August 9, 2023 - 4:00pm
Last week, Arkansas became the latest US state to introduce age verification checks for adult websites. Pornhub, the world’s largest porn site with over 115 million visits a day, retaliated by blocking all traffic from IP addresses in the state in protest. It has also done the same in Utah, Mississippi, Virginia and Texas — all of which have enacted similar policies — while in Louisiana, traffic on the site has fallen by 80% since age verification checks were introduced earlier this year. Montana is following suit in January 2024, with dozens of other copycat bills also being debated.
The UK is increasingly looking like an outlier in not enacting age verification legislation for adult content. From Canada to Australia to South Korea, more and more countries are putting pressure on the porn industry to make sure they restrict access to underage users. Earlier this year France introduced “digital certificates” for people to prove their age online; any porn website that does not comply risks being shut down or fined. These are now being extended to social media websites with an age limit of 15, unless minors can prove they have authorisation from their parents. Last year Germany’s biggest porn site, xHamster, was banned for refusing to verify the age of its users, while a judge in the Netherlands has ruled that the site must remove all its amateur videos unless it can demonstrate that everyone has consented.
By contrast, the UK’s policies towards the porn industry are not just laissez-faire but non-existent. Revenge porn has been a sexual offence since 2015, and the Domestic Abuse Bill recently made even threatening to share sexual images illegal. However, in 2023 there are still no legal frameworks in place to stop children watching porn. Any child with an internet connection in the UK simply needs to click a box saying they are 18 and suddenly they have access to “adult” entertainment — the clue is in the name.
Ironically, the UK was actually the first country to pass a law containing a legal mandate for an online age verification system with the 2017 Digital Economy Act. Yet, after various setbacks, these plans were dropped in 2019, on account of technical difficulties and concerns from privacy campaigners. Last year, the Government revived the proposal as part of the Online Safety Bill, and in February 43 MPs wrote to the Culture Secretary to ask for this to be formally incorporated into the Bill — yet there has been no further clarity over how and when any age verification systems may come into place. In England the average age children first see pornography is 13, with nearly 80% viewing violent pornography before they are 18. One in 10 have watched it by the time they are 9 years old.
It’s telling that the Government is quick to crack down on underage vaping — a relatively new fad — but so slow to deal with something that has been proven, time and time again, to be far more dangerous. Of course there are security and privacy questions, but the fact that Pornhub would sooner stop doing business altogether than verify that its users aren’t children gives a pretty telling insight into the morality of the pornography industry. Some may argue that teenagers will get around these blocks by using VPNs to change their location, but that often requires payment. Besides, the goal is not to make access impossible but, rather, more difficult, and this will be even more effective if we have more international uniformity.
Pornhub promotes itself as the poster child for internet freedom, and the age verification debate as a binary choice between protecting one’s privacy and succumbing to a surveillance state. Ultimately, though, this is about child safeguarding, and the sooner the UK catches up the better.
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SubscribeThe author castigates the lack of attempts by various UK governments to tackle the porn industry. That’s great. Unlimited amounts of free internet porn has rewired the brains of countless numbers of especially males, not just in the rich West but across the world, to the point where they no longer have any semblance of the normal biological response to sexual stimuli remaining, psychological damage which will for last for decades. But I want to point out a few realities here and the true nature of the problem, and show why saying “…the goal is not to make access impossible but, rather, more difficult…” is in fact futile. And I say this because I’m genuinely interested to see if the author or anyone has counters to the points I’m making here which illustrate the near-futility of believing that laws and regs like age verification etc are going to be even remotely effective.
You have a structural problem the nature of which is not fully understood. Existing political governance structures where humans will never be able to react to technology driven change fast enough to keep control over the next incoming technology. I can present dozens of scenarios, ever more complex, shining a searchlight on the unspoken human scale assumptions that underpinned all human governance prior to the rise of ubiquitous computation, but which have now been blown out of the water by algorithmic technologies.
Porn, the topic of this piece is obviously an example, and I will come back to this in a moment, but another example, as revealing because of the sheer amount of taxation lost to governments, Bitcoin. Bitcoin came into being well over a decade ago when its creator (or creators) conjured up literally tens of billions out of thin air. Yet, we cannot even *identify* the originators or how much of the original holding they are still sitting on, and in which jurisdiction, much less tax them. Similarly, in over two decades of the internet, it has proven impossible to keep online porn out of the reach of minors, even in autocratically governed places like Arabia or (until recently) China. This is not because nations are fond of the idea of allowing access to porn to minors, it is because both prevention and policing were and still pretty much remain, damn near impossible. As the author says the UK came close to putting into place regulation of the wild west that is the porn industry by requiring age verification, and then backed off. I think it eventually dawned on someone in government that the chances of actually being able to police porn on a global scale to prevent the UK population from accessing whatever it likes is… precisely zero.
Algorithmic technologies are not human scale and lawmakers without intimate knowledge of tech haven’t got a hope of drafting law quick enough in reaction – and by the time they react the landscape has altered and the tech has moved on, so they are mechanically set to remain behind the curve. And to hammer home this point, what do you think happens next, when laws coming in to finally regulate internet porn, are completely bypassed within a couple of years, not by people even bothering to get round verification requirements by using VPNs, but by the successors of Stable Diffusion and the like? Because these will be able to generate, fully animated, fully realistic porn that is impossible to distinguish from real humans, but which creates completely bespoke fantasies in the total privacy of your laptop via a locally downloaded neural network.
The Chinese have in fact managed to keep a lid on their internal cyberspace in the last few years remarkably successfully, not by creating ‘rules’, but by operating a high-surveillance dystopia. The distinction is critical. Coercion is always possible, for a period anyway. China’s success is based on the fact that the outside cyberworld has been shut out (The Great Firewall) and that anyone logging on to their internal cyberspace is required to identify themselves via facial recognition tech or other means – everyone and everything tracked in effect. This is the heart of the trade-off.
You make a lot sense, especially in pointing out the hopelessness of legal regulation of porn use. That leaves – as you point out – more direct forms of coercion which in my view should target the suppliers, the flesh and blood that runs and benefits from Pornhub et al. I’ve said this before but in the absence of a legal framework able to react fast enough to change the only option is a visible crackdown. Pass a statutory instrument under the Public Health act naming Pornhub’s parent organisation a threat to public health and then send in the security services. Make it very public and unapologetically brutal. I want post-Liberalism with teeth. I want politicians willing to get their hands dirty. If they wont then it’s time people start organising for their own defence and put this sick society to sword.
Your diagnosis seems quite accurate and your predictions plausible. Another methodical, knowledgeable, and largely persuasive argument. I’d expect no less.
It is also another in a series of arguments you’ve made–such as the one concerning A.I. advancement and bioengineering–which I call Proofs of Futility. While you tend to stick with what is verifiable, in key places you pivot to informed speculation or even mere opinion. without acknowledging that you’ve done so.
For instance:
1) “humans will never be able to react to technology driven change fast enough to keep control over the next incoming technology”–an assertion, not a wild one but not dispositive; the past and present are not ineluctably determinative of the future.
2) “and by the time they react the landscape has altered and the tech has moved on, so they are mechanically set to remain behind the curve”–this is an informed assessment, not a “mechanical” proof or fixed reality, not to the degree of demonstrated futility that you assert.
At times, you move from patterns and known quantities to speculative reasoning, switching between the past-present and future tenses but using the same matter-of-fact, QED rhetorical tone : 3) “when laws coming in to finally regulate internet porn, are completely bypassed within a couple of years…”–yeah maybe, probably even, but not as an established certainty, whatever you or others “think happens next”, including me. Entropic breakdown of the manufactured, systemic sort you outline here could be slowed and moved back toward order by the introduction of significant new energy from outside a seemingly closed system. Perhaps with widespread, well-funded, passionate and determine opposition from a general public that included tech and porn trade insiders (or former insiders). And while it could, that need not take the form of pure coercion or hive-mind manipulation out of some near-future dystopia. Speculative and aspirational on my part, but not inconceivable, I wouldn’t say. A longshot is not an impossibility.
Your point is hammered, with forceful and skillful swings, but not hammered home here.
I wonder why you seem to need others to share your abiding sense of futility about so many things. Forgive me if that seems unfair or inaccurate; I’d be unsurprised if you could correct me on where you are really coming from, and in fact I wish you would, where applicable. What is your sponsoring viewpoint? You sometimes sound like a Rationalistic Prophet of Doom to me, but I’m quite sure it’s more than that. You spend much time sharing so much knowledge on a variety of subjects here. When they are outside your field(s) of expertise, you often have very humane, balanced, and sometimes humorous takes that I enjoy.
Why do all that if you are 100% convinced of the futility of it all? Are you willing to be unconvinced, under any circumstances? Isn’t even a sliver of hope more than just a wasted or naive hope, when the alternative is often despondency and the enervation, indeed brokenness of spirit that walks alongside that gloom? (No further rhetorical questions at this time).
But even with your prodigious intellect and careful study of these interrelated “techno-societal” issues, your predictions are not foregone conclusions. Still, you make a powerful, substantial, and rather authoritative contribution to the discussion(s) here. No exception in this case.
One thing I know is that the very last thing I have is prodigious intellect, the world is full of people very much smarter than me. But what I do have is a very long engagement with electronics, computing, and machine intelligence, and a long term interest in the direction that technological advance is frogmarching humanity. I also have what I hope is sufficient clarity to ask downright questions about what I am seeing without getting distracted by agendas all around. I try (for the moment) to generate debate about technology on UnHerd, because I like many of the writers, and the crowd BTL here is courteous and intelligent, which is a pleasant surprise. I am interested in testing what I think, by seeing if people will argue back with solid counters.
I went from being a big tech optimist to a tech pessimist when I really started looking into the consequences of technology on human societies at the macro level – something I didn’t really do at all until well into my 40s – and it then became pretty clear that the speed of tech change was outstripping the ability of most humans to adapt quickly enough. I went from tech pessimist to outright doomer when I started to understand what GPT 3 and 4 were capable of, and what the implications of those capabilities are. The trajectory of capabilities that the large language models are showing has caught me rather cold, as has the fact that capabilities are increasing at breakneck speed and we have really no idea why – and this combination is pretty much it for humanity once we create machine intelligence that is in fact more intelligent than us, which is now very close.
And you will no doubt ask what the basis of my stone cold certainties about the direction we are heading is, and my answer is, everything that is happening is openly visible to anyone willing to look, but I cannot convince anyone about what they don’t want to see – faith is faith after all, an equation that cuts both ways.
Thank you for the helpful background details. I appreciate your intellectual humility too. I don’t claim to be an IQ outlier either.
I know you won’t accept that your sense of irrefutable hopelessness is also a form of faith, or at least false determinism, but:
Of course we’re all doomed in the sense that we’re never getting out of this world alive, but your specific, prospective models are not sitting at 100% likelihood, let alone conclusively established. For you to, in effect,
evangelize* proselytize about the supposed certainty of imminent doom is both unproven and unhelpful when it comes to attempting improvement or harm reduction even though perfection is a nonstarter and never-finisher. What would you like people to think or do in response to your carefully-mapped certainties? I ask this because you often sound so emphatic and impassioned, like you would be pleased if everyone shared your sense of existential futility.That said: agree to disagree on the absence or presence of hope? Thanks for the thoughtful reply and for your overall contribution to these boards. Cheers.
Postcript: I asked for a window into your point of view and you provided one. Thank you. Your “cold certainties” are sometimes accented by a much more heated insistence, but nevertheless spark some discussion among those who dare to listen or cannot help but answer back.
Thank you for the helpful background details. I appreciate your intellectual humility too. I don’t claim to be an IQ outlier either.
I know you won’t accept that your sense of irrefutable hopelessness is also a form of faith, or at least false determinism, but:
Of course we’re all doomed in the sense that we’re never getting out of this world alive, but your specific, prospective models are not sitting at 100% likelihood, let alone conclusively established. For you to, in effect,
evangelize* proselytize about the supposed certainty of imminent doom is both unproven and unhelpful when it comes to attempting improvement or harm reduction even though perfection is a nonstarter and never-finisher. What would you like people to think or do in response to your carefully-mapped certainties? I ask this because you often sound so emphatic and impassioned, like you would be pleased if everyone shared your sense of existential futility.That said: agree to disagree on the absence or presence of hope? Thanks for the thoughtful reply and for your overall contribution to these boards. Cheers.
Postcript: I asked for a window into your point of view and you provided one. Thank you. Your “cold certainties” are sometimes accented by a much more heated insistence, but nevertheless spark some discussion among those who dare to listen or cannot help but answer back.
One thing I know is that the very last thing I have is prodigious intellect, the world is full of people very much smarter than me. But what I do have is a very long engagement with electronics, computing, and machine intelligence, and a long term interest in the direction that technological advance is frogmarching humanity. I also have what I hope is sufficient clarity to ask downright questions about what I am seeing without getting distracted by agendas all around. I try (for the moment) to generate debate about technology on UnHerd, because I like many of the writers, and the crowd BTL here is courteous and intelligent, which is a pleasant surprise. I am interested in testing what I think, by seeing if people will argue back with solid counters.
I went from being a big tech optimist to a tech pessimist when I really started looking into the consequences of technology on human societies at the macro level – something I didn’t really do at all until well into my 40s – and it then became pretty clear that the speed of tech change was outstripping the ability of most humans to adapt quickly enough. I went from tech pessimist to outright doomer when I started to understand what GPT 3 and 4 were capable of, and what the implications of those capabilities are. The trajectory of capabilities that the large language models are showing has caught me rather cold, as has the fact that capabilities are increasing at breakneck speed and we have really no idea why – and this combination is pretty much it for humanity once we create machine intelligence that is in fact more intelligent than us, which is now very close.
And you will no doubt ask what the basis of my stone cold certainties about the direction we are heading is, and my answer is, everything that is happening is openly visible to anyone willing to look, but I cannot convince anyone about what they don’t want to see – faith is faith after all, an equation that cuts both ways.
VR, not laptops. You’re behind the curve
Absolutely correct VR, not laptops. I’m indeed behind the curve.
Absolutely correct VR, not laptops. I’m indeed behind the curve.
If you are correct and the choices are between unrestricted porn and dystopian Chinese style Orwellian totalitarianism, then I’m picking the former and it’s not a tough call.
I agree with your main points. The only ways they are going to be able to control this will all involve levels of fascism and control that I am not comfortable with. Yet I agree with the bad effects it’s having on our children – and also adults.
I remember reading a study back around 2016 that found that roughly 80 percent of Internet bandwidth was being consumed by pornography in one form or another, and that it – paradoxically perhaps – had largely been financing the buildout of most Internet infrastructure. This study also included some country-level comparisons of levels of porn consumption (by IP address) and the biggest consumers were in the middle-east, countries with the greatest restrictions on sexuality.
You make a lot sense, especially in pointing out the hopelessness of legal regulation of porn use. That leaves – as you point out – more direct forms of coercion which in my view should target the suppliers, the flesh and blood that runs and benefits from Pornhub et al. I’ve said this before but in the absence of a legal framework able to react fast enough to change the only option is a visible crackdown. Pass a statutory instrument under the Public Health act naming Pornhub’s parent organisation a threat to public health and then send in the security services. Make it very public and unapologetically brutal. I want post-Liberalism with teeth. I want politicians willing to get their hands dirty. If they wont then it’s time people start organising for their own defence and put this sick society to sword.
Your diagnosis seems quite accurate and your predictions plausible. Another methodical, knowledgeable, and largely persuasive argument. I’d expect no less.
It is also another in a series of arguments you’ve made–such as the one concerning A.I. advancement and bioengineering–which I call Proofs of Futility. While you tend to stick with what is verifiable, in key places you pivot to informed speculation or even mere opinion. without acknowledging that you’ve done so.
For instance:
1) “humans will never be able to react to technology driven change fast enough to keep control over the next incoming technology”–an assertion, not a wild one but not dispositive; the past and present are not ineluctably determinative of the future.
2) “and by the time they react the landscape has altered and the tech has moved on, so they are mechanically set to remain behind the curve”–this is an informed assessment, not a “mechanical” proof or fixed reality, not to the degree of demonstrated futility that you assert.
At times, you move from patterns and known quantities to speculative reasoning, switching between the past-present and future tenses but using the same matter-of-fact, QED rhetorical tone : 3) “when laws coming in to finally regulate internet porn, are completely bypassed within a couple of years…”–yeah maybe, probably even, but not as an established certainty, whatever you or others “think happens next”, including me. Entropic breakdown of the manufactured, systemic sort you outline here could be slowed and moved back toward order by the introduction of significant new energy from outside a seemingly closed system. Perhaps with widespread, well-funded, passionate and determine opposition from a general public that included tech and porn trade insiders (or former insiders). And while it could, that need not take the form of pure coercion or hive-mind manipulation out of some near-future dystopia. Speculative and aspirational on my part, but not inconceivable, I wouldn’t say. A longshot is not an impossibility.
Your point is hammered, with forceful and skillful swings, but not hammered home here.
I wonder why you seem to need others to share your abiding sense of futility about so many things. Forgive me if that seems unfair or inaccurate; I’d be unsurprised if you could correct me on where you are really coming from, and in fact I wish you would, where applicable. What is your sponsoring viewpoint? You sometimes sound like a Rationalistic Prophet of Doom to me, but I’m quite sure it’s more than that. You spend much time sharing so much knowledge on a variety of subjects here. When they are outside your field(s) of expertise, you often have very humane, balanced, and sometimes humorous takes that I enjoy.
Why do all that if you are 100% convinced of the futility of it all? Are you willing to be unconvinced, under any circumstances? Isn’t even a sliver of hope more than just a wasted or naive hope, when the alternative is often despondency and the enervation, indeed brokenness of spirit that walks alongside that gloom? (No further rhetorical questions at this time).
But even with your prodigious intellect and careful study of these interrelated “techno-societal” issues, your predictions are not foregone conclusions. Still, you make a powerful, substantial, and rather authoritative contribution to the discussion(s) here. No exception in this case.
VR, not laptops. You’re behind the curve
If you are correct and the choices are between unrestricted porn and dystopian Chinese style Orwellian totalitarianism, then I’m picking the former and it’s not a tough call.
I agree with your main points. The only ways they are going to be able to control this will all involve levels of fascism and control that I am not comfortable with. Yet I agree with the bad effects it’s having on our children – and also adults.
I remember reading a study back around 2016 that found that roughly 80 percent of Internet bandwidth was being consumed by pornography in one form or another, and that it – paradoxically perhaps – had largely been financing the buildout of most Internet infrastructure. This study also included some country-level comparisons of levels of porn consumption (by IP address) and the biggest consumers were in the middle-east, countries with the greatest restrictions on sexuality.
The author castigates the lack of attempts by various UK governments to tackle the porn industry. That’s great. Unlimited amounts of free internet porn has rewired the brains of countless numbers of especially males, not just in the rich West but across the world, to the point where they no longer have any semblance of the normal biological response to sexual stimuli remaining, psychological damage which will for last for decades. But I want to point out a few realities here and the true nature of the problem, and show why saying “…the goal is not to make access impossible but, rather, more difficult…” is in fact futile. And I say this because I’m genuinely interested to see if the author or anyone has counters to the points I’m making here which illustrate the near-futility of believing that laws and regs like age verification etc are going to be even remotely effective.
You have a structural problem the nature of which is not fully understood. Existing political governance structures where humans will never be able to react to technology driven change fast enough to keep control over the next incoming technology. I can present dozens of scenarios, ever more complex, shining a searchlight on the unspoken human scale assumptions that underpinned all human governance prior to the rise of ubiquitous computation, but which have now been blown out of the water by algorithmic technologies.
Porn, the topic of this piece is obviously an example, and I will come back to this in a moment, but another example, as revealing because of the sheer amount of taxation lost to governments, Bitcoin. Bitcoin came into being well over a decade ago when its creator (or creators) conjured up literally tens of billions out of thin air. Yet, we cannot even *identify* the originators or how much of the original holding they are still sitting on, and in which jurisdiction, much less tax them. Similarly, in over two decades of the internet, it has proven impossible to keep online porn out of the reach of minors, even in autocratically governed places like Arabia or (until recently) China. This is not because nations are fond of the idea of allowing access to porn to minors, it is because both prevention and policing were and still pretty much remain, damn near impossible. As the author says the UK came close to putting into place regulation of the wild west that is the porn industry by requiring age verification, and then backed off. I think it eventually dawned on someone in government that the chances of actually being able to police porn on a global scale to prevent the UK population from accessing whatever it likes is… precisely zero.
Algorithmic technologies are not human scale and lawmakers without intimate knowledge of tech haven’t got a hope of drafting law quick enough in reaction – and by the time they react the landscape has altered and the tech has moved on, so they are mechanically set to remain behind the curve. And to hammer home this point, what do you think happens next, when laws coming in to finally regulate internet porn, are completely bypassed within a couple of years, not by people even bothering to get round verification requirements by using VPNs, but by the successors of Stable Diffusion and the like? Because these will be able to generate, fully animated, fully realistic porn that is impossible to distinguish from real humans, but which creates completely bespoke fantasies in the total privacy of your laptop via a locally downloaded neural network.
The Chinese have in fact managed to keep a lid on their internal cyberspace in the last few years remarkably successfully, not by creating ‘rules’, but by operating a high-surveillance dystopia. The distinction is critical. Coercion is always possible, for a period anyway. China’s success is based on the fact that the outside cyberworld has been shut out (The Great Firewall) and that anyone logging on to their internal cyberspace is required to identify themselves via facial recognition tech or other means – everyone and everything tracked in effect. This is the heart of the trade-off.
If porn sites have age verification, then the boys will use a VPN, download porn from torrent sites or venture in to the darker corners of the internet. Failing that they just get a mate to put a terabyte of porn on a memory stick. Any attempt to regulate the more legitimate sites with just be bypassed or other, more dangerous sources sought.
This is a matter that can only be affected by parents taking responsibility for their children. Any child under the age 16 should not be allowed to have a smart phone, and any computer access in the home should be done under parental supervision.
It would not be inappropriate for parents to face criminal charges and hefty fines if they fail to prevent their children watching or downloading pornography when they are under their control. Such failure is a form of gross neglect of their children’s welfare.
“Any child under the age 16 should not be allowed to have a smart phone”
I agree, but good luck with that one. Instead, I use these guys:
https://parentshield.co.uk/
Yes, a big problem, speaking as the father of two sons who grew up as smartphones entered, is that schools often require apps for learning (for better or worse) which may work only with a mobile rather than laptop or tablet. So this dependence on them for education as well as real or imagined security when the children are away from the home, has embedded itself into social structures. Just as it was difficult in my generation to not have a phone, so now for billions of us–try paying cash for your next flight. (Or for the booze or bags of snacks after you’re aloft…) I guess barriers can be established, but just as I was able to peek into the forbidden Playboy when over at a friend’s house as a kid, one will always find detours and hacks…
Yes, a big problem, speaking as the father of two sons who grew up as smartphones entered, is that schools often require apps for learning (for better or worse) which may work only with a mobile rather than laptop or tablet. So this dependence on them for education as well as real or imagined security when the children are away from the home, has embedded itself into social structures. Just as it was difficult in my generation to not have a phone, so now for billions of us–try paying cash for your next flight. (Or for the booze or bags of snacks after you’re aloft…) I guess barriers can be established, but just as I was able to peek into the forbidden Playboy when over at a friend’s house as a kid, one will always find detours and hacks…
“Any child under the age 16 should not be allowed to have a smart phone”
I agree, but good luck with that one. Instead, I use these guys:
https://parentshield.co.uk/
If porn sites have age verification, then the boys will use a VPN, download porn from torrent sites or venture in to the darker corners of the internet. Failing that they just get a mate to put a terabyte of porn on a memory stick. Any attempt to regulate the more legitimate sites with just be bypassed or other, more dangerous sources sought.
This is a matter that can only be affected by parents taking responsibility for their children. Any child under the age 16 should not be allowed to have a smart phone, and any computer access in the home should be done under parental supervision.
It would not be inappropriate for parents to face criminal charges and hefty fines if they fail to prevent their children watching or downloading pornography when they are under their control. Such failure is a form of gross neglect of their children’s welfare.
How much of this is driven by a desire to protect children, and how much is this just a front for anti-porn activists trying to stop porn altogether.
Im curious. I’m sure similar arguments were made around prohibition.
I thought the same, irrespective of the actual age verification debate the ‘protect the children’ line seems to be getting trotted out when it seems to be another run of ‘ban porn’. Puritans know full well that the more restrictions and checks are used, that some will be put off.
I can only speak for myself, and my support for this is motivated 100% by a wish to protect my kids, not from mere nudity or depictions of affectionate / fun sex, but from warped, psychopathic depictions of sex which are accompanied by violence and disrespect. But what you do with a sock in your spare time is none of my business.
That’s always the rub isn’t it, where does pragmatism and legitimate concern end and puritanism begin? I don’t particularly trust any government to draw that line and so prefer they don’t try. Trusting them to do so is how you get from where we are to where China already is, and count me against that. I’ll take whatever the costs of unregulated pornography end up being over Orwellian totalitarianism any day. There’s a point where more harm is done trying to fix a problem than the problem ever caused, and it’s a lot easier to reach than people realize. See how much was and still is spent on the ‘war on drugs’ in the US.
I thought the same, irrespective of the actual age verification debate the ‘protect the children’ line seems to be getting trotted out when it seems to be another run of ‘ban porn’. Puritans know full well that the more restrictions and checks are used, that some will be put off.
I can only speak for myself, and my support for this is motivated 100% by a wish to protect my kids, not from mere nudity or depictions of affectionate / fun sex, but from warped, psychopathic depictions of sex which are accompanied by violence and disrespect. But what you do with a sock in your spare time is none of my business.
That’s always the rub isn’t it, where does pragmatism and legitimate concern end and puritanism begin? I don’t particularly trust any government to draw that line and so prefer they don’t try. Trusting them to do so is how you get from where we are to where China already is, and count me against that. I’ll take whatever the costs of unregulated pornography end up being over Orwellian totalitarianism any day. There’s a point where more harm is done trying to fix a problem than the problem ever caused, and it’s a lot easier to reach than people realize. See how much was and still is spent on the ‘war on drugs’ in the US.
How much of this is driven by a desire to protect children, and how much is this just a front for anti-porn activists trying to stop porn altogether.
Im curious. I’m sure similar arguments were made around prohibition.
Irrespective of the arguments for or against internet porn an age verification system is well over due.
A simple (ish) process would be to link to a known mobile phone number. When I travel I usually get asked for my passport when buying a local SIM card, then they know who is linked to the number.
Talking about the UK, I think we should introduce similar. Verified ownership of a mobile number. So many advantages; an adult would need to register for a “child” SIM and authorise then content can be age appropriate. This would also make life very much harder for criminals and be a great way to reduce scam calls.
If I want to look at restricted content then a simple check via a mobile number (as with two factor authentication we have become used to) would be one way to deal with this rather than having to show some personal “proof” to a, possibly, dodgy website owner who knows where in the world.
Maybe. The big concern is who is collecting the ID information and what they do with it. And none of this will stop kids accessing porn if they are inclined to do so.
I suspect that Pornhubs concern is not that it will deter tech savvy children, but that it will deter anxious and non tech savvy adults. Anxious, that is, about their privacy.
I suspect that Pornhubs concern is not that it will deter tech savvy children, but that it will deter anxious and non tech savvy adults. Anxious, that is, about their privacy.
I should think a teenage boy could ‘borrow’ one of his parents’ mobile phones or credit cards for the few minutes it would take to set up an age-verified account.
Of course, it would be quite funny if he tried to register an account in his father’s name and found that it already existed.
Maybe. The big concern is who is collecting the ID information and what they do with it. And none of this will stop kids accessing porn if they are inclined to do so.
I should think a teenage boy could ‘borrow’ one of his parents’ mobile phones or credit cards for the few minutes it would take to set up an age-verified account.
Of course, it would be quite funny if he tried to register an account in his father’s name and found that it already existed.
Irrespective of the arguments for or against internet porn an age verification system is well over due.
A simple (ish) process would be to link to a known mobile phone number. When I travel I usually get asked for my passport when buying a local SIM card, then they know who is linked to the number.
Talking about the UK, I think we should introduce similar. Verified ownership of a mobile number. So many advantages; an adult would need to register for a “child” SIM and authorise then content can be age appropriate. This would also make life very much harder for criminals and be a great way to reduce scam calls.
If I want to look at restricted content then a simple check via a mobile number (as with two factor authentication we have become used to) would be one way to deal with this rather than having to show some personal “proof” to a, possibly, dodgy website owner who knows where in the world.
How is blocking all IPs from a US state an effective form of protest by the pron industry? Not as if all the closet knuckle-shufflers are going to tale to the streets and shout about it, is it? The state legislatures probably want to destroy these businesses and withdrawing access, and therefore decreasing revenue, will only hasten that.
It’s not done in protest.
It’s done to protect the porn supplier.
Why bother trying to perform age verification in one of these states and open your company up to a potential lawsuit when you can ban all access from that state knowing that the same people will be VPN’ing and pretending to be from elsewhere.
The politicians who pass these laws are dinosaurs with little to no understanding in the internet or the capability of adolescents.
It’s not done in protest.
It’s done to protect the porn supplier.
Why bother trying to perform age verification in one of these states and open your company up to a potential lawsuit when you can ban all access from that state knowing that the same people will be VPN’ing and pretending to be from elsewhere.
The politicians who pass these laws are dinosaurs with little to no understanding in the internet or the capability of adolescents.
How is blocking all IPs from a US state an effective form of protest by the pron industry? Not as if all the closet knuckle-shufflers are going to tale to the streets and shout about it, is it? The state legislatures probably want to destroy these businesses and withdrawing access, and therefore decreasing revenue, will only hasten that.
How does an age verification system work unless it is enforced worldwide? Just use a vpn to view from a jurisdiction that doesn’t require age verification. Or just use Tor.
I think it would at least reduce the number of underage eyeballs on horrific images. Not harm elimination, harm reduction. And a symbolic message that it is not a wild-West free-for-all anymore.
I genuinely wish that it were so. But youngster can make their way around the internet better than oldies.
Of course. Some of them. Not every 13-year-old can or will bother too.
But this current discussion ignores non-sexual violent images, which can have an obscene, criminal, and quasi-pornographic horror of their own.
Lizzo?
Ok. Got a smile out of me.
Ok. Got a smile out of me.
Very interesting comment. I think sexual content should not be available to young people but very violent content is freely available.
From my standpoint, one seems worse that the other.
Yes, and there is a huge difference between “comedy violence” of e.g. a spaghetti Western or aliens being blasted in “Independence Day” and e.g. a snuff movie
Well put. Your final example sort of blurs the line, since I think there is often some violently sexual element to a snuff film (don’t really know or want to), at least for the truly psychotic and depraved. And what of the sadistic thrill some might get from a “compilation” video of beheadings or something–is that kind of excitement totally different for the lurid thrill of extreme porn?
Excuse me everyone, that got pretty dark in a hurry and I managed to disgust myself. Perhaps someone with a stronger nerves and a more objective temperament can do a study of it. Moving on now for me.
Well put. Your final example sort of blurs the line, since I think there is often some violently sexual element to a snuff film (don’t really know or want to), at least for the truly psychotic and depraved. And what of the sadistic thrill some might get from a “compilation” video of beheadings or something–is that kind of excitement totally different for the lurid thrill of extreme porn?
Excuse me everyone, that got pretty dark in a hurry and I managed to disgust myself. Perhaps someone with a stronger nerves and a more objective temperament can do a study of it. Moving on now for me.
Yes, and there is a huge difference between “comedy violence” of e.g. a spaghetti Western or aliens being blasted in “Independence Day” and e.g. a snuff movie
Lizzo?
Very interesting comment. I think sexual content should not be available to young people but very violent content is freely available.
From my standpoint, one seems worse that the other.
But this current discussion ignores non-sexual violent images, which can have an obscene, criminal, and quasi-pornographic horror of their own.
Of course. Some of them. Not every 13-year-old can or will bother too.
I genuinely wish that it were so. But youngster can make their way around the internet better than oldies.
I think it would at least reduce the number of underage eyeballs on horrific images. Not harm elimination, harm reduction. And a symbolic message that it is not a wild-West free-for-all anymore.
How does an age verification system work unless it is enforced worldwide? Just use a vpn to view from a jurisdiction that doesn’t require age verification. Or just use Tor.
It’s interesting to see this male heavy discussion around porn. As a woman you are all missing a huge point about porn. As a woman just knowing that this stuff exists afects me. Porn is the ultimate state sanctioned abuse of women. We cannot underestimate the damage that it is doing to a generation of boys who have no other narrative to relate to with regards to sex and how to treat girls. Porn says that women and girls are available to be used and abused. Girls think this is just how sex has to be. Girls are now what is called ‘porn ready’ in their early teens – including no bodily hair and mistakenly believing that violence is a necessary part of sex. Governments are nothing but groomers of our children. Yes, women want age verification to safeguard our children but what we want more than anything is for men to stop watching porn and to treat women as equals. That will never happen while porn is in existence. Porn not only contututes male violence against women and girls and, but also constitutes the main conduit for such violence.
It’s interesting to see this male heavy discussion around porn. As a woman you are all missing a huge point about porn. As a woman just knowing that this stuff exists afects me. Porn is the ultimate state sanctioned abuse of women. We cannot underestimate the damage that it is doing to a generation of boys who have no other narrative to relate to with regards to sex and how to treat girls. Porn says that women and girls are available to be used and abused. Girls think this is just how sex has to be. Girls are now what is called ‘porn ready’ in their early teens – including no bodily hair and mistakenly believing that violence is a necessary part of sex. Governments are nothing but groomers of our children. Yes, women want age verification to safeguard our children but what we want more than anything is for men to stop watching porn and to treat women as equals. That will never happen while porn is in existence. Porn not only contututes male violence against women and girls and, but also constitutes the main conduit for such violence.
Most “children” know how to use VPN. If they don’t, their friends will tell them.
The moralists among us need to be reminded that porn is perfectly legal, and many empowered young women are making a very good and safe living online.
Oh balls. I used to believe that PC “happy hookers” crap too, when I was a teenager
Objectively, if I dare to leave “morality” aside, haven’t OnlyFans types of platforms enabled many “adult entertainers” to make a living that channels more $$$ into their pockets, or lack of, rather than to sleazy svengalis? During lockdowns, that’s what PC media insisted–how “affirming” this increased agency + revenue was for online “sex workers” and how satisfied their audiences were–who often paid top dollar on top for “special access” etc.
As with password sharing, I imagine the younger among us indeed know many ways of evading any cyber-blocks. This seems a case where the cat’s long out of the bag.
If all internet based porn was outlawed, it could actually be a real boon for the porn industry. It could return to the heyday of cd sales. Disc players would be back in fashion much like vinyl records today. I don’t recall much hand wringing about kids seeing porn before the internet. Sometimes an analog solution works best.
If all internet based porn was outlawed, it could actually be a real boon for the porn industry. It could return to the heyday of cd sales. Disc players would be back in fashion much like vinyl records today. I don’t recall much hand wringing about kids seeing porn before the internet. Sometimes an analog solution works best.
Objectively, if I dare to leave “morality” aside, haven’t OnlyFans types of platforms enabled many “adult entertainers” to make a living that channels more $$$ into their pockets, or lack of, rather than to sleazy svengalis? During lockdowns, that’s what PC media insisted–how “affirming” this increased agency + revenue was for online “sex workers” and how satisfied their audiences were–who often paid top dollar on top for “special access” etc.
As with password sharing, I imagine the younger among us indeed know many ways of evading any cyber-blocks. This seems a case where the cat’s long out of the bag.
Oh balls. I used to believe that PC “happy hookers” crap too, when I was a teenager
Most “children” know how to use VPN. If they don’t, their friends will tell them.
The moralists among us need to be reminded that porn is perfectly legal, and many empowered young women are making a very good and safe living online.
Could the author please explain how the Arkansas age verification process works? I’m genuinely interested.
Could the author please explain how the Arkansas age verification process works? I’m genuinely interested.
The solution: all women must wear a burka.
The solution: all women must wear a burka.
Gay men and their phones being what they are, I am probably a participant in more online porn than I’ve ever watched.
If Pornhub will just up sticks and leave the UK, that to me sounds like a positive.
Gay men and their phones being what they are, I am probably a participant in more online porn than I’ve ever watched.
If Pornhub will just up sticks and leave the UK, that to me sounds like a positive.
Another censorship advocate peddling invasive bureacracy to “think about the children”.
f**k you
You are puritan scum writing in a country where south-asian gangs have been raping thousands of Rotherham children with the blessing of authorities while pearl-clutching parasites like you looked the other way
We don’t need your censorhip, and in fact we don’t need you
You need help
I didn’t agree with a great deal the author said either, but I think you may have a overreacted a little
You need help
I didn’t agree with a great deal the author said either, but I think you may have a overreacted a little
Another censorship advocate peddling invasive bureacracy to “think about the children”.
f**k you
You are puritan scum writing in a country where south-asian gangs have been raping thousands of Rotherham children with the blessing of authorities while pearl-clutching parasites like you looked the other way
We don’t need your censorhip, and in fact we don’t need you
I’m sceptical about this hysteria, and I don’t want Chinese style regulation of what material I access and what I do. Large numbers of men look at porn occasionally for obvious reasons – they have high sex drives and don’t have other outlets. Of course like all behaviour – eating included (but there we don’t want the ‘nanny state’!) – this can become addictive and obsessive, but it needn’t necessarily be.
It is fascinating how many people on here completely object to governments having draconian censorship powers, except when they themselves disapprove of the activity in general.
Some mentioned fully realised fully animated, fully realised animations – there are no humans involved. I’m not sure what the problem is with that.
I’m sceptical about this hysteria, and I don’t want Chinese style regulation of what material I access and what I do. Large numbers of men look at porn occasionally for obvious reasons – they have high sex drives and don’t have other outlets. Of course like all behaviour – eating included (but there we don’t want the ‘nanny state’!) – this can become addictive and obsessive, but it needn’t necessarily be.
It is fascinating how many people on here completely object to governments having draconian censorship powers, except when they themselves disapprove of the activity in general.
Some mentioned fully realised fully animated, fully realised animations – there are no humans involved. I’m not sure what the problem is with that.