4 ms·

Wait lol CAN we keep kids safe from online porn? My assumption is we can't.

gjsman-1000 1y ago
Absolutely we can. It's called age verification in front of VPNs, age verification on magazine purchases, and age verification on pornographic websites or subsets (i.e. certain subreddits). VPNs or websites that don't follow the law get Visa payments suspended. Finish it off with any school kid who shows it on the playground gets suspended with a 2 week minimum, first offense. Completely possible, compatible, and probably mostly effective. The only question is whether there's the political will and the societal tolerance.
- MegaButts 1y ago
  I doubt this would do much to stop kids from looking at porn. It would only intimidate people that are afraid of breaking the rules, not people that just want to find what they're looking for. By this logic kids can't buy alcohol either.
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    > I doubt this would do much to stop kids from looking at porn 2/5s of Gen Z can't even navigate between folders on a computer, according to studies, with CS instructors saying they need to introduce directories as a concept. Yes, it will.
    - anonym29 1y ago
      You are confusing present knowledge with capacity. 2/5ths of Gen Z not currently knowing how to navigate between folders in a hierarchical file system doesn't mean that 2/5ths of Gen Z is incapable of learning how to navigate between folders in a hierarchical file system. The gap between present knowledge and capacity doesn't exist due to incompetence, it exists due to lack of motivation, and rest assured, once teenage boys discover how great boobs are, they'll have all the motivation they need to learn how to use technology to achieve the goal of viewing and appreciating that kind of material, pretty much regardless of how many restrictions you put in their way. They'll make their own in a paint app or with ASCII art in a notepad, push come to shove, but that won't be necessary. It's hilarious to think that states have the slighest hope of winning the whack-a-mole game of trying to sue every single website on the entire internet that hosts any pornographic content.
      - gjsman-1000 1y ago
        I actually don't believe this; for the simple reason that if you put a filter in front of porn, "once teenage boys discover how great boobs are" isn't going to happen for most of them. You only seek out porn once you already know how "great" it is, chicken and egg. How many people do you know whose first introduction to porn was "that's sounds cool, let me look that up?" Versus discovering it by accident, exactly what a law would effectively prevent?
        anonym29 1y ago
        Teenage boys in public school don't need to be the first in their peer group to view pornography in order to be exposed to pornography. No amount of technical measures will prevent this. They will literally dig old porno magazines out of dumpsters, procure VHS players to watch VHS porn, stay up until 4 in the morning to watch 30 second censored adult content commercials on TV. But again, none of that will be necessary. Rule34 websites, imageboards, video game rendering glitches... the list goes on and on. It's truly delusional to believe that it's possible to exhaustively censor imagery of the human body from the most motivated seeking/viewing demographic on the planet. Are you by chance a woman? Were you homeschooled? Do you not have memories of being a teenage guy in the US public school system? I don't mean to denigrate you, I just cannot fathom how anyone can possibly credibly believe that it's even slightly realistic to keep teenage boys completely unaware of what boobs look like in the real world.
        fluoridation 1y ago
        >They will literally dig old porno magazines out of dumpsters, procure VHS players to watch VHS porn, stay up until 4 in the morning to watch 30 second censored adult content commercials on TV. Oh, man. You just reminded me of teenage me trying to make something out in scrambled porn on cable TV after midnight. You could kind of see the thrusting, but it was barely stimulating. Those were tough times, let me tell you.
        anonym29 1y ago
    - skylurk 1y ago
      Back in my day the kids in my school didn't know what directories were either. But I taught a few of them how to remote shutdown other computers on the school network with cmd and soon everyone was doing it.
    - dmbche 1y ago
      Because their use case dorsn't need it. They have TBs of data and fast CPUs (or it's all on the cloud - and the same applies), they can just crtl-f for the name of their file or the date. Are they capable of using computers to achieve their goals? Yes. Does that require navigating folders? No. EDIT0: I remember writing a 4 line program to crash the school computer (recursively executing itself) on notepad, and I'm pretty sure I didn't know what folders and directories were. I can also attest to many of my coworkers not understanding what file extensions are, while being over 40 and working in aeronautics.
    - CamperBob2 1y ago
      They'll learn. We did.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- ajsnigrutin 1y ago
  The next step for that is using a real ID with real name and info on social networks... you know.. to verify the age.. and no more online anonymity. In other words, exactly what their plan is. Why not just add whitelisted parental controls on childrens phones and be done?
  - anonym29 1y ago
    POSIWID. The purpose isn't to protect children, it's to control narratives and suppress the preferred targets of TPTB. Allowlist-based parental controls already exist. Most parents never set them up because it's a pointless battle, their teenagers will just another device that isn't controlled by the parent.
- HDThoreaun 1y ago
  Too easy to set up offshore sites that can make money on ads. Sport piracy is rampant and the leagues are spending as much money as they possibly can to ban it but are unable to. In spain the entire interent basically shuts down during la liga games because the league convinced the government to ban cloudflare during games and people still have no problem pirating them
- popalchemist 1y ago
  All of that is technically circumventable and legally unconstitutional to enforce. You are literally describing a surveillance-state chilling effect on free speech via panopticon. Dystopian.
  - staplers 1y ago
    legally unconstitutional to enforce Have you missed the last 6 months?
    - popalchemist 1y ago
      I have, I am just not willing to resign myself to the idea that lawlessness is permanently the new norm. Just because the other team is winning doesn't mean you give up halfway through the game. Even moreso when it's life-and-death.
- fluoridation 1y ago
  LOL. Were you born as an adult? You're underestimating how smart kids are.
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    LOL. Were you a kid in 2025? You're underestimating how incompetent most kids are with tech. This generation grew up on iPhones and Chromebooks.
    - fluoridation 1y ago
      I didn't say anything about tech. Let me reiterate: you're underestimating how smart kids are.
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      Most kids may be incompetent with tech, but it only takes one competent kid to set up a large group.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
  When I first subscribed, my vpn provider allowed bigboxstore gift cards and other forms of payment. I think it also allows cryptocurrency, though I don't pay attention to that stuff. Hell, you can download scans of old porn magazines on archive.org. I don't think that would be effective, and I definitely don't think there is a political will.
- Cheer2171 1y ago
  Yes, completely possible if we completely turn all of digitized society (which is all society now) into a completely walled garden with signed bootloaders at the root so nobody actually owns their devices, then total surveillance where the digital world appears in the physical world, even at the playground! Work out how much state and corporate power we would need to come to bear to enforce the vision of the world you are advocating. Or, bravo on the HN troll. This is perfectly triggering for this crowd.
  - staplers 1y ago
    It's triggering because people like this exist at the highest authority and it's very close to becoming reality (very unfortunately).
- zer00eyz 1y ago
  ID to drink, ID eat, ID to vote, ID to cross state lines.... Papers Please. Here is the messed up thing, there is a good chance that one could make a pretty accurate guess on your age just based on behavior. The digital age needs its own "steal this book"
- lif 1y ago
  Nevermind the triggered 'inevitablists': when you are getting flak, you are over the target. Where there is a will there is a way. Now, notice I did NOT say that there actually is sufficient will, at the moment.

Absolutely we can. It's called age verification in front of VPNs, age verification on magazine purchases, and age verification on pornographic websites or subsets (i.e. certain subreddits). VPNs or websites that don't follow the law get Visa payments suspended. Finish it off with any school kid who shows it on the playground gets suspended with a 2 week minimum, first offense. Completely possible, compatible, and probably mostly effective. The only question is whether there's the political will and the societal tolerance.

MegaButts 1y ago
I doubt this would do much to stop kids from looking at porn. It would only intimidate people that are afraid of breaking the rules, not people that just want to find what they're looking for. By this logic kids can't buy alcohol either.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  > I doubt this would do much to stop kids from looking at porn 2/5s of Gen Z can't even navigate between folders on a computer, according to studies, with CS instructors saying they need to introduce directories as a concept. Yes, it will.
  - anonym29 1y ago
    You are confusing present knowledge with capacity. 2/5ths of Gen Z not currently knowing how to navigate between folders in a hierarchical file system doesn't mean that 2/5ths of Gen Z is incapable of learning how to navigate between folders in a hierarchical file system. The gap between present knowledge and capacity doesn't exist due to incompetence, it exists due to lack of motivation, and rest assured, once teenage boys discover how great boobs are, they'll have all the motivation they need to learn how to use technology to achieve the goal of viewing and appreciating that kind of material, pretty much regardless of how many restrictions you put in their way. They'll make their own in a paint app or with ASCII art in a notepad, push come to shove, but that won't be necessary. It's hilarious to think that states have the slighest hope of winning the whack-a-mole game of trying to sue every single website on the entire internet that hosts any pornographic content.
    - gjsman-1000 1y ago
      I actually don't believe this; for the simple reason that if you put a filter in front of porn, "once teenage boys discover how great boobs are" isn't going to happen for most of them. You only seek out porn once you already know how "great" it is, chicken and egg. How many people do you know whose first introduction to porn was "that's sounds cool, let me look that up?" Versus discovering it by accident, exactly what a law would effectively prevent?
      - anonym29 1y ago
        Teenage boys in public school don't need to be the first in their peer group to view pornography in order to be exposed to pornography. No amount of technical measures will prevent this. They will literally dig old porno magazines out of dumpsters, procure VHS players to watch VHS porn, stay up until 4 in the morning to watch 30 second censored adult content commercials on TV. But again, none of that will be necessary. Rule34 websites, imageboards, video game rendering glitches... the list goes on and on. It's truly delusional to believe that it's possible to exhaustively censor imagery of the human body from the most motivated seeking/viewing demographic on the planet. Are you by chance a woman? Were you homeschooled? Do you not have memories of being a teenage guy in the US public school system? I don't mean to denigrate you, I just cannot fathom how anyone can possibly credibly believe that it's even slightly realistic to keep teenage boys completely unaware of what boobs look like in the real world.
        fluoridation 1y ago
        >They will literally dig old porno magazines out of dumpsters, procure VHS players to watch VHS porn, stay up until 4 in the morning to watch 30 second censored adult content commercials on TV. Oh, man. You just reminded me of teenage me trying to make something out in scrambled porn on cable TV after midnight. You could kind of see the thrusting, but it was barely stimulating. Those were tough times, let me tell you.
        anonym29 1y ago
  - skylurk 1y ago
    Back in my day the kids in my school didn't know what directories were either. But I taught a few of them how to remote shutdown other computers on the school network with cmd and soon everyone was doing it.
  - dmbche 1y ago
    Because their use case dorsn't need it. They have TBs of data and fast CPUs (or it's all on the cloud - and the same applies), they can just crtl-f for the name of their file or the date. Are they capable of using computers to achieve their goals? Yes. Does that require navigating folders? No. EDIT0: I remember writing a 4 line program to crash the school computer (recursively executing itself) on notepad, and I'm pretty sure I didn't know what folders and directories were. I can also attest to many of my coworkers not understanding what file extensions are, while being over 40 and working in aeronautics.
  - CamperBob2 1y ago
    They'll learn. We did.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
ajsnigrutin 1y ago
The next step for that is using a real ID with real name and info on social networks... you know.. to verify the age.. and no more online anonymity. In other words, exactly what their plan is. Why not just add whitelisted parental controls on childrens phones and be done?
- anonym29 1y ago
  POSIWID. The purpose isn't to protect children, it's to control narratives and suppress the preferred targets of TPTB. Allowlist-based parental controls already exist. Most parents never set them up because it's a pointless battle, their teenagers will just another device that isn't controlled by the parent.
HDThoreaun 1y ago
Too easy to set up offshore sites that can make money on ads. Sport piracy is rampant and the leagues are spending as much money as they possibly can to ban it but are unable to. In spain the entire interent basically shuts down during la liga games because the league convinced the government to ban cloudflare during games and people still have no problem pirating them
popalchemist 1y ago
All of that is technically circumventable and legally unconstitutional to enforce. You are literally describing a surveillance-state chilling effect on free speech via panopticon. Dystopian.
- staplers 1y ago
  legally unconstitutional to enforce Have you missed the last 6 months?
  - popalchemist 1y ago
    I have, I am just not willing to resign myself to the idea that lawlessness is permanently the new norm. Just because the other team is winning doesn't mean you give up halfway through the game. Even moreso when it's life-and-death.
fluoridation 1y ago
LOL. Were you born as an adult? You're underestimating how smart kids are.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  LOL. Were you a kid in 2025? You're underestimating how incompetent most kids are with tech. This generation grew up on iPhones and Chromebooks.
  - fluoridation 1y ago
    I didn't say anything about tech. Let me reiterate: you're underestimating how smart kids are.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Most kids may be incompetent with tech, but it only takes one competent kid to set up a large group.
NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
When I first subscribed, my vpn provider allowed bigboxstore gift cards and other forms of payment. I think it also allows cryptocurrency, though I don't pay attention to that stuff. Hell, you can download scans of old porn magazines on archive.org. I don't think that would be effective, and I definitely don't think there is a political will.
Cheer2171 1y ago
Yes, completely possible if we completely turn all of digitized society (which is all society now) into a completely walled garden with signed bootloaders at the root so nobody actually owns their devices, then total surveillance where the digital world appears in the physical world, even at the playground! Work out how much state and corporate power we would need to come to bear to enforce the vision of the world you are advocating. Or, bravo on the HN troll. This is perfectly triggering for this crowd.
- staplers 1y ago
  It's triggering because people like this exist at the highest authority and it's very close to becoming reality (very unfortunately).
zer00eyz 1y ago
ID to drink, ID eat, ID to vote, ID to cross state lines.... Papers Please. Here is the messed up thing, there is a good chance that one could make a pretty accurate guess on your age just based on behavior. The digital age needs its own "steal this book"
lif 1y ago
Nevermind the triggered 'inevitablists': when you are getting flak, you are over the target. Where there is a will there is a way. Now, notice I did NOT say that there actually is sufficient will, at the moment.