[Discussion] How do you feel about age verification on Porn sites?

Porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat face stricter requirements to verify the ages of their users after being officially designated as “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

I personally have mixed feelings, as the information collection could be used to link individuals and profile them. Possibly leading to discrimination if abused.

But I also feel that any random kid shouldn’t be able to just go to these sites and see porn freely.
Ofc, there’s always going to be those who mange to circumvent any protection put in place but it’d be much harder then just clicking a link or typing in the address.

I also feel that parents should actively monitor their kids online activities and step up a Blocklist to pro-actively prevent kids from reaching these sites to begin with.

What are your thoughts on this?

BrikoX,
@BrikoX@lemmy.zip avatar

But I also feel that any random kid shouldn’t be able to just go to these sites and see porn freely.

So they will just go to another site that doesn’t have age verification and doesn’t implement any security measures instead. Big sites are required to age check people before they are allowed to upload anything, that is not the case for most of the internet.

All age verification does is aggregate personal information and make it easy target for bad actors to steal. Instead of needing to go thought 100 sites, now that information & identities will be tied to a single database.

It’s also a slippery slope, since the same adult content is available not just on dedicated adult sites, but mainstream social media. Lemmy, Mastodon, Twitter, TikTok, Twitch (just recently wanted to allow nudity). Do you really want to have your identity tied to your online activity?

curiousaur,

Governments should not be taking on parental duties.

VolunTerry,

+1 here, friend. Spread the word.

skullgiver,
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

Perhaps, but too many parents are terrible at their jobs.

Would you argue the same thing with other age restrictions, such as buying alcohol/drugs, driver’s licenses, or child labour?

ElleChaise,

deleted_by_author

    •
    curiousaur,

    We should be charging parents if their kids are that bad.

    DaDragon,

    What? It is not illegal for children to access pornography. It is at best illegal for people to allow children access to pornography. (Outside of countries where pornography is banned outright)

    PriorityMotif,
    @PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

    Those are crimes. I don’t think it’s a crime for a kid to look at pornography.

    ShellMonkey,
    @ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com avatar

    Fuzzy space (not that one), a lot of places it might get squished into the enabling/promoting deliqancy type rules. If you give beer/smokes to an underage kid you can be tagged for it.

    On a practical level proving any of the above is near impossible, but it might get you on the local’s radar if it keeps being accused.

    I do think we have it backwards in America where prime time crime drama is no problem but everyone freaks out over a butt cheek, but at the same time it’s not healthy to let little kids dig into some things unguided and before they’re ready.

    InEnduringGrowStrong,
    @InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Watching porn … terrorism.
    I think I’m missing a few steps here.

    PhobosAnomaly, (edited )

    I’m making the assumption that you’re not deliberately daft enough to conflate the two issues of “a cheeky tug looking at some low resolution grot” and “mass casualty attack planning”, but surely you must see the difference between harmful content and porn, and why measures should be taken (however easy to circumvent) to disrupt terrorism or other large-scale atrocities?

    DaDragon,

    Yep. I spent a couple years as a child in a country with country-wide blocks on some internet content. However, google images wasn’t blocked (duh.) Reddit wasn’t blocked (not that I knew the site at the time).

    Only thing it changed from a user-perspective was using either shitty and seedy VPN’s or simply going to more questionable sites the authority blocklist didn’t know of yet. And I’ll be honest, I doubt that sites like xnxx (back then) are much better for a developing child than the somewhat controlled sites. There’s so many niche porn sites out there that they can’t all be blocked. You only end up blocking access to sites that are the flattest for access by minors, ironically. (To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s great that minors access that content, either)

    cheese_greater,

    I don’t think about it except I canmt wait till one of its non-corporate authors gets into FO(finding out) tyme ;)

    ShortN0te,

    Electronic ids can provide the age verification without giving out any personal information. This is a solved problem at least for a lot of ids in the EU.

    But no i still find it a stupid idea. It is the parents job to parent them.

    EngineerGaming,
    @EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

    That’s still worrying: wouldn’t some central authority know that “site X requested age verification for this person”?

    ShortN0te,

    No. There is no 3rd party service needed. It all can happen only between the service asking and the id (smart card).

    mindbleach,

    … and that’s different from the service having a record of your photo ID?

    ShortN0te,

    The service gets no other information other then “Is the holder of the id older then 18” => “Yes”

    There is no personal data exchange.

    mindbleach,

    Oh, so it’s just some other service knowing you, personally, visited a particular porn site.

    And that’s completely immune to leaks or government snooping.

    ShortN0te,

    No. Again. There is no other service involved. Pls do some research.

    The basic idea is ZKP en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof

    This here looks like a good write up: www.identity.com/zero-knowledge-proofs/

    sir_reginald,
    @sir_reginald@lemmy.world avatar

    isn’t the id unique? which means that sites can trace every visit you make and what videos you watch every time?

    ShortN0te,

    No. Thanks to cryptography it is possible. The Cincept is called Zero-knowledge proof. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof

    Here is a quick write up: www.identity.com/zero-knowledge-proofs/

    sir_reginald, (edited )
    @sir_reginald@lemmy.world avatar

    thanks! if implemented correctly, this is a decent way of verifying age. Although I’d rather not have any but it’s definitely better than taking a selfie.

    harry_balzac,

    Exactly - it’s the parents’ responsibility.

    Imagine any government telling car manufacturers that they have to verify that everyone who starts their vehicles has a valid drivers license.

    RandoCalrandian,
    @RandoCalrandian@kbin.social avatar

    Don’t give them ideas, this is exactly the type of shit they want to enact

    ares35, (edited )
    @ares35@kbin.social avatar

    give it time. the government (us) wants to put interlock gadgets into every new car to prevent drunks from driving. driving under the influence is illegal and those that do are more likely to kill someone. so is driving without a license, and so are those drivers.

    PriorityMotif,
    @PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

    There are also circumstances where it’s legal to drive over the legal bac. If someone is having a medical emergency then it’s legal to drive them to a hospital.

    PhobosAnomaly,

    It’s still illegal - however it’s a defence to prosecution to say that there was a form of emergency or other mitigating factors.

    As always, the wording and mitigations are specific to the jurisdictions.

    digdilem,

    I suspect you haven’t worked with governments before.

    Just because something is technically possible, it’s no guarantee that it will be the chosen mechanism for something. More likely the contract will be awarded to either the lowest possible bidder, or to a friend of a friend. Cronyism is depressingly common at all levels.

    ShortN0te,

    I suspect you haven’t worked with governments before.

    Just because something is technically possible, it’s no guarantee that it will be the chosen mechanism for something. More likely the contract will be awarded to either the lowest possible bidder, or to a friend of a friend. Cronyism is depressingly common at all levels.

    Not sure why you are under that impression. I never discussed the potential chosen mechanism.

    I stated that it is possible and that it is already implemented into the id card of many eu citizens.

    tacosanonymous,

    I think there are a host of problems including equity, efficacy, privacy, etc.

    We don’t need morality police, we need education and better health care. If parents have an issue, they need to parent better.

    pipariturbiini, (edited )

    Kids are smart. Horny teenagers even more so. They will find loopholes or ways to circumvent these kind of things - speaking from experience. At age 13 I installed a keylogger on my PC to get the password for a parental control software my parents installed. Roughly one year later I also exploited a vulnerability in iOS 4 that allowed me to see the parental controls password in plaintext so I could re-enable Safari.

    Steamymoomilk,

    Mr.hacker man? Lol Yeah adding restrictions is like the alchol prohibition in the US. Restricing it is going to make it more prevlent and easily acessible. There may be more sites that pop up that boot leg it. Kinda like schools with cool math games being blocked so you have unblocked games websites.

    admiralteal,

    It is an absolute privacy nightmare. Nothing should be asking for your identity that doesn't have a DAMN good reason to be asking for your identity.

    Age verification is not a damn good reason. Especially since any number of free VPNs can circumventing it with just a few clicks.

    Zorque,

    I think its the regulatory body's responsibility to provide a safe and secure service that can verify age requirements if they want to force that.

    If they can't provide that service, they shouldn't require it, especially with such sensitive information.

    eager_eagle,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    In the worst case a privacy nightmare, and in the best case useless.

    RGB3x3,

    “Please enter your age:”

    Me, 15 years old: “Yes, I was born in 1973.”

    eager_eagle,
    @eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

    “use this rotary phone to enter your year of birth”

    bionicjoey, (edited )

    That would probably actually be a decent age verification scheme

    wheeldawg,

    For 5 minutes

    jasondj,

    Nah there’s no kids on TikTok smart enough to figure it out and tell all the rest.

    Hillock,

    I am in favor of stricter age verification for certain content. Not only for porn but also dating apps, social media, online shops, etc. But the current methods of age verification are a privacy nightmare and go well beyond what is reasonable. Especially since companies can't be trusted to not do bad stuff with that information.

    What is necessary is a double anonymity age verification service. Ideally run by a company that by law is required to be very transparent. That way we don't have to provide personal information to companies that have no actual need for it but can still reduce the amount of minors getting into places they shouldn't be.

    Yes, it won't be perfect, yes there will always be bad actors, but it will still do more good than harm.

    I personally am open for a discussion about reducing the minimum age to view porn. I don't have strong feelings either way.

    PhobosAnomaly,

    I see your view and appreciate the time you’ve taken to articulate it well.

    My view takes another level of abstraction from it, and ignoring the implementation detail for the moment - the question for me is “what are we trying to protect underage/vulnerable persons from?”

    Sex is a natural thing and I’m not arsed either way - and some of the more extreme content (within the legal sense, non-consent and animal porn etc are another ball game) such as exploitative content or covertlyy recorded stuff really need to be addressed as society issues so that the ensuing pornography isn’t such an issue.

    That said, the line defining the three (or more) groups is arbritary and different for everyone I guess.

    Hillock,

    Kids being able to openly participate on porn sites would be a feast for pedophiles and groomers. We already have enough trouble with that on social media and dating sites/apps. And while in an ideal situation there just wouldn't be bad people, sometimes we need to protect people from themselves because of others.

    So while I am open for a discussion about lowering the age requirement, I still firmly believe a minimum age is required. But whether that's 14, 16, or 18 I don't know.

    PhobosAnomaly,

    That’s a fair comment, and represents the core tradeoff of balancing protecting vulnerable members of society against privacy or liberty concerns.

    My preference would be to - in a massively reductive statement - teach the paedos that their urges are less-than-healthy and treat them as medical cases, in order to reduce the need for such content.

    The other element is that it’s rarely a great idea to make sweeping reforms of a system that is failing because silly cunts are doing illegal things. I’m pulling a stat out of my arse here but why are we implementing legal interventions to prevent 5-10% of the population from downloading or producing illegal content, when surely it would be more effective to target those involved in the criminal practise rather than the other 90-95% of happy carefree legal chuggers?

    I do see your point though, and it’s refreshing to see you’ve not gone straight for the “much chuldrun” trope.

    n1ckn4m3,
    @n1ckn4m3@kbin.social avatar

    Very much this. A great many of us in our early 40s had access to pornography from BBSes or early internet and it didn't seem to fuck us up. Why are we trying to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist?

    Legal sexual gratification between two consenting adults (even if some may find the way they achieve gratification taboo), so long as it's not illegal, should not be shamed or denied.

    Syo, (edited )
    @Syo@kbin.social avatar

    Absolute waste of tax money and resources, anyone advocating for this policy is an idiot and psychotic control freak that should never be allowed to opine on public policy.

    Outdated values are driving this country back into the stone age. The body was designed to be horny as we go through teenage years. It's nature. Rather than guide kids on the safe path, fools would forbid, outlaw, prohibit until they can't control them after age of 18.

    Here's how this plays out... Kids are going to masturbate, regardless. They will dive deeper into the Internet into places with no restrictions and be exposed to really messed up stuff. Hey at least the parent can pat themselves on the back, right, they were good partners that did everything right by the book, even paying the kid's therapist.

    Moghul, (edited )

    Which country would that be? This is EU related.

    I don’t disagree with you otherwise. If we had a good age verification system that didn’t involve the website, only gave a boolean age check to the website, wasn’t logged at the government or any other level, I might think this was ok. But we don’t. So as soon as this starts I’ll pirate a bunch of porn.

    skullgiver,
    @skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

    There are various ways in which age verification can be done without sacrificing privacy. Sadly, that requires standardised digital ID combined with several privacy preserving technologies that I’ve only seen used experimentally (I think Yivi comes closest, but its protocol involves sending identifiers between their servers and the consuming service, and requires services to be registered rather than arbitrarily accessible).

    In its core, these protocols use digitally signed attributes (could be “SSN” or “birthday”, but more practically this could also just be “is over 18”). With this system, you can simply transmit the token that says “I’m an adult”, the website verifies this, and you’re done. To prevent abuse through infinite reuse, these apps need to be verified occasionally, and the secrets must not be stored somewhere they can be copied from easily, but phones have solved that problem ages ago.

    Unfortunately, I don’t think governments who support these restrictions will also invest into these technologies. Perhaps efforts such as eIDAS will allow for some kind of non-profit to create and generate these tokens based on your standard digital government ID, but as of now, there’s nothing.

    Any technology can be bypassed by kids (just steal dad’s porn pass!), so there’s a limit to how effective age gates are. On the other hand, anything that requires stealing stealing devices protected with a PIN will be sufficient in most cases.

    kbal,
    @kbal@fedia.io avatar

    Snake oil salesmen never had it so good. Without the layers of abstraction provided by computers, nobody would've believed their magic elixirs would protect children from getting interested in sex until their parents approved of it.

    turkalino,
    @turkalino@lemmy.yachts avatar

    Might be a stupid question but is there any peer reviewed research that shows that porn is harmful to minors? Early humans didn’t have clothes so minors were seeing nudity for centuries. Of course, there’s the issue that porn gives men unrealistic expectations about women & sex, but that’s an issue regardless of age.

    CaptainSpaceman,

    Probably not, its just religious pearl clutching for the most part that has been passed down unnecessarily

    Free the bodies, let everyone be naked and we will all stop giving a shit

    Kir,

    Your question is not stupid, but comparing porn to casual nudity is.

    TheAnonymouseJoker, (edited )
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    Early human minors (until a century or two ago) used to have sex, engage in hebephilia and pedophilia, and underage teenage girls used to be mothers. This is how we still have grandmothers today who married and had kids before the age of 18. So yes, your question is wild and scientifically ignorant. Porn has always been harmful to minors, and in fact, specifically more to minors or anyone under the age of ~25, because that is when neural connections stop forming and adjusting. The neural linking and development starts to slow down by the age of 15. That makes underage minors even more vulnerable, as they hit puberty, have raging hormones and are also at risk of sexual abuse.

    turkalino,
    @turkalino@lemmy.yachts avatar

    I don’t understand… your first couple sentences support my argument with evidence but then you say I’m wildly ignorant? Simply saying “their brains are still developing” and nothing else is a classic “protect the children” platitude

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    I am not supporting your argument, but only provided a pretext to the reasoning. Biochemistry of humans being used as objective reason is not a “classic” whatever politics you choose to engage in. Privacy will always be secondary to protecting the future generations, and no kind of freedom is going to be tolerated by society for something as pathetic as pornographic pleasures. Privacy may fundamentally be important, but there are a lot of things higher on the priority list, like freedom, mental sanity, health, societal prosperity and other things.

    Kir,

    I think we should stop, as a society, to try (and fail) to handle problems by imposing limits and obligation and start doing it with some fuckin large-scale massive education planning.

    In this context: a smart boy/girl, with sexual/emotional education and good critical thinking can have access to all the porn in the world from teenage and be fine 99% of the time

    Valmond,

    And if they aren’t smart enough, they’ll get a shit ton super sexualised stuff from the day they see a screen anyways.

    It’s just a power game, or the old “vote for me, those things are evil”. I say that as no one seems to blend in sex ed. Like at all.

    VolunTerry,

    Prohibition leads to black and grey markets, where what is produced and consumed is frequently even more corrupted and dangerous/risky in its acquisition and delivery than whatever you think of the corollaries in the lit markets. It may also drive more deviant and destructive behavior where they may hide their actions and produce more shame and be labeled criminals.

    My only divergence would be that the education planning starts at each individual family level rather than large-scale massive education buracracy, which is what we have now and is failing badly to produce good results.

    Maybe once that first order family circle is built strongly, you can begin to expand the circle of influence to extended family, neighbors, friends and community.

    Kir,

    I disagree. Family education is very important, but it’s not something you can rely on. Just to point out some major problem:

    • you leave behind everyone that have a problematic family
    • even the most intelligent and benevolent parents will be just limited to their core value and experience, and education needs more
    • education is a very complex process that needs professionals, especially considering a rapidly evolving context like today. You can’t ask a parent to be ALSO a professional educator. You need skills, training, experience.
    VolunTerry, (edited )

    I am fine with you disagreeing and forging your own path. I mean that sincerely. I would like to follow mine. We can each see how it works out.

    Just please don’t force me to support your approach, financially or otherwise, by using the state/gov or others as a proxy for your personal wishes, and I will agree to the same, as I already do.

    Edit: Also, do not use those same levers of power to form a cartel that excludes my family, or those who choose to do it this way from participating in public life. We can all get along with tolerance and respect, despite our differences.

    Upvote for the civil discourse and laying out your reasoning.

    Kir,

    We are just discussing here. Why are you assuming I’m trying to force something into you or your family? How would I do it?

    I’m sorry, I think I’m missing the point of your answer. It’s a social and we’re just discussing opinions, nobody can decide anything about anything.

    VolunTerry, (edited )

    I know we are discussing it. I appreciate the discussion! You have been civil and a good conversationalist presenting your views with thoughtfulness so far. That’s rare on the socials sometimes.

    I mean to drive at the manner of how you would accomplish your stated goals above. By voluntary enrollment of those interested who may agree with your approach? With the ability for those like myself who may live near you and who feel, think, believe and act differently to opt-out? Or by compulsory taxation, or other compulsory inclusion of my family in these services you pitch, with penalty of financial, legal, or violent force? For instance, no ability to peacefully remain in my location of birth and/or circumstance, but to opt out and to choose my own path AND choose not to pay for or participate in your scheme should I choose not to. Would that be acceptable?

    I hope you can see the parallels I’m drawing to most regions in the world. I am compelled now to submit property tax and other tax for a similar model to what you describe above against my will, under threats, leading up to and including death, should I refuse to pay them, even if I choose not to participate in my neighbors preferred model. So thus under duress and extortion.

    In this scenario, you (my neighbors) would not threaten me or use violence directly of course, but instead would use proxies with more manpower and weapons plus the false cloak of legitimacy or law to do it, which is cowardly and unjust. Beurocratic, legal and police action, again, up to and including violence, imprisonment and death force me to to comply to something I disagree with philosophically, morally, spiritually and logically. Today. Not hypothetically.

    So what I’m saying is that I’m more than happy for you and yours to do things your way, even if I chose a different way. I wouldn’t compel you to fund or support my way. I would request you afford me the same courtesy and we could coexist in harmony, or at least not conflict, even if we disagree on approach.

    This is not how the vast majority of modern society functions today. Which is why I’m curious about how you would approach your hypothetical model.

    edit: spelling, clarity, fat fingers

    Anonymouse,

    Is it the responibility of any government to enforce a parental policy? What if I, as a parent, support my kid to view this stuff?

    At home, I was allowed to have alcohol with supper at family meals from about 13.

    I feel like the regulations should be to give parents control over their child’s activities if they so choose. While we’re at it, make it illegal to collect information about a person, parent or child, without their express concent. I don’t know how, but there are many smart people in the world that can probably figure it out.

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