How the American war on porn could change the way you use the internet (www.bbc.com)
from BuddyTheBeefalo@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 05:02
https://lemmy.ml/post/18379061

#technology

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RustyNova@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 05:09 next collapse

Why are they even in war against porn?

/j lust is just the second layer, try doing something about worse stuff like greed or gluttony

NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 05:36 next collapse

Why are they even in war against porn?

First time that I heard that, and I really don’t think it’s a real war. Maybe a tiny quarrel :)

forrgott@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 06:22 collapse

Well, they’re the ones that know which pizza shops have pedophile sex dungeons hidden underneath. So, I guess they’re fighting themselves. (As I typed that out, it occurred to me how true is a statement it was…😝)

Zier@fedia.io on 25 Jul 2024 06:52 next collapse

Because christians think they can make the rules for the rest of us. And they use scare tactics like, "protect the children", which they are molesting.
Plus, they don't want anybody to be happy and have any fun. That's the point of christianity, to make everyone miserable, FOREVER.

Got_Bent@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 08:05 next collapse

That’s how I try to describe growing up with it when people ask why I don’t to to church or subscribe to any religion.

Aside from the many other aspects of it, even as a child, I couldn’t understand why I was supposed to be so enthusiastically smug that I belonged to this thing that seemed to exist only to impose rules on everything imaginable and that those rules would invariably be against anything even remotely fun or pleasurable. Hell we couldn’t even use most spices; thanks Dr Kellogg.

At age six or so I legitimately perceived it to be sinful to smile or laugh for fear I’d be punished because there would be some arbitrary rule that whatever caused me to smile or laugh was too worldly.

Fuck that. I’ll be miserable and curmudgeonly on my own terms!

Zier@fedia.io on 25 Jul 2024 12:12 collapse

It's nice to be free of all of that.
No one should be allowed to join a religion until they are 21.

Petter1@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 08:57 next collapse

FUCK RELIGION

unconsciousvoidling@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 07:59 collapse

Amen

obinice@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 08:26 next collapse

Religious extremists that work tirelessly to impose their god’s laws on everybody else.

They’ve actually embedded themselves in US government now, over many years and much effort, and the burning embers of their religious war against the rest of us are finally starting to catch fire in a big way.

They recently took away a person’s right to an abortion. Madness, I know. What will they take away next?

todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 11:35 collapse

You can’t adopt kids in Tennessee unless you’re Christian. They will deny you for being Jewish.

I wish I was joking, but this is the Christian Nationalist endgame: Nazism.

TipRing@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 13:51 next collapse

Because they want to use antiporn laws to restrict books and other media with LGBTQ content.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 23:03 next collapse

Because cops like to check ID, and this allows them to check ID more often. I think they want to check my ID at every website, if they could.

frezik@midwest.social on 26 Jul 2024 13:02 next collapse

They tried and failed to control Internet porn in the 90s. With Trump, conservatives think they’re more popular than they are, so they’re trying this shit again. As with lots of things in Project 2025, they’re quickly discovering that they’re not as well liked as they think.

Supermariofan67@programming.dev on 27 Jul 2024 10:41 collapse

A year ago, the majority of Lemmy was vehemently in support of banning porn

verdantbanana@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 05:13 next collapse

Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great.

If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk

iiGxC@slrpnk.net on 25 Jul 2024 05:42 collapse

Royce dupont on the truth about god and porn: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeeR38i2QqY

hendrik@palaver.p3x.de on 25 Jul 2024 05:35 next collapse

"Could" is the important word here. In other contries, we long have laws making age verification mandatory. It's just that it's a popup asking "Are you over 18?" And you can click whatever you want. Also the companies are in different jurisdictions, don't comply with local law while the internet spans the globe. I don't see any substantial difference here.

forrgott@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 06:26 next collapse

The difference is, I think, just how much of the content or there is hosted in America. If they succeed in forcing local companies to follow some new draconian measure, it’ll likely have a disproportionately high effect on non-US traffic.

hendrik@palaver.p3x.de on 25 Jul 2024 06:35 collapse

Sure. I think people from the US can see what our privacy regulations did to the internet. For example with the cookie consent banners. And disclosing somewhere what personal info gets shared with whom. Up until now the USA hasn't really made an effort to regulate the tech giants. Maybe that's going to change with certain topics like porn. It's definitely going to have an impact on the world. I mean lots of tech companies are located in the US. Pornhub though is from Canada as far as I know. And the second biggest porn site XVideos is based in the Czech Republic. So I'm curious how US law is supposed to be enforced here.

forrgott@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 07:24 collapse

Huh, didn’t realize that. I understand a lot of the physical servers for those kinda companies are in the upper Midwest, but I never thought about where thire HQ is at; you make some excellent points.

There is definitely a fight brewing over who has final say in regards to what happens on the Internet. Gonna be interesting seeing how this plays out.

hendrik@palaver.p3x.de on 25 Jul 2024 08:13 collapse

For sure. That's going to be interesting. I mean at first the internet was for academics, students and smart people. Then it was the wild west. Now it's long become integral part of society and everybody is on the internet. I think as of now it's mainly big companies who "own" the place. My issue with that is mainly that they do with our personal info as they please. And their business tactics. Like Spotify ripping off artists, YouTube not really caring about the creators and their well-being. Everything is about ads and commercialized to the extreme. And the internet wasn't always like this. But all of that is a slightly different story.

In the end, we have to apply our laws also to the online world. We can't have that be a separate space. But laws are for single countries and have borders. The internet doesn't. I sometimes see people wanting to introduce borders into the internet and make it more national. I think that'd break everything. The internet is supposed to connect us. And our world is globalized.

But we're also not making an effort in the first place. Gambling, porn and all that unwelcome stuff is just hosted abroad. Doesn't matter if 100% of the customers are somewhere, the company is just allowed to be ran from some small island and then it's fine. We could just ban that in my opinion. I'm not a big fan of DNS blocking or messing with internet traffic, so we'd have to come up with a good technical solution. And I think the USA, the EU and Canada would be able to agree on some consensus regarding the protection of minors and that'd spread and affect most of the world.

Or we just go for their money. You can't circumvent and run one of the largest online platforms without money. If all American and European comanies wouldn't be allowed to advertise there, that'd solve the issue pretty quick. And we already had that. I think Visa or some other payment provider said they'd have to cease service if they continue not doing anything against revenge porn and exploitation and copyright infringement. That lead to all major porn platforms making account verification for the actresses mandatory and removing lots of amateur stuff and pirated videos. So that definitely works.

shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip on 25 Jul 2024 17:27 collapse

In a world where Monero exists, there is no way to stop the flow of money.

hendrik@palaver.p3x.de on 25 Jul 2024 17:59 collapse

Yeah, we'll have to see about that. In reality even paying with regular money is to cumbersome for people. They rather watch ads.
Let alone starting with crypto, installing software, getting a wallet, money exchanged, ... The majority of people isn't going to do that just to watch porn.

So in theory this might be an idea to circumvent that. In practice, it's never going to happen. At least as I see it. Or are there any successful companies who rely on Monero to have their goods payed? And I don't mean like 0.5% of their turnover, but a substancial amount.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 23:05 collapse

That was the case here in the US, but a lot of states are now passing laws that require actual verification, not just a button. The result is that PornHub is no longer accessible in my state w/o a VPN, and if more states do it, I would probably need to send in a picture of my ID or something and make an account.

hendrik@palaver.p3x.de on 26 Jul 2024 07:18 collapse

That all happened this year, right? And PH does the blocking from their side. I mean it's not some DNS blocking that internet service providers are required to do? And what's with the next biggest porn sites? Do you still have access to xvideos .com and xhamster?

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 12:49 collapse

The law passed either last year or the year before, I can’t remember, and it’s going into effect this year or last. There’s also a social media ID law as well, but I don’t think it has gone into effect yet (I don’t use SM aside from Lemmy, so I haven’t noticed, but occasionally follow Twitter links).

I just checked, and xvideos works fine, but xhamster has a “start verification” pop-up upon page load that requires uploading my ID, or logging in if I’ve already verified myself. Pornhub just refuses to load with a protest screen with the following text:

Dear user,

As you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.

In addition, mandating age verification without proper enforcement gives platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply. As we’ve seen in other states, this just drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place. Very few sites are able to compare to the robust Trust and Safety measures we currently have in place. To protect children and user privacy, any legislation must be enforced against all platforms offering adult content.

The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification. Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Utah.

Please contact your representatives before it is too late and demand device-based verification solutions that make the internet safer while also respecting your privacy.

The checks are all on the service side, not the ISP, and Pornhub lays out the rest of the problems here. I assume Utah would sue noncompliant companies.

So the simplest solution for people in Utah is just to use a VPN in Colorado, our next door neighbor, which adds minimal latency (like 10-20ms). I’m in the process of setting that up for my Wi-Fi network so nobody in our network needs to show ID.

tal@lemmy.today on 25 Jul 2024 05:43 next collapse

How the American war on porn could change the way you use the internet

looks slightly annoyed

I’m not particularly enthusiastic about such state laws, but the UK spent the last several years having committed to mandate age verification itself prior to eventually abandoning it, and I didn’t see Voice of America trying to get people in the US riled up about British law.

en.wikipedia.org/…/Proposed_UK_Internet_age_verif…

With the passing of the Digital Economy Act 2017, the United Kingdom became the first country to pass a law containing a legal mandate on the provision of an Internet age verification system.

And if I recall, they had some follow-up effort, which I assume is what is briefly referenced in the article.

looks

Yeah.

…org.uk/…/guidance-service-providers-pornographic…

Implementing the Online Safety Act: Protecting children from online pornography

This is the second of four major consultations that Ofcom, as the appointed online safety regulator, will publish as part of our work to establish the new regulations under the Online Safety Act (2023).

Currently, services publishing pornographic content online do not have sufficient measures in place to prevent children from accessing this content. Many grant children access to pornographic content without age checks, or by relying on checks that only require the user to confirm that they are over the age of 18.

The Online Safety Act is clear that service providers publishing pornographic content online must implement age assurance which is highly effective at correctly determining whether or not a user is a child to prevent children from normally encountering their online pornographic content.

MicrowavedTea@infosec.pub on 25 Jul 2024 06:34 next collapse

Let alone Spain has already implemented a system for this which is part of a bigger EU effort. politico.eu/…/spain-builds-porn-passport-to-stop-…

Sadly, I don’t think this is going away.

captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 09:29 collapse

I didn’t see Voice of America trying to get people in the US riled up about British law.

Good. They’re not supposed to.

The purpose of the VoA is to broadcast American news and perspectives to the rest of the world. Their programming is not intended for Americans and for most of its history the VoA was prohibited by law from intentionally broadcasting directly to American citizens. A lot of Americans aren’t even aware the VoA exists because of this. This prohibition was eased somewhat in 2013 to make putting VoA content online easier and to allow Americans access to VoA content if we want it. ie I as an American citizen am allowed to hear what the VoA says but they’re still not supposed to talk to me on purpose.

If you do hear the Voice of America trying to get people in the US riled up about anything, be sure to let us know so that we can make the responsible individuals be in trouble.

LodeMike@lemmy.today on 25 Jul 2024 05:44 next collapse

a survey of 1,000 young people concluded that pornography can normalise sexual violence and harmful attitudes among children.

That’s irrelevant. This argument assumes that age verification laws will reduce children’s consumption of porn. The war on drugs has shown us that prohibition of this kind of stuff doesn’t reduce anything and only ever makes it worse. All that will happen is children (and adults) will now go to worse/less moderated websites which will on average have more CSAM and other real sexual abuse.

GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 10:31 next collapse

True. But the people advocating for these laws don’t want to deal with nuance and compromise on what it would take to have a society where you educate people on sex in a healthy and positive way. These prohibitionists see the world as either bad or good - nothing in between. Good (how ever they decide to define it) must win no compromises, and the weapon that they use is unfounded fear of the bad and it works.

And the reason fear works is because it is easy and visceral and reality’s complexity doesn’t work for media’s need for sound bites.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 12:08 collapse

I think the part about IDs is what’s important. They are not against porn, it’s just a good excuse to account for another part of your activities. Which may be used to classify you or even blackmail you, but I think knowing your preferences is enough. It may allow secret services to predict whom you may like or may not.

Naturally it will allow to track you.

There are many factors affecting energy spent on doing something.

I personally think that this timeline is fucking bullshit and we got there by always choosing the lesser evil, so libertarian (you may make it left-libertarian, I genuinely don’t care about left-right division because it’s mostly traditional and imaginary) revolutions in all the civilized countries are long overdue.

Not even libertarian, maybe the Empire at War: Forces of Corruption game was onto something. Maybe the left-right and libertarian-statist distinctions are obsolete for our time just like Roman optimates-populares distinction. Maybe we need some new line, formalist-naturalist (as in formal law versus natural law) or something. Where the former part would be existing political mechanisms and the latter part would be saying “no” to fools, thieves and bandits.

skaffi@infosec.pub on 25 Jul 2024 12:07 next collapse

If you were a teenager, back when online porn were all pay sites, and so you were using Kazaa/Limewire instead, then you know.

collapse_already@lemmy.ml on 25 Jul 2024 12:32 next collapse

That’s not Jenna. That’s a snuff film.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 23:01 collapse

That was never a thing. I grew up in the 90s and I could easily find free porn websites. My main limitation was dial-up internet, not knowing where to find it…

Zozano@lemy.lol on 26 Jul 2024 13:52 collapse

I used to leech my neighbours WiFi on my PSP and download stories on the Sex Stories Text Repository because images were too slow.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 14:26 collapse

Sometimes that wasn’t enough and the anticipation of not knowing whether you’ll see a nipple or a dick on the next few lines of the image was preferable.

I got in the habit of opening multiple tabs while reading a text story, and then finishing up when the tabs finally loaded.

Lightor@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 17:32 next collapse

The word “can” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. A lot of things “can” have negative effects.

sentientity@lemm.ee on 26 Jul 2024 00:50 next collapse

Pretty sure the normalization of sexual violence and harmful attitudes came from the adults in my life. If parents and teachers adequately teach kids to identify those things and know that they are unequivocally wrong, then teens who see unhealthy stuff in porn will notice and be critical of it. Probably indignant, too, since no one is more justice focused than a teen who has just learned something about the world.

The issue is backward ideas about relationships being reinforced by adults, either through active misogyny or just never talking about it. This argument boils my blood because the porn itself is not the problem. Awful attitudes about relationships and women start very early and they often come directly from parents themselves.

LodeMike@lemmy.today on 26 Jul 2024 02:07 collapse

Interesting. Maybe it’s projection about the porn THEY watch?

sentientity@lemm.ee on 26 Jul 2024 02:27 next collapse

I honestly think it’s about degrading the right to free expression. But yes also probably. The people who cast women and kids as pawns in need of protection are usually not super respectful to the real women/kids in their lives.

postmateDumbass@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 02:35 collapse

Control addicts gotta get their fixes.

[deleted] on 26 Jul 2024 13:56 collapse

.

[deleted] on 26 Jul 2024 14:14 collapse

.

JadenSmith@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 05:51 next collapse

How could American politicians be so against pornography, when so many keep getting caught with prostitutes?

Typical. Rules for thee I guess.

radivojevic@discuss.online on 25 Jul 2024 06:01 next collapse

And kids

PineRune@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 06:10 next collapse

They’re against pornography, not prostitutes. There’s a difference, I guess.

NegativeInf@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 06:29 collapse

They are also against prostitutes. Sex work is work! Criminalizing it only serves to endanger those who are most at risk.

macrocephalic@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 07:39 collapse

And yet they love the man you cheated on his wife with a porn star.

admin@lemmy.my-box.dev on 25 Jul 2024 10:10 collapse

I suppose that’s one way to generalize an entire country.

macrocephalic@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 11:17 collapse

Just the people who are enacting these laws

Evotech@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 06:48 next collapse

Doublethink is a core tenant

subignition@fedia.io on 25 Jul 2024 09:23 collapse

Tenet

grue@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 10:42 collapse

And that tenet lives in their heads rent-free.

ICastFist@programming.dev on 25 Jul 2024 12:26 collapse

That filthy dirty freeloading communist tenant tenet!

simplejack@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 07:24 next collapse

They pander to the Christian nationalists for their votes. They just want power, they don’t actually hold those values.

Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 12:33 collapse

Neither do Christians, it’s the Billionaires. Need to maximize reproduction of the slaves.

Virkkunen@fedia.io on 25 Jul 2024 07:26 next collapse

There's probably a name for this just like the "author's barely disguised fetish". Usually when you see politicians campaigning this hard on topics like those, it's probably because they themselves are doing it

sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip on 25 Jul 2024 07:51 next collapse

Because we live in a ravenous corrupt oligarchy barely able to keep the appearance of a functioning democracy.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 07:58 next collapse

Pornography and prostitution are different.

One is information, allowing you to dream (maybe of stupid things), another is in the physical world.

I don’t want to think a lot of these parallels, but I’ve noticed that people close to actual government bureaucracies are in general very sceptical of imagined things against physical.

Among other things, consuming pornography doesn’t make you feel powerful, while a prostitute is a real human working for you.

Also 30s’ propaganda had traits clearly aimed at, eh, sexually dissatisfied youth.

So maybe it’s just about feeling their own power, and maybe it’s about returning that device of affecting minds. I dunno

StaySquared@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 14:38 next collapse

You just answered it… ban pornography. It doesn’t ban prostitution.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 25 Jul 2024 22:18 next collapse

It’s entirely about loyalty and institutionalized stratification. Laws are meant to constrain those outside the party, while those within the party are given a lot of latitude.

samus12345@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 23:03 collapse

Bind, not protect, protect, but not bind.

Drusas@kbin.run on 25 Jul 2024 22:22 next collapse

The politicians who are against it are the vast minority, they're just extremely vocal and irritating.

masquenox@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 23:52 next collapse

when so many keep getting caught with prostitutes sex workers?

FTFY. If you’ve ever worked for a living, you’re a prostitute - just like the rest of us.

KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 26 Jul 2024 02:24 collapse

because they’re conservative, and that’s a thing cons do for some reason. google “i know it when i see it” to get some history on how batshit insane it gets.

thorbot@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 06:57 next collapse

Don’t care I just generate my own anyway

mightyfoolish@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 01:18 collapse

A system that needs ID verification to access a site is a problem. What if it’s used for other websites as well?

thorbot@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 03:16 collapse

Then I won’t browse to them any more

mightyfoolish@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 03:36 collapse

Yeah, that could work; however, it would be a hassle. Just remember to save everything important locally.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 16:39 collapse

One step ahead of you, I’m actively replacing all of my online accounts with self-hosted alternatives. My state passed both porn ID and social media ID laws, and I assume they’ll try to add this to anything with age gates (e.g. streaming sites).

So I’m moving my stuff to my personal cloud:

  • Jellyfin - I’m going back to buying Blurays and DVDs and adding them to my own streaming service
  • NextCloud/ownCloud - still playing with it, but I got Collabora set up for docs and spreadsheets, at it supports calendar sync as well
  • Vaultwarden - working on switching from the hosted Bitwarden
  • Actual Budget - I switched from Mint -> TillerHQ (hosted at Google Docs), and this is the next step (it integrates with SimpleFIN for bank sync)

All of this is available both over my self-hosted VPN, and over the internet with certain services exposed over my domain (all use LetsEncrypt certificates). So I can access whatever I want wherever I am. I do offsite backups with Backblaze B2 ($6/month/TB), and I sync important stuff to my phone w/ syncthing.

It’s a bit of a pain, but there’s no way my state can take any of that away from me. I’ll be adding more services as I find time, and I’ve got a good system now where a new service only takes a few minutes to spin up. Basically, my setup process is:

  1. add subdomain for the service to my DNS - could use a wildcard, but I like control and ability to move things around
  2. add haproxy config at my VPS - just copy/paste like a dozen lines of config
  3. update Caddyfile on my NAS to handle the new service - again, copy like 5 lines
  4. add and configure container in my compose.yml
  5. docker compose up -d (to build the new service) followed by docker compose restart to get Caddy to reload the config

Caddy fetches the TLS certificates, and docker handles setting up the service. Unless I make a mistake. Since everything is in docker, I don’t need any ports exposed except 80 and 443, which is managed by Caddy.

I wouldn’t have bothered if Netflix had kept reasonable rates for ad-free watching, but here we are. And now my state is being a pain, so I’ll probably configure my WIFI with a VPN out of state so I don’t have to deal with the stupid ID verification crap.

mightyfoolish@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 19:41 collapse

This is fantastic. Hopefully, crazy politics will at least have a side effect of all of this self hosted software becoming easier. It’s gotten to the point where companies like Hetzner will maintain nextcloud services for a monthly fee but Caddy is already more intuitive compared to what came before it.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 19:47 collapse

Yup. I’m thinking of making a blog series or something about my setup. It’s a little complex, but the individual pieces are pretty simple, so anyone with time and interest could totally replicate it. Mine would focus on Linux, but since everything is in containers, it could easily be replicated on Windows as well.

Oh, and I’m working from the worst possible setup, I’m behind CGNAT, so I have to go through an outside server to make my internal stuff public. A lot of people can just use their router IP instead, which eliminates the VPN entirely (just port forwards from your router).

kokesh@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 07:28 next collapse

If I was a teenager, I would find a way.

TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz on 25 Jul 2024 13:47 collapse

probably just need a VPN. Or a website not hosted in the US lol

otp@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 21:14 collapse

PornHub is run by a Canadian company, and the guy looking to be our next PM wants to do the same ID thing. So that might be out too, lol

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 23:02 collapse

PornHub is already unavailable in my state because they refuse to comply (at least last I checked), but it’s totally available in the datacenter in the next state over. :)

Petter1@lemm.ee on 25 Jul 2024 09:02 next collapse

Luckily we have lemmynsfw.com 🥳

dan@upvote.au on 26 Jul 2024 03:23 collapse

Aren’t they going to have the same issue though?

Petter1@lemm.ee on 26 Jul 2024 05:03 collapse

We will see 😁

BlackLaZoR@kbin.run on 25 Jul 2024 09:40 next collapse

Papers please: for millions of Americans, accessing online pornography now requires a government ID

And I imagine everyone wants a picture of your ID. Which is horrible on so many levels...

paddirn@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 09:51 next collapse

From my cold, dead, lubricated hands!

boatsnhos931@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 10:42 next collapse

MAKE PENIS AND VAGINA ILLEGAL!!!

SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 11:53 next collapse

MAKE POINTY FOODS ILLEGAL

(I think it was “penis shaped” in the original version)

snooggums@midwest.social on 25 Jul 2024 11:57 collapse

Armpit and foot fetishists are clearly behind this ban!

ICastFist@programming.dev on 25 Jul 2024 12:24 next collapse

No doubt this is all BigVPN’s fault!

~/s~

Kolanaki@yiffit.net on 25 Jul 2024 14:51 next collapse

“If they removed porn from the internet, there would only be one website left and it would be called ‘bringbacktheporn.com.’”

cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 25 Jul 2024 17:16 next collapse

it’s not a war on porn; it’s a war on lgbtq people and content. the people pushing for these bills have straight up said that.

BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 17:27 next collapse

It’s a war on both, but especially on LGBTQ people. The fundamentalists are anti-porn in the same way that they are anti-sex in other ways, like opposing sex education.

But it is absolutely part of their strategy to define anything LGBTQ-related as sexual or pornographic, and therefore to criminalize any public visibility of LGBTQ people.

Persen@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 18:03 next collapse

It’s a war on any free speech, they don’t like. They could just add more restrictions for certain people.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 16:23 collapse

Exactly. They want to know who is saying what, which is why they’re making these services ask for ID. It’s about control, and “protecting children” is the excuse.

It’s the same reason they’re trying to ban cryptocurrencies like Monero (private, non-traceable transactions), end-to-end encryption, copyright circumvention tech, etc. They want backdoors to access all the information under the guise of “security,” but really it’s about control.

Screw all of it. Resist at every turn, and hopefully they’ll violate your rights so you can sue them (with help from groups like the ACLU) and force a policy reversal. That’s the most effective tool we’ve got.

KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 26 Jul 2024 02:22 next collapse

and also a war on porn, the war on porn is the secondary knock on effect of hating queer people.

postmateDumbass@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 02:32 next collapse

Going after the low hanging fruit are they?

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 09:25 collapse

It’s not a war, it’s a safari.

I mean, other than surveillance and control, this allows them to feel their power.

Kiernian@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 17:34 next collapse

For those wondering about the upswing here:

If the age verification movement goes unchecked, it’s possible that you could be forced to tie your government ID to much of your online activity, Gillmor says. Some civil rights groups fear it could usher in a new era of state and corporate surveillance that would transform our online behaviour.

“This is the canary in the coalmine, it isn’t just about porn,” says Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights advocacy group. Greer says age verification laws are a thinly veiled ploy to impose censorship across the web. A host of campaigners warn that these measures could be used to limit access not just to pornography, but to art, literature and basic facts about sex education and LGBTQ+ life.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 25 Jul 2024 22:59 next collapse

Yup, and this is exactly why I plan to use a VPN once my state starts enforcing this law. There’s no way I’m going to show ID to any website unless they absolutely need it. There are very few websites where that’s necessary, so I’ll just use a VPN to a neighboring state (or even to Canada) instead of complying with that nonsense.

I already have to worry about identity theft, I don’t want to make that even easier…

toynbee@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 00:07 next collapse

I don’t think there’s any website where it is necessary, excluding ones that adhere to unjustified laws.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 00:58 next collapse

I’ve had to submit it for remote work authorization, travel on a cruise line (not required, but strongly recommended), and to prove my identify for a web host when their automated check failed (that was the fastest way). So yeah, pretty rare, but still a thing.

TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org on 26 Jul 2024 04:30 collapse

I had to post a pic of it to a dispo's website in DC to buy legal weed there.

KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 26 Jul 2024 02:21 collapse

i’ve been toying with the idea of hosting deep web porn front ends. Not sure how legal it would be. But morally, you’d be on pretty good grounds.

I mean what 13 year old is using tor browser lmao.

Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 01:48 next collapse

I’m going to link my ID and look up the most mind blowingly vile, while remaining legal, porn. If they want to talk to me about it, then I am going to make them describe each video before I “remember” what I saw, after which point I will refuse to acknowledge it as porn.

Sure, it’s dumb, but it’s fun dumb.

m4xie@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 26 Jul 2024 07:56 collapse

It’s not a canary in the coal mine for censoring LGBT information and community, most of the proposed bills outright state that any LGBT related content is covered.

MehBlah@lemmy.world on 25 Jul 2024 23:21 next collapse

Not Americans in the sense I see it. Flag pissing regressives is what they are. A minority that gerrymanders their way into power and pushes their childish backward thinking on the real Americans. Many the rot in their closets from which they only emerge every four years to crash grinder.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 09:06 next collapse

It’s not childish. This is just the appearance because people are not afraid of “stupid” politicians as much as they should be.

In fact all these changes are consistent and all in one direction.

Information is power, and all these actions create a system where you can’t avoid being identified and visible in everything you do. Then the people in power, if you somehow threaten that power, may assure that you won’t anymore without any open repression, without jailing you or murdering you or even censoring you. You just won’t get anywhere near visibility or power to affect the world, and it will all seem pretty natural and chaotic, so you won’t even see your path being corrected so that you wouldn’t affect politics.

Nastybutler@lemmy.world on 27 Jul 2024 03:23 collapse

Christofacists is my preferred term.

MehBlah@lemmy.world on 27 Jul 2024 04:01 collapse

Sure that works as well but I myself prefer regressives. It speaks to their mindset that they want to take the country back to some imagined golden age. Where men were men and women were chattel. Where brown folks were not equals and it was okay to attack anyone who wasn’t them without fear of consequences.

synae@lemmy.sdf.org on 25 Jul 2024 23:50 next collapse

laughs in californian

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 01:22 next collapse

Hahaha… why? You don’t think they wouldn’t pass a national ban if they could muster the votes?

synae@lemmy.sdf.org on 26 Jul 2024 02:05 next collapse

first, I think it is easily challenged on first amendment grounds

second, I’m not an idiot and I know how to pirate shit

third, if things continue to accelerate towards disaster I believe CA is the least shitty place to enjoy a normal life (that happens to include porn, for me)

wrekone@lemmyf.uk on 26 Jul 2024 07:52 collapse

Oregon joins the chat…

barsquid@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 02:09 next collapse

They would. “States’ rights” is bullshit that they start with only when they fail to regulate at the national level. Every time.

werefreeatlast@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 02:19 collapse

Yeah, we have to stop it! Literally pussy, tits and cocks power the Internet use. I wouldn’t use it if it was just reading shit.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 16:27 collapse

Why wouldn’t they pass that in California? California loves monitoring people. Right now it’s mostly with cars (license plate readers, and now digital license plates with tracking built-in), but I really don’t see why they wouldn’t do this. They’re already starting with social media, I would assume porn would come soon after. Yeah, they have something akin to the GDPR, but that’s not at odds with tracking people, it’s just a nod so people don’t notice what they’re up to…

Screw California, they don’t care about privacy at all.

synae@lemmy.sdf.org on 26 Jul 2024 17:11 collapse

Smells like a slippery slope fallacy to me

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 17:18 next collapse

No, it’s a slippery slope argument. It’s a fallacy if and only if the claim in unlikely to follow from the initial argument.

I’m demonstrating two examples of privacy-violating policy from California, where the excuse is to help in policing. If they can tie in policing to porn/social media, I think they’ll do it. So yes, it’s a slippery slope argument, but I don’t think it’s a fallacy.

nomous@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 17:32 collapse

Yours sounds like a fallacy fallacy. Pointing out a logical error doesn’t mean the conclusion is inherently wrong.

schlegelt1@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 02:27 next collapse

First they came for the porn.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 16:18 collapse

And then they got distracted with all the porn they had to audit.

postmateDumbass@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 02:30 next collapse

3 boats of Puritans and we still all have to suffer.

ColdWater@lemmy.ca on 26 Jul 2024 04:19 next collapse

So USA slowly becoming China now? What’s next VPN users will face jail time?

GladiusB@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 07:48 next collapse

Fuck that. My VPN keeps my information safe. It’s a basic goddamn right. There ain’t no way they are taking it without me knowing about it and saying it’s ok. It may not be the best way, but it’s an easy effective way to stop most people trying to scam information.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 09:00 next collapse

You can’t hide forever and eventually you’ll be cornered and will have to fight back. It’s always better to have the initiative in choosing the field of battle. If you hide until you are cornered, it’s your enemy who has that initiative.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 16:17 collapse

VPNs don’t keep anything safe, they just make you appear as if you’re in a different location. Your information is secured by TLS, and that works with or without a VPN.

What VPNs do accomplish is improve your privacy. Since you appear like you’re from somewhere else, and you can easily change where that somewhere else is, it’s much harder to track you across sites.

I don’t see how it helps with scams though. Most scams come from data breaches, and they care far more about the data you provide to that service (credit card info, login creds, etc) than where you connect from. It’s more helpful to prevent tracking from the likes of Google and Meta.

GladiusB@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 16:52 collapse

Well that’s because identify theft is based on WHERE you live. So VPNs mitigate that information. I am not saying it will stop all, but it helps. And it’s my choice. Not some corporations.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 17:05 collapse

No, you can’t steal someone’s identity with their IP, that’s not how that works, and a regular attacker can’t figure out your IP anyway, unless you visit a website they control. And that info is pretty useless.

Identity theft happens with a breach of some service you trust. So maybe a bank will expose your SSN (or equivalent in whatever country you live in), and they’ll cross-reference that with a breach in a streaming service that has credit card info (includes name, address, etc).

A VPN won’t protect you from identity theft. Like, at all. That’s not what it’s designed for. What it does is three fold:

  • moves your IP to a different region
  • hides sites you visit from your ISP - make sure you’re using DNS over HTTP as well
  • mixes your traffic with others - mostly makes tracking more difficult

None of that has anything to do with identity theft. If your VPN claims it does, then that’s stupid marketing and they’re probably hiding other issues they have (e.g. logging policy), and you should probably use a better VPN.

GladiusB@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 17:14 collapse

As someone who has had identity theft happen and hired lawyers to fix it, I’m going to trust those close to the case. My information was definitely compromised. And what won in court? The dumbasses put a location I have never been to. Which was why it was overturned.

I do hear what you say and agree with the fundamentals of your explanation. But my experience has shown that with even your location it can cost you thousands.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 17:31 collapse

I don’t use a VPN and had someone try to steal my bank account. When they tried to scam me, they also used an invalid location. They weren’t trying to steal my identity, just my money, so it’s not quite the same thing.

That said, identity thieves are just as lazy. They usually just buy some compromised credentials on the dark web and go to town opening credit cards and loans and whatnot. They don’t compromise websites you visit to steal your location, it would be much easier to grab that from another breach (just cross-reference one breach with another).

So I’m standing by what I said, a VPN will do nothing to help here. Identity thieves and scammers don’t coordinate with hackers that compromise websites to steal your IP. If they get far enough that they’re pointing you toward a website they’ve created, a VPN isn’t going to help, they’re going after your login creds.

So again, get a VPN to hide your traffic from your ISP, limit tracking by advertisers (limited value, they can track through fingerprints), and appear to be in a different area for things like streaming services. But don’t think that a VPN protects you from fraud, that’s BS. Your best options are to freeze your credit, use secure passwords (password managers are great), enable MFA/2FA, and check your credit every so often (once or twice per year is fine).

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 13:16 next collapse

Too many American corporations rely on VPNs for that to happen. The last thing politicians want is to piss off their corporate masters.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 16:13 collapse

They mostly use self-hosted VPNs, not your regular, everyday VPN like Mullvad or Proton VPN. So they’re not going to ban the tech, but maybe they’ll try to ban the public services.

I already host my own, so they’ll have no power over me. Even if they successfully prevent me from making a VPN, I have other options (SOCKS proxies, SSH tunnels, etc).

Zink@programming.dev on 26 Jul 2024 13:23 collapse

Maybe our republicans will develop a strange love for China like they already have with Russia.

schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de on 26 Jul 2024 07:40 next collapse

We had these kinds of debates when I myself was a minor (in the late 2000s). I would have thought it would be over by now and people would have realized that allowing teenagers to watch porn isn’t actually very harmful to them at all. Seems not, humanity doesn’t get smarter over time.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 26 Jul 2024 08:59 next collapse

Humanity is smart, those making such laws 1) want the information collected by identifying people, not to forbid porn, 2) just hate autistic people. Because non-autistic teenagers will find something. But then, TBH, autistic ones too.

Dempf@lemmy.zip on 26 Jul 2024 14:14 next collapse

It was already settled long ago by the Supreme Court, but evangelicals are trying to use private action as a way around it, and I bet they’re hoping that one of several current lawsuits makes its way up to our new and corrupt court.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 16:12 next collapse

Idk, I think teenagers watching porn is harmful, but preventing them from watching it is more harmful. As a parent, you want your kids to come to you with any questions or problems, and locking down everything breaks every ounce of trust you might have with them.

My state is doing this crap, so I’m installing a VPN on my wifi to a state w/o these stupid laws so my kids can make their own choices.

dmalteseknight@programming.dev on 27 Jul 2024 00:45 next collapse

The porn landscape has changed quite a bit since the 2000s:

  • Accessibility: In those days people had the “family computer” which limited the time you could access porn and had to be extra careful as to not get caught. Nowadays you can see porn on a plethora of devices and can basically see porn 24/7.
  • Variety: Nowadays you can find porn for anything and it can get pretty dark. Porn addicts get bored of regular porn and go down a dark rabbit hole. Back in the day you had to make due with what you get or go through a lot of effort to find something you like more.

Mind you I am not saying that porn should be outright banned but there should be barriers in place. Example porn can only use the domain “xxx” so parents can add the filter to the parenting controls of whatever devices. Sure there are ways to circumvent that but it at least takes more effort.

menemen@lemmy.world on 27 Jul 2024 04:48 next collapse

Lol to the “back in the day porn was safer”. Back innthe day the worst stuff was openly distributed on normal porn sites. It was actually difficult not to stumble over illegal ot really disturbing stuff when browsing those sites. And don’t get me started on the stuff people send you on some irc servers unasked (that was more in the late 90s though).

Even non porn sites could be bad. Like one time I was browsing a non-porn anime site and suddenly landed on a porn site that had me scared the police might kick in my door, despite closing it immediately after it opened.

This, luckily, is a lot better regulated nowadays.

I give you accessibility though. Having a internet connected computer in you pocket 24/7 might make things much worse.

dmalteseknight@programming.dev on 27 Jul 2024 08:08 collapse

I might have worded my comment poorly. I did not mean to insinuate that it was “safer” but that there is more variety. That is, it is easier to find 18th century toaster porn today than back in the 2000s.

CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world on 27 Jul 2024 11:52 collapse

Porn addicts get bored of regular porn and go down a dark rabbit hole.

This has been disproven over and over. The only people who go to the “darker stuff” are people who are already inclined. They just work themselves up to it by going through the regular stuff.

It’s the same thing with serial killers, they warm up to it with animals. Which is why someone killing animals is a massive warning sign.

No, I’m not comparing serial killers to porn addicts. I’m comparing the process of warming up to the extreme stuff by first doing the less extreme stuff.

untorquer@lemmy.world on 27 Jul 2024 04:25 collapse

Biggest problem is that generic production stuff too often models bad sex, a cartoon version of sex that’s not healthy or pleasurable for anyone, let alone unsafe.

Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 15:20 next collapse

This should give the dems all they need.

“You do what you need to do in that voting booth, we don’t judge”.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 26 Jul 2024 16:10 collapse

I hope they have some disinfectant wipes at each booth…

Eggyhead@lemmings.world on 26 Jul 2024 18:03 collapse

A side thought: what would the world look like if you needed to be 18+ to make a social media account?

untorquer@lemmy.world on 27 Jul 2024 04:15 next collapse

I assume practically the same in terms of child safety. Teens will find a way around or a more underground alternative to hang out with each other online.

To your question: More headaches and invasion of privacy for everyone due to enforcement. How do you enforce it other than state issued ID? It would also exclude a lot of people who either don’t have that ID or don’t have access to it. Then there’s the whole question if whether you want the government to know what media you’re interacting with. For legal reasons the social media company would need to keep evidence on file of your identification, if not report it. Keeping is regardless of whether it’s part of that law, CYA and all.

fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works on 27 Jul 2024 04:51 collapse

Define social media and then imagine a constant argument of semantics where online communities get destroyed and created based on law suites.