8 ms·

Pornhub Is Now Blocked in Almost All of the U.S. South

89 points by pavel_lishin 2y ago

fullshark 2y ago
I think an honest conversation about porn access and how much and what we want available as a society (especially to teenagers) is overdue. The internet completely firebombed the obscenity regulations for better or worse and we've just been ignoring the consequences, due to various reasons.
- gertlex 2y ago
  Curious: What are the "obscenity regulations", and which entities are "the internet" doing firebombing, in this case?
  - idle_zealot 2y ago
    Obscenity regulations are laws that censor the creation or distribution of creative works considered to be obscene, eg show a woman's ankle, or acknowledge that sex acts exist.
  - naming_the_user 2y ago
    Well, as an example, in the UK we had fairly tight control of pornographic material. Soft porn magazines were top shelf only. Movies had age ratings. I'm not that old and I remember the controversy when someone found a sex game in GTA: San Andreas _if you hacked the game_. Nowadays a kid with a smartphone googles and there you are, AI generated hardcore porn with your classmate's face. Different world.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Historically, US pornography has been regulated on the basis of whether or not it is obscene, defined by various Supreme Court tests over the years. If it is not obscene, it's afforded First Amendment protections and allowed. If it is obscene, it can be regulated by various entities, should they choose to do so. Since the mid-70s(?), the Miller test [0] has been used. Parent is pointing out that the Internet effectively obliterated the technical ability of various government entities to impose restrictions of any sort on obscene material, and consequently there's been essentially no regulation of internationally-based pornographic content since the 90s. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test
- explorigin 2y ago
  It feels like honest conversation doesn't happen so much in the public space these days if an issue can be politicized. But what will be very interesting to track would be the rate of change of social vices in the next 15 years.
  - fullshark 2y ago
    True. I believe a neo-temperance movement is on the horizon personally, due to opening the vice floodgates re: smartphones.
- tensor 2y ago
  I'd rather have an honest conversation about teenagers having access to violent media, especially how violence is absolutely normalized in the US. Seeing a boob never killed anyone, but violence kills thousands every year in the US, including many children.
  - explorigin 2y ago
    > Seeing a boob never killed anyone This is a straw-man attack. Porn produces a huge dopamine dump. Do some research on how dopamine works in the brain. Regular dopamine dumps can have a huge impact on quality of life leading to depression and building an addiction cycle.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - bhouston 2y ago
    Porn consumption rates are inversely proportional to rapes [1] and likely sex in general (I'm extrapolating, but I think it is reasonable [2]?), which likely then impacts birthrates (again another extrapolation, but again I think reasonable.) So high porn consumption likely reduces birthrates. I wouldn't be surprised if there is literature to back that up. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359178909000445 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13591... [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/sexual-intelligence/202208/why-todays-teens-are-having-so-much-less-sex https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/sexual-intelligence/...
  - lr4444lr 2y ago
    I encourage you to read more into the change of sexual behaviors in men who consume porn who are already in relationships and the effect this has on the women and overall relationship satisfaction. Yeah, maybe seeing a boob never killed someone, but aggressive grabbing, intimidating a partner who doesn't seem "normal", and expecting rougher more extreme sex acts that women are not comfortable with are not harmless.
    - 2y ago
- jimt1234 2y ago
  Honestly, I think the conversation needs to be more around identity/AuthN systems that can balance trust and privacy. It's not an easy problem to solve, even in "meat space", but I think problems like access to porn go away if proper identity is solved.
- dragontamer 2y ago
  Airplane is a PG movie where there are literally tities and the finale involves a blowjob joke. We can certainly discuss 1980s vs 2020s and how the Overton window has shifted. Boobs weren't as big of a deal in our past. 80s were also quite violent in our movies/media as well. It seems like everything has been clamped down. I was surprised to see the dick of the David Statue get messed up in the children's movie 'The Goonies' for example. Apparently dicks weren't a big deal either even into the 90s.
  - atmavatar 2y ago
    The Andromeda Strain from 1971 is rated G and features a naked woman in a bathtub early in the movie. It's not something I'd really noticed before I had a similar conversation with someone regarding how movie ratings have changed over time vis a vis nudity. That aside, it's a brilliant sci fi movie, and I'd recommend it to everyone here :)
- DoingIsLearning 2y ago
  > how much and what we want available as a society We as a democratic society should want that everything legal is available. It is up to parents to take care of what is available to their offspring. Much like any other potential risk behaviours. And it is up to other democracies to curb the US's continued attempt at pushing their protestant obsession with sexuality onto everyone else.
  - bhouston 2y ago
    > It is up to parents to take care of what is available to their offspring. Much like any other potential risk behaviours. Truly addictive things, e.g. dopamine hijacks, are hard to make widely available. Gambling, dopamine drugs (cocaine, meth, etc.), porn, etc.
- NikolaNovak 2y ago
  I would agree, though we might (or not:) vehemently disagree with the premises and conclusions. I find Pornography in specific, and sex in general, is something people have very strong basic opinions about. In particular, a lot of people intersect religious morals into the picture, which can make conversations difficult at best, disingenuous more commonly :-(. For example, my own basic approach is "what do you mean 'obscenity regulations'? What kind of silly thing is that amongst adults?". It then tends to get complicated due to numbers - often people promoting such regulations and laws upon other adults are hugely vehement about government over reach and regulation in other areas, so it ends up feeling like hipocrisy or "I want government to ban things I don't like and allow things I do like". But this is hacker news! Nothing stops are from trying to have that honest conversation :-). My honest opinion is that I come from a prudeish culture, and thank goodness teenagers today can have their key questions answered more openly and have access to things I had to sneak and feel guilty about. Access to porn is not in top ten things I worry about for my kids, but I am willing to listen otherwise :-).
  - fullshark 2y ago
    I think the status quo post-internet world is better than the world pre-internet. I think good outweighs the bad, a lot of this though is from genuinely informative message boards and websites re: sexuality which you highlight. The hypothetical homosexual teenager in a small town that can now find like minded people and talk to them about their sexuality and make sense of it is a godsend. I'm more thinking about the downsides of the erotic material being available 24/7 to every person in their pocket and inducing addictive behaviors. The teenage boys that have seen explicit pornography before ever even kissing a girl, and how that influences their expectations and behaviors while dating. The incels that don't even attempt to make themselves attractive to the opposite sex but instead indulge in auto-erotic gratification from consuming digital content (hikikomori), soon to be augmented by AI. These people are chasing dopamine hits instead of genuine human connection, something formally driven by lust/sexual desire for better or worse and it's going to have major cultural impacts.
    - Hizonner 2y ago
      I saw explicit pornography before ever kissing a girl. So did everybody I knew well enough to have known whether they had or not. In the 1970s. We did not have an Internet. No, the volume wasn't nearly as high, nor was the technical quality. As for "expectations", non-porn media also have horrible expectations about gender and relationships. In fact, they have more of them and are able to convey them in more detail. And the fact is that today's teenaged boys are a lot more respectful toward their prospective-or-desired partners than my cohort was, porn or no porn.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > especially to teenagers An honest conversation, sure. Porn is a hyperstimulus, unrealistic and so reality seems bad in comparison. This may be why teens these days are having fewer accidental pregnancies. Those missing accidental teen pregnancies, according to a comment I saw on Hacker News recently and never checked the veracity of, are a big part of why fertility rates are now below replacement levels. The dichotomy that won't be believed: Ban the "adult" content to force the teens to grow up before they need to; or let them be "corrupted" so that they can keep their innocence. (Scare quotes because I remember being a teenager, even if it was the 90s).
nateshelley 2y ago
Surely the title is misleading in that Pornhub is the entity blocking those states from accessing it, as they choose to not follow the new law. As-is it reads like the states are the ones blocking it, which they are not. They're simply asking for more than an "I promise I'm 18" button.
- explorigin 2y ago
  This is an important distinction. The legislation requires customers identify themselves...not unlike being carded at a brick-and-mortar store. It's Pornhub that's refusing to take that step.
  - some_furry 2y ago
    > It's Pornhub that's refusing to take that step I wouldn't want to be responsible for the privacy risk that age verification documents impose on site operators.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      not to mention all the regulation shit you have to go through when dealing with PII…
  - bsimpson 2y ago
    The difference is that someone in real life can see your ID without recording it. The internet's history of anonymous-by-default and the taboo that people can still feel viewing pornography are both factors that make ID verification laws very touchy (also reasons free sites like PornHub are popular in the first place). Compound that with the perpetual security breaches that we've all been victims of in recent years, and you can see why these laws have strong opposition.
- Carrok 2y ago
  “Simply” lol
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
bhouston 2y ago
Are its competitors like OnlyFans also blocked similarly? BTW PornHub is owned by an Ottawa, Canada-based company recently: https://www.ethicalcapitalpartners.com https://www.ethicalcapitalpartners.com
- tennisflyi 2y ago
  Still Aylo as mentioned in a longer comment
  - bhouston 2y ago
    PornHub is owned by Aylo and Aylo is owned by Ethical Capital Partners per Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aylo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aylo
    - tennisflyi 2y ago
      Yes. You’re right. Bad reading on my part!
throwup238 2y ago
The “economic anxiety” is only going to get worse now.
- bhouston 2y ago
  I read that access to porn consumption is inversely correlated with rape rates [1]. So it means that the rate of rapes will increase in those areas that fully ban porn. But I suspect sex in general will increase in those areas (see [2]), and maybe birthrates?, as porn consumption is likely inversely proportional to sex in general. [1] "Victimization rates for rape in the United States demonstrate an inverse relationship between pornography consumption and rape rates." Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359178909000445 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13591... [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/sexual-intelligence/202208/why-todays-teens-are-having-so-much-less-sex https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/sexual-intelligence/...
  - Nifty3929 2y ago
    Well, I guess we'll shortly have some data to investigate this hypothesis more deeply.
  - SauciestGNU 2y ago
    Extremely dark thought it that the places banning porn are also banning abortion, so there could be a glut of rape babies if this theory holds water.
clcaev 2y ago
Why hasn't the ISP "market" provided a solution for concerned parents?
- pokot0 2y ago
  I agree. It’s as easy as that if you respect people having different values. But these laws come from a “my god told me that this is right” mindset and you can’t really argue with that. if this is what people want, so be it. who cares!
  - viraptor 2y ago
    "easy"? ISP can only apply the rules per-connection, so it's not great for parental control. It also can't enforce any filtering past the domain, so sex subreddits are still open. It also creates a list of people enabling sex sites. It would still be a problematic solution.
    - pokot0 2y ago
      you can just make a law that websites are required to flag the html for pages that contain rated content so that isp and parents can filter whatever they want. all without infringung on people freedom. i am sure smarter people than me can come up with an even better solution. this honestly just feel more like imposing religious values than anything else
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        same rules that apply to pornography should apply to any religious site too. no one under 18 should be subjected to lunacy of religious websites that exist and yet… :)
        SauciestGNU 2y ago
        You ever notice how the parents who are loudest about "parental rights" are the ones who coerce and groom their children into religion before they're old enough to consent or even understand the metaphysical underpinnings of religious belief?
CoryAlexMartin 2y ago
I'm in Tennessee but can still access it. It seems like the law was blocked by a federal judge. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2024/12/31/tennessee-age-verification-law-blocked-adult-content-websites/77356490007/ https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2024/12/31/tennessee-a...
LewisVerstappen 2y ago
[deleted]
- IAmGraydon 2y ago
  >you can see it in the data with 63% of young men being single Ah yes - a very well made statement of causation, complete with evidence.
- samtho 2y ago
  It’s regressive because banning a vice does not magically make harm from it disappear. The addiction issue needs to be addressed in a meaningful and direct way. The other problem is that many advocates for a ban on pornography use this argument without actually caring about the issue they decry, otherwise they would have engaged in actual awareness or harm reduction campaigns. Instead, they choose to engage with this argument in bad faith because in actuality pornography just does not align with their morals.
- skocznymroczny 2y ago
  Is porn addiction a symptom or a cause? I feel like young men retreat to porn because they can't find a partner. The percentage of men who would prefer porn over a partner is probably very minor. I think the problem with men being single is that it's very hard to be in a space where it's acceptable to seek a partner. Due to various #metoo and similar actions most men have learned it's unacceptable to approach women in public spaces. Meanwhile the online dating websites are trying their hardest not to match people because people who find their match don't watch ads and pay for microtransactions (premium accounts, gifts, boosts). I feel like the best solution to loneliness and to boost marriage (and thus birth) rates would be some form of non-commercial / government run dating website. Dating websites are slowly becoming a desert and most people who used them for a longer period of time will tell you how great they were before swiping era.
oger 2y ago
[flagged]
bsimpson 2y ago
"Sex addiction counselor" sounds like the kind of person who thinks anyone who has ever looked at porn is a pervert if single and an adulterer if partnered, and makes persecuting those people her whole identity. Definitely not someone I'd trust to have a reasonable opinion crafting the laws that govern society.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  It doesn't sound like that. That's your bias.
  - proxynoproxy 2y ago
    It really does. Puritanical questers should be far far away from the levers of power. The amount of harm done by ignorant, twisted moralistic campaigns is measured in the decades.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      Possibly, but the puritans of which you speak talked the way you do too. Puritans might be long gone, but people who do crazy assumption-piling to justify some hatred or other never will be.
- Osmose 2y ago
  The APA even removed sex addiction from the DSM-V, which isn't the end-all-be-all of what is or isn't a mental disorder, but is indicative of how science has broadly rejected the idea of sex addiction being a meaningful disorder. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/close-and-personal/201609/anthony-weiner-is-not-sex-addict-neither-is-anyone-else-0 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/close-and-personal/2...
  - throwaway5273 2y ago
    Although the addiction model is controversial and not widely accepted, most professionals do acknowledge that psychological problems can drive maladaptive sexual behavior that causes significant personal and professional impairment. It’s important to stress that pornography use alone is not considered maladaptive, irrespective of local cultural norms that seek to restrict the sexual behavior of consenting adults. AASECT (the largest professional body of sex therapists in the United States) has a definition of Out of Control Sexual Behavior, and Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder is retained by the ICD. Most consumers of pornography do not meet either definition, but it’s important to recognize that some do.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Porn is speech. And access to speech must be defended near absolutely (for example per US constitutional law) everywhere - at local or state levels, in public and private spaces, offline and online, etc. Today it’s puritanical governments forcing identity verification but tomorrow it could be an overly moralistic corporation controlling one of a few AI models.
- plantwallshoe 2y ago
  A moralistic corporation controlling an AI model to say, further a religious goal, would be the free religious speech of the owners of that corporation (so long as they aren’t taking public funding)
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    I disagree in this situation, although I understand your logic. The surviving corporations with large foundational models will be the current big tech mostly. These large companies should be regulated like utilities or public agencies, because they’re that powerful and influential and don’t face real competition. The owners of such corporations - each have a right to speech as individuals, separate from a corporation.
Lambdanaut 2y ago
I don't agree with puritanical laws like this, but I do believe that the quantity and quality of porn consumed in the US constitutes a non-trivial public mental health crisis, and I hope that this will drive into people the serious risks of taking your dopamine receptors for constant, convenient, quick rides that scratch an itch without providing the experience of genuinely connecting with another living, breathing human being that cares. Real, vulnerable connection can provide meaning in a way that manufactured fast porn can never give, and I believe that connection can be an important aspect of self actualization towards a meaningful existence. I'm not claiming that rare, conscious consumption of pornography can't be integrated into a healthy, fulfilled life, but that the way it's mindlessly consumed by so many is keeping us from that fulfilled life.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Why do you think porn is a replacement for a relationship? A relationship is about a lot more than just sex. And real sex is way better than masturbation. Even when I'm between relationships I need that too (and pay for it in those cases). Porn is just a minor passtime. A relationship affects every aspect of your life.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    > and pay for it in those cases Ps: I see this got flagged but just wanted to clarify that I'm in Europe and this is legal where I live (unlike in most US states I believe). I just think paying for it is a lot more fair than trying to get random girls in bed for a one night stand like a lot of guys do. I don't really court someone unless I have a serious interest in the person, not just their body. But my point was that porn doesn't displace relationships and not even the need for real sex.
  - fullshark 2y ago
    A relationship is hard to find, cultivate, and maintain. It's sort of analogous to a healthy diet. People choose junk food over healthy food options for convenience/cheap thrills even if there's obvious benefits to healthy diets, and people choose porn over genuine human connection.
Nifty3929 2y ago
The folks who are interested in content like this will still search it out, but now they're more likely to end up on shadier sites instead. Pornhub (Aylo), as porn sites go, is legitimate and goes out of their way to remove problem content and follow laws and regulations. They are also based in Canada. I'm sure there are other sites that are much worse that will fill this vacuum. The only thing PH doesn't seem keen on is compromising their users' privacy and serving as age-enforcer. So this legislation seems to make things worse, not better. Sure, you can always say "well PH could just comply with the age-verification laws," but I applaud them for taking a stand on privacy, and also them saying "fine, if you don't like us here we'll leave." It's really a loss for exactly the states that are passing these laws. They'll just end up with people going to shadier sites. What worries me most though, is that this will lead to people using VPNs more (which is fine), but then states making VPNs themselves illegal (they'll use terms like "tools to circumvent...") which is super bad.
- TriangleEdge 2y ago
  > ... is legitimate and goes out of their way to remove problem content ... This is blatantly not true. I know because I've reported a clearly illegal video on every avenue I could find (the report button, emailing support, etc..) and the video was only taken down when PornHub removed all videos expect the verified ones some years ago.
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    This anecdote does not remotely disprove the assertion.
  - Nifty3929 2y ago
    I didn't say that they remove every single piece of problem content, or that they remove every single thing a user flags. But I do believe that they go out of their way to do so. They make way too much money to do otherwise. Also, they may (I hope) be a better company now than in the past, as your example seems to show (you indicate that they started requiring verification for uploaded videos). Maybe they grew up, or maybe they just realized that their revenue (or entire business) would be compromised unless they took serious, ongoing action. In any case - Aylo/PH must certainly be better than many of the alternatives that are based in very permissive jurisdictions and just don't care. Those are the sites people in these Southern states are going to end up on now. I'm sorry that in your case they failed though.
raydiak 2y ago
> Any “commercial entity” that publishes “material harmful to minors” online can be held liable—meaning, tens of thousands of dollars in fines and/or private lawsuits—if it doesn’t “perform reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of individuals attempting to access the material.” Does that include the extremist-grooming neo-nazi hate factory which replaced Twitter?
- grecy 2y ago
  Surely that includes the bible…. Again
optimalsolver 2y ago
I wonder how an alternative-timeline South which was still segregated would have dealt with interracial porn.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
thefaux 2y ago
This is troubling to me from a free speech perspective. I am no fan of porn -- and I definitely don't think children should have easy access to it -- but what worries me is the expansion of the definition of porn to suit political purposes. And more generally accepting this kind of censorship begins paving the road to more aggressive censorship elsewhere. If you disagree with your neighbor, the goal should be able to learn to live with them in disagreement or persuade them over to your viewpoint without coercion or manipulation. Right now there are several movements across the political spectrum as well as the corporate sector to use the government to suppress speech they perceive as threatening. This should be troubling for all of us even when used for things that we might nominally view as good (such as preventing children from accessing porn).
- Ajedi32 2y ago
  > the expansion of the definition of porn to suit political purposes How would that work? "Hate speech" for example is very easy to define broadly enough to ban basically any opinion those in power deem undesirable. But how would you do that with porn? Is the government going to somehow start classifying news articles criticizing particular political candidates as pornography? That seems like such a ridiculous stretch that it couldn't possibly work. If there's any danger here, I think it's more the potential for collateral damage on human freedoms, like the right to online anonymity. (E.g. Widespread deployment of age verification systems requiring users to provide a government-issued ID.)
  - quotemstr 2y ago
    I think the OP might have meant "obscenity" that goes against "community standards" when he wrote "porn". I agree that defining crimechink and crimespeech as "porn" would be a stretch, but defining them as "obscenity" would be less so.
MS27 2y ago
I see most of the comments here say that they don't completely agree with fully banning these websites. But as I strongly disagree with porn, I'm happy with that and I hope more states do that.
- rfrey 2y ago
  Anything else you strongly disagree with, that you'd like banned?
- bdangubic 2y ago
  I strongly disagree that you should be allowed to have internet access but here we are… /s
- x3sphere 2y ago
  Well, let's also ban alcohol consumption since it's bad for you. Let's also ban all forms of violent media since that could potentially be bad for you when viewed in excess (similar to porn). It's a slippery slope. At what point do we just start monitoring people's thoughts when that tech comes available?
  - dkkergoog 2y ago
    [dead]
- tokioyoyo 2y ago
  The problem is, the laws are very… stupid? No PornHub, but Twitter is fine because less than X% of revenue is coming from pornography. But it’s still the place for the adult content. Ask any young person about Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram funnels into Twitter solely for pornography. These types of laws (good enough even if we can get rid of 50% of the problem!), I think, don’t work well when there’s physiological element to it (arousal in this scenario). People will actively seek out pornography and consume it. It has been going on for decades in the internet.
- Hizonner 2y ago
  Nobody sane actually cares what you "disagree" with, other than maybe being reminded to be sure to avoid people like you getting any actual power.
tennisflyi 2y ago
Well, if most people can’t suss out legitimate (keyword) porn is bought and paid for (as in production) that’s a larger problem. Legitimate porn has some semblance of testing, paperwork, and a script/shot list. If you force people to fuck via whatever means and record adult content that’s just a crime - not porn
metalman 2y ago
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2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
"I disapprove of porn, but I will defend to the death your right to watch it."
nunez 2y ago
What does everyone think are the odds of ISPs being forced by US southern states to implemet a "Great Wall of China"-like firewall at their regional edges to block VPNs that make this law easy to subvert? (To be clear: I hate that this is even a realistic question.)
nunez 2y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I did debate once and know that words are fungible. Most of the anti-porn legislations that have passed only require distributors of "harmful" material (porn) to use age-verification technology via, amongst other methods, "commercially reasonable" identity providers. "Commercially reasonable" isn't defined in these statutes. Furthermore, there haven't been any follow-up legislations to implement state-level verification of these "commercially reasonable" identity providers. Given this, what's to stop PornHub et. al. from doing something like what "social clubs" do/did in dry counties? Social clubs check your ID (to comply with federal law) and then ask you to sign in. The signing in is notional; it doesn't mean anything. In other words, something like: - Porn site: "Sorry, $US_STATE requires you to verify your identity; go to this website to proceed" - "Identity provider": "Enter name and age, then hit OK" - "Identity provider" to porn site: "All clear; they hit OK" - Porn site: "Thanks for verifying! Click the 'Remember, porn is bad, mmkay?' button to browse our collection" If enough sites support said identity provider, then wouldn't they be the "commercially reasonable" choice? (Of course, none of this matters if the majority-conservative US administration that gets sworn in this month decides to implement digital age verification for "harmful material" on a federal level. In that case, my earlier question of mini-"Great Firewall of China" in the US when that I posted here matters more.) (Also, not every porn site complies with these laws, the oh-my-goodness-so-fucking-many porn sites out there aggregate from each other anyways, and I don't think this has been court-tested yet, so we don't know what actually happens to operators that tell these states to fuck off! Also, let's not forget that porn exists on social media and other commercial platforms, unless Texas wants to actually try blocking Microsoft Bing in the state)
mrayycombi 2y ago
As porn has been a driver of technology adoption, like the internet, maybe we'll see a rise in porn manufacturing using AI on the PC (now there's a reason to buy an AI PC)? Indeed, what stops kids from generating their own porn using these same tools? Do we need age verification on them too?
deathanatos 2y ago
(https://archive.is/w9TcX https://archive.is/w9TcX) (IANAL) Note that some of these laws are only ostensibly about porn. For example, the Tennessee law blocks, in addition to what one might reasonably describe as porn, additionally blocks any material that: > pander[s] to the prurient interest (—[1], §1 (b)(5)(A)(i)) While a reasonable reader might find a normal level of intent under that phrasing, Tennessee has in the past has similar laws, using similar phraseology. For example, an east TN DA attempted to enforce similar language in the TN AEA[2], threatening enforcement of that act against a pride parade despite, a.) the parade stating they would comply with all applicable laws and b.) the law the DA was threatening to enforce had already been struck down as unconstitutional. (The DA admitted knowledge of this, as well, but claimed³ that the ruling on the unconsitutionality of the law didn't apply to him. The DA was later sued, and directly enjoined from interfering with the parade.) (back to the "think of the children" act) > When taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors; (—[1], §1 (b)(5)(B), and it is less than clear to me whether (b)(5)(A) is "and" or "or", but "or" seems the more logical conclusion, and in particular, in the ambiguity, TN is a state that I would expect to argue "or".) The TN legislature's arguments while passing the AEA showed the legislatures true (discriminatory) intent. I would not be shocked to find similar here, given the similarity in the language. That is, the (purposefully) vague nature of the law as written is that the bible "has" "serious […] value for minors" but anything LGBTQ would "not" "have" such value, and would surely "pander" to the "prurient interest". > At a minimum, anonymized age-verification data must include architectural diagrams illustrating the technological assets and logical processes by which the reasonable age-verification method is accomplished and data demonstrating a volume of reasonable age-verification method executions consistent with the overall volume of visits to the website; [1]: https://publications.tnsosfiles.com/acts/113/pub/pc1021.pdf https://publications.tnsosfiles.com/acts/113/pub/pc1021.pdf [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Adult_Entertainment_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Adult_Entertainment_... ³The DA has some utterly braindead legal theory that the court's ruling that the law was unconstitutional doesn't apply to him — or most anyone — because the ruling's injunctive relief applied only to certain people. I'd quote it, but their argument is in a PDF that's a scan of a Word doc w/o OCRing[4] and I don't feel like re-typing it. The injunctive relief did, yes, but that was section II of the ruling, and section I, which struck the law down, is separate, and not restricted … "The Court therefore HOLDS and DECLARES that the Adult Entertainment Act is an UNCONSTITUTIONAL restriction on speech." … which is not restricted to just the parties, which would be utterly illogical.) [4]: https://interactive.wbir.com/pdfs/AEA-Notice.pdf https://interactive.wbir.com/pdfs/AEA-Notice.pdf

89 points by pavel_lishin 2y ago

I think an honest conversation about porn access and how much and what we want available as a society (especially to teenagers) is overdue. The internet completely firebombed the obscenity regulations for better or worse and we've just been ignoring the consequences, due to various reasons.

gertlex 2y ago
Curious: What are the "obscenity regulations", and which entities are "the internet" doing firebombing, in this case?
- idle_zealot 2y ago
  Obscenity regulations are laws that censor the creation or distribution of creative works considered to be obscene, eg show a woman's ankle, or acknowledge that sex acts exist.
- naming_the_user 2y ago
  Well, as an example, in the UK we had fairly tight control of pornographic material. Soft porn magazines were top shelf only. Movies had age ratings. I'm not that old and I remember the controversy when someone found a sex game in GTA: San Andreas _if you hacked the game_. Nowadays a kid with a smartphone googles and there you are, AI generated hardcore porn with your classmate's face. Different world.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Historically, US pornography has been regulated on the basis of whether or not it is obscene, defined by various Supreme Court tests over the years. If it is not obscene, it's afforded First Amendment protections and allowed. If it is obscene, it can be regulated by various entities, should they choose to do so. Since the mid-70s(?), the Miller test [0] has been used. Parent is pointing out that the Internet effectively obliterated the technical ability of various government entities to impose restrictions of any sort on obscene material, and consequently there's been essentially no regulation of internationally-based pornographic content since the 90s. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test
explorigin 2y ago
It feels like honest conversation doesn't happen so much in the public space these days if an issue can be politicized. But what will be very interesting to track would be the rate of change of social vices in the next 15 years.
- fullshark 2y ago
  True. I believe a neo-temperance movement is on the horizon personally, due to opening the vice floodgates re: smartphones.
tensor 2y ago
I'd rather have an honest conversation about teenagers having access to violent media, especially how violence is absolutely normalized in the US. Seeing a boob never killed anyone, but violence kills thousands every year in the US, including many children.
- explorigin 2y ago
  > Seeing a boob never killed anyone This is a straw-man attack. Porn produces a huge dopamine dump. Do some research on how dopamine works in the brain. Regular dopamine dumps can have a huge impact on quality of life leading to depression and building an addiction cycle.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- bhouston 2y ago
  Porn consumption rates are inversely proportional to rapes [1] and likely sex in general (I'm extrapolating, but I think it is reasonable [2]?), which likely then impacts birthrates (again another extrapolation, but again I think reasonable.) So high porn consumption likely reduces birthrates. I wouldn't be surprised if there is literature to back that up. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359178909000445 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13591... [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/sexual-intelligence/202208/why-todays-teens-are-having-so-much-less-sex https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/sexual-intelligence/...
- lr4444lr 2y ago
  I encourage you to read more into the change of sexual behaviors in men who consume porn who are already in relationships and the effect this has on the women and overall relationship satisfaction. Yeah, maybe seeing a boob never killed someone, but aggressive grabbing, intimidating a partner who doesn't seem "normal", and expecting rougher more extreme sex acts that women are not comfortable with are not harmless.
  - 2y ago
jimt1234 2y ago
Honestly, I think the conversation needs to be more around identity/AuthN systems that can balance trust and privacy. It's not an easy problem to solve, even in "meat space", but I think problems like access to porn go away if proper identity is solved.
dragontamer 2y ago
Airplane is a PG movie where there are literally tities and the finale involves a blowjob joke. We can certainly discuss 1980s vs 2020s and how the Overton window has shifted. Boobs weren't as big of a deal in our past. 80s were also quite violent in our movies/media as well. It seems like everything has been clamped down. I was surprised to see the dick of the David Statue get messed up in the children's movie 'The Goonies' for example. Apparently dicks weren't a big deal either even into the 90s.
- atmavatar 2y ago
  The Andromeda Strain from 1971 is rated G and features a naked woman in a bathtub early in the movie. It's not something I'd really noticed before I had a similar conversation with someone regarding how movie ratings have changed over time vis a vis nudity. That aside, it's a brilliant sci fi movie, and I'd recommend it to everyone here :)
DoingIsLearning 2y ago
> how much and what we want available as a society We as a democratic society should want that everything legal is available. It is up to parents to take care of what is available to their offspring. Much like any other potential risk behaviours. And it is up to other democracies to curb the US's continued attempt at pushing their protestant obsession with sexuality onto everyone else.
- bhouston 2y ago
  > It is up to parents to take care of what is available to their offspring. Much like any other potential risk behaviours. Truly addictive things, e.g. dopamine hijacks, are hard to make widely available. Gambling, dopamine drugs (cocaine, meth, etc.), porn, etc.
NikolaNovak 2y ago
I would agree, though we might (or not:) vehemently disagree with the premises and conclusions. I find Pornography in specific, and sex in general, is something people have very strong basic opinions about. In particular, a lot of people intersect religious morals into the picture, which can make conversations difficult at best, disingenuous more commonly :-(. For example, my own basic approach is "what do you mean 'obscenity regulations'? What kind of silly thing is that amongst adults?". It then tends to get complicated due to numbers - often people promoting such regulations and laws upon other adults are hugely vehement about government over reach and regulation in other areas, so it ends up feeling like hipocrisy or "I want government to ban things I don't like and allow things I do like". But this is hacker news! Nothing stops are from trying to have that honest conversation :-). My honest opinion is that I come from a prudeish culture, and thank goodness teenagers today can have their key questions answered more openly and have access to things I had to sneak and feel guilty about. Access to porn is not in top ten things I worry about for my kids, but I am willing to listen otherwise :-).
- fullshark 2y ago
  I think the status quo post-internet world is better than the world pre-internet. I think good outweighs the bad, a lot of this though is from genuinely informative message boards and websites re: sexuality which you highlight. The hypothetical homosexual teenager in a small town that can now find like minded people and talk to them about their sexuality and make sense of it is a godsend. I'm more thinking about the downsides of the erotic material being available 24/7 to every person in their pocket and inducing addictive behaviors. The teenage boys that have seen explicit pornography before ever even kissing a girl, and how that influences their expectations and behaviors while dating. The incels that don't even attempt to make themselves attractive to the opposite sex but instead indulge in auto-erotic gratification from consuming digital content (hikikomori), soon to be augmented by AI. These people are chasing dopamine hits instead of genuine human connection, something formally driven by lust/sexual desire for better or worse and it's going to have major cultural impacts.
  - Hizonner 2y ago
    I saw explicit pornography before ever kissing a girl. So did everybody I knew well enough to have known whether they had or not. In the 1970s. We did not have an Internet. No, the volume wasn't nearly as high, nor was the technical quality. As for "expectations", non-porn media also have horrible expectations about gender and relationships. In fact, they have more of them and are able to convey them in more detail. And the fact is that today's teenaged boys are a lot more respectful toward their prospective-or-desired partners than my cohort was, porn or no porn.
ben_w 2y ago
> especially to teenagers An honest conversation, sure. Porn is a hyperstimulus, unrealistic and so reality seems bad in comparison. This may be why teens these days are having fewer accidental pregnancies. Those missing accidental teen pregnancies, according to a comment I saw on Hacker News recently and never checked the veracity of, are a big part of why fertility rates are now below replacement levels. The dichotomy that won't be believed: Ban the "adult" content to force the teens to grow up before they need to; or let them be "corrupted" so that they can keep their innocence. (Scare quotes because I remember being a teenager, even if it was the 90s).

nateshelley 2y ago

Surely the title is misleading in that Pornhub is the entity blocking those states from accessing it, as they choose to not follow the new law. As-is it reads like the states are the ones blocking it, which they are not. They're simply asking for more than an "I promise I'm 18" button.

explorigin 2y ago
This is an important distinction. The legislation requires customers identify themselves...not unlike being carded at a brick-and-mortar store. It's Pornhub that's refusing to take that step.
- some_furry 2y ago
  > It's Pornhub that's refusing to take that step I wouldn't want to be responsible for the privacy risk that age verification documents impose on site operators.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    not to mention all the regulation shit you have to go through when dealing with PII…
- bsimpson 2y ago
  The difference is that someone in real life can see your ID without recording it. The internet's history of anonymous-by-default and the taboo that people can still feel viewing pornography are both factors that make ID verification laws very touchy (also reasons free sites like PornHub are popular in the first place). Compound that with the perpetual security breaches that we've all been victims of in recent years, and you can see why these laws have strong opposition.
Carrok 2y ago
“Simply” lol
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

bhouston 2y ago

Are its competitors like OnlyFans also blocked similarly? BTW PornHub is owned by an Ottawa, Canada-based company recently: https://www.ethicalcapitalpartners.com https://www.ethicalcapitalpartners.com

tennisflyi 2y ago
Still Aylo as mentioned in a longer comment
- bhouston 2y ago
  PornHub is owned by Aylo and Aylo is owned by Ethical Capital Partners per Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aylo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aylo
  - tennisflyi 2y ago
    Yes. You’re right. Bad reading on my part!

throwup238 2y ago

The “economic anxiety” is only going to get worse now.

bhouston 2y ago
I read that access to porn consumption is inversely correlated with rape rates [1]. So it means that the rate of rapes will increase in those areas that fully ban porn. But I suspect sex in general will increase in those areas (see [2]), and maybe birthrates?, as porn consumption is likely inversely proportional to sex in general. [1] "Victimization rates for rape in the United States demonstrate an inverse relationship between pornography consumption and rape rates." Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359178909000445 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13591... [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/sexual-intelligence/202208/why-todays-teens-are-having-so-much-less-sex https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/sexual-intelligence/...
- Nifty3929 2y ago
  Well, I guess we'll shortly have some data to investigate this hypothesis more deeply.
- SauciestGNU 2y ago
  Extremely dark thought it that the places banning porn are also banning abortion, so there could be a glut of rape babies if this theory holds water.

clcaev 2y ago

Why hasn't the ISP "market" provided a solution for concerned parents?

pokot0 2y ago
I agree. It’s as easy as that if you respect people having different values. But these laws come from a “my god told me that this is right” mindset and you can’t really argue with that. if this is what people want, so be it. who cares!
- viraptor 2y ago
  "easy"? ISP can only apply the rules per-connection, so it's not great for parental control. It also can't enforce any filtering past the domain, so sex subreddits are still open. It also creates a list of people enabling sex sites. It would still be a problematic solution.
  - pokot0 2y ago
    you can just make a law that websites are required to flag the html for pages that contain rated content so that isp and parents can filter whatever they want. all without infringung on people freedom. i am sure smarter people than me can come up with an even better solution. this honestly just feel more like imposing religious values than anything else
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      same rules that apply to pornography should apply to any religious site too. no one under 18 should be subjected to lunacy of religious websites that exist and yet… :)
      - SauciestGNU 2y ago
        You ever notice how the parents who are loudest about "parental rights" are the ones who coerce and groom their children into religion before they're old enough to consent or even understand the metaphysical underpinnings of religious belief?

CoryAlexMartin 2y ago

I'm in Tennessee but can still access it. It seems like the law was blocked by a federal judge. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2024/12/31/tennessee-age-verification-law-blocked-adult-content-websites/77356490007/ https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2024/12/31/tennessee-a...

LewisVerstappen 2y ago

[deleted]

IAmGraydon 2y ago
>you can see it in the data with 63% of young men being single Ah yes - a very well made statement of causation, complete with evidence.
samtho 2y ago
It’s regressive because banning a vice does not magically make harm from it disappear. The addiction issue needs to be addressed in a meaningful and direct way. The other problem is that many advocates for a ban on pornography use this argument without actually caring about the issue they decry, otherwise they would have engaged in actual awareness or harm reduction campaigns. Instead, they choose to engage with this argument in bad faith because in actuality pornography just does not align with their morals.
skocznymroczny 2y ago
Is porn addiction a symptom or a cause? I feel like young men retreat to porn because they can't find a partner. The percentage of men who would prefer porn over a partner is probably very minor. I think the problem with men being single is that it's very hard to be in a space where it's acceptable to seek a partner. Due to various #metoo and similar actions most men have learned it's unacceptable to approach women in public spaces. Meanwhile the online dating websites are trying their hardest not to match people because people who find their match don't watch ads and pay for microtransactions (premium accounts, gifts, boosts). I feel like the best solution to loneliness and to boost marriage (and thus birth) rates would be some form of non-commercial / government run dating website. Dating websites are slowly becoming a desert and most people who used them for a longer period of time will tell you how great they were before swiping era.

oger 2y ago

[flagged]

bsimpson 2y ago

"Sex addiction counselor" sounds like the kind of person who thinks anyone who has ever looked at porn is a pervert if single and an adulterer if partnered, and makes persecuting those people her whole identity. Definitely not someone I'd trust to have a reasonable opinion crafting the laws that govern society.

robertlagrant 2y ago
It doesn't sound like that. That's your bias.
- proxynoproxy 2y ago
  It really does. Puritanical questers should be far far away from the levers of power. The amount of harm done by ignorant, twisted moralistic campaigns is measured in the decades.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    Possibly, but the puritans of which you speak talked the way you do too. Puritans might be long gone, but people who do crazy assumption-piling to justify some hatred or other never will be.
Osmose 2y ago
The APA even removed sex addiction from the DSM-V, which isn't the end-all-be-all of what is or isn't a mental disorder, but is indicative of how science has broadly rejected the idea of sex addiction being a meaningful disorder. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/close-and-personal/201609/anthony-weiner-is-not-sex-addict-neither-is-anyone-else-0 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/close-and-personal/2...
- throwaway5273 2y ago
  Although the addiction model is controversial and not widely accepted, most professionals do acknowledge that psychological problems can drive maladaptive sexual behavior that causes significant personal and professional impairment. It’s important to stress that pornography use alone is not considered maladaptive, irrespective of local cultural norms that seek to restrict the sexual behavior of consenting adults. AASECT (the largest professional body of sex therapists in the United States) has a definition of Out of Control Sexual Behavior, and Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder is retained by the ICD. Most consumers of pornography do not meet either definition, but it’s important to recognize that some do.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Porn is speech. And access to speech must be defended near absolutely (for example per US constitutional law) everywhere - at local or state levels, in public and private spaces, offline and online, etc. Today it’s puritanical governments forcing identity verification but tomorrow it could be an overly moralistic corporation controlling one of a few AI models.

plantwallshoe 2y ago
A moralistic corporation controlling an AI model to say, further a religious goal, would be the free religious speech of the owners of that corporation (so long as they aren’t taking public funding)
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  I disagree in this situation, although I understand your logic. The surviving corporations with large foundational models will be the current big tech mostly. These large companies should be regulated like utilities or public agencies, because they’re that powerful and influential and don’t face real competition. The owners of such corporations - each have a right to speech as individuals, separate from a corporation.

Lambdanaut 2y ago

I don't agree with puritanical laws like this, but I do believe that the quantity and quality of porn consumed in the US constitutes a non-trivial public mental health crisis, and I hope that this will drive into people the serious risks of taking your dopamine receptors for constant, convenient, quick rides that scratch an itch without providing the experience of genuinely connecting with another living, breathing human being that cares. Real, vulnerable connection can provide meaning in a way that manufactured fast porn can never give, and I believe that connection can be an important aspect of self actualization towards a meaningful existence. I'm not claiming that rare, conscious consumption of pornography can't be integrated into a healthy, fulfilled life, but that the way it's mindlessly consumed by so many is keeping us from that fulfilled life.

wkat4242 2y ago
Why do you think porn is a replacement for a relationship? A relationship is about a lot more than just sex. And real sex is way better than masturbation. Even when I'm between relationships I need that too (and pay for it in those cases). Porn is just a minor passtime. A relationship affects every aspect of your life.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  > and pay for it in those cases Ps: I see this got flagged but just wanted to clarify that I'm in Europe and this is legal where I live (unlike in most US states I believe). I just think paying for it is a lot more fair than trying to get random girls in bed for a one night stand like a lot of guys do. I don't really court someone unless I have a serious interest in the person, not just their body. But my point was that porn doesn't displace relationships and not even the need for real sex.
- fullshark 2y ago
  A relationship is hard to find, cultivate, and maintain. It's sort of analogous to a healthy diet. People choose junk food over healthy food options for convenience/cheap thrills even if there's obvious benefits to healthy diets, and people choose porn over genuine human connection.

Nifty3929 2y ago

The folks who are interested in content like this will still search it out, but now they're more likely to end up on shadier sites instead. Pornhub (Aylo), as porn sites go, is legitimate and goes out of their way to remove problem content and follow laws and regulations. They are also based in Canada. I'm sure there are other sites that are much worse that will fill this vacuum. The only thing PH doesn't seem keen on is compromising their users' privacy and serving as age-enforcer. So this legislation seems to make things worse, not better. Sure, you can always say "well PH could just comply with the age-verification laws," but I applaud them for taking a stand on privacy, and also them saying "fine, if you don't like us here we'll leave." It's really a loss for exactly the states that are passing these laws. They'll just end up with people going to shadier sites. What worries me most though, is that this will lead to people using VPNs more (which is fine), but then states making VPNs themselves illegal (they'll use terms like "tools to circumvent...") which is super bad.

TriangleEdge 2y ago
> ... is legitimate and goes out of their way to remove problem content ... This is blatantly not true. I know because I've reported a clearly illegal video on every avenue I could find (the report button, emailing support, etc..) and the video was only taken down when PornHub removed all videos expect the verified ones some years ago.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  This anecdote does not remotely disprove the assertion.
- Nifty3929 2y ago
  I didn't say that they remove every single piece of problem content, or that they remove every single thing a user flags. But I do believe that they go out of their way to do so. They make way too much money to do otherwise. Also, they may (I hope) be a better company now than in the past, as your example seems to show (you indicate that they started requiring verification for uploaded videos). Maybe they grew up, or maybe they just realized that their revenue (or entire business) would be compromised unless they took serious, ongoing action. In any case - Aylo/PH must certainly be better than many of the alternatives that are based in very permissive jurisdictions and just don't care. Those are the sites people in these Southern states are going to end up on now. I'm sorry that in your case they failed though.

raydiak 2y ago

> Any “commercial entity” that publishes “material harmful to minors” online can be held liable—meaning, tens of thousands of dollars in fines and/or private lawsuits—if it doesn’t “perform reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of individuals attempting to access the material.” Does that include the extremist-grooming neo-nazi hate factory which replaced Twitter?

grecy 2y ago
Surely that includes the bible…. Again

optimalsolver 2y ago

I wonder how an alternative-timeline South which was still segregated would have dealt with interracial porn.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

thefaux 2y ago

This is troubling to me from a free speech perspective. I am no fan of porn -- and I definitely don't think children should have easy access to it -- but what worries me is the expansion of the definition of porn to suit political purposes. And more generally accepting this kind of censorship begins paving the road to more aggressive censorship elsewhere. If you disagree with your neighbor, the goal should be able to learn to live with them in disagreement or persuade them over to your viewpoint without coercion or manipulation. Right now there are several movements across the political spectrum as well as the corporate sector to use the government to suppress speech they perceive as threatening. This should be troubling for all of us even when used for things that we might nominally view as good (such as preventing children from accessing porn).

Ajedi32 2y ago
> the expansion of the definition of porn to suit political purposes How would that work? "Hate speech" for example is very easy to define broadly enough to ban basically any opinion those in power deem undesirable. But how would you do that with porn? Is the government going to somehow start classifying news articles criticizing particular political candidates as pornography? That seems like such a ridiculous stretch that it couldn't possibly work. If there's any danger here, I think it's more the potential for collateral damage on human freedoms, like the right to online anonymity. (E.g. Widespread deployment of age verification systems requiring users to provide a government-issued ID.)
- quotemstr 2y ago
  I think the OP might have meant "obscenity" that goes against "community standards" when he wrote "porn". I agree that defining crimechink and crimespeech as "porn" would be a stretch, but defining them as "obscenity" would be less so.

MS27 2y ago

I see most of the comments here say that they don't completely agree with fully banning these websites. But as I strongly disagree with porn, I'm happy with that and I hope more states do that.

rfrey 2y ago
Anything else you strongly disagree with, that you'd like banned?
bdangubic 2y ago
I strongly disagree that you should be allowed to have internet access but here we are… /s
x3sphere 2y ago
Well, let's also ban alcohol consumption since it's bad for you. Let's also ban all forms of violent media since that could potentially be bad for you when viewed in excess (similar to porn). It's a slippery slope. At what point do we just start monitoring people's thoughts when that tech comes available?
- dkkergoog 2y ago
  [dead]
tokioyoyo 2y ago
The problem is, the laws are very… stupid? No PornHub, but Twitter is fine because less than X% of revenue is coming from pornography. But it’s still the place for the adult content. Ask any young person about Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram funnels into Twitter solely for pornography. These types of laws (good enough even if we can get rid of 50% of the problem!), I think, don’t work well when there’s physiological element to it (arousal in this scenario). People will actively seek out pornography and consume it. It has been going on for decades in the internet.
Hizonner 2y ago
Nobody sane actually cares what you "disagree" with, other than maybe being reminded to be sure to avoid people like you getting any actual power.

tennisflyi 2y ago

Well, if most people can’t suss out legitimate (keyword) porn is bought and paid for (as in production) that’s a larger problem. Legitimate porn has some semblance of testing, paperwork, and a script/shot list. If you force people to fuck via whatever means and record adult content that’s just a crime - not porn

metalman 2y ago

XX " whats that in your pocket" XY "uh, huh? oh THAT!, its a dongle" XX ":) whats it do?" XY "uh,oh well this one is a portable virtual private network" XY "can I touch it?" XX " not yet, wait!, I have to plug it in, and it has to boot" XY "can I have one?" XX "sure,np" https://deals.newatlas.com/sales/deeper-connect-air-portable-vpn-travel-router https://deals.newatlas.com/sales/deeper-connect-air-portable...

2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago

"I disapprove of porn, but I will defend to the death your right to watch it."

nunez 2y ago

What does everyone think are the odds of ISPs being forced by US southern states to implemet a "Great Wall of China"-like firewall at their regional edges to block VPNs that make this law easy to subvert? (To be clear: I hate that this is even a realistic question.)

nunez 2y ago

I'm not a lawyer, but I did debate once and know that words are fungible. Most of the anti-porn legislations that have passed only require distributors of "harmful" material (porn) to use age-verification technology via, amongst other methods, "commercially reasonable" identity providers. "Commercially reasonable" isn't defined in these statutes. Furthermore, there haven't been any follow-up legislations to implement state-level verification of these "commercially reasonable" identity providers. Given this, what's to stop PornHub et. al. from doing something like what "social clubs" do/did in dry counties? Social clubs check your ID (to comply with federal law) and then ask you to sign in. The signing in is notional; it doesn't mean anything. In other words, something like: - Porn site: "Sorry, $US_STATE requires you to verify your identity; go to this website to proceed" - "Identity provider": "Enter name and age, then hit OK" - "Identity provider" to porn site: "All clear; they hit OK" - Porn site: "Thanks for verifying! Click the 'Remember, porn is bad, mmkay?' button to browse our collection" If enough sites support said identity provider, then wouldn't they be the "commercially reasonable" choice? (Of course, none of this matters if the majority-conservative US administration that gets sworn in this month decides to implement digital age verification for "harmful material" on a federal level. In that case, my earlier question of mini-"Great Firewall of China" in the US when that I posted here matters more.) (Also, not every porn site complies with these laws, the oh-my-goodness-so-fucking-many porn sites out there aggregate from each other anyways, and I don't think this has been court-tested yet, so we don't know what actually happens to operators that tell these states to fuck off! Also, let's not forget that porn exists on social media and other commercial platforms, unless Texas wants to actually try blocking Microsoft Bing in the state)

mrayycombi 2y ago

As porn has been a driver of technology adoption, like the internet, maybe we'll see a rise in porn manufacturing using AI on the PC (now there's a reason to buy an AI PC)? Indeed, what stops kids from generating their own porn using these same tools? Do we need age verification on them too?

deathanatos 2y ago

(https://archive.is/w9TcX https://archive.is/w9TcX) (IANAL) Note that some of these laws are only ostensibly about porn. For example, the Tennessee law blocks, in addition to what one might reasonably describe as porn, additionally blocks any material that: > pander[s] to the prurient interest (—[1], §1 (b)(5)(A)(i)) While a reasonable reader might find a normal level of intent under that phrasing, Tennessee has in the past has similar laws, using similar phraseology. For example, an east TN DA attempted to enforce similar language in the TN AEA[2], threatening enforcement of that act against a pride parade despite, a.) the parade stating they would comply with all applicable laws and b.) the law the DA was threatening to enforce had already been struck down as unconstitutional. (The DA admitted knowledge of this, as well, but claimed³ that the ruling on the unconsitutionality of the law didn't apply to him. The DA was later sued, and directly enjoined from interfering with the parade.) (back to the "think of the children" act) > When taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors; (—[1], §1 (b)(5)(B), and it is less than clear to me whether (b)(5)(A) is "and" or "or", but "or" seems the more logical conclusion, and in particular, in the ambiguity, TN is a state that I would expect to argue "or".) The TN legislature's arguments while passing the AEA showed the legislatures true (discriminatory) intent. I would not be shocked to find similar here, given the similarity in the language. That is, the (purposefully) vague nature of the law as written is that the bible "has" "serious […] value for minors" but anything LGBTQ would "not" "have" such value, and would surely "pander" to the "prurient interest". > At a minimum, anonymized age-verification data must include architectural diagrams illustrating the technological assets and logical processes by which the reasonable age-verification method is accomplished and data demonstrating a volume of reasonable age-verification method executions consistent with the overall volume of visits to the website; [1]: https://publications.tnsosfiles.com/acts/113/pub/pc1021.pdf https://publications.tnsosfiles.com/acts/113/pub/pc1021.pdf [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Adult_Entertainment_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Adult_Entertainment_... ³The DA has some utterly braindead legal theory that the court's ruling that the law was unconstitutional doesn't apply to him — or most anyone — because the ruling's injunctive relief applied only to certain people. I'd quote it, but their argument is in a PDF that's a scan of a Word doc w/o OCRing[4] and I don't feel like re-typing it. The injunctive relief did, yes, but that was section II of the ruling, and section I, which struck the law down, is separate, and not restricted … "The Court therefore HOLDS and DECLARES that the Adult Entertainment Act is an UNCONSTITUTIONAL restriction on speech." … which is not restricted to just the parties, which would be utterly illogical.) [4]: https://interactive.wbir.com/pdfs/AEA-Notice.pdf https://interactive.wbir.com/pdfs/AEA-Notice.pdf