"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.
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.