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Porn sites go dark in France over new age verification rules
- tyleo 1y agoThis is a hard situation. I don’t think minors should be exposed to porn. Hell, I think even social media has a drug-like effect best kept from minors. Age verification is the most obvious solution but comes with the downside of potentially leaking private adult activity or information. I suppose my POV is that the benefit here outweighs the good even if imperfect. Porn just isn’t a necessity even if some folks really enjoy it. I don’t hold that POV strongly, I pretty much formed it while writing this comment. I’m be interested in hearing other perspectives.
- CalRobert 1y agoI generally agree, except that I don’t like how this removes anonymity. (I also think fifteen year olds seeing genitalia isn’t a big deal but it does seem some porn can have negative impacts) The government shouldn’t need to know if I read hustler magazine but online I don’t know how to separate proof of age from identity.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- resource_waste 1y agoWhile I don't think there is much harm, 'If you stare into the abyss, the abyss will stare back at you.' You cannot be unaffected by events. (I know the quote is paraphrased, and specifically talking about philosophy)
- CalRobert 1y agoYeah, big difference between seeing consenting adults have sex and some more violent stuff
- orwin 1y agoAll the code produced by this government agency it required to be open source, so unless you see a token tracker on GitHub, anonymity should be fine.
- jeroenhd 1y ago> I don’t think minors should be exposed to porn. The problem with that is that minors will be looking at porn. You're not going to stop a horny 16 year old. These laws will certainly take care of age gating the decent, well-willing websites. The shady, probably unmonitored, or even niche websites outside of the mainstream, won't. Aside from the obvious VPN workaround, this will only push curious teenagers towards worse websites. As for privacy risks, privacy-friendly methods do exist. Yivi (previously dubbed IRMA) is a proof-of-concept that has been running for a while for privacy-friendly verification and data exchange using signed attributes (https://irma.app/docs/what-is-irma/ https://irma.app/docs/what-is-irma/). A signed "user-is-over-18" attribute is all a website would need to verify a user's age, without any other details. Privacy-friendly age verification won't stop the other risks and problems these law may impose, though.
- ty6853 1y ago>These laws will certainly take care of age gating the decent, well-willing websites Lol they won't. dark IDs or just AI altering their IDs, the second france enforces such law there will be some entrepreneur that makes an AI bot that accepts your ID and then changes the DOB and then spits out the video/images for KYC.
- diggan 1y agoUse the national ID that surely has a digital DB, and make the check against those, which unless some corrupt officials has edit rights to, won't allow those simple bypasses.
- diggan 1y ago> I don’t think minors should be exposed to porn I guess the devil is in the details. I think you're talking about this from the context of USA, where I think a minor is up to 18, while a minor is up to 15. Then what constitutes of "porn" is also very different, I'm sure pictures of topless women could be considered porn in some places, while not in others. So by some folks definition, a lot of content on current social media would be considered porn, and by others, a lot of content on porn sites wouldn't be considered porn. What's lacking in these discussions are almost always: Not being specific enough about used terms and also providing enough context to understand the specifics and where those come from.
- Retric 1y agoI think porn has ~net neural effects on kids. One of the upsides is it’s a time sink replacing activities that can result in direct physical harm, just as video games do etc. Without hormones driving people to it it’s uninteresting. After hormones kick in there’s upsides and downsides to porn, but those hormones are pushing a drug like effect and thus addiction either way.
- closewith 1y ago> One of the upsides is it’s a time sink replacing activities that can result in direct physical harm, just as video games do etc. This is a delusional worldview.
- thunderfork 1y agoThis is not a very constructive comment. Explain how?
- episteme 1y agoI think they might have meant that video games are also a time sink, not that video games cause harm?
- badmintonbaseba 1y agoI wonder how effectively the regulation achieves its desired outcome of fewer minors being exposed to porn.
- mediumrhino 1y agoCounter argument: While I agree with your general sentiment, this will only take effect on larger sites and will lead to minors shifting to smaller, less moderated, and potentially more extreme content.
- robertlagrant 1y ago> Age verification is the most obvious solution but comes with the downside of potentially leaking private adult activity or information. The system they have seems reasonable, though? Verifier doesn't know site; site doesn't know user. Not going to be perfect, but is quite good.
- UnreachableCode 1y ago>Instead, users must verify their age using a credit card or a government-issued ID. This check must be carried out by an external service, not the porn site itself. >This system, referred to as “double anonymity”, means the porn site receives only a yes-or-no confirmation that the user is of legal age. The age-check provider knows who the user is, but not which sites they visit. So is there an issue here if the external service disposes of the card details immediately following confirmation? I'm not exactly sure how this would/could work though.
- TheChaplain 1y agoIMHO it's not porn that is the problem, it's parents. What minors are exposed to, and educated about, is the parents primary responsibility to deal with. Minors will somehow get access to porn and nudies, age verification will not stop them.
- ty6853 1y agoI don't disagree but let me go one step further and say perhaps it is no one's responsibility. A parent cannot possibly monitor what teens are getting into at all times. When teens do 'bad' things it doesn't mean the parent or society is somehow at fault.
- imchillyb 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 1y ago> This is alarmingly incorrect. Extra curricular activities, clubs, sports, and music work exceptionally well at keeping kids too busy to indulge in pornography or other unacceptable habits like drugs. Ha ha, if only. You're forgetting the liminal space - the transition periods. Unless you're going to personally hand your kid off to a teacher and then pick them up afterwards, exactly on the minute the activities start and end, leaving exactly zero time for them to interact with other kids with little supervision, kids will find a way. And if you actually manage to do that, you'll be severely damaging their social development, hindering their ability to function in society as independent adult, possibly for life. This is arguably much, much worse than them smoking a few cigarettes and watching some porn.
- loudmax 1y agoThe amount of exposure matters here. It's one thing for a teenager to manage to occasionally access clandestine pornography (as was kind of the norm growing up in the 1980's). It's a much worse thing to spend many hours per week looking at porn. The former is probably not a terrible thing, the latter is not healthy for emotional or social development. Plus, there are other positive aspects to keeping kids busy and involved with healthy social activities.
- MangoToupe 1y ago> Age verification is the most obvious solution but comes with the downside of potentially leaking private adult activity or information. Honestly the older I get, the less I can strongly care about this. For better or worse, porn is a relatively mainstream topic. If we can't have discussions about why porn taste is so potentially devastating to leak, we don't deserve privacy. Besides, it's not like "leaking" of this information would lead to a public index of who is watching what. And maybe it should, I'm no longer sure.
- wkat4242 1y agoI love the way you use the term POV so much. I see what you're doing there ;)
- SecretDreams 1y ago> Hell, I think even social media has a drug-like effect best kept from minors. I'd venture to guess the exposure to social media is far more harmful than porn, but I could be out to lunch as to how much kids are looking at porn??
- williamdclt 1y agoFleeting, largely-unconsidered thought: given teenagers _will_ look for porn, that I can’t reliably be prevented and that some porn is worse than other, could/should we have a category of porn that can be accessed _for teenagers_ (>15yo for example)? A category where there has to be no violence, no degradation, decent representation of sexualities/races/body types, no incest etc etc… Basically give enough to teenagers that they’re satisfied enough with it without having to look elsewhere and be exposed to the worse stuff. Doesn’t sound entirely like a bad idea
- oersted 1y agoThis is a reasonable take, and there is strong precedent that it can work. In Germany, the drinking age for beer and similar lower alcohol drinks is 16 instead of 18, and it has a big impact in preventing teenagers from binge drinking vodka and such. In the Netherlands, beer and wine are readily available in every supermarket, but you really need to get out of your way to get harder alcohol at designated dispensaries or liquor stores manned by a clerk. Similarly, the laws on drugs make a significant distinction between softer drugs like weed (not legalised despite stereotypes, but tolerated) and harder drugs like heroin. There was a massive heroin addiction epidemic in the 70s, and such methods were remarkably effective in combating that.
- oersted 1y agoI don't disagree, but let's not forget that there is a significant difference with main things that are age-gated right now: alcohol, tobacco, driving... It's not just about addiction or mental health, it's a whole different ballgame. These things carry big real-world physical risks, potentially deadly. Minors literally have different brain chemistries as they develop, and drugs can cause long-lasting effects unlike in adults. Even gambling is not age-gated as strictly, with massive potential negative impacts to your livelyhood. For the rest of things that might cause some psychological harm (maybe, hard to verify), like movies or videogames, we just have recommendations and some light barriers. Elevating porn to the top category is therefore quite a significant move, it is not the same.
- throwaway366363 1y ago[dead]
- numpad0 1y ago> Porn just isn’t a necessity even if some folks really enjoy it. So isn't speech! Not everyone need privileges to talk about human rights or democracy. China's doing fine with neither(officially). By the way, unofficially and anecdotally, coastal Chinese prostitution as well as porn seem to be getting bigger and more wicked faster. I wonder which comes first: puritanism, or erosion of industrial base. This whole slow movement could be just a symptom than culprit.
- const_cast 1y agoMinors already aren't allowed to look at porn, and in fact they're not even allowed to access the internet. I mean, when you go to an ISP to purchase an internet plan, they're going to ask you for ID and they're going to verify your age. It is then the parents responsibility to monitor that. If parents choose to turn around and grant their kids free access, then fair's fair. Just think about alcohol and tobacco. The clerk is going to ask for your ID in the store, sure. But they're not gonna follow you home and make sure you don't slip your kid a cig or a bottle. That's not their responsibility, their transaction is done. And, actually, in a lot of places this is explicitly allowed. I think in most US states minors can drink under adult supervision. So, if we want to solve this, we need to aim at the parents and convincing them (as well as giving them more tools) to do this reasonably. These identity solutions are a tool, but IMO, a rather blunt and unnecessary tool.
- theshrike79 1y agoThe problem is that the legit sites will implement this. These sites have actual takedown processes and they verify uploaders (to a degree) etc. The ones that don't ... will have the nasty stuff.
- tossandthrow 1y agoJust make it illegal to serve the stuff to minors, and start supplying heavy fines when done so. Let the industry be innovative and find solutions themselves to stay compliant. It is not regulators responsibility to solve problems.
- iknowstuff 1y agoIdk dude haven’t we all watched it since age 13 ish and turned out fine?
- tossandthrow 1y agoGiven the massive levels of low libido, erectile dysfunction, reduced birth rates, anxiety, depression etc. I don't think it is fair to says that people turns out fine. The question is what role porn has. Regardless, my comment was more aimed at how we regulate than the effects of porn.
- brookst 1y agoYou’re making some huge leaps in assuming the direction of causality.
- tossandthrow 1y agoWhere? I explicitly mention that I do not assume this is related to porn. I merely say that we did not turn out fine.
- conartist6 1y agoI mean I imagine people would also feel all that if you burned their house down, and with the modern heat waves we should expect a lot more houses to burn in the coming years.
- tossandthrow 1y agoSo I reckon the right answer to houses being burnt down is not "but we turned out just fine"?
- UnreachableCode 1y agoI'm thinking for many less savvy websites, a VPN will get around this instantly?
- rvnx 1y agoNot so sure, https://www.pcgamesn.com/vpn/sports-site-block https://www.pcgamesn.com/vpn/sports-site-block If that ruling worked, they can extend it.
- fbn79 1y agoHow much time do you think will take for teenagers to discover VPNs? Another impossible to enforce law made by people who don't know what they're doing.
- rvnx 1y agoOnly if sanctions are too weak.
- diggan 1y agoIf you give them a reason: Yesterday If there is no need: Never
- ty6853 1y agoI wonder if France has 'strict liability' like the US, where it doesn't matter one iota for minor sex crimes that they had a passport, DL and their own mother claiming they are 18 and you did all the due diligence in the world, if they were all lying and the documentation is a perfect fake or even just incorrect it is zero defense and straight to jail.
- Zak 1y agoThis is a misunderstanding of US law. Most criminal laws are state laws, so you'll find at least[0] 50 different versions of any given crime. In some states, there is strict liability for an adult having sex with a minor (usually called something like sexual abuse of a minor; formerly often called statutory rape). In other states, the examples you gave would be valid defenses[1]. Laws requiring age verification have their own intent requirements. The Texas age verification law only applies when sites "knowingly and intentionally" distribute pornography[2] and imposes civil liability for sites that do so and fail to require either "digital identification" or use a commercial age verification service. There doesn't seem to be any specific requirement that they not make mistakes; it would probably default to negligence if it ended up in court. [0] Some US territory is not inside any state, and there are federal laws that come into play when an act crosses state lines. [1] Here's a statute from Alaska to that effect: https://www.akleg.gov/basis/statutes.asp#11.41.445 https://www.akleg.gov/basis/statutes.asp#11.41.445 [2] https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/html/HB01181H.htm https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/html/HB01181H...
- robertlagrant 1y ago> Pornhub’s internal data from 2024 shows France is its second-largest market after the United States. Wow - that is crazy for a country a 5th the population of the US.
- intrasight 1y agoPerhaps was a per capita statistic
- diggan 1y agoLuckily for us, Pornhub publishes a report each year, here's the report for 2024: https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2024-year-in-review#top-20-countries https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2024-year-in-review#top-20-... > In this section we dive deeper into the Top 20 Countries by order of highest traffic. With France ranked #2, which makes it seem like it's total traffic, not per capita.
- wkat4242 1y agoHere in Europe porn is not really viewed as this deeply shameful thing it is in the US. It's something regular people enjoy and not just men.
- robertlagrant 1y agoGermany has 30% more people than France. Germany is in Europe. It's still surprising, if you believe the "Europe is homogenous" thing you're espousing.
- ajuc 1y ago> Instead, users must verify their age using a credit card or a government-issued ID. This check must be carried out by an external service, not the porn site itself. > This system, referred to as “double anonymity”, means the porn site receives only a yes-or-no confirmation that the user is of legal age. The age-check provider knows who the user is, but not which sites they visit. Seems like a reasonable solution. The only remainig problem (provider knowing that you watch some porn even if not - exactly what kind) could be solved by requiring some other websites to verify age too. For example horror movies or liveleak videos.
- Illniyar 1y ago>This system, referred to as “double anonymity”, means the porn site receives only a yes-or-no confirmation that the user is of legal age. The age-check provider knows who the user is, but not which sites they visit. I don't know the specifics, but seems very reasonable if implemented matches the promise. If it's required also for some non porn sites (social media? gambling maybe), there should be no stigma attached either.
- goda90 1y agoNot sure if it's just a "trust us" thing, but a way to accomplish this would be anonymous credentials.https://csrc.nist.gov/presentations/2022/stppa4-anonym-cred https://csrc.nist.gov/presentations/2022/stppa4-anonym-cred
- Arnt 1y agoIs it financially viable? Do you happen to know roughly how much these services cost? Because it's easy to say "just use that third-party service" but if the cost of that service is well above the profit margin of a porn site, the site cannot really do it.
- palata 1y agoI think it could be a government website that gives you an anonymous token. The government checks your age from your identity (some "eID") and gives you a token that is "difficult" for them to track (see e.g. Privacy Pass [1]). Then you pass this token to your porn website and they can verify that this token means that you have the required age. But the porn website cannot identify you. Not sure about the price of such a service, but it would be paid by the public. [1]: https://privacypass.github.io https://privacypass.github.io
- diggan 1y agoIt seems the law allows either a government website, or 3rd party provider for the age checks, it doesn't mandate either. > Use an age verification provider that is legally and technically independent of any online platform hosting or providing porn content - https://www.yoti.com/blog/france-age-verification-law-adult-platforms-meaning-compliance https://www.yoti.com/blog/france-age-verification-law-adult-... So, could be a government website, but likely for-profit companies will try to capture it by any means necessary, the very least a lot of lobbying.
- v5o 1y ago[dead]
- agilob 1y agoDo they expect porn sites with revenge porn, pirated content to suddenly be implementing national ID age checks? Or do we expect these websites not implement the ID checks, making them easier to access by the kids?
- porridgeraisin 1y agoA credit card, or some money related government ID is what should be used for checking. If you make a separate ID for this, or use something "not risky to hand out", you'll just be creating a business opportunity for adults selling "verification services" using their government ID, for other (potentially) kids to make use of. If you verify using say, bank credentials, though, then those adults can't do the same since they risk losing money. Minimum balance checks are also necessary so it's not a "nothing to lose" situation. Important to set incentives right when doing bans like this. Historically, it's been implemented very badly wherever it's been tried. Of course an outright ban is also not a problem IMO, but many differ on that.
- goda90 1y agoA credit card means 0 privacy protection though. The website and the payment processor know exactly who you are and what you are doing.
- diggan 1y ago> The website and the payment processor know exactly who you are and what you are doing As far as I understand, the implementation would let the porn website verify you're above 18, and the payment processor would only know that you interacted with a age verification service to verify your age, but not specifically what website is asking you to verify your age. That would seem good enough in terms of privacy, unless I'm missing something?
- alluro2 1y ago[dead]
- zamadatix 1y agoWe recently added a similar law in the US state I'm in. I'm (obviously) an adult who could just do the verification but just go to other sites instead. If that's me now I can't imagine how little of a shit 16 year old me would have given. I'm not a fan of these types of laws in the first place but, if we're going to have them, punishing distribution but not consumption will do nothing. On the other hand punishing consumption via law is just silly enough to most people (for now at least) that we end up with this law which only makes it inconvenient for adults to access porn.
- palata 1y ago> punishing distribution but not consumption will do nothing I'm not so sure. Say you want to prevent children from accessing social media. Would you fine a child for that? Put them in jail? On the other hand, it's pretty easy to ask Meta to verify the age. There are not a gazillion social medias out there: force them all to verify the age, and most children won't have access to them anymore.
- zamadatix 1y agoAs already stated, fining a child or sending them to jail for viewing porn would be silly. The point was, lacking the willingness to do that, having commercially operated porn sites verify ages does not actually prevent or disincentivize children from accessing porn. A good intent does not itself make a law effective, it has to be something you're willing to incentivise compliance with from those who'd be breaking it and children are not going to stop viewing porn because pornhub.com (or any other website) won't let them without a verification check. The comparison to social media is a bit rough because the laws and focus there are around preventing children from creating accounts where their data is mined to be sold, the feeds are tailored to them, and their identities are publicly shared. The same laws do not actually attempt to prevent children without an account from viewing vacation photos. What applies in preventing account creation for social media does not necessarily apply to preventing content consumption itself in other cases.
- palata 1y ago
- david-gpu 1y agoI don't understand the logic of preventing minors from watching porn specifically, when they can easily find videos of people being beheaded, blown to bits, burned alive, etc. I have never had flashbacks from watching porn, but there are things I saw, even on broadcast TV, that still send shivers down my spine. I am disappointed to see fellow Europeans developing American-style "sex is bad, violence is entertaining" social customs.
- closewith 1y ago> I am disappointed to see fellow Europeans developing American-style "sex is bad, violence is entertaining" social customs. Article 227-24 also covers violent videos of that ilk.
- david-gpu 1y agoThank you for providing information that I had not seen reported elsewhere. A quick look at the actual law confirms what you said. I still would not lump pornography with gore and promotion of terrorism, but it is an improvement.
- ghm2180 1y agoDouble anonymity seems as a great means for enforcing privacy in general for any data you generate taht you don't want other people to see. Like in a location app on your phone generating (Lat Long) pairs. The app developer could just provide an inference engine running on a 3p trusted server to which an app developer has write only rights, e.g. a retrieval engine based on location — but cannot read. The user's app has read only rights — say get map tiles based on location. Its just that this is not the universe we live in sadly...(Maybe the EU will become that)
- DataDaemon 1y agoNo Fap Challenge in France!
- Ekaros 1y agoIt will probably slow some. But well distributing material via sneakernet is entirely possible and relatively cheap and easy. So after certain age they will get their hands on it. And well, most will go to some other place that does not follow regulations. There is plenty of them and more will pop up.
- 9283409232 1y agoI don't like that we are creating a society that removes accountability from parents. I do think parents are outgunned by tech companies but I also believe that parents have relinquished a lot of their responsibility in making sure their kids are not just doing whatever online.
- Bender 1y agoAge verification sites were never required. This is a new artificially created business model. There is no need for age verification on the server side. Parents of small children can handle it assuming minor changes or reverts to devices and some apps to look for the RTA header. The server or CDN need only let the client know it may contain adult and / or user generated content via one simple header. [1] Not perfect, nothing ever is nor ever will be. Also never try to block teens, that is a foolish losing battle. [1] - https://www.rtalabel.org/index.php?content=howtofaq#single https://www.rtalabel.org/index.php?content=howtofaq#single
- tharmas 1y agoShouldn't the issue with porn be the people in those films are heavily exploited and most often abused and in some cases even worse. In particular women. Why the absolute focus on demand side and none on the supply side? I guess the issue is they just want to stop young people from seeing porn? That's it? That's all society is concerned about, regarding porn?
- uwueusujsbd 1y ago[dead]