this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
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Pornhub has shut off access in Mississippi and Virginia to protest age verification laws that can involve checking government IDs. It previously blocked access in Utah.

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This law is sponsored by Nord VPN

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Right? It’s almost as if the “lawmakers” have no technical knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

gasp surely they wouldn’t make laws without getting at least a rudimentary understanding of the subject material?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I've never used Nord but the fact they're the ones getting pushed on users by corporate "security" packages and identity theft FUD scammers indicates to me that Nord is the VPN "they" want you to use. Mullvad for the win.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This actually pushed me and a couple of friends to subscribe to Nord; I'd been thinking I should get a VPN for a while anyways. I looked through VPN's and I ended up liking Nord's feature set and price vs ExpressVPN. Never thought I'd use them back when they were EVERY video's sponsor on YouTube lol.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If true that Nord lobbied for this, run away. That company will not respect your privacy.

Mullvad is decent and has a track record of being subpoenaed by LE but keeping nothing, so having nothing to show. Tho I’m sad they just got rid of port forwarding (only affects seeding torrents)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Nord VPN also keeps logs and has handed them over to police forces.

So far I'm like the proton suite, have my email and VPN through them.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sauce? Big if true but the self licking ice cream cone exists.

The largest non-ID age based verification company currently is owned by pornhub. So, them blocking access in states that aren’t cooperating (which the law is dumb anyway) is more than just a “we don’t agree with the law” it’s also, “we will hold your state hostage until you use our platform”

Sauce: https://medium.com/fingleton/dont-let-the-porn-block-give-mindgeek-a-monopoly-aafdfed270de

Plus the text on their website saying “there are other ID options” = “buy our service”

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I think op made a joke, there is no real evidence or suspicion, just half-serious conjecture.

[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago (2 children)

PH is trash but these laws are dumb as fuck and misguided. are we really pretending that you shouldn't be horny until 18 or whatever

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I came around the idea of stricter enforcement of age verification for online services. But the way it is implemented doesn't make any sense. I wouldn't trust porn sites with any personal information of mine.

I like the idea France is working on, a double anonymity age verification service. A third-party (hopefully the government) is used to verify your age and generate a token and that token can be used on any site to verify your age. The site verifying your age doesn't know for which service you are generating the token and the site doesn't have any access to personal data.

Whether or not pornographic material should be accessible to people under the age of 18 is another topic. I am not sure what a good age cut-off would be. But I definitely agree that there should be an age limit.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Doesn't the (government?) site that provided the token learn which site it was for when that site requested the token be verified?

@Hillock

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

No, if done correctly the site verifying the token should only need to verify it was signed by the authority token provider.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Right now the system is still just theoretical so the specifics are undefined. But the idea is that they wouldn't. I assume they could still figure it out by tracking the IP addresses of those who access the token and matching it to a company. But the company doesn't have to send a request. I assume you are just generating a link that says "This person is age X". So the link itself serves as the verification. The link would only be valid for 5-15 minutes, so you can't just steal it to impersonate someone else.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'll be the brave one and ask;

What are your favourite porn sites, guys?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

youtube.com

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Not sure if it’s still up-to-date, but tblop.com used to be a great way to find new sites. I know there are several similar sites, but this is the first one that comes to mind.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (7 children)

why is this getting so much traction in the media? there's so many other, arguably better resources for pornography on the interwebs

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago

I think it’s just highlighting that state governments are making crazy laws like this, and PH is one of the big dogs everyone knows

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's important to ensure coverage of state control. These "moral" issues being delt with via legislative means is abhorrent. Land of the free, eh?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would you want to be responsible for checking IDs over the internet? No sane company would want to be responsible for getting it wrong.

Also, would you be willing to send a scan of your drivers license to a porn website? Any website?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You could make the check with your ID card in a way that a middle ware reads the card and just gives the ok signal to the site. No personal data is transfered outside .

I use an lvl 3 smardcard reader for things like this. NFC on the ID is checked, PIN entered in the reader and the middle ware verifies that you are sitting at the PC.

In the moment of request you can see what data is transfered because to use this service they have to be verified by the middle ware service as well in advance for access to the process.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Thats exactly what PH is advocating for, device manufacturers to handle it, securely, privately, on device.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Nah man. Freedom for me, not for thee.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

The point is that these states are making ridiculous, unenforceable censorship laws. They're going to try to gate ALL of those arguably better resources you're talking about behind some kind of age verification like a driver's license or some shit. PornHub is just the headline because it's a popular website protesting.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yea, so many better sites.

We should list them here so everyone can avoid them though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Sorry mate. If your state blocks porn in this way you need to move or vote for better representation.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I couldn't disagree more. Pornhub is the best porn website we have right now by far. They consistently do a great job of moderating to remove underage porn and revenge porn while also all monetizing for the creators. I don't think a lot of people realize how good we have it worth pornhub

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There have been multiple cases of underage girls on PH and SA videos that PH wouldn’t remove when requested by the victim, even a verified account was a trafficked 15 year old. PH is another big corporation that doesn’t give a fuck about people don’t let them fool you

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

All of that is true and yet it's still the best we have. It says more about how bad the rest of the websites are. The alternatives are awful or will cost money.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

All of that is true and yet it's still the best we have. It says more about how bad the rest of the websites are. The alternatives are awful or will cost money.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pornhub has just become the goto for any pornographic crap in the media. Other sites literally just don't care. I doubt many would even respond to a journalist looking for a statement. Basically the same as the Satanic Church doing something any time a religious bill gets passed in the States.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

All of those "tube" sites are owned by the same company that owns PH.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wankers... (the lawmakers, not PH)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

technically ..

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

you got a loicense to fap mate?!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You got a loicense for that erection?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

In this state, you need a permit to shoot.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Kinda weird that it's just Pornhub: Aren't they owned by the same parent company of like pretty much all the other streaming porn sites?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does this have any real effect on porn access legislation, though?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I think the goal more than anything is to get people motivated to vote. They won't change any minds, but they might get some people who might otherwise he apathetic to go out and vote out some of the idiots running these states.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Leopards ate my bate for those states. They are reaping what they have sowed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There have been multiple cases of underage girls on PH and SA videos that PH wouldn’t remove when requested by the victim, even a verified account was a trafficked 15 year old. PH is another big corporation that doesn’t give a fuck about people don’t let them fool you

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you not remember the purge? They went from 12M vids to 2M overnight. And now it's verified posters only. Sure, took em long enough to do something about it, but so far they are the only ones to do anything about it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Im not ready to give them a pat on the back and a gold star because they took down videos of people being raped 🤷‍♀️ that’s kind of the bare minimum. If all internet porn platforms contain some unethical or not-consensual content and PornHub has the least, that’s not a good enough reason to promote them imo

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Update your facts. Pornhub cleaned up and did a great purge of questionable content. If they couldn't verify it then it went. Anything questionable got flagged and deleted.

Now that Pornhub is blocked, well, people looking for porn will find MORE questionable content.

If you want better safer porn then YOU SHOULD BE SUPPORTING PORNHUB.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Call me crazy but I’m not very quick to forgive or trust again a platform that allowed sexual assault videos of a teenage girl to remain publicly posted. I don’t think pornhub is the epitome of ethical porn either. But on that note if people care about the ethics of their consumption I think they should consider decreasing their porn usage in general, it’s a pretty obvious net negative for personal health and societal health

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Valid points. Not trusting pornhub after it taking so long to clean up it's content might be the better choice overall. Especially if ethics in porn is a top priority. I do think consuming too much porn is a problem for some people and it could start to warp perception if the consumer can't separate reality and fantasy.

I think most people don't care about ethics in porn, so I try to rep any small push toward good. It's not perfect but "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" and all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can use Indojavstream Instead of Pornhub

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

PH really just did all the teenagers in Mississippi and Virginia a favor (ignoring VPNs and alternative sites)

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