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VPNs still make it possible to access everything. Gotta have to ban these as well. It seems like regulatory overreach into something which in the grand scheme

by samus 3y ago

VPNs still make it possible to access everything. Gotta have to ban these as well. It seems like regulatory overreach into something which in the grand scheme of things is a very small problem. Today it's porn sites, what will it be tomorrow? Once in place, such laws will be very hard to repeal out of "think of the children" concern. In reality, such laws are never just about children. Also, what even counts as a porn site to begin with? Is Reddit one, since it has lots of well-known porn subreddits? Do classic web forums for a similar purpose, or Whatsapp groups or Facebook count too? (Don't know how strict their content policy currently is)

ndriscoll 3y ago
The goal isn't to cut access. It's to cut access for children. And again, just because they can find a way doesn't excuse businesses doing exactly nothing to avoid serving them as customers, which they know is already illegal. Most children don't have the means to buy VPN access. There are also off-the-shelf routers that block common VPN protocols (though that may mostly only exist for business tier equipment right now). Reddit is exactly the type of site that demonstrates the need for some regulation. They have major forums targeted at children (e.g. teenagers, roblox, minecraft) with millions of members, but half their site is porn, and there is no barrier between the two. You'd need to MITM and inspect which forum someone is on to figure out if it should be allowed. You could say "just block the whole site", but if pornhub had a porn-free comment area labeled "teenagers" (for teenagers to discuss with each other, not for inappropriate images of teenagers, though reddit infamously had that too, and made a special "pimp daddy" trophy for the moderator that ran it), people would reasonably ask why a porn site has a kids section, and demand that even if the business wants to be in both spaces, the websites must be separated.
- dijit 3y ago
  Brilliant argument against centralization of the web

by samus 3y ago

ndriscoll 3y ago

The goal isn't to cut access. It's to cut access for children. And again, just because they can find a way doesn't excuse businesses doing exactly nothing to avoid serving them as customers, which they know is already illegal. Most children don't have the means to buy VPN access. There are also off-the-shelf routers that block common VPN protocols (though that may mostly only exist for business tier equipment right now). Reddit is exactly the type of site that demonstrates the need for some regulation. They have major forums targeted at children (e.g. teenagers, roblox, minecraft) with millions of members, but half their site is porn, and there is no barrier between the two. You'd need to MITM and inspect which forum someone is on to figure out if it should be allowed. You could say "just block the whole site", but if pornhub had a porn-free comment area labeled "teenagers" (for teenagers to discuss with each other, not for inappropriate images of teenagers, though reddit infamously had that too, and made a special "pimp daddy" trophy for the moderator that ran it), people would reasonably ask why a porn site has a kids section, and demand that even if the business wants to be in both spaces, the websites must be separated.

dijit 3y ago
Brilliant argument against centralization of the web