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What the US PornHub ‘ban’ is really about

www.independent.co.uk What the US PornHub ‘ban’ is really about

Age verification laws designed to block children from online porn sites are sweeping the US, Io Dodds writes. But do they actually protect children, or is there another agenda at work?

What the US PornHub ‘ban’ is really about

Summary

Several U.S. states have enacted laws requiring pornography sites, such as PornHub, to implement age verification to prevent minors' access, prompting the site’s parent company, Aylo, to block access in affected states.

Proponents argue these laws protect children, while critics highlight privacy risks, inefficiencies, and potential censorship.

These measures reflect growing social conservatism, with some advocates aiming to restrict adult content broadly.

While privacy-focused age verification methods exist, regulatory clarity is lacking.

Critics warn these laws may suppress responsible platforms, favoring unregulated alternatives, and escalate broader culture wars around sexuality and LGBTQ+ rights.

92 comments

There are thousands of porn sites. Blocking pornhub doesn’t even register. If someone wants to find porn it is no more difficult than it was the day before the ban, it just won’t be pornhub porn.
- I think this is just step one. Once the porn sites with money stop fighting it then they will go after any search engine that lists porn sites.
  If you can't find it on Google/Bing/Etc. it may as well not even exist for a majority of people.
  
  I welcome the re-emergence of newsgroups again.
- They must know that that's the case. Even if they blocked the entire internet in those states, porn would still be easily accessible. Blocking PornHub is just whacking a single mole in a huge field full of them.
  At least they're wasting some of their time with this limp-dicked bullshit. Better than using it to pursue their broader, more sinister goals.
- These states didn't block pornhub, pornhub blocked these states. Those states passed laws that would require legitimately operated adult sites to check ID at entry and then worry about keeping that information secure against breaches. This is more likely step 1 for those states to taking legal action against websites they deem are "adult oriented" for mentioning Queer people existing and not checking ID first.
  
  The biggest issue here is that (at least in Texas), your ID has to be checked by a specific company.

So no one wants to talk about how maybe we should just be talking to our kids about sexuality? This is just the absence only crowd again. And of course it's taking the rest of our liberties with it but can we stop framing this has tech was of protecting children here? It's Trojan horse bullshit.
- It’s the sex doesn’t exist if we don’t talk about it crowd. Just like they don’t like talking about the gays or the trans or CRT. Talking about any of these things means accommodation and mental effort has to be expended. Can’t have that.
- Yeah. I'm sure it's awkward, but it's also necessary. My mom was honest and open about such topics with me and it was really good for me. It meant that had an adult touched me inappropriately as a child I knew what to do and that I could trust my mom to keep me safe and it meant that as I grew older and began experimenting I wasn't taking undue risks because I knew enough to make reasonably informed decisions.
  Teenagers are going to engage in sexual exploration. Some won't, sure, but most of them are pretty hardwired to want to try and to be willing to break rules to do it. And, given that they're inexperienced and dealing with a hormonal hurricane some of them will make choices they regret. We can bury our heads in the sand and swear up and down that our kids know better because we told them not to do it, or we can grow the fuck up and accept that little kids need to know how to report a bad touch, elementary schoolers need to know what their body will do in a few years, and teenagers need to know enough to make informed choices when they inevitably experiment

Right. "Protecting children". Meanwhile, lowering the age range for child workers...
"No beating off! You need to save your energy for the night shift."
https://clockify.me/learn/business-management/minimum-working-age-by-state/
https://www.google.com/search?q=+child+workers+over+night

With this method, users take a photo of their face which is then analyzed by AI to estimate their age. Tombs says this involves no analysis of the user’s actual identity, and that all photos are deleted once the check is finished. Hence, neither Yoti nor the porn site ever needs to know who you are.
No. Fuck no. Just… wow.
- What stops you from taking a picture of a picture of some random adult's face?
  
  Everyone should just upload a picture of Trump.
  
  Or even better, use
  https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/
  Put an AI up against their AI.
  
  Or an AI generated one even
  
  Liveness detection.
- Just like the tsa deleted all the body scan images after the subject left the scanner.
- I rate they're intending to keep those photos, but will stop when an exec with a little bit of humanity has a change of heart after checking the database when he realises he is looking into the eyes of a unkempt man with visible depression who is going to spend the next 15 minutes trying to settle on a video and another two minutes masturbating.
  
  when an exec with a little bit of humanity has a change of heart

It's a classic tactic, use a somewhat legitimate concern (Minors having access to pornography). And blow it far out of proportion, and use it as an excuse to crackdown on what you're really after. You will see people defending these bans because the "reasoning" they're being presented SEEMS rational, but unwittingly they're supporting a mass crackdown on their own rights.
- See also: The constant push by governments to take away our right to private (encrypted) communications.
  
  ItS tO prOteCT the CHILDRen's comMUNIcaTIoN.
  yeah no for sure and that's why we should all install spyware onto our phones. there's no "switch in the settings" to turn it off. (for a recent example, see the EU commission's newest proposals.)
- somewhat legitimate concern (Minors having access to pornography).
  Counterpoint: accessing pornography is part of growing up.
  
  There's A LOT of unhealthy porn, especially for kids. Especially for kids with no sex education. It's also easier for them to get addicted.
  You could also say alcohol is part of growing up, because for many it is.
  
  So, to an extent sure, I don't think it's some horrible thing for simply moralistic reasons, everyone has to discover their sexuality one way or another. However, I do think maybe having an entire digital library of smut dumped in your lap the moment you have access to a smartphone and some private time is probably not good for your sexual development. Ideally we'd just have parents/guardians use some common sense and take advantage of parental controls to limit access. But, we both know that many are neglectful or simply busy with trying to make ends meet to constantly monitor these things. Is the right answer government intervention? I'm personally more than a little skeptical, but I can see why some people see it as a valid concern.
- Won't someone pleeeeeease think of the children!

don't even for a second think this is in favour of you.
it's some weird christian idea that the human must be "purified" and watching porn stops that. it's about an ideology, not about you or your wellbeing.

they keep saying its about trans people but then they keep blocking porn so i don't know what it is. i think christians and conservatives are stupid as fuck
- Every time that a conservative equates the mere existence of trans people with sex, they're just outing their own kink.
  
  "These people who've historically been marginalized to having to do sex work to live authentically and are more likely to be victims of sexusl violence are inherently sex crazed freaks."
  Like, as soon as we could openly do jobs that aren't sex work we got a reputation as computer programmers. Turns out we're all multidimensional human beings.
- it's mostly because the red hats love trans porn, and hate themselves for loving trans porn, and they just need a little help resisting temptation
- Socially accepted mental illness

Mad conservative computer scientists: "Yes, using the fear that kids might see porno, we will soon require the implementation of the impossible device: Anonymous age verification! Since no one will be able to implement it, we will ban all pornography off the internet!"
Mad liberal computer scientists: : "Using generative AI, anyone can now produce any porno they want, even offline! And the interface is so easy that even a kid can use it!"
Porn companies: "We will have the computer take a picture of you and analyze your age to grant access."
Users: Uses generative AI to generate fake pictures to get access to real porn.
- User: uses the VPN they had already

Fascists view sexuality as a threat to their movements.
- Also: laughing, knowing things, joy.
- sexuality is the core of human desire, and if you suppress that, you suppress the development of the individual's sense of self-determination. that's why it's so important to the government so suppress sexuality.
  there are other reasons, of course. for example, almost everyone nowadays is overworked, and of course that leads to a decline in relationships.
  also, people are stronger together. sexuality brings people together. if you can suppress the sexuality of large swaths of people, you can basically hinder the forming of social coherence and community.
  
  Yeah. When manifested healthily it is an outlet of joy, community, love, release, and all that good shit. It's passion bound to pleasure and that disgusts them. To the fascist passion and love are to be reserved for the state. They want pent up angry weirdos who will do awful things. To them sexuality is for reproduction or expression of violence. And there's nothing wrong with reproduction, but it, even more than sexuality, should exist for the purposes of love.
  Authoritarians find sexuality and opportunity for violence wherever they can, and if nothing can be stretched into it, they'll make some excuse and do it anyways.
- They view it as another tool to oppress us. They know it's not a threat to them. The only threat to them is organized resistance.
- Fascists view knowledge as a threat. They use sexuality as another means of segregation.

"it's for the children" is always a red flag
- step
  declare children don't understand the world
  declare children can't make reasonable choices
  parents and officials now get to decide what children do or don't
  have obedient slaves.
- Depends on the context. After WW2 a lot of great things were done in favour of future generations, or the children of that time.
  In these times hate is being used to divide us while at the same time it's socially and morally unacceptable to justify certain views, thus they look for pseudo reasons to mask their true reasons, in this case -for the children". Unfortunately we're also entering a time where the psuedo reasons start becoming obsolete as hate mongering is being accepted.
  So i gotta disagree on the always, but it's true for these times.
- classic fascist tactic. there's a reason half of the 14 words is about children

Its about VPN sales.

They're compiling a list and they'll find a way to use it against you. Anyone who thinks the age-verification services won't share their data with the states is naive. Use a VPN and only pay using an anonymous prepaid card, and if that doesn't work, pirate the content.
While privacy-focused age verification methods exist
What might those be, and have they been reviewed by anyone with actual knowledge of security?

"Another method, used in Germany, lets people show their ID card at a post office and get a unique ID to access adult sites. This could potentially be done without logging the person’s identity, but as CNIL points out such systems require much work to set up."
This exactly what I was thinking of while reading the article. It's just like going to a bar and getting carded. As long as no info is stored, I would be fine with this if were seriously looking for a solution for the kids
- When I got my first smart phone, to access adult media and even Facebook, I needed to go in to a shop and verify my age using ID and they edited my account details, with this phone I had an instantly refunded penny charge on my credit card. There are very simple ways around it, which they apparently aren’t interested in.
  
  Who is "they" in this context.
  Honest question I promise. I don't understand what's going on....

"While privacy-focused age verification methods exist, regulatory clarity is lacking."
It's not lacking clarity. Privacy-focused age verification is simply not wanted by big tech and politically (because money from big tech) as they wouldn't be able to collect and make money with building profiles of what you do online.

Often on 1337x I find nsfw stuff. I wonder if there are people torrenting this stuff

While privacy-focused age verification methods exist
verification methods may 'exist', but there are exactly zero which can guarantee security and privacy.

At the core of the debate is a genuinely thorny technical and legal question: how to verify someone’s age over the internet without exposing them to cyber theft or government surveillance.
Age verification providers are adamant that this is possible.
I agree that it is possible if you can guarantee absolutely zero corruption in the system. Which you cannot.
- Proving, in a safe, privacy-friendly way, that you're able to provide to some third-party website credentials proving that you're an adult, is very easily doable. Most countries decided against the good version of it, but it is doable.
  It does not, however, prove anything regarding the actual user in front of the computer. Let's remind people that we live in a world where kids have access to their parent's CC and regularly abuse it online. I doubt "more technical stuff" will prevent them from getting their hand on whatever certificate/token/thingamajig would be used for age check.
  Unless we consider "good practice and proper communication", or, parenting, to be a key point in this. In which case, there's no need to do any technical implementation at all in the first place.

There's no reliable way to verify age without extensive face verification with liveliness checks. A child can easily upload a parent's or some other adult's id card photo to get 'verified'. Also nothing stops kids to explore porn corners of social media (including lemmy) and thousands of porn sites operated not by the Big Porn. Porn is fundamental to internet.
Edit: I purposefully omitted vpn, that being the most trivial solution.
That's all besides the point however.
If a young kid is motivated by highschool seniors to watch porn, it is s parenting issue. If some adult encourages some child to watch porn as a grooming technique that's a much more serious case of child abuse. If a teenager is porn addict and doesn't do anything else, it is a major mental health concern, not a porn concern itself.
It is kind of accepted fact that many late teenagers are familiar with porn and explore it like any other sexual aspects of their life. Whether that's harmful is upto debate but teenagers/adults do many things harmful everyday and banning everything with law isn't realistic either. It is not end of the world if a teenager has sex or watches a porn movie. Children have greater dangers in general where they get abused by their relatives, teachers and even by their own parents and are continuously attempted to be programmed not to critically think by the religions.

The most surprising thing to me is that PornHub is owned by a multinational Canada based private equity firm Aylo. I guess surprising might not be the right word, maybe morbidly reassuring that no one escapes from the slimy hands of late capitalism.
- Yeah, let's get back to small business "mom and pop" pornography vendors!

Wasn't really a pornhub guy, think xvideos does the suggestions better and overall I'm more into pics as far as that goes but pissing off my home state gets brownie points off of me anyway.

We miss you, Larry Flynt. (Not really, he sucked in other ways a great deal, but he at least fought the good fight in this domain)
- I loved it when he decided to get revenge on Republicans prosecuting Clinton for getting a blowjob by publishing and distributing a single-issue magazine filled with detailed information about prominent congressmen and their mistresses.
  Like you said, he was a piece of shit in a lot of ways, but he did a few things I will happily remember him for.

I’m curious what this graph looks like compared to states with legal weed.
- Lol. Montana's wilding up there. Toke up all you please, but no porn.

It’s there like, 3,000,000 other porn sites people can use? I don’t hover how this is a victory in any form.

Several U.S. states have enacted laws requiring pornography sites, such as PornHub, to implement age verification to prevent minors' access
Doesn't seem too unreasonable. When I buy alcohol I have to provide verification that I'm over 21.
The thing is, how do they enforce it? People in those states can still access pornhub through a VPN. Plus, what about all the other many, many porn sites?
I get what they're trying to do, but I think there are some logistics that haven't really been thought out.
- They expect the porn provider to verify age/id through very invasive and onerous means. It is in no way reasonable or secure to give some random porn site a copy of your government ID. They will get hacked; not if, when.
  
  They will get hacked; not if, when.
  Not only that, it turns any site that doesn't just outright block the age verification states into a massive target.
- When I buy alcohol I have to provide verification that I'm over 21
  I was unaware that porn could kill you.
  
  Not your fault. Nobody can be aware of everything.
  And yes, people have fapped to porn until they had a heart attack and died due to it.
  
  I never said that it could.
  Are you suggesting that it should be legal to sell alcohol to children so long as it's not a lethal amount? Should a kid be able to buy a single beer? It's not like it's going to kill them.
  What about selling physical media pornography in a store to children? Should that be legal? It's not going to kill them. Should a kid be able to walk into a porn store and slap down his allowance for a copy of Hardcore Anal Superstars 2?

I'm gonna be honest, I think it is good to restrict to make sure its not so easy to access for kids. Also, I think porn just demeans women and pushes that they're just a piece of meat.
A conversation can be had about if the way the restriction was done was good or bad or if it can be done in a better way.

92 comments