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> Rather than age-gating technologies like VPNs, we believe that regulators should address the root causes of online harm by holding platforms to account Hones

by palata 5mo ago

> Rather than age-gating technologies like VPNs, we believe that regulators should address the root causes of online harm by holding platforms to account Honest question: if you tell Pornhub "now you will be fined heavily if you let 10-year old kids access porn", won't Pornhub implement some kind of age verification? How else would the platform "address the root cause"?

iamalizard 5mo ago
The easiest, and the fairest way in my opinion, is to realize parents can and should be responsible for what their children read. Just like you wouldn't give your kid access to your BDSM porn magazines from the 80s, you shouldn't let him online without supervision. Other than that, there is no "online harm". No root cause of anything that would need to be addressed, no problems whatsoever. It's just information passing through from one person to another. Laws like age verification will just push kids to even weirder corners of the internet. When will 4chan or motherless implement age verification? On pornhub you see vanilla porn on the front page. On 4chan or motherless you see CP (AI, but still), (fake) rape or (fake) murders. And there are many more sites like those.
- palata 5mo ago
  I believe that it is possible to compromise. Of course, the parents must play their role. But it doesn't mean that it should be legal to publish porn ads to kids, and hope that the parents install an ad blocker, does it? I don't think we can (and I don't think we should) completely block porn from the Internet. But I could imagine that privacy-preserving age verification on Pornhub could make it slightly less accessible to kids (even it if is by opening a link without knowing what it is). I wouldn't block VPNs though: if someone is able to access Pornhub with a VPN through a country that doesn't mandate age verification, then they will be able to access porn anyway. And then there is not only porn. To me the value of age verification is really to block kids from accessing social media. And again, no need to block VPNs there: it just has to be less accessible to kids. I don't believe that most kids will get a VPN to access social media. Kids are on social media because kids are on social media, we just need to break the network effect.
- cute_boi 5mo ago
  Well, it seems people don’t realize that many parents need to go to work and can’t watch their kids 24 hours a day. Also, accessing a magazine requires much more effort compared to accessing a website, which is very easy to bypass.
  - iamalizard 5mo ago
    [dead]
1shooner 5mo ago
You're asking if verified user accounts on a porn site are more or less invasive than the government banning or restricting access to VPNs?
- palata 5mo ago
  I don't think so, no. I'm asking if it is a good idea to ask the government to delegate the addressing of the problem to the platforms. For instance, the government could provide privacy-preserving age verification and mandate that those platforms use it to check the age, and at the same time not ban VPNs. Maybe (I am asking) it would make it harder for kids to access social media and porn in general, but it would not make it impossible (they could use a VPN). But I don't think we need to make it impossible for social media and I don't think we can make it impossible for porn: * For social media, we just need it annoying enough that most kids don't bother using them. I feel like social media are a problem for kids mostly when (almost) all kids have access, because it is difficult to explain to your kid why they should be left apart. * For porn, there are many ways to access it, it's impossible to entirely block it. And I am not convinced that it is a good thing to make it super illegal. Making it slightly less accessible so that it's not one URL away from the kids, though, may not be so terrible? We do that kind of compromise for many other things: it's impossible to prevent kids from smoking cigarettes. Still we try to prevent it. I feel like sometimes it's okay to compromise, instead of fighting for all or nothing.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
riknos314 5mo ago
Age gating the VPN age gates (pseudo-anonymous) access to 100% of the content on the internet. Regardless of whether or not you agree with it, age gating only the porn subset of the internet is a much smaller restriction.
- palata 5mo ago
  I didn't say that age gating VPNs was the solution. I just doubt that the platforms themselves can address the problem in a desirable way.

by palata 5mo ago

iamalizard 5mo ago

The easiest, and the fairest way in my opinion, is to realize parents can and should be responsible for what their children read. Just like you wouldn't give your kid access to your BDSM porn magazines from the 80s, you shouldn't let him online without supervision. Other than that, there is no "online harm". No root cause of anything that would need to be addressed, no problems whatsoever. It's just information passing through from one person to another. Laws like age verification will just push kids to even weirder corners of the internet. When will 4chan or motherless implement age verification? On pornhub you see vanilla porn on the front page. On 4chan or motherless you see CP (AI, but still), (fake) rape or (fake) murders. And there are many more sites like those.

palata 5mo ago
I believe that it is possible to compromise. Of course, the parents must play their role. But it doesn't mean that it should be legal to publish porn ads to kids, and hope that the parents install an ad blocker, does it? I don't think we can (and I don't think we should) completely block porn from the Internet. But I could imagine that privacy-preserving age verification on Pornhub could make it slightly less accessible to kids (even it if is by opening a link without knowing what it is). I wouldn't block VPNs though: if someone is able to access Pornhub with a VPN through a country that doesn't mandate age verification, then they will be able to access porn anyway. And then there is not only porn. To me the value of age verification is really to block kids from accessing social media. And again, no need to block VPNs there: it just has to be less accessible to kids. I don't believe that most kids will get a VPN to access social media. Kids are on social media because kids are on social media, we just need to break the network effect.
cute_boi 5mo ago
Well, it seems people don’t realize that many parents need to go to work and can’t watch their kids 24 hours a day. Also, accessing a magazine requires much more effort compared to accessing a website, which is very easy to bypass.
- iamalizard 5mo ago
  [dead]

1shooner 5mo ago

You're asking if verified user accounts on a porn site are more or less invasive than the government banning or restricting access to VPNs?

palata 5mo ago
I don't think so, no. I'm asking if it is a good idea to ask the government to delegate the addressing of the problem to the platforms. For instance, the government could provide privacy-preserving age verification and mandate that those platforms use it to check the age, and at the same time not ban VPNs. Maybe (I am asking) it would make it harder for kids to access social media and porn in general, but it would not make it impossible (they could use a VPN). But I don't think we need to make it impossible for social media and I don't think we can make it impossible for porn: * For social media, we just need it annoying enough that most kids don't bother using them. I feel like social media are a problem for kids mostly when (almost) all kids have access, because it is difficult to explain to your kid why they should be left apart. * For porn, there are many ways to access it, it's impossible to entirely block it. And I am not convinced that it is a good thing to make it super illegal. Making it slightly less accessible so that it's not one URL away from the kids, though, may not be so terrible? We do that kind of compromise for many other things: it's impossible to prevent kids from smoking cigarettes. Still we try to prevent it. I feel like sometimes it's okay to compromise, instead of fighting for all or nothing.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]

riknos314 5mo ago

Age gating the VPN age gates (pseudo-anonymous) access to 100% of the content on the internet. Regardless of whether or not you agree with it, age gating only the porn subset of the internet is a much smaller restriction.

palata 5mo ago
I didn't say that age gating VPNs was the solution. I just doubt that the platforms themselves can address the problem in a desirable way.