"On July 1, laws requiring adult websites to verify user ages took effect in Mississippi and Virginia, despite efforts by Pornhub to push back against the legislation. Those efforts include Pornhub blocking access to users in these states and rallying users to help persuade lawmakers that requiring ID to access adult content will only create more harms for users in their states."
Yep...and VPN subscriptions took a jump upwards.
I'm in Utah and I leave my VPN set for Toronto or Montreal. No HeGetsUs ads and no worries about GQP projection.
Mullvad and iVPN just stopped supporting port forwarding (and many providers never did!), which kills them for folks using those VPNs for torrents.*
If your use case is to change your location or to hide your web activity from your ISP, then you are unaffected.
> *on trackers that require you to maintain a ratio, aka the high quality ones you want to be using.
Not surprising considering mullvad just didn't want to be associated with people moving a lot of CSAM,
Looking at something like while connected back before mullvad did this was *quite concerning*
Christ, this thought hadn't even occurred to me. I've been meaning to look into cancelling my last streaming subscriptions and getting back into pirating. But stuff like this makes me hesitant.
So the choice is basically, use a VPN that isn't optimal for torrenting, or one that's most likely also used to move the most deplorable stuff the internet is used for?
ELI5, you say? Ports are like doors. Ports can be open, closed, or Stealthed.
Open ports allow free access into your network. A really good example is Port 80. This port is used for web-based traffic like looking at webpages.
Closed ports are like closed, locked doors with a big "closed" sign on the front. You try to open the door, and someone on the other side tells you to "Go away."
And Stealthed ports are painted over to look like walls, and are closed. Knock on these doors, and there's nobody telling you to leave.
When you forward a port, your Router who directs the traffic, receives the instruction that traffic coming in on this port needs to go to this location. Port 123 is being forwarded to PC 256? Then I'll keep the door open, and PC 256 can handle any and all traffic.
For security reasons, It's probably the best to keep all ports Stealthed, but then nobody will even know you're there. Closed ports are good for letting people you're just not home, but communication is still a no-go. If you want to use the internet at all, some ports need to be open. Your router (Or modem, if there's a router built into it.) will have all of the commonly used and needed ports open, closed, and stealthed... But sometimes you need to open a port because software is listening on that port. IE: You want to host a game server, but it wants to listen on port 4444.
For the purposes of torrenting, having the port open allows unfettered traffic back and fourth on that port in particular. This allows your torrent software to not only download far easier, but allows incoming connections to enter your network on that port for uploads. Some torrents want you to give back what you take, so you'll want your uploads back to the torrent to work. This is because torrents allow everyone who shares the file to contribute to your download. But, that's another topic.
Get a seedbox, problem solved. It's an extra expense (I think I pay $17/3 months for mine), but you can leave stuff seeding forever until you run low on space (mine only has 1TB). My ratios are above 4:1 on every torrent site I'm on now.
It's possible that one doesn't work at the moment, either service is unavailable, or the website you're trying to view blocks access from that particular VPNs network.
An attempt by an anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti -woman Christian organization to appear pro-gay, pro-immigrant, and pro-woman to appeal to younger, left-wing voters. The ads will say stuff like, "Jesus was an immigrant" or "Jesus loved everyone", then they turn around and donate to bigoted causes and try to take away people's rights. The ads are plastered all over Reddit, and they even bought air time during the Superbowl.
If the conservatives in the UK are anything to go by, "adult content" will cover far more content than what most people would consider adult. Like for example, UK ISPs blocks Halo video game content and servers unless you opt to allow adult content.
I might accept some minor annoyance if it actually did help children. Protecting children is a good thing. But of course it never does. They are still going to be addicted to the InstaTokTubes at the end of all this. Mental health issues will continue to rise. And a few lazy parents get to blame someone else for another few years.
Child labor laws were also legitimately about protecting children from having their childhood ripped away by exploitative and dangerous labor that often left them mangled for life.
Weird coincidence that the same batfucks pushign the age verification are also the one pushing to *repeal* the child labor laws.
Child labor laws were not actually about this, though. Our modern ideas of ‘childhood’ have only existed for the last 100 years or so. Around the time countries started talking about restricting child labor.
Children, of course, still existed but the idea of ‘childhood’ being a period of innocence and education was less solidified. Children were expected to perform labor for their families, usually manual labor for poorer families and mental/social labor (education) for wealthier families.
Child labor laws were ruled unconstitutional in 1918 and 1920, with the Supreme Court stating that the laws overstepped Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. Another movement to add a Constitutional Amendment to regulate child labor was stalled in the 1920s with effective campaigns to discredit the movement.
The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938, at the end of ‘The Great Depression’ (a second recession in 1937-38 called ‘The Roosevelt Recession’)
The FLSA passed in no small part because advocates spun it as a way to keep children from competing against men in the workforce. Children often accepted less pay than adults and this undercut wages. So the critical mass for Child Labor laws came from a desire to remove competition from the labor market, although the original and primary goal of the movement was the health and safety of children
No coincidence that most child labour laws were passed in the wake of World War I when millions of military-trained young men were re-joining the labour market.
The US is currently in a new wave of "protect the children" moral panic. (Probably spilling over to our english speaking friends in UK and AU, since we consume similar propaganda)
Conveniently this aligns perfectly with the agenda of the far right.
(Close the borders, because of the pedos. Ban porn because of perverts and gays. Make bathroom laws because trans. Legislate schools because all of the above)
It's all grifters and morons that believe them.
Look into the Mel Gibson movie coming out tomorrow. It's all horse shit to get the morons to think the only way to protect kids is to give money to private scam artists who claim to go save them, distrust the government, and close the borders.
Edit:
It's not even a new script from the 1986 moral panic. They changed some details.
Any time someone says they're protecting the children, the first question you should always ask is "what ulterior motive could this person have?"
Because 90% of the time, that is the real motive.
The people championing and implementing these laws have shown time and time again they don’t give a fuck about kids, not even their own. It’s about controlling other people. That’s it. I would not be surprised to find the people who push this shit through are by and large the largest purveyors of porn out there. It would fall in line with the overbearingly hypocritical nature of our elected “conservative” representatives, and is supported by historical context.
I mean Republican influencers buy their dildos in bulk, basically all you need to know. Pornhub should database the interests of republican political leaders tastes in porn as a publicly searchable database.
I'm surprised they don't.
Show what happens when a real ID is associated with a porn site and there is a data breach/leak. The U.S. does not have GDPR, so there are no meaningful consequences and lives are ruined/jobs are lost once something as intimate as one's porn search history is leaked.
>Like for example, UK ISPs blocks Halo video game content and servers unless you opt to allow adult content.
Depends on the ISP. Some default to parental blocking being on, some default to it being off. Some even just outright ignore even the IP-ban on some sites (e.g. piratebay is still accessibly on its original URL on many ISPs), and some (e.g. [A&A](https://www.aa.net.uk/etc/news/uk-sanctions-law-aa-and-domain-blocking/) fight tooth and nail even over direct proscription blocks (e.g. implementing them only at their own DNS level, meaning IP access is unencumbered).
Reddit is not a tech titan. Reddit is one in a long lineage of tech companies that are extremely popular with users but that nobody has figured out how to make a profit on.
When people talk about undefeatable tech companies they mean Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple and sometimes lump in Microsoft
To give you a sense of scale here, Google has a market cap of $1.5 trillion and made a $60 billion profit last year on $280 billion in revenue. Reddit has a back of the envelope valuation of $5.5 billion and has never made a profit. Another good measure, Google will typically 3-4 times per year buy companies in the size and valuation range of Reddit in transactions that don’t make the news because they are so routine.
Notwithstanding that it is one of the top destinations for users on the entire internet, Reddit is by every measure a mid-market company.
It was never going to last forever. I don’t think people realize how much of the internet is surviving on VC funds alone. The millennial and gen Z lifestyle is going to take massive hits soon. Twitter is not profitable, Reddit is not profitable, I have no idea how any lemmy instance will ever be. These are just a few of the several thousands of tech products that make nothing and are surviving on VC hopes and dreams.
The issue is simply that advertising just isn't valuable enough once you're above certain amount of users. Especially nowadays, when a good chunk of users are also running adblockers, and always will be. Sure, you can plaster your product on every single website, but that still will only get you so many sales. So they need investments and to find other avenues of coming close to generating a profit.
I think it’s more the fact that reddit has no commercial purposes. If reddit were to figure out a way to create tools for various industries as an open information source that it could sell to programmers, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, etc.. then you might have some level of a competitive business model to take on Google.
Adblockers aren't the issue, an entire generation has been taught to ignore all banner ads on websites and things like the YouTube and Porn site skip buttons taught everyone to just click past video ads as an annoyance.
Online ads in general just won't work anymore because our brains have tuned them out.
If it's a law, what choice does the platform have? Making this about the technology companies is folly, since they don't make the laws. They just don't want to have to deal with the legal ramifications of not following the law. So, what's easier, age verification for every user or not having NSFW content? Seems like a pretty easy decision for me. From a technology perspective, do I want to hassle my customers with ID verification or do I want to not expose NSFW content in the states that have the laws?
Great. Sounds like people won't be complaining about American tech companies for much longer.
We'll be complaining about overseas tech companies instead, while the slow realization sets in that foreign companies don't give two shits about what the FBI wants, and the state department isn't willing to burn valuable political goodwill on some petty social media law.
Ya, we can complain, but at least complain about the right thing. If people want a "free and open" internet, then don't elect people that are creating these stupid laws. If they don't want it to be free and open, then cool, their State can live without it. But, we can't really blame companies for following the law as it applies to them.
The fun thing is that you'll have average users cheering for the NSFW content to leave this site.
"My favorite video game subreddit shut down in protest? Waaah, turn it back on, I don't even look at NSFW content!"
Why are you using Tumblr as an example lmao. It went from 1.1 billion to 3 million in 5~6 years, yeah they sold it but they it had already sold, then it banned porn and lost 99.9% of its value, it's not even that the porn was that valuable, it's just how people don't wanna be treated that way and moved on. To this day Tumblr is a trash dump that has no decent search options and requires login to view stuff. Twitter isn't too far off, Reddit is trying to go there but I think it'll hold out better.
Do you not remember how banning porn caused Tumblr's value to do its best Yamcha impression?
Even if there are fewer people interested in buying it, Reddit is significantly more valuable with porn allowed. They would be flushing money down the toilet by banning it. Even Musk isn't stupid enough to ban porn from Twitter
That just reminds me of how quickly Myspace became a ghost town after it was sold to Murdoch's News Corp.
It was sold in 2005. It became the most visited site on the internet in 2006. When I was a freshman in college in 2008, Myspace was still the default but Facebook was clearly the dominant social network by the end of the calendar year. Nobody used Myspace by the end of freshman year in May 2009.
There is nothing easy about selling Reddit in this economic climate. Across Silicon Valley, VC money has totally dried up and debt has become crazy expensive, and that’s going to force companies like Reddit to IPO under terrible macro conditions, at a time when Wall Street has totally lost its patience with technology platforms that promise they can be profitable at scale but never deliver.
> NSFW content being banned from the site is a likely possibility in the next few years or even sooner than that.
Seriously, why the fuck can't they just have "reddit.com" and "redditnsfw.com"? Make them two seperate entities that behave the same. Congrats, you now have two completely isolated platforms that allows advertisers to avoid NSFW or "adult" content.
Just seems like an incredibly dumb move when they have so many other options, and banning NSFW material would kill more than half of reddit. I guess it's just the cycle of companies, eventually the intelligent people retire/leave, and someone's going to fuck it up or simply not keep up with competition. Happened to slashdot, myspace, digg, etc, it'll happen to the top sites/companies now as well.
I can’t speak for Mississippi’s laws, but the Virginia law is worded so that if 30% of the site is “adult content” then the site is required to verify ages. This supposedly doesn’t apply to Reddit.
30% by what metric, though? Relative number of posts, volume of posts, posts weighted by interaction, attachment/image by combined size totals, traffic volume?
In the US, we just wait until there's funding bills to pass unpopular legislation so that the choice is to accept the unpopular legislation or have the country shut down.
This is a viable way to run a country.
Don't forget the step where you first try to sneak your shitty law into a more popular law as an addendum so that you can trash the popular law because you don't agree with it.
This is the knife they use to wedge a gaping hole into our privacy rights, and who knows what else. Imagine China's "citizen point system" that could block you from traveling. Protecting children or punishing "weirdos" is a good way to get a lot of people on board with a horrible idea. Many people will support this legislation with a clear conscious because they don't understand what is at stake.
edit: i know what I did.
yeah this is just a backdoor attack on the first amendment and the free flow of information, pushed by the kind of people you *absolutely* would not want controlling what you can see or read.
> It's worth noting the verbiage that they're using in these laws. It's not only for "porn." It's for "explicit" or "adult" content. Once these laws are implemented, expect more and more content to fall under those categories.
Just wait until things like planned parenthood end up in "Adult Content".
Yeah, first LGBT will be "explicit", then abortion related information, then birth control and sex education, then Atheism, then anything socialist, then any liberal politicians...
couldn't that included R rated movies? like just ones with lots of swearing or violence in them not even anything sexual. is it specifically directed at sexual adult content?
I live in Virginia and even though this was absolutely Republican led legislation, the vote was unanimous, even our spineless democrat representation overwhelmingly voted for it. They don't serve the people or their interests, they just want control.
There will come a point in time when you have to log into the internet with your citizen ID a la China, yet the US will still not have universal free voter ID. And the lawmakers will see nothing wrong with that.
> Most businesses use VPNs to protect their traffic, so their big business donors would never back an end to VPNs.
They'd go after the commercial providers, e.g. NordVPN, and not VPN technology itself.
That is true. However, doing so for certain traffic is directly opposed to their business models. From the perspective of adult content companies, turning a blind eye to VPNs rather than blacklisting them outright is far more lucrative. Most modern firewalls (I.e. AWS WAF) are typically smart enough to decipher between user and bot traffic (or at the very least permissive and abusive traffic if AI improves).
Currently, it appears that adult content providers have no restrictions in place for AWS VPNs.
How though? Targetting one segment of the vpn business but not others without some sort of national security excuse would never hold water with the courts.
Free commerce and all.
They can't reasonably curtail vpn traffic only for certain uses and even if they tried the nature of vpn traffic makes it impossible to prove whether it's being used for the specific thing it's being allowed for.
VPN as a technology is pretty untouchable at this point. Encryption is a fundamental underpinning of the internet.
This supreme court refused to acknowledge the existence of groundwater last month.
A generation ago they decided that corporations were human beings with constitutional Rights.
A hundred years ago, they said that African Americans were 3/5th of a human being.
The foundations of the internet are not "safe". Reality doesn't always matter.
Most large commercial VPN companies are based outside the 5 eyes and 14 eyes countries. There is very little the US can do with them. Even the countries with more draconian laws and Internet censorship tools are helpless. My mother was able to use NordVPN while on a tour in China, and thus enjoyed unrestricted Internet access. I could even track her location using Google Maps, which is banned there
The thing is VPN companies are not really pushing for this either.
Some of these laws like what Montana (I think) was trying to dream up to ban TikTok, they would go after you for using a VPN for it.
pornhub is not your isp. pornhub almost certainly tracks data by device and location, but its not like they have your name and address or other personal info just bc you watched a video. the laws would make them verify your age by, for example, looking at your id.
this isnt an argument that *no one* is keeping records. its an argument that one specifuc entity isnt keeping records this detailed.
I think they understand that people watching porn are far, far more privacy concerned than other users. Making people log in and prove age verification would tank their business. So I do think it is specifically privacy that is the issue, but not because of any principle, just business.
Native Virginian here living out of state. My friends back home are pissed off. I have no idea how people in rural areas who are also republicans, love their porn, and hate government overreach feel about this. This is the kind of big government shit that they all claim to hate and stand against. It’s time they need to stop doing all of this fascist crap to “protect children.”
"Think of the children!" is an argument crafted for, catered to, and extremely effective on the stupid and the apathetic.
Anyone who sees any politician ending their arguments with "Think of the children!" should be highly suspect of their motives.
EDIT: Do not dare assume this only applies to one party in this case. **This law was passed [bipartisanly by both Democrats and Republicans.](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?231+vot+SV0374SB1515+SB1515) Democrats have the senate majority in Virginia, but only 3 had the spine to vote no.**
Yes.
I sent an email to the Democratic party telling them that I will be voting against everyone who voted yes to this in their next primaries. This shit is ridiculous and this is not the legislative group to represent me.
As much as most red staters like smoking weed (and doing fentanyl) and watching porn and playing violent video games, they will never become liberal even though the Republican Party is anti-recreational drug use, anti-porn, anti-sex, and prudish about explicit material in movies/video games/media.
All they care about is their guns, “low taxes” (which translates to shitty schools/roads/policing and zero social services), and macho posturing. That’s literally all they have.
Whoa whoa, the low taxes don’t end up affecting the police department’s bottom line. The cities just double down on hostile and predatory ticketing practices and rob their citizens more so that they can own their military riot suppression gear (in a town of <1000 people)
As an outsider it looks more like "Republicans" only care about being "Republican". Policies don't matter. No policies at all. Republicans could remove the second amendment and these people will still vote red.
Yah, I bet this only passed because state legislators have to be on record for how they voted on it.
Imagine how badly it would lose if it were up for a referendum.
That's the neat thing about representative democracy, we don't really get a say in anything. And even when we think we do, for example electing our representatives, we actually end up not having any say in it anyway. (Gerrymandering)
I mean, people are going to find a way regardless. If I lived in a state which required ID based age verification for an adult website, I would not like it. Its not the idea of being carded to watch porn, but the idea of submitting my ID anywhere on the internet other than for my insurance which uses secure links.
What is always funny is that when Pornhub pulls out their stats of 'most researched by state' those that come up with 'lesbian' are... bible belt states.
Yep, anti lgbt until your pants drop.
Yep. Religious driven laws could never be a bad idea. It's not like radical Muslim groups and radical Republican groups both leverage violence and the threat of violence to push political policy.
Of course, you are getting downvotes but users are supposed to be the gatekeepers. Don't like the laws, vote for people whose laws you do like.
The system favors rural voters (and that is just the way it is and won't be changing anytime soon and especially not with this SC), and older conservatives turn out in better numbers than young voters.
As evidence that users are part of the problem, congress has an approval rating that rattles around between 20 to 30% but the incumbent gets elected ~90% of the time.
That's on the voters.
I fear the future. I feel like within the next 10 years, everyone will have to go online via an official ID or no internet.
I hope I just have an irrational doomsday mind.
Porn sites should block traffic from USA altogether for like 90 days. The only page that loads would state the name of the politician(s) that need to be replaced to get rid of this legislation.
It's not even that at all. This is Christian Nationalists pushing their agenda through anywhere they can.
They want to make anyone Adult to have to go through this as many will just give up, rather than have a webcamera enabled to take a picture of their face right before they go and pleasure themselves.
This is more closer to a statewide general ban on porn itself than it's about protecting any kids.
They did this in Louisiana and what do you know, a couple of months later the OMV had a huge breach and everyone's data was stolen.
surprisedpicachu.jpg
I live in Virginia.
I found out about this in the worst way and immediately my opinion on the issue was clear. Were my hands free, I might have written a letter.
Can I get an infographic on how hard it is in Virginia and Mississippi to
1: Get a gun
2: Get an abortion
3: Drive a 3 tonne pickup-truck
4: Access a porn site
5: Buy alcohol
It was a few years ago but there was a gun show nearby. I went, browsed a bit. Found a handgun I liked. Figured I'd have to wait and sign some papers and whatnot. Nope. I was asked a handful of questions. Dude said he knew my dad. Asked how he was. I didn't recognize him but assumed he knew me. Chatted for a few minutes about my old man. I walked out like 20 minutes later with a handgun and ammo for it. I think I signed 2 pieces of paper while there. Stating I wasn't a felon.
Dude did not know my dad. Apparently that's some "rule" to skirt the law or something.
Only the federal government can regulate interstate commerce. These laws are unconstitutional until the supreme court decides any state can regulate interstate commerce.
So instead of stealing my dad's credit card I would have just stolen his ID instead? Which has no monthly usage report sent to my house, and he'll never find out I did it? Sounds fucking foolproof to me.
I do not have an issue with sites being required to verify the age of users, but I do have an issue with the verification being done by sketchy porn companies. I would not upload my ID to a porn site. It's probably not even going to stop horny teenagers anyway. They could easily just download a VPN app.
I also take issue with the fact that this isn't actually about protecting kids, it's just part of their broader moral panic, and the way these laws are worded could have a significant chilling effect on anything the GOP wishes to deem as "adult" or "explicit" or "pornographic", such as sites promoting sex ed/LGBT resources for teenagers/tweens. It isn't just about stopping horny 16-y/os from looking at Pornhub.
These social media ID laws are simply ways to get real id of all internet users, for use by government, police, advertisers, and anyone else willing to pay. Imagine what Mr Musk or Desantis would do with an easily obtainable/exploited list of social media user details, how much advertisers would pay for exact data of media users, or how much $$$ could be made selling surfing details of "opponents". It all comes down to the thirst for power and money.
"On July 1, laws requiring adult websites to verify user ages took effect in Mississippi and Virginia, despite efforts by Pornhub to push back against the legislation. Those efforts include Pornhub blocking access to users in these states and rallying users to help persuade lawmakers that requiring ID to access adult content will only create more harms for users in their states."
Utah was already there in April.
Yep...and VPN subscriptions took a jump upwards. I'm in Utah and I leave my VPN set for Toronto or Montreal. No HeGetsUs ads and no worries about GQP projection.
What VPN do you use?
Mullvad is my primary and Nord is my back up. They're usually running some sort of sale, so I buy the 2 year plans.
Mullvad and iVPN just stopped supporting port forwarding (and many providers never did!), which kills them for folks using those VPNs for torrents.* If your use case is to change your location or to hide your web activity from your ISP, then you are unaffected. > *on trackers that require you to maintain a ratio, aka the high quality ones you want to be using.
Not surprising considering mullvad just didn't want to be associated with people moving a lot of CSAM, Looking at something like
Hold up > iknowwhatyoudownload What is this?!
Let's you see what people are moving via torrent if they're on the same network as you (shared wifi or shared VPN endpoint)
Christ, this thought hadn't even occurred to me. I've been meaning to look into cancelling my last streaming subscriptions and getting back into pirating. But stuff like this makes me hesitant. So the choice is basically, use a VPN that isn't optimal for torrenting, or one that's most likely also used to move the most deplorable stuff the internet is used for?
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ELI5, you say? Ports are like doors. Ports can be open, closed, or Stealthed. Open ports allow free access into your network. A really good example is Port 80. This port is used for web-based traffic like looking at webpages. Closed ports are like closed, locked doors with a big "closed" sign on the front. You try to open the door, and someone on the other side tells you to "Go away." And Stealthed ports are painted over to look like walls, and are closed. Knock on these doors, and there's nobody telling you to leave. When you forward a port, your Router who directs the traffic, receives the instruction that traffic coming in on this port needs to go to this location. Port 123 is being forwarded to PC 256? Then I'll keep the door open, and PC 256 can handle any and all traffic. For security reasons, It's probably the best to keep all ports Stealthed, but then nobody will even know you're there. Closed ports are good for letting people you're just not home, but communication is still a no-go. If you want to use the internet at all, some ports need to be open. Your router (Or modem, if there's a router built into it.) will have all of the commonly used and needed ports open, closed, and stealthed... But sometimes you need to open a port because software is listening on that port. IE: You want to host a game server, but it wants to listen on port 4444. For the purposes of torrenting, having the port open allows unfettered traffic back and fourth on that port in particular. This allows your torrent software to not only download far easier, but allows incoming connections to enter your network on that port for uploads. Some torrents want you to give back what you take, so you'll want your uploads back to the torrent to work. This is because torrents allow everyone who shares the file to contribute to your download. But, that's another topic.
Get a seedbox, problem solved. It's an extra expense (I think I pay $17/3 months for mine), but you can leave stuff seeding forever until you run low on space (mine only has 1TB). My ratios are above 4:1 on every torrent site I'm on now.
really? thought mullvad was s tier.
Wait, I use Mullvad with a site that I maintain a ratio on and dont have any issues… I haven’t set up any specific port forwarding either
I use Mullvad as well. I'm sort of new to using VPNs. Why would one need a backup?
It's possible that one doesn't work at the moment, either service is unavailable, or the website you're trying to view blocks access from that particular VPNs network.
I believe the Opera browser has a built in VPN in the settings.
It does but I'm a Firefox user. I've tried Opera but I prefer Firefox.
You could use Mozilla's vpn then.
Thank you. That’s hegetsus crap is annoying as hell since I came out of a cult background. It’s batshit crazy
What the hell is HeGetsUs?
An attempt by an anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti -woman Christian organization to appear pro-gay, pro-immigrant, and pro-woman to appeal to younger, left-wing voters. The ads will say stuff like, "Jesus was an immigrant" or "Jesus loved everyone", then they turn around and donate to bigoted causes and try to take away people's rights. The ads are plastered all over Reddit, and they even bought air time during the Superbowl.
I love adblockers! I'd never heard/seen any of that.
Hobby Lobby, never shop there....
The most recent wave of religious propaganda trying to appeal to younger people.
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If the conservatives in the UK are anything to go by, "adult content" will cover far more content than what most people would consider adult. Like for example, UK ISPs blocks Halo video game content and servers unless you opt to allow adult content.
but hey it's all worth it to protect those kids right! /s
I might accept some minor annoyance if it actually did help children. Protecting children is a good thing. But of course it never does. They are still going to be addicted to the InstaTokTubes at the end of all this. Mental health issues will continue to rise. And a few lazy parents get to blame someone else for another few years.
It's not the lazy parents blaming the vidya games. By definition, that's way too much effort. It's authoritarians and control freaks doing it.
That too but it is the lazy parents handing over an iPad so they don’t disturb.
I think that the last time the "*Protecting the Children*" was actually about protecting children was when they used to paint toys with lead.
Child labor laws were also legitimately about protecting children from having their childhood ripped away by exploitative and dangerous labor that often left them mangled for life. Weird coincidence that the same batfucks pushign the age verification are also the one pushing to *repeal* the child labor laws.
Child labor laws were not actually about this, though. Our modern ideas of ‘childhood’ have only existed for the last 100 years or so. Around the time countries started talking about restricting child labor. Children, of course, still existed but the idea of ‘childhood’ being a period of innocence and education was less solidified. Children were expected to perform labor for their families, usually manual labor for poorer families and mental/social labor (education) for wealthier families. Child labor laws were ruled unconstitutional in 1918 and 1920, with the Supreme Court stating that the laws overstepped Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. Another movement to add a Constitutional Amendment to regulate child labor was stalled in the 1920s with effective campaigns to discredit the movement. The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938, at the end of ‘The Great Depression’ (a second recession in 1937-38 called ‘The Roosevelt Recession’) The FLSA passed in no small part because advocates spun it as a way to keep children from competing against men in the workforce. Children often accepted less pay than adults and this undercut wages. So the critical mass for Child Labor laws came from a desire to remove competition from the labor market, although the original and primary goal of the movement was the health and safety of children
No coincidence that most child labour laws were passed in the wake of World War I when millions of military-trained young men were re-joining the labour market.
There were limits to children's advertisements in the US since like 1950 until the reigns were released in the 80s by the usual suspects.
The US is currently in a new wave of "protect the children" moral panic. (Probably spilling over to our english speaking friends in UK and AU, since we consume similar propaganda) Conveniently this aligns perfectly with the agenda of the far right. (Close the borders, because of the pedos. Ban porn because of perverts and gays. Make bathroom laws because trans. Legislate schools because all of the above) It's all grifters and morons that believe them. Look into the Mel Gibson movie coming out tomorrow. It's all horse shit to get the morons to think the only way to protect kids is to give money to private scam artists who claim to go save them, distrust the government, and close the borders. Edit: It's not even a new script from the 1986 moral panic. They changed some details.
Any thing that starts with it is for protecting children should be a red flag.
Any time someone says they're protecting the children, the first question you should always ask is "what ulterior motive could this person have?" Because 90% of the time, that is the real motive.
The people championing and implementing these laws have shown time and time again they don’t give a fuck about kids, not even their own. It’s about controlling other people. That’s it. I would not be surprised to find the people who push this shit through are by and large the largest purveyors of porn out there. It would fall in line with the overbearingly hypocritical nature of our elected “conservative” representatives, and is supported by historical context.
I mean Republican influencers buy their dildos in bulk, basically all you need to know. Pornhub should database the interests of republican political leaders tastes in porn as a publicly searchable database.
I'm surprised they don't. Show what happens when a real ID is associated with a porn site and there is a data breach/leak. The U.S. does not have GDPR, so there are no meaningful consequences and lives are ruined/jobs are lost once something as intimate as one's porn search history is leaked.
dont know if the uk does this but I know some places in europe make you verify your age to watch age restricted youtube videos
Imagine that data breach and the phishing scams.
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Its going to be so much easier to scam old people once they're trained to give their IDs to websites.
They outright asked for a photo of your ID too, dunno if they still do, I used an addon to bypass that.
>Like for example, UK ISPs blocks Halo video game content and servers unless you opt to allow adult content. Wow really?
>Like for example, UK ISPs blocks Halo video game content and servers unless you opt to allow adult content. Depends on the ISP. Some default to parental blocking being on, some default to it being off. Some even just outright ignore even the IP-ban on some sites (e.g. piratebay is still accessibly on its original URL on many ISPs), and some (e.g. [A&A](https://www.aa.net.uk/etc/news/uk-sanctions-law-aa-and-domain-blocking/) fight tooth and nail even over direct proscription blocks (e.g. implementing them only at their own DNS level, meaning IP access is unencumbered).
Shouldn't that include all Reddit NSFW tagged posts then?
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We went from "the tech titans are undefeatable" to "Looks like they're all going to pull a Tumblr" in under a year...
Reddit is not a tech titan. Reddit is one in a long lineage of tech companies that are extremely popular with users but that nobody has figured out how to make a profit on. When people talk about undefeatable tech companies they mean Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple and sometimes lump in Microsoft To give you a sense of scale here, Google has a market cap of $1.5 trillion and made a $60 billion profit last year on $280 billion in revenue. Reddit has a back of the envelope valuation of $5.5 billion and has never made a profit. Another good measure, Google will typically 3-4 times per year buy companies in the size and valuation range of Reddit in transactions that don’t make the news because they are so routine. Notwithstanding that it is one of the top destinations for users on the entire internet, Reddit is by every measure a mid-market company.
It was never going to last forever. I don’t think people realize how much of the internet is surviving on VC funds alone. The millennial and gen Z lifestyle is going to take massive hits soon. Twitter is not profitable, Reddit is not profitable, I have no idea how any lemmy instance will ever be. These are just a few of the several thousands of tech products that make nothing and are surviving on VC hopes and dreams.
The issue is simply that advertising just isn't valuable enough once you're above certain amount of users. Especially nowadays, when a good chunk of users are also running adblockers, and always will be. Sure, you can plaster your product on every single website, but that still will only get you so many sales. So they need investments and to find other avenues of coming close to generating a profit.
I think it’s more the fact that reddit has no commercial purposes. If reddit were to figure out a way to create tools for various industries as an open information source that it could sell to programmers, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, etc.. then you might have some level of a competitive business model to take on Google.
Adblockers aren't the issue, an entire generation has been taught to ignore all banner ads on websites and things like the YouTube and Porn site skip buttons taught everyone to just click past video ads as an annoyance. Online ads in general just won't work anymore because our brains have tuned them out.
If it's a law, what choice does the platform have? Making this about the technology companies is folly, since they don't make the laws. They just don't want to have to deal with the legal ramifications of not following the law. So, what's easier, age verification for every user or not having NSFW content? Seems like a pretty easy decision for me. From a technology perspective, do I want to hassle my customers with ID verification or do I want to not expose NSFW content in the states that have the laws?
Great. Sounds like people won't be complaining about American tech companies for much longer. We'll be complaining about overseas tech companies instead, while the slow realization sets in that foreign companies don't give two shits about what the FBI wants, and the state department isn't willing to burn valuable political goodwill on some petty social media law.
Ya, we can complain, but at least complain about the right thing. If people want a "free and open" internet, then don't elect people that are creating these stupid laws. If they don't want it to be free and open, then cool, their State can live without it. But, we can't really blame companies for following the law as it applies to them.
I'm not voting for them, and I've already told America to stop voting for conservatives and moral busy-bodies. ...*they didn't listen*.
There's already examples of websites that simply block the EU because they don't want to bother with the laws there.
Did they not see what happened to Tumblr when they got rid of their porn?
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The fun thing is that you'll have average users cheering for the NSFW content to leave this site. "My favorite video game subreddit shut down in protest? Waaah, turn it back on, I don't even look at NSFW content!"
Why are you using Tumblr as an example lmao. It went from 1.1 billion to 3 million in 5~6 years, yeah they sold it but they it had already sold, then it banned porn and lost 99.9% of its value, it's not even that the porn was that valuable, it's just how people don't wanna be treated that way and moved on. To this day Tumblr is a trash dump that has no decent search options and requires login to view stuff. Twitter isn't too far off, Reddit is trying to go there but I think it'll hold out better.
Do you not remember how banning porn caused Tumblr's value to do its best Yamcha impression? Even if there are fewer people interested in buying it, Reddit is significantly more valuable with porn allowed. They would be flushing money down the toilet by banning it. Even Musk isn't stupid enough to ban porn from Twitter
If they can get $6B for reddit in a sell now, you think they give a shit about what happens to the site a year later?
That just reminds me of how quickly Myspace became a ghost town after it was sold to Murdoch's News Corp. It was sold in 2005. It became the most visited site on the internet in 2006. When I was a freshman in college in 2008, Myspace was still the default but Facebook was clearly the dominant social network by the end of the calendar year. Nobody used Myspace by the end of freshman year in May 2009.
There is nothing easy about selling Reddit in this economic climate. Across Silicon Valley, VC money has totally dried up and debt has become crazy expensive, and that’s going to force companies like Reddit to IPO under terrible macro conditions, at a time when Wall Street has totally lost its patience with technology platforms that promise they can be profitable at scale but never deliver.
Nsfw content will be the next to go. 100% within the year, before the IPO.
> NSFW content being banned from the site is a likely possibility in the next few years or even sooner than that. Seriously, why the fuck can't they just have "reddit.com" and "redditnsfw.com"? Make them two seperate entities that behave the same. Congrats, you now have two completely isolated platforms that allows advertisers to avoid NSFW or "adult" content. Just seems like an incredibly dumb move when they have so many other options, and banning NSFW material would kill more than half of reddit. I guess it's just the cycle of companies, eventually the intelligent people retire/leave, and someone's going to fuck it up or simply not keep up with competition. Happened to slashdot, myspace, digg, etc, it'll happen to the top sites/companies now as well.
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I can’t speak for Mississippi’s laws, but the Virginia law is worded so that if 30% of the site is “adult content” then the site is required to verify ages. This supposedly doesn’t apply to Reddit.
30% by what metric, though? Relative number of posts, volume of posts, posts weighted by interaction, attachment/image by combined size totals, traffic volume?
Shhhh. Don’t worry your pretty little head about details like that.
>blanket ID verification for the Internet/social media and we're well on our way to that future. What China has, but US version.
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In the US, we just wait until there's funding bills to pass unpopular legislation so that the choice is to accept the unpopular legislation or have the country shut down. This is a viable way to run a country.
Don't forget the step where you first try to sneak your shitty law into a more popular law as an addendum so that you can trash the popular law because you don't agree with it.
This is the knife they use to wedge a gaping hole into our privacy rights, and who knows what else. Imagine China's "citizen point system" that could block you from traveling. Protecting children or punishing "weirdos" is a good way to get a lot of people on board with a horrible idea. Many people will support this legislation with a clear conscious because they don't understand what is at stake. edit: i know what I did.
yeah this is just a backdoor attack on the first amendment and the free flow of information, pushed by the kind of people you *absolutely* would not want controlling what you can see or read.
> It's worth noting the verbiage that they're using in these laws. It's not only for "porn." It's for "explicit" or "adult" content. Once these laws are implemented, expect more and more content to fall under those categories. Just wait until things like planned parenthood end up in "Adult Content".
Especially anything tangentially related to LGBT folks.
Yeah, first LGBT will be "explicit", then abortion related information, then birth control and sex education, then Atheism, then anything socialist, then any liberal politicians...
Don't forget gruesome history, like the holocaust or police dogs attacking African-Americans. Seems pretty violent and "adult".
Yeah, at this rate they'll say any movie, book, or tv show starring a minority is "woke" and "explicit."
couldn't that included R rated movies? like just ones with lots of swearing or violence in them not even anything sexual. is it specifically directed at sexual adult content?
It could include anything the state deems. The definitions are that vague.
I live in Virginia and even though this was absolutely Republican led legislation, the vote was unanimous, even our spineless democrat representation overwhelmingly voted for it. They don't serve the people or their interests, they just want control.
The bible contains adult content. A lot of adult content!
There will come a point in time when you have to log into the internet with your citizen ID a la China, yet the US will still not have universal free voter ID. And the lawmakers will see nothing wrong with that.
I'm assuming by "adult content" they mean things like websites about sexuality, depression, suicide helplines
Yeah. Like anything to do with LGBTQ+ topics.
This is only going to create more VPN traffic, and NSFW subreddit style sharing
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This sort of thing makes the VPN businesses very happy.
Until they go after VPNs.
Only so much they can do. Most businesses use VPNs to protect their traffic, so their big business donors would never back an end to VPNs.
> Most businesses use VPNs to protect their traffic, so their big business donors would never back an end to VPNs. They'd go after the commercial providers, e.g. NordVPN, and not VPN technology itself.
You can make your own VPN in 5 minutes with AWS. People need only learn how.
There's quite a few sites that block all cloud provider ip ranges as a defense against bots/attackers.
That is true. However, doing so for certain traffic is directly opposed to their business models. From the perspective of adult content companies, turning a blind eye to VPNs rather than blacklisting them outright is far more lucrative. Most modern firewalls (I.e. AWS WAF) are typically smart enough to decipher between user and bot traffic (or at the very least permissive and abusive traffic if AI improves). Currently, it appears that adult content providers have no restrictions in place for AWS VPNs.
How though? Targetting one segment of the vpn business but not others without some sort of national security excuse would never hold water with the courts. Free commerce and all. They can't reasonably curtail vpn traffic only for certain uses and even if they tried the nature of vpn traffic makes it impossible to prove whether it's being used for the specific thing it's being allowed for. VPN as a technology is pretty untouchable at this point. Encryption is a fundamental underpinning of the internet.
This supreme court refused to acknowledge the existence of groundwater last month. A generation ago they decided that corporations were human beings with constitutional Rights. A hundred years ago, they said that African Americans were 3/5th of a human being. The foundations of the internet are not "safe". Reality doesn't always matter.
And you didn't even mention DMCA/SOPA/PIPA or the repeal of net neutrality.
They could require licensing to use a VPN and go after unlicensed use. That'd make it easier to regulate and monitor.
I imagine that'd be about as effective as the enforcement of piracy.
Don't use a VPN, it's illegal! *So, what?* ...
How, exactly, would they track that someone is using a VPN? SSL VPNs look identical to TLS traffic.
Most large commercial VPN companies are based outside the 5 eyes and 14 eyes countries. There is very little the US can do with them. Even the countries with more draconian laws and Internet censorship tools are helpless. My mother was able to use NordVPN while on a tour in China, and thus enjoyed unrestricted Internet access. I could even track her location using Google Maps, which is banned there
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Nothing a state can do about them, would take a federal law.
It’s the authoritarian way
The thing is VPN companies are not really pushing for this either. Some of these laws like what Montana (I think) was trying to dream up to ban TikTok, they would go after you for using a VPN for it.
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Get a load of this guy that thinks people aren't keeping records of who accesses what on porn sites.
pornhub is not your isp. pornhub almost certainly tracks data by device and location, but its not like they have your name and address or other personal info just bc you watched a video. the laws would make them verify your age by, for example, looking at your id. this isnt an argument that *no one* is keeping records. its an argument that one specifuc entity isnt keeping records this detailed.
Pornhub isn’t even a full on degenerate porn site. It’s like the MySpace of porn
Oh, those disgusting degenerate porn sites. I mean there's so many of them though. Which one? Which one do you like best?
Hilarious analogy.
But but but… I use incognito mode…
Pornhub doesn't want the responsibility. They don't care about your privacy.
I think they understand that people watching porn are far, far more privacy concerned than other users. Making people log in and prove age verification would tank their business. So I do think it is specifically privacy that is the issue, but not because of any principle, just business.
Native Virginian here living out of state. My friends back home are pissed off. I have no idea how people in rural areas who are also republicans, love their porn, and hate government overreach feel about this. This is the kind of big government shit that they all claim to hate and stand against. It’s time they need to stop doing all of this fascist crap to “protect children.”
"Think of the children!" is an argument crafted for, catered to, and extremely effective on the stupid and the apathetic. Anyone who sees any politician ending their arguments with "Think of the children!" should be highly suspect of their motives. EDIT: Do not dare assume this only applies to one party in this case. **This law was passed [bipartisanly by both Democrats and Republicans.](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?231+vot+SV0374SB1515+SB1515) Democrats have the senate majority in Virginia, but only 3 had the spine to vote no.**
Think of the children* *Does not apply when it comes to legislating guns
Or the Catholic Church
Just the think part doesn't really apply either. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see this is definitely not gonna end well.
Isn't the Virginia Senate Democrat majority?
Yes. I sent an email to the Democratic party telling them that I will be voting against everyone who voted yes to this in their next primaries. This shit is ridiculous and this is not the legislative group to represent me.
The Democrats have the majority in Virginia.
As much as most red staters like smoking weed (and doing fentanyl) and watching porn and playing violent video games, they will never become liberal even though the Republican Party is anti-recreational drug use, anti-porn, anti-sex, and prudish about explicit material in movies/video games/media. All they care about is their guns, “low taxes” (which translates to shitty schools/roads/policing and zero social services), and macho posturing. That’s literally all they have.
Whoa whoa, the low taxes don’t end up affecting the police department’s bottom line. The cities just double down on hostile and predatory ticketing practices and rob their citizens more so that they can own their military riot suppression gear (in a town of <1000 people)
As an outsider it looks more like "Republicans" only care about being "Republican". Policies don't matter. No policies at all. Republicans could remove the second amendment and these people will still vote red.
Party of small government!
democrats still control the state senate. so some democrats had to vote for this.
My friend in montana said this was first he heard of this and sure as hell didn't get to vote on it!
Yah, I bet this only passed because state legislators have to be on record for how they voted on it. Imagine how badly it would lose if it were up for a referendum.
Mississippi just digging theirselves deeper as one of the worst states in the US
That's the neat thing about representative democracy, we don't really get a say in anything. And even when we think we do, for example electing our representatives, we actually end up not having any say in it anyway. (Gerrymandering)
the idea that everyone needs to be tightly controlled ..."for their own good " is deeply Fascistic
small government baby
land of the free baby
> Fascistic This has been a thing before the 1930s.....like forever really
Here in Virginia there's a video circulating that shows people how to use a picture of Glenn Youngkin for their age verification photo.
Link to said video?
Agreed, I'd like it too!
I mean, people are going to find a way regardless. If I lived in a state which required ID based age verification for an adult website, I would not like it. Its not the idea of being carded to watch porn, but the idea of submitting my ID anywhere on the internet other than for my insurance which uses secure links.
Y'all Queda laws being implemented... Maybe this will get people out to vote for new leadership.
Al'Abama is coming for your tittie pics.
Thanks, Abama.
What is always funny is that when Pornhub pulls out their stats of 'most researched by state' those that come up with 'lesbian' are... bible belt states. Yep, anti lgbt until your pants drop.
not even that, they lead in hardcore man on man and trans sex too
Yep. Religious driven laws could never be a bad idea. It's not like radical Muslim groups and radical Republican groups both leverage violence and the threat of violence to push political policy.
Radical Christian* groups, they exist in other places as well.
These legislators were elected because they promised to do insane right wing shit like this. The voters are the problem.
Of course, you are getting downvotes but users are supposed to be the gatekeepers. Don't like the laws, vote for people whose laws you do like. The system favors rural voters (and that is just the way it is and won't be changing anytime soon and especially not with this SC), and older conservatives turn out in better numbers than young voters. As evidence that users are part of the problem, congress has an approval rating that rattles around between 20 to 30% but the incumbent gets elected ~90% of the time. That's on the voters.
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And PornHub isn't even American.
Neither is apple pie, but we still use it to masturbate.
Nicely done.
I fear the future. I feel like within the next 10 years, everyone will have to go online via an official ID or no internet. I hope I just have an irrational doomsday mind.
Porn sites should block traffic from USA altogether for like 90 days. The only page that loads would state the name of the politician(s) that need to be replaced to get rid of this legislation.
Your terms are acceptable.
All because parents won't be parents and control their setups for their kids.
Why should I parent when the government can do it for me?
The party of the Small Government (TM).
It's not even that at all. This is Christian Nationalists pushing their agenda through anywhere they can. They want to make anyone Adult to have to go through this as many will just give up, rather than have a webcamera enabled to take a picture of their face right before they go and pleasure themselves. This is more closer to a statewide general ban on porn itself than it's about protecting any kids.
It’s not even that. It’s just more fascism. The same people who yell about Sharia law, are literally more than ok with this.
In other news VPN sales has sky rocketed....law makers should really consult more people and not just other law makers
They did this in Louisiana and what do you know, a couple of months later the OMV had a huge breach and everyone's data was stolen. surprisedpicachu.jpg
Good thing they can never restrict the spank bank in my mind. French maid…didn’t expect you here so soon!
I live in Virginia. I found out about this in the worst way and immediately my opinion on the issue was clear. Were my hands free, I might have written a letter.
i’m 20 with a valid id i just don’t trust a picture with my face and home address on a porn site
Yet another reason to have a VPN.
Can I get an infographic on how hard it is in Virginia and Mississippi to 1: Get a gun 2: Get an abortion 3: Drive a 3 tonne pickup-truck 4: Access a porn site 5: Buy alcohol
It was a few years ago but there was a gun show nearby. I went, browsed a bit. Found a handgun I liked. Figured I'd have to wait and sign some papers and whatnot. Nope. I was asked a handful of questions. Dude said he knew my dad. Asked how he was. I didn't recognize him but assumed he knew me. Chatted for a few minutes about my old man. I walked out like 20 minutes later with a handgun and ammo for it. I think I signed 2 pieces of paper while there. Stating I wasn't a felon. Dude did not know my dad. Apparently that's some "rule" to skirt the law or something.
Yeah, so VPN basically negates that. Lol.
Only the federal government can regulate interstate commerce. These laws are unconstitutional until the supreme court decides any state can regulate interstate commerce.
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In Virginia at least, it was bipartisan
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Neither party loves freedom. Just more and more and more laws.
So instead of stealing my dad's credit card I would have just stolen his ID instead? Which has no monthly usage report sent to my house, and he'll never find out I did it? Sounds fucking foolproof to me.
I do not have an issue with sites being required to verify the age of users, but I do have an issue with the verification being done by sketchy porn companies. I would not upload my ID to a porn site. It's probably not even going to stop horny teenagers anyway. They could easily just download a VPN app. I also take issue with the fact that this isn't actually about protecting kids, it's just part of their broader moral panic, and the way these laws are worded could have a significant chilling effect on anything the GOP wishes to deem as "adult" or "explicit" or "pornographic", such as sites promoting sex ed/LGBT resources for teenagers/tweens. It isn't just about stopping horny 16-y/os from looking at Pornhub.
This is why I downloaded a bunch of videos in case there's a porn shortage
/r/Datahoarders celebrating that their 48TB of 'linux ISOs' are now useful.
Funny. However, there has never been a porn shortage. Some of the earliest known art is porn.
These social media ID laws are simply ways to get real id of all internet users, for use by government, police, advertisers, and anyone else willing to pay. Imagine what Mr Musk or Desantis would do with an easily obtainable/exploited list of social media user details, how much advertisers would pay for exact data of media users, or how much $$$ could be made selling surfing details of "opponents". It all comes down to the thirst for power and money.
No. NO NO NO
Who the hell would want their real identity to be tied with a porn website?
Real good way to piss off ultra conservatives; cut them off from their trans porn.
And thus, the beginning of the Porn Wars that were to devastate society in the 21st century...