As I understand things, a big part of the support for age verification comes from religious groups who'd like a complete porn ban.
But as that won't fly for first amendment reasons, imposing an impractical age verification requirement is the next best thing. The impracticality is intentional, the people advocating for these laws don't want it to be possible to comply with.
>But as that won't fly for first amendment reasons
The republican scheme called "Project 2025" calls for criminalizing porn. Where there's a will, there's a way, and that's why republicans must be kept out of office. They don't care about the first amendment or any of the other amendments except maybe the 2nd amendment when it serves their agenda. They've had banning all porn on their platform for years, they'll eventually do it if we stupidly let them.
Republican? Debatable. Certainly, it was written by republicans. Maybe you can argue it doesn't speak for all of them, only the very important ones at the Heritage Foundation.
Conservative? Absolutely. And I don't think any conservatives would even argue otherwise. I mean, this is their dream.
"with the aim of promoting a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election."
Tracking anyone for personal life activities is ridiculous.
If those that lobby for these laws want to track porn users, then a fair exchange might be to require public registration of one's religious affiliation with the state and require it for religious donations to remain untaxed.
They might back down really fast and understand how important privacy is.
It's literally no different than the current laws against selling porn to minors physically. Unless you're proposing getting rid of that law, exactly why should websites be held to different standards?
False, as interaction on the web and in meatspace are not equivalent.
By going to a brick & mortar shop, you already know you have to show your face and have kind of a low expectation of privacy (and its already a problem for some people to go to a sex shop, in part because of the social stigma some religion put on enjoying sex), but you don't have to ID yourself further assuming you look old enough.
Checking age in a brick & mortar shop, for anything from alcool to porn, doesn't force you to log your identity in a database.
On the contrary, you don't have to show your face to access a website, neither have to ID yourself.
By requiring it for porn, even with a convoluted pseudo-privacy-focused way, you're now requiring it for any website that could host porn even if it's not their focus (e.g : reddit, twitter), or pushing said websites to become puritan.
> Checking age in a brick & mortar shop, for anything from alcool to porn, doesn't force you to log your identity in a database.
Neither does checking age on the web. The whole 'database' thing is a scare tactic. They have to make sure you're not a minor. That's it.
Again, I'm shocked this is controversial. You can be the most pro-porn person on the planet, but surely you don't think children should be exposed to this stuff, right? In many states, children can't even see inside liquor stores (mandated blackout curtains), yet we think it's okay they're watching porn? Come on. Let's just be normal.
> you're now requiring it for any website that could host porn even if it's not their focus (e.g : reddit, twitter), or pushing said websites to become puritan.
Well... yeah? If you have user generated content, you have to moderate it. Remember during the previous two presidential elections when we demanded every website moderate political speech? And now, it's a porn free for all?
PornHub is free. There are no laws against leaving porn where a minor might find it. Arguably, the websites are being held to different standards. You can go into Barnes and Noble and find all kinds of filthy books, and they're not locked behind a glass display cabinet requiring a clerk to check your ID.
This is a lot different than leaving porn somewhere. PornHub is advertising on their porn websites. Leaving porn is equivalent to leaving pornhub open inadvertently (I.e., an adult opened it, was advertised to, and didn't close it).
Pornhub is earning money from the porn. Huge difference. Pornhub intends to show its content to minors. In the case where someone leaves it inadvertently, it's an accident (like finding Dad's hidden store of playboys).
If the purpose of pornhub is to arouse, then pornhub providing its services to a child is illegal in California and many other states. The only way it's not already illegal is if pornhub is going to claim it's not meant to arouse (I mean come on... really?)
I'm honestly shocked this is even controversial. What's going on here is that the law is actually already being broken in most states, including liberal California; but the state governments are unable to enforce it. The laws in Texas et al make it enforceable and clear, as it should be.
I'm not some prude. I don't think these things should be banned outright, but it seems obvious to me that there's every interest in preventing children from viewing it. First of all children under a certain age should never be exposed to this stuff and if they are, it should frankly be investigated. Secondly, it can be harmful to minors to view porn, as evidenced by many studies on the matter.
I agree with you that ideally kids would not be browsing PornHub. I'm not sure that requiring PornHub to de anonymize you is a good or proportionate solution.
It seems to me that a major driver of intuition here is whether a website is a "transaction of service", or simply a thing that you can look at if you go to a certain place. PornHub is large and complex and prints t-shirts, and so perhaps intuitively they feel like a "service". But what if I write a silly little piece of erotica and host it as a plain txt file on my pokey little personal website, behind a link that says "click here for my silly piece of erotica (18+ only pls!)". Should I be legally compelled to collect and store people's personal information over that? Should it really be illegal to put arousing material on a public facing webserver?
There is no requirement of de-anonymization. This is a trick PH is pulling to make people want to let them show anyone porn. The requirement is they verify ages. They can do this by hiring staff to video chat with potential users and ask them to show an ID. There is no requirement that they require scanned copies of the ID cards. This is all a trick to make you against this bill.
Alternatively, Pornhub can partner with physical storefronts and create a system so that your local corner store can verify you for a fee.
Either way, that's on them to figure out.
> Should it really be illegal to put arousing material on a public facing webserver?
If it's in a place easily discoverable by teenagers and you're fighting for the ability to show it to teenagers and children, then yes, it should actually be illegal.
That's the diference between no-name you doing it and pornhub. Pornhub is well-known and anyone can find it. It's discussed in various publications. Any kid can know what it is and go look for it. It's like if you brewed beer for yourself and left it on your property... fine. But if you're Budweiser, you can't just leave your beer in a cooler in a park and then wash your hands of the responsibility of not selling to minors. Yes, we expect more from more sophisticated market participants. That's hardly something to clutch pearls over.
> There is no requirement of de-anonymization. […] They can do this by hiring staff to video chat with potential users and ask them to show an ID.
What you are describing is de-anonymization.
> Alternatively, Pornhub can partner with physical storefronts and create a system so that your local corner store can verify you for a fee.
Dito. Plus you now have to announce to your local shop your porn consumption. I have no idea of your local customs, but it's not a subject commonly talked about with the grocery cashier here.
> Dito. Plus you now have to announce to your local shop your porn consumption. I have no idea of your local customs, but it's not a subject commonly talked about with the grocery cashier here.
No different than having to buy porn magazines at your local corner store.... And that's the point. If you include having to present yourself to someone, never in history has there ever been a presumption of complete anonymity. That's a made up right. In general, if you're embarrassed to tell someone else what you're doing you probably shouldn't do it.
> No different than having to buy porn magazines at your local corner store.... And that's the point.
So… going 25 years back in time and forgo any online shopping ? Or your argumentum ad antiquitatem should only apply to porn ?
> never in history has there ever been a presumption of complete anonymity.
Everything as a first.
> In general, if you're embarrassed to tell someone else what you're doing you probably shouldn't do it.
That's an absolute insane take. Different peoples have different morals values, not wanting to broadcast your personal life as nothing to do with "embarrassment", and a lot of time, more about your safety.
Should people don't abort because they don't want to tell everyone about it ?
Do you always tell your coworkers when your going to take shit ?
Do you share your sexual life with your plumber ? Even if he's a religious bigot and your gay ?
Online shopping is not anonymous at all. You provide your name, address, etc.
> That's an absolute insane take. Different peoples have different morals values, not wanting to broadcast your personal life as nothing to do with "embarrassment", and a lot of time, more about your safety.
Absolutely! You have every right to think showing pornography to children is not only morally right, but morally required. However, the laws of the state of California, and most other states, say it's illegal. So regardless of what you think, under the law you are a criminal.
You're probably not totally wrong, but I'm failing to see where pornography fits into this. No one is going to die due to lack of access to porn. We made do for decades / centuries with having to show ID or convincing someone else to get it for you.
So you want to prohibit sending pornography by USPS mail until the receiver has identified themselves sufficiently to confirm they are old enough?
Because surely that is the more valid comparison than physical stores.
United States Postal Service v. Hustler Magazine, Inc. said Hustler had the right to send unrequested copies of the magazine to Congress members. If only they had thought to require people to send a copy of their id first before being allowed to receive porn.
So what? I sincerely doubt Hustler sent the magazine to Congress members with the intent to arouse.
In any case, there's no law saying that if I, as an adult, want to get a subscription to the print edition of Hustler magazine, then Hustler is obligated to verify that I am an adult.
Not now, not in the 1970s.
Why should the internet be any different? It's "literally no different."
Pornhub should not have more privileges than everyone else.
Look, most states explicitly allow parents showing porn to minors under the guise of education. If you want your kid to view porn... that's your prerogative. But the companies themselves cannot distribute pornography to minors. It is illegal already.
Which has squat all to do with the flaw in your earlier analogy.
You wrote "It's literally no different than the current laws against selling porn to minors physically."
I pointed out that the laws regarding physical stores are different than the laws regarding mail. There is no law requiring me to present identification or other proof of age before I subscribe to a pornographic magazine.
You can't cherry pick the analogy that works best for you, without explaining why other (IMO more) reasonable analogies are invalid.
You pointed to 47 USC § 223 but didn't read it closely enough to figure out it isn't relevant. It requires "a telecommunications device", but that does not include an interactive computer service.
The definitions say "The use of the term “telecommunications device” in this section ... does not include an interactive computer service" and "The term “interactive computer service” has the meaning provided in section 230(f)(2) of this title." where "The term “interactive computer service” means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server".
Internet companies aren't liable under the law you pointed to for the simple reason that the law doesn't apply to them.
The law explicitly says that anyone who makes an interactive computer service display porn to a minor has broken a law (paragraph (d)). Your 'rebuttal' is based upon only reading (a). Yes, pornhub is not doing anything wrong under (a), but under (d) it clearly is. The owners and producers of pornhub are causing minors to be transmitted porn via an ICS.
Yes, ISPs are not liable because they're just carrying public traffic. But under section (d), even if a minor requests the porn, you cannot serve it to them. Please read it.
While you are correct, you are also not reading it correctly.
(d) refers to "obscene or child pornography".
While some pornography is obscene under US law, in general pornography is "indecent", not obscene.
See Sable Communications of California v. FCC, from when the US tried to regulate dial-a-porn, and the courts decided the original law was overly broad.
Only (b) refers to "indecent communication" (and only in the context of "commercial purposes"), and it specifically requires a telephone.
If I understand the history, that was from the 1989 amendment to the Communications Act of 1934, known as the Helms Amendment, and the courts decided that was sufficiently narrowly tailored to not affect 1st amendment rights (see the court judgement in Dial Information Services v. Thornburgh).
It appears, based on my shallow understanding of the history, that I can set up an automated recording such that if you call it, it plays back a recorded sex chat which is indecent but not obscene. And I can do that without requiring age identification from those who call.
I might have to inform the telephone company that I have done so, so they can let people who opt-out of being able to connect to such numbers from doing so, but otherwise it's my first amendment right.
Which circles us back to yet another analogy which seems more appropriate than your focus on the sale of pornography in physical stores.
It is, because you already can't sell to minors. Your ISP verifies your identity, and that you're an adult, when you purchase service.
If parents turn around and then give that good/service to their child, all bets are off. The store clerk doesn't follow you home, do they? I should hope not.
This is a great point. The ISPs should allow an IP lookup of whether or not a particular origin IP / port combination (for VPN) is able to view porn. Parents can then tell their ISP to block porn for the household, if they have kids. Or, if they do have kids and want them to see porn, then they can do nothing. Either way, the responsibility is now on the parents. That would be an acceptable way of doing things.
It's even worse than that. Even if these did work, the goal isn't just to make it harder.. These will act as a chilling effect on viewing, the first time there is a security risk, or it become convenient, the information will be out there. Or at least the risk and fear of such.
I support basically any limits on porn. I’m not religious, but I used to watch a ton of it and it had lasting repercussions on my real sex life. While I would believe religious groups don’t like porn, I think they’re just a part of it
You're using the wrong word here. The issue of weather pornography is "addictive" has been visited multiple times by multiple DSM committees in recent times and in the latest release DSM-5-TR they have found that pornography cannot and does not cause "addiction". There may be disorders associated with it, but it is not addiction. Using that word allows for framing which justifies the use of violence against people and is, frankly, more damaging than pornography.
I mean porn is especially potent because anyone can access it any time. A lot of men start watching porn around 10, and the fact it’s so easy to do is ridiculous. I mean when I was young, the only barrier between me and porn was learning what words brought up better search results
Should we also ban sports because people can be injured? It only happens to a small fraction of the players but the same can be said for people like you that believe they've had "lasting repercussions" serious enough to justify the use of violence against others.
I have not seen any real evidence that would justify the concern, and for the most part the indications are the opposite — there is less harm when it's easier to get.
But for the sake of argument, if it can be demonstrated that some content is harmful, then a ban is justifiable.
> According to Kekesi, every single piece of content uploaded to Pornhub is now manually reviewed by a human being.
That's ...a job.
> Device-based age verification
This seems like something Apple will inevitably get into. It could be enough pressure to deter device-sharing.
edit: and I don't mean they'll be forced to do it. They'll just use it as an opportunity. Eg, pornhub will work in Texas for 'age-verified devices" -- no ID upload required. (At least not to the site in question). Texans won't need to futz with a VPN, they'll just use iPhone. Parents will want to get their kids devices that have the verification.
I don't know about PornHub specifically, but I've seen the upload system in play on other major sites and it happens near-instantaneously. I've asked some of the developers about it and they won't comment about what is happening on the backend, but if I had to take a guess it is some kind of Mechanical Turk system that simply shows a snapshot of the media to someone's screen and gets them to confirm it looks like the person on the ID card for the account, and makes sure it isn't something fucked up like CSAM.
The major sites that I know also run AI over all uploads to check there aren't other persons in the media (outside those authorized to be in there, with release forms).
On the upload side, these sites seem to run a tight ship these days. These are the legit ones who are now getting cut off in the ban. Not the rogue sites running out of Kazakhstan.
I've read about the PTSD that human content reviewers suffer from, the job sounds like hell. You're exposed to the most upsetting images humanity can produce, and you're supposed to view thousands of pictures a day.
I was wondering if many measures to reduce the trauma are already in place? You could show a small thumbnail, or black out most of the picture, or maybe blur everything except a small part of the image.
Definitely a difficult job, I wish they were better treated.
When I was working for Kink, as a joke, we picked MaleWank as the first site to convert to the new platform that we were building (as software engineers). Mostly because the site had been retired and wasn't generating new content. This meant working directly with all of the content, repeated many times, on the site for many months.
Yeah, those social network moderators are living a hard life. I'd like to think there is a lot less requirement for that now that AI is around, but someone is still doing that job.
With the legit porn sites, the main purpose of the checks is to avoid creators uploading anything without verified third parties in it. If they uploaded anything outrageous like CSAM their account would be terminated along with all their revenue, so at least for the Pornhubs of this world their human moderators are probably not seeing very much of the really fucked up shit. BUT, saying that, they are seeing a lot of really, really weird porn. Pornhub still allows shit that is technically legal, but would be off-putting to a lot of moderators being paid 50 cents an hour.
Given the App Store rules and how it gets enforced on e.g. Telegram, Discord, I'd be very surprised if Apple does anything that might possibly allow sexual content on their platforms if they can possibly avoid it.
Yes, despite them shipping a browser. That's in the can't avoid category.
Apple could easily implement something like this using the same system they have now called “privacy pass” [0] which is an attestation mechanism [1] implementing a protocol from Cloudflare for identifying “legitimate humans.” It’s not a big leap to extend that to “legitimate adults.”
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cloudflare spearhead an initiative for a “privacy-preserving age verification protocol.”
Lot of fucking luck Texas et al, there’s no way this sticks. I have no idea what the new status quo will be, VPNs becoming as common as web browsers would be one amusing future, but it won’t be that these laws get complied with, that is zero percent going to happen ever.
This is the reality in the Middle East. Every home has a shared VPN account that even the kids have the login for, to get around all the bans that are in place, that make the Internet really annoying.
They're absolutely fine with that, because then they can prosecute anyone for it whenever they want. Especially once they expand the definition of porn to include any lgbtq+ content like they're already trying to.
They're not trying, they are just more successful with books. They've re-defined obscenity for the books, and there's no real reason it won't carry over to the rest of the media.
VPNs make short work of these blocks in Texas just as they do in large parts of the Middle East and Eastern Asia where porn is illegal. Assuming you're an adult and are able to pay for and set up a VPN.
That aside, I'm not convinced unfettered access to all varieties of hardcore pornography is a good thing for society, especially kids.
Will they criminalize VPNs? I guess that is the next question.
In Middle Eastern countries every home has a VPN subscription, it is an open secret, and there is no effort to crack down on it or block it (i.e. not like China). It lets the government say "We banned the naughty stuff," while allowing their citizenry to rightly access everything at the same time.
The only people put out by the bans in the Middle East are tourists fresh off the plane who didn't do their research.
Seems unlikely. VPNs have far too many legitimate uses. How many people are on VPNs for work alone?
I also don't think the law in Texas is written against the consumer, e.g. it doesn't say it's illegal to view porn if you haven't shown an ID. Rather, it's levied against the distributor to say it's illegal to show porn to someone you haven't age verified.
So it's not like the act of using the VPN to circumvent this would be criminal.
I was in China earlier this year. Most of the popular and well known VPN endpoints were blocked. Even with stealth oriented settings. It would be pretty easy for government workers to sign up for the top 10 services, see all their endpoints and just blacklist them.
However, the VPN I had setup at my house worked fine and had no issues with being blocked on the basic VPN setup.
I don't think US states can really criminalize VPNs. Countries can, but I don't see how a state is going to justify a VPN ban. They're clearly useful for all sorts of things, and it's awfully hard to confirm what it's used for.
And it would be a big overreach of state powers IMHO.
It would definitely be odd. I don't see the tech companies rolling over and allowing it to happen. How do other countries police VPNs? Is it only at the border?
I think technically a state could legislate against it. States have some laws in the US already which would probably raise eyebrows. Illinois makes it up to 5 years in prison to violate the ToS of a web site, for instance. People say to me, "But it's not enforced!"... I'd rather you argue that to the judge at your bail hearing.
The UAE for example has laws that some interpret as being anti-VPN, with some also using it to get around anti-VoIP laws in that country, but the enforcement of that is pretty much weak.
I could never get a straight answer. Everyone kinda snorts and laughs if you ask about it, "Like, really?" I tried translating Arabic statutes. I don't want to test ME laws because they generally have Sharia for the locals and a standard criminal code for foreigners, but that all sounds like a recipe for A Bad Time(tm).
It ain't no China, though. It's a really flimsy attempt to block things. Skype worked perfectly, but not Facetime, even though not having an iPhone for natives was like not owning a Toyota Landcruiser.
The reason they want this is so they can (1) eliminate it and (2) publicly shame those that use it when details are leaked or the zeitgeist swings even further in their favor.
The solution is for parents to be mindful of their children and not allow them to use the internet without supervision.
We shouldn't become a nanny state or a spy state because of bad parenting.
I'm generally sympathetic to not allowing negligent parenting to encourage "nanny state" regulations to be put into place. But the meat space equivalent to the age verification here seems to be something like age verification for buying alcohol, tobacco, or a firearm. Would we not want to verify a potential purchaser's age because "the solution is for parents to be mindful of their children and not allow them to buy firearms/tobacco/booze without supervision"? My guess is fewer people would be onboard with that. What's the difference?
The difference is showing my id to a minimum wage liquor store worker for a few seconds vs giving my id to a company and trusting them to store it indefinatly and tying my internet presence to my actual identify all for a law that would be at best a minor hinderance for underaged people wanting to access pornography
Many state issued IDs are now machine readable. I've had my ID scanned when I went to buy some beer before. I assume I trusted them to store it indefinitely, tying my real-world presence to my actual identity to comply with a law that is a minor hindrance to underage people wanting to access alcohol. (I don't know if the person who scanned my ID made minimum wage, though. Probably.)
Guns blow your heads off or 20-50 of your least favored classmates and alcohol and tobacco kill millions and young people are very vulnerable to addiction.
It's not clear that there is a similar effect from seeing boobs.
You've set up a strawman argument. If viewing pornography on the internet only meant "seeing boobs," age verification surely wouldn't have gained as much traction as it has in the US and UK. But there's a lot more than that. It's disingenuous to ignore that fact.
Please quantify the dangers of pornography and explain why site level age verification is a better option vs device level blocking available to parents.
> The solution is for parents to be mindful of their children and not allow them to use the internet without supervision.
I hate carrying water for these shitty laws, but I don't think it's possible to stop a sufficiently motivated child from obtaining unfettered access to the Internet. I don't think it's about "bad parenting".
Even if you take VPNs out of the equation, all you're going to do is push people towards other sites that don't care. There's no shortage of websites that offer porn that people can just go to instead. The only people that you're going to remotely stop are the most tech illiterate possible that don't understand they can just go to the next site in the search. You know, the ones with basically no press attention that have lax moderation policies and allow basically anything through.
> The solution is for parents to be mindful of their children and not allow them to use the internet without supervision.
You're missing it. It's not just your own kids. It's your kids going to their friend's house and their friend's older sibling showing them something. And this is a one-way street. They can't unsee things they're too young for.
> We shouldn't become a nanny state or a spy state because of bad parenting.
You should see all the social services infrastructure designed to protect children from bad (or worse) parents.
The access isn't unfettered, it's very fettered. You need to purchase internet service, which only adults can do. The problem is those adults, which purchase it, do absolutely nothing to restrict access for their kids.
It's like buying alcohol, and then keeping it in water bottles in your fridge and complaining your kid keeps getting drunk. At that point the problem isn't the laws or society, it's you!
I wonder why an ISP in offending states hasn't yet taken the opportunity to offer a VPN as a package solution. It could be an easy value add for less tech literate users.
That particular porn had negative effects on a lot of people. Not society in full, but trafficking does have a serious negative impact, and demand for porn drives some demand for trafficking.
Arguably virtually free porn on the internet would seem to make individual production of porn dramatically less valuable while 20 year sentences make unethical tactics like that more dangerous and less worthwhile. Conversely banning legit porn would seem to make it more valuable and whilst it wouldn't make it less dangerous to get caught it would create a subculture of somewhat ethical people doing marginally illegal but not immoral things in which bad actors could hide. Also those looking to make some of that presumably increased money could intend to engage with this semi legit subculture and end up dealing with one of the aforementioned bad actors thus increasing the chance that people end up trafficked.
Age verification probably wouldn't even do this. What would most likely happen is that it would drive more traffic to increasingly less legit sites and make real regulation impossible.
That's a human trafficking example, not a porn one.
There human trafficking problem in plenty of activities, from housework to construction, restaurant and agriculture. Would you argue that demand for these activity drive demande for trafficking ?
But as that won't fly for first amendment reasons, imposing an impractical age verification requirement is the next best thing. The impracticality is intentional, the people advocating for these laws don't want it to be possible to comply with.