[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?

golden_zealot,
@golden_zealot@lemmy.ml avatar

It won’t work. Ever. VPN’s free and paid exist, File sharing exists, Torrents exist, AI pornography generators exist, freenet, tor, I2P all exist. There is no action a government could take that would have any true impact in this regard unless they made the use of the internet illegal, and even at that, it would create a black market in which such things could still be purchased as physical media.

All this does is allow government entities to infringe on privacy rights further by doing what they have always done - hiding behind children.

mindbleach,

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

At some point, you have to ask - why?

If that’s the alternative to spying on everyone, I’m still opposed to spying on everyone. Unsupervised internet access leading kids to pornography certainly would not be new. It’s not the end of the world.

Just throw your warnings and have a click-through. It’ll be just as effective, much cheaper, and not leave bastard politicians salivating about their social control fetish.

Facebones,

We have 3rd party verification services already, just use those. 🤷 They’re pretty good at verifying I’m a vet, I’m sure they can confirm that you definitely exist.

I agree with you, gimme back my checkbox, but it’d be better than “give the porn site your ID.”

VolunTerry,

Raise thoughtful, moral children. They are going to see porn in our modern society. How they process it has to do a lot with the tools they have to do that. That’s the parents job. Not to pretend a 100% prohibition or firewall can be erected, but to raise resilient children who can thrive and not become irreparably damaged by the things they are exposed to in the world they grow into.

Recognition that they will come into contact with it also does not mean you have to endorse it or present them with it. It’s not a binary thing. Choose how you want to parent and observe the results of different approaches. YMMV.

Mango,

I don’t want any company putting my identity into a database along with my sexual interests. Just consider what’s been done to the gay++ community.

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

The good old “Think of the children” argument again… This is an attack on online privacy, again. I hate it.

It is the parents responsibility to keep their kids safe. We don’t ban knives either just because a child could accidentally get hurt by one. And apart from that the regulations are not even well thought out, they will not stop a determined teenager with a lot of time on their hands.

Facebones,

Funny how the venn diagram of “it’s the govts job to protect my kids at all costs” and “the govt shouldn’t come near my children with a 10 foot pole because they’re brainwashers” is a perfect circle.

VolunTerry,

👍 Yep, it’s sad. I can protect them along with the help of my family, friends and community. If not, I will admit failure and live with the consequences. But it’s up to me to grow up and build skills and learn patience and responsibility, not the job of others.

Parents need to get back to parenting instead of absolving themselves of what they see as a pesky responsibility of raising the children they produce and putting their lives and impressionable minds in the hands of others, then wondering what went wrong 20-some years on and blaming everyone but themselves.

possiblylinux127,

Age verification is silly and can be easily bypassed. What we should do is just block adult content by default. Most content people want to see is not adult oriented anyway. If someone wants that they can do that at home by just turning off the filters.

devfuuu,

Just open another site.

Gutless2615,

Any so called privacy law that enriches and ensures that age verification data brokers make bank is fundamentally and irrevocably broken.

rbesfe,

My first exposure to porn was through sprays in TF2. Kids are gonna see this shit regardless of how much you invade everyone else’s privacy

brygphilomena,

I’m getting flashbacks to Counter Strike. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought of sprays in games.

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Let’s be real, teens, especially males, will actively search for porn. Blocklists can be pointless, because even if you can blacklist 160k pornhub clones, they can just join a discord or telegram server instead.

Frankly, I think parents should just make them aware that just like cinema, those videos are for show, not for “trying at home”. Parents should tell them that if they ever expect sex to be like in the porn they consume, they’ll be sorely disappointed. Most of it is faker than reality tv. Oh, it can also make boys get really fucking insecure, especially about their own size.

Microw,

That’s not a problem in my opinion. Obviously teens are a big demographic for big sites like pornhub. And they will consume porn in one way or another. I would love it if they used more ethical porn platforms, but whatever it is it is.

The issue with these sites has always been that they will blast videos into your face as soon as you open the website, without the usual barrier to register first. And that makes it a problem for any child between 5 and 11 years old who might stumble onto that page because someone is pulling a prank or whatever. The un-natural, violent kind of porn promoted by sites like Pornhub should not be broadcasted into the minds of actually small children.

fruitycoder,

Sites should empower parents to control that. Have a sign in by default and an option to ask the site to block ips associated with you to be able to sign up for more accounts.

Are there ways around it? Sure. It’s a just a lock to keep honest kids out. If your kid doesn’t feel comfortable about asking about stuff like this or feel like they have to around you, you aren’t going to win, they’ll find it, and it’ll be a blast for them. If you talk about it, at least acknowledge the issues with it, say when it is and isn’t appropriate, etc it’ll do leagues better then all bans and censorship attempts in the world.

ridethisbike,

The IP thing backfires when you inevitably get assigned a new IP and the guy down the street now can’t look at his porn anymore because the website blocked the IP

fruitycoder,

True it requires more coordination to be helpful. And tbh I think every household network should be going through and host a Tor relay so shrug but something to the effect of some minimal form of authentication that the person is a consenting adult that is given out at the discretion of the person would be useful for this case.

Not totally sure what the best way to do that is. Keys, cookies, OIDC from trusted party, block chain, DIDs (Decentralized Identifiers), or heuristics like IPs, or digital finger prints.

ridethisbike,

Oooorrr we could not do all that and let parents do their jobs. How about we empower them to learn how to setup parental controls on their routers and on the kids devices?

fruitycoder,

It’s not enough in my experience shrug but I agree it should on parents to support it

Squid, (edited )

Another reason to pirate

Also if the government do feel the need to “help” parents and the larger social fabric then why not put money into civil dutys classes in schools. Teach kid how to grow into normal adults, the trickle down would be much greater than these half baked ducktape tactics

InEnduringGrowStrong,
@InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yea but a lot might see a boobie, can you image the horror.
Content filtering solutions are imperfect but it’s good enough and easy enough to use at home if you need to.
Worst case, your kid learns to bypass content filtering and sparks a career in IT or something.

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

You literally walk a block in NYC and see titties.
There’s a lot more extreme content out there.

InEnduringGrowStrong,
@InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works avatar

Then just use one of the existing content filtering/ parental control tools for your home network?

I don’t see the benefit of another privacy invasion when there’s already solutions for this exact problem.

Rustmilian,
@Rustmilian@lemmy.world avatar

I already mentioned that in my post.

InEnduringGrowStrong,
@InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works avatar

Then have a nice day, I guess

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • privacy@lemmy.ml
  • localhost
  • All magazines
    •
    Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #