Pornhub goes dark in Arkansas after age verification law kicks in::Pornhub operator MindGeek has blocked all users in Arkansas from the site after the state’s new age verification law went into effect.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Pornhub operator MindGeek has blocked all users in Arkansas from the site after the state’s new age verification law went into effect on Tuesday.

    The Arkansas law, SB 66, doesn’t ban Pornhub from operating in the state, but it requires porn sites to verify that a user is 18 by confirming their age with identifying documents.

    On Wednesday, Pornhub blocked all traffic from IP addresses based in Arkansas in protest, arguing that the law, which was intended to protect children, actually harms users.

    “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,” MindGeek wrote in a message replacing the site’s front page for affected users.

    Responding to this wave of bans, MindGeek has decided to block access to its sites from states where the laws have gone into effect.

    So, instead of rolling out age verification systems, it says it decided to block access entirely, calling on users to contact their state representatives to oppose these laws.


    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

      • XTL@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Having one in link posts really should be mandatory in the rules for most communities

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I appear to be in the small minority, but I do not think we should be relying on an AI to summarize stories for us because the AI doesn’t actually know what are important details.

          • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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            1 year ago

            Author of the bot here, so obviously biased, but the bot so far is doing really great at picking the important parts. And sure, it doesn’t know, but it’s really good at guessing and I dare say better than many actual people would be at picking 6 sentences to summarize the article.

    • Prox@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What is the expectation for compliance here? Are users supposed to scan their physical ID and upload that to PH, then PH checks age against that?

      • FriendlyBeagleDog@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        The bill says that commercial entities serving pornography are required to do age verification through either verifying a driver’s license, verifying another piece of government-issued identification, or through the use of any commercially viable age verification mechanism.

        So, yeah, I’d imagine compliance to look like either uploading a photograph or scan of an identity card or document for the site operators to check, or uploading it to an affiliated service which does age verification on their behalf.

        Which is obviously horrendous from a privacy and information security standpoint for the consumer, and exposes the site operator to costs and legal risk associated with verifying and storing sensitive personal information.

    • Iron Lynx@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      For a party that prides itself on being all about “small government” and “no nanny state,” this is some surprisingly big government nanny state shenanigans

    • canni@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      In fairness, this is a state law. States rights being part of the Republican platform during my childhood. Just another reason not to go to/live in Arkansas

      • Saneless@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Republicans only cry States Rights when the federal government is attempting to make someone’s life better or when they want to take something away

      • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        They used to claim they wanted a small government meaning not telling people what to Jack off to. It wasn’t solely about the federal government. Of course if you ask them you quickly find out it’s freedom for them to do anything they want while subjecting all of us to disgusting fascist fascinations

    • lingh0e@lemmy.film
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      1 year ago

      To be fair, porn is a little lower on the “first they came for the -----” list than he was probably expecting. He likely thought he had a few more marginalized groups to take the fall before the leopards started eating HIS face. But yeah, reap what you sow.

  • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Dang, if kids just had some kind of guardians that would be responsible for their media consumption while every media device out there had basic functionality to support such supervision.

    • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      It is completely unrealistic to control kids media consumption after a certain age without also infringing on their rights to privacy. Basically, you can’t do it right as a parent. You are either helicopter parenting or you aren’t controlling enough. It’s funny how we shift blame entirely to parents on this while ignoring that it’s an impossible task. And I am not even a parent.

      • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Every phone and computer has parental control options that allow for as much control as you feel necessary. And obviously as you kids gets older you have to trust in your upbringing - but that’s also completely on you, to teach your kids to deal with modern media.

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          No, not every phone and computer has parental control options. What about the PCs at libraries and schools? What about older siblings? Other students? Friends of the kid? It’s completely unrealistic to claim parents should just supervise every media usage.

          People also aren’t robots where you put “upbringing” in and get predictable results. You can teach them all you want, unless you completely ignore all privacy rights of your children, you won’t be able to control their media consumption.

          • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            No, not every phone and computer has parental control options.

            Which one don’t have one? And even if there are few - it’s not hard to get one with for your kids.

            What about the PCs at libraries and schools?

            Even in my day and age we had restricted access to things on our school pc - learning to get around it was the only useful thing I learned in those classes. But here the same, there are software solutions to control access on local machines.

            What about older siblings? Other students? Friends of the kid?

            What about them? They all also have parents or people responsible for them.

            It’s completely unrealistic to claim parents should just supervise every media usage.

            Because they should not. They should teach children to use media and gradually trust them more and more to make their own decisions. Like with everything else.

            You can teach them all you want, unless you completely ignore all privacy rights of your children, you won’t be able to control their media consumption.

            And as I said, you should not -you should teach them and then learn to trust them - that’s hard part of being a parent, you don’t have control over your childs life.

            • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              Which one don’t have one?

              The ones I mentioned directly after… Please, do not quote out of context.

              I feel like people miss the context of the original content and put words in my mouth. I was referring to the claim that parents can “simply” supervise, and should supervise, all media consumption of their children. Which I argue is impossible without infringing on the children’s rights of privacy.

              It’s like people misinterpret my point with intent. Or there is a huge language barrier I can not comprehend.

              You can not supervise every media consumption of your children. That is all I wanted to say. I didn’t even comment upon whether or not and how good it works (or not) to teach your children about responsible media consumption. That’s a whole different topic.

  • Ilovethebomb@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Who in their right mind would expect a free porn site to go to this level of hassle?

    Or is this a puritanical measure in disguise?

    • Spacemanspliff@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s the second one. I saw article where they talked how Florida was the first to pass it, pornhub put time and money into developing what they needed to comply and saw a 90% decrease in traffic because nobody wants to hand over their ID for free porn.

    • CoderKat@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Especially since PornHub has an excellent point. Even though they theoretically could do an ID check, the sketchier porn sites simply wouldn’t. All these laws would do is push minors to use more dangerous porn sites. They’re not going to not watch porn just because the big, law abiding site checks IDs.

  • elxeno@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Didn’t read the bill cause pdf and cause it’s a bill, but found another article describing it, and it says at the end:

    The bill also would apply to material that as a whole lacks serious “literary, artistic, political, and scientific value for minors.”

    Isn’t that like 99% of the internet?

    • key@lemmy.keychat.org
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      1 year ago

      Why are you against Pdf files?

      Edit: Though reading my question out loud I get it…

        • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          “Now?”

          PDF files have been widely hated for as long as they have existed. They’re good for printing and not much else. Definitely not a user-friendly substitute for a text file or web page.

          • nik282000@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            The are a requirement for distributing a document that has to look the same on every device. I don’t love them and Adobe can go take a flying fuck but if I NEED to make sure that my boss doesn’t alter a document it has to be a PDF.

      • elxeno@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Just don’t like opening on phone, my browser doesn’t open, so it asks to download, then i end up with a bunch of random useless files there. Don’t u skip search results that lead to pdfs?

  • Glowstick@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Xhamster is now requiring personal identification for EVERYONE in the whole US, not just in Arkansas. WTF?!

  • atlem@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Is this a scheme of VPN providers? Do they pay off politicians?

    • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There are still tons of porn sites that don’t give a fuck about those state laws and don’t comply. No VPN needed, just browse to an unblocked site.

      They can’t force compliance of foreign hosts anyway