Pornhub blocks access in Mississippi and Virginia over age verification laws
theverge.com
Pornhub has shut off access in Mississippi and Virginia to protest age verification laws that can involve checking government IDs. It previously blocked access in Utah.
This law is sponsored by Nord VPN
Right? It’s almost as if the “lawmakers” have no technical knowledge.
gasp surely they wouldn’t make laws without getting at least a rudimentary understanding of the subject material?
This actually pushed me and a couple of friends to subscribe to Nord; I'd been thinking I should get a VPN for a while anyways. I looked through VPN's and I ended up liking Nord's feature set and price vs ExpressVPN. Never thought I'd use them back when they were EVERY video's sponsor on YouTube lol.
If true that Nord lobbied for this, run away. That company will not respect your privacy.
Mullvad is decent and has a track record of being subpoenaed by LE but keeping nothing, so having nothing to show. Tho I’m sad they just got rid of port forwarding (only affects seeding torrents)
Nord VPN also keeps logs and has handed them over to police forces.
So far I'm like the proton suite, have my email and VPN through them.
Sauce? Big if true but the self licking ice cream cone exists.
The largest non-ID age based verification company currently is owned by pornhub. So, them blocking access in states that aren’t cooperating (which the law is dumb anyway) is more than just a “we don’t agree with the law” it’s also, “we will hold your state hostage until you use our platform”
Sauce: https://medium.com/fingleton/dont-let-the-porn-block-give-mindgeek-a-monopoly-aafdfed270de
Plus the text on their website saying “there are other ID options” = “buy our service”
I think op made a joke, there is no real evidence or suspicion, just half-serious conjecture.
PH is trash but these laws are dumb as fuck and misguided. are we really pretending that you shouldn't be horny until 18 or whatever
I came around the idea of stricter enforcement of age verification for online services. But the way it is implemented doesn't make any sense. I wouldn't trust porn sites with any personal information of mine.
I like the idea France is working on, a double anonymity age verification service. A third-party (hopefully the government) is used to verify your age and generate a token and that token can be used on any site to verify your age. The site verifying your age doesn't know for which service you are generating the token and the site doesn't have any access to personal data.
Whether or not pornographic material should be accessible to people under the age of 18 is another topic. I am not sure what a good age cut-off would be. But I definitely agree that there should be an age limit.
Doesn't the (government?) site that provided the token learn which site it was for when that site requested the token be verified?
@Hillock
No, if done correctly the site verifying the token should only need to verify it was signed by the authority token provider.
Right now the system is still just theoretical so the specifics are undefined. But the idea is that they wouldn't. I assume they could still figure it out by tracking the IP addresses of those who access the token and matching it to a company. But the company doesn't have to send a request. I assume you are just generating a link that says "This person is age X". So the link itself serves as the verification. The link would only be valid for 5-15 minutes, so you can't just steal it to impersonate someone else.
I'll be the brave one and ask;
What are your favourite porn sites, guys?
youtube.com
Not sure if it’s still up-to-date, but tblop.com used to be a great way to find new sites. I know there are several similar sites, but this is the first one that comes to mind.
why is this getting so much traction in the media? there's so many other, arguably better resources for pornography on the interwebs
I think it’s just highlighting that state governments are making crazy laws like this, and PH is one of the big dogs everyone knows
It's important to ensure coverage of state control. These "moral" issues being delt with via legislative means is abhorrent. Land of the free, eh?
Would you want to be responsible for checking IDs over the internet? No sane company would want to be responsible for getting it wrong.
Also, would you be willing to send a scan of your drivers license to a porn website? Any website?
You could make the check with your ID card in a way that a middle ware reads the card and just gives the ok signal to the site. No personal data is transfered outside .
I use an lvl 3 smardcard reader for things like this. NFC on the ID is checked, PIN entered in the reader and the middle ware verifies that you are sitting at the PC.
In the moment of request you can see what data is transfered because to use this service they have to be verified by the middle ware service as well in advance for access to the process.
Thats exactly what PH is advocating for, device manufacturers to handle it, securely, privately, on device.
Nah man. Freedom for me, not for thee.
The point is that these states are making ridiculous, unenforceable censorship laws. They're going to try to gate ALL of those arguably better resources you're talking about behind some kind of age verification like a driver's license or some shit. PornHub is just the headline because it's a popular website protesting.
Yea, so many better sites.
We should list them here so everyone can avoid them though.
Sorry mate. If your state blocks porn in this way you need to move or vote for better representation.
I couldn't disagree more. Pornhub is the best porn website we have right now by far. They consistently do a great job of moderating to remove underage porn and revenge porn while also all monetizing for the creators. I don't think a lot of people realize how good we have it worth pornhub
There have been multiple cases of underage girls on PH and SA videos that PH wouldn’t remove when requested by the victim, even a verified account was a trafficked 15 year old. PH is another big corporation that doesn’t give a fuck about people don’t let them fool you
All of that is true and yet it's still the best we have. It says more about how bad the rest of the websites are. The alternatives are awful or will cost money.
All of that is true and yet it's still the best we have. It says more about how bad the rest of the websites are. The alternatives are awful or will cost money.
Pornhub has just become the goto for any pornographic crap in the media. Other sites literally just don't care. I doubt many would even respond to a journalist looking for a statement. Basically the same as the Satanic Church doing something any time a religious bill gets passed in the States.
All of those "tube" sites are owned by the same company that owns PH.
Wankers... (the lawmakers, not PH)
technically ..
you got a loicense to fap mate?!
You got a loicense for that erection?
Kinda weird that it's just Pornhub: Aren't they owned by the same parent company of like pretty much all the other streaming porn sites?
Does this have any real effect on porn access legislation, though?
I think the goal more than anything is to get people motivated to vote. They won't change any minds, but they might get some people who might otherwise he apathetic to go out and vote out some of the idiots running these states.
Leopards ate my bate for those states. They are reaping what they have sowed.
There have been multiple cases of underage girls on PH and SA videos that PH wouldn’t remove when requested by the victim, even a verified account was a trafficked 15 year old. PH is another big corporation that doesn’t give a fuck about people don’t let them fool you
Do you not remember the purge? They went from 12M vids to 2M overnight. And now it's verified posters only. Sure, took em long enough to do something about it, but so far they are the only ones to do anything about it.
Update your facts. Pornhub cleaned up and did a great purge of questionable content. If they couldn't verify it then it went. Anything questionable got flagged and deleted.
Now that Pornhub is blocked, well, people looking for porn will find MORE questionable content.
If you want better safer porn then YOU SHOULD BE SUPPORTING PORNHUB.
Call me crazy but I’m not very quick to forgive or trust again a platform that allowed sexual assault videos of a teenage girl to remain publicly posted. I don’t think pornhub is the epitome of ethical porn either. But on that note if people care about the ethics of their consumption I think they should consider decreasing their porn usage in general, it’s a pretty obvious net negative for personal health and societal health
Valid points. Not trusting pornhub after it taking so long to clean up it's content might be the better choice overall. Especially if ethics in porn is a top priority. I do think consuming too much porn is a problem for some people and it could start to warp perception if the consumer can't separate reality and fantasy.
I think most people don't care about ethics in porn, so I try to rep any small push toward good. It's not perfect but "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" and all.
You can use Indojavstream Instead of Pornhub
PH really just did all the teenagers in Mississippi and Virginia a favor (ignoring VPNs and alternative sites)