub to offshore sites that have zero regulation at all. You dont see how that is worse than the status quo?
There are plenty of solutions for that already in place. Child sex abuse sites get blocked, for example. Even forums like Kiwi Farms have carriers blackholing them.
No reason why this can't be similarly enforced for porn sites that skirt the age verification rules.
Interesting that this is being suggested in a thread where someone is throwing around accusations of hyperbole. At least you're not beating around the dystopic bush.
I hope that you never find yourself on the receiving end of this process. You might think that you have nothing to hide, as many have throughout history before finding out that they were quite wrong.
I'm not a pornographer, of any type, so I will never find myself having to be concerned about children accessing my websites and being on the receiving end of any law that intends to regulate this.
> ...so I will never find myself having to be concerned about children accessing my websites and being on the receiving end of any law that intends to regulate this.
Oh boy. Good luck with the law if you accept and serve UGC and happen to store (let alone serve) any from a child who's under the age of 13.
Because every society in the world agrees it is unacceptable and works with foreign police to shut down the operators. The same would not be true for normal porn sites that are ignoring a foreign age law. Russian police wont do shit to shut down adult porn sites.
So now youre talking about ISP level ip blocking, but that will just lead to widespread VPN and tor usage. Are we going to ban VPNs and tor too?
Pretty much anything involved with money needs not just age but in most cases identity verification too. Online banking, online gambling, online trading etc.
> Pretty much anything involved with money needs not just age but in most cases identity verification too.
"Pretty much anything", you say?
I've never had to provide proof of age, let alone identity to purchase things over the Internet. A credit card and related address were all that was required. (What weirdo jurisdiction do you live in where you have to provide ID to order from `newegg.com` or your local instance of a big chain grocery store?)
Hell, this was the case like fifteen, twenty years ago when I had subscriptions for several of the larger porn sites. "Give me your credit card number and assert that you're of legal age in your jurisdiction." were the sole pair of requirements.
> Online banking... online trading
This is a result of "anti-money-laundering" (aka "KYC") banking regulations and has nothing to do with being online transactions, rather than in-person. Long ago, it used to be that you could show up with a sufficiently large wad of cash and get a checking account opened, no question.
> ...online gambling...
Given the enormous set of online transactions I can do without providing proof of ID or age (like, suchas getting alcohol and tobacco delivered to my door) this is clearly the exceptional case, and the one that relevant politicos are using to act as a basis for the ongoing campaign of Erasing Sin from The Internet (and massively empowering authoritarians in the process). (The fact that the overlap between the politicos agitating for these regulations, and the politicos who are massively authoritarian is very, very large usually goes unremarked in the press.)
