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It seems pornhub could make three easy changes to satisfy everyone (or at least some of this author’s pts): 1. Use a dumber search recommendation system that c

It seems pornhub could make three easy changes to satisfy everyone (or at least some of this author’s pts): 1. Use a dumber search recommendation system that chooses from a list of “safe” searches. Mostly for PR. 2. When someone uploads a video, check if it’s similar to something that was taken down. This article implies they don’t do that — surely this would save pornhub a lot of hassle anyway. 3. Publish some metrics about how many videos were taken down/list some positive actions they’ve taken. Also obv for PR.

jszymborski 6y ago
the article suggests to "Allow only verified users to post videos" which seems like the sensible thing to do. In fact, it should be gov't mandated regulation on the industry.
- scotty79 6y ago
  Till the first huge data leak...
  - jszymborski 6y ago
    All you need to do is store a "permit" or "contract" ID which a government agency or law firm can verify. Performer would need to enter an agreement with the distributor as authorized by a government agency or third party, an agreement number is issued to the distributor. The distributor need not even know the name of the performer if they are incorporated. You effectively (1) blanket deny distributors agreements with underage persons (2) create a paper-trail which makes trafficking easier to prosecute (3) force takedown/prosecute distributors of pornography where they do not have a documented agreement with performers.
    - scotty79 6y ago
      What about people that record themselves and upload to pornhub? They are not distributors, performers or members of the government... What should they do in your scheme?
      - jszymborski 6y ago
        "Performer" here simply means "person appearing in a publicly distributed pornographic video". The individual in the film would have to be registered with the gov't and have an existing agreement between themselves and the distributor. If performer fees are kept down to what it costs to e.g. obtain a drivers permit and possibly offset by distributors, it shouldn't negatively effect smaller players or non-commercial interests.
        swirepe 6y ago
        >The individual in the film would have to be registered with the gov't and have an existing agreement between themselves and the distributor. I think you're underestimating how much of the internet is porn, and how much you're asking of the average content creator. Maybe you are from a country where porn is illegal? In America, the legal definition of porn is pretty much anything designed to cause sexual excitement. I could make a video of myself walking around in my high heels, and that would count as porn. Getting the government involved before I shared my sexy engineer legs to PornHub/YouTube/Telegram would kill that, and probably also kill the platforms that were made great by enabling that.
        jszymborski 6y ago
        I'm from Montreal, home of Mindgeek :) IANAL but laws exist in most of the world requiring that individuals in a pornographic video need to be above a certain age. My understanding is that, counter-intuitively, if all one has is the video to go by, the more ambiguous matter is not whether the video is pornographic, but whether the individuals in the video are legally of age. At the very least, that is the framing of this article. Perhaps I'm naive in thinking so, but I don't imagine "entering an agreement" with a distributor to share your content need be more complicated than an OAUTH flow to a gov't website and checking a box. I do get that this can be abused by gov'ts and big tech to force individuals to identify themselves before using major platforms but I have two thoughts on that: 1) You can have a safe-harbor clause, similar to DMCA, where websites that host user content need not register as distributors of pornography if they have a take-down method whereby reported pornographic can be removed. Of course, the DMCA Safe-Harbor clause has its own problems and we'd need need to learn from our mistakes there 2) From a more fundamental perspective and perhaps veering off-topic, reliance on huge centralised platforms of the ilk of FB/Twitter/etc.. will always result in chilling effects and abuses of power. Until that problem is solved, distributors will make their gains at the cost of users. EDIT: Thinking about this some more, obscenity laws have been used for ages to oppress minorities and suppress speech through selective enforcement. The only way something like this would work is through a very narrow definition of pornography, I suppose. Abuse of individuals is far from evident in most cases, particularly from a given video, so naturally individuals would fall through even the widest definitions of obscenity. Only a very narrow definition would make sense here, assuring that speech is not unnecessarily stifled while a narrow category of blatant abuses are disallowed. All this to say, this isn't indeed cut-and-dried, and I regret any comment I've made to make it seem like it is.
- sesuximo 6y ago
  I think a lot of users would be against this. Not saying it’s a bad idea, but it’s not completely trivial

jszymborski 6y ago

the article suggests to "Allow only verified users to post videos" which seems like the sensible thing to do. In fact, it should be gov't mandated regulation on the industry.

scotty79 6y ago
Till the first huge data leak...
- jszymborski 6y ago
  All you need to do is store a "permit" or "contract" ID which a government agency or law firm can verify. Performer would need to enter an agreement with the distributor as authorized by a government agency or third party, an agreement number is issued to the distributor. The distributor need not even know the name of the performer if they are incorporated. You effectively (1) blanket deny distributors agreements with underage persons (2) create a paper-trail which makes trafficking easier to prosecute (3) force takedown/prosecute distributors of pornography where they do not have a documented agreement with performers.
  - scotty79 6y ago
    What about people that record themselves and upload to pornhub? They are not distributors, performers or members of the government... What should they do in your scheme?
    - jszymborski 6y ago
      "Performer" here simply means "person appearing in a publicly distributed pornographic video". The individual in the film would have to be registered with the gov't and have an existing agreement between themselves and the distributor. If performer fees are kept down to what it costs to e.g. obtain a drivers permit and possibly offset by distributors, it shouldn't negatively effect smaller players or non-commercial interests.
      - swirepe 6y ago
        >The individual in the film would have to be registered with the gov't and have an existing agreement between themselves and the distributor. I think you're underestimating how much of the internet is porn, and how much you're asking of the average content creator. Maybe you are from a country where porn is illegal? In America, the legal definition of porn is pretty much anything designed to cause sexual excitement. I could make a video of myself walking around in my high heels, and that would count as porn. Getting the government involved before I shared my sexy engineer legs to PornHub/YouTube/Telegram would kill that, and probably also kill the platforms that were made great by enabling that.
        jszymborski 6y ago
        I'm from Montreal, home of Mindgeek :) IANAL but laws exist in most of the world requiring that individuals in a pornographic video need to be above a certain age. My understanding is that, counter-intuitively, if all one has is the video to go by, the more ambiguous matter is not whether the video is pornographic, but whether the individuals in the video are legally of age. At the very least, that is the framing of this article. Perhaps I'm naive in thinking so, but I don't imagine "entering an agreement" with a distributor to share your content need be more complicated than an OAUTH flow to a gov't website and checking a box. I do get that this can be abused by gov'ts and big tech to force individuals to identify themselves before using major platforms but I have two thoughts on that: 1) You can have a safe-harbor clause, similar to DMCA, where websites that host user content need not register as distributors of pornography if they have a take-down method whereby reported pornographic can be removed. Of course, the DMCA Safe-Harbor clause has its own problems and we'd need need to learn from our mistakes there 2) From a more fundamental perspective and perhaps veering off-topic, reliance on huge centralised platforms of the ilk of FB/Twitter/etc.. will always result in chilling effects and abuses of power. Until that problem is solved, distributors will make their gains at the cost of users. EDIT: Thinking about this some more, obscenity laws have been used for ages to oppress minorities and suppress speech through selective enforcement. The only way something like this would work is through a very narrow definition of pornography, I suppose. Abuse of individuals is far from evident in most cases, particularly from a given video, so naturally individuals would fall through even the widest definitions of obscenity. Only a very narrow definition would make sense here, assuring that speech is not unnecessarily stifled while a narrow category of blatant abuses are disallowed. All this to say, this isn't indeed cut-and-dried, and I regret any comment I've made to make it seem like it is.
sesuximo 6y ago
I think a lot of users would be against this. Not saying it’s a bad idea, but it’s not completely trivial