Porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat face stricter requirements to verify the ages of their users after being officially designated as “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
I personally have mixed feelings, as the information collection could be used to link individuals and profile them. Possibly leading to discrimination if abused.
But I also feel that any random kid shouldn’t be able to just go to these sites and see porn freely.
Ofc, there’s always going to be those who mange to circumvent any protection put in place but it’d be much harder then just clicking a link or typing in the address.
I also feel that parents should actively monitor their kids online activities and step up a Blocklist to pro-actively prevent kids from reaching these sites to begin with.
What are your thoughts on this?
I am in favor of stricter age verification for certain content. Not only for porn but also dating apps, social media, online shops, etc. But the current methods of age verification are a privacy nightmare and go well beyond what is reasonable. Especially since companies can’t be trusted to not do bad stuff with that information.
What is necessary is a double anonymity age verification service. Ideally run by a company that by law is required to be very transparent. That way we don’t have to provide personal information to companies that have no actual need for it but can still reduce the amount of minors getting into places they shouldn’t be.
Yes, it won’t be perfect, yes there will always be bad actors, but it will still do more good than harm.
I personally am open for a discussion about reducing the minimum age to view porn. I don’t have strong feelings either way.
I see your view and appreciate the time you’ve taken to articulate it well.
My view takes another level of abstraction from it, and ignoring the implementation detail for the moment - the question for me is “what are we trying to protect underage/vulnerable persons from?”
Sex is a natural thing and I’m not arsed either way - and some of the more extreme content (within the legal sense, non-consent and animal porn etc are another ball game) such as exploitative content or covertlyy recorded stuff really need to be addressed as society issues so that the ensuing pornography isn’t such an issue.
That said, the line defining the three (or more) groups is arbritary and different for everyone I guess.
Very much this. A great many of us in our early 40s had access to pornography from BBSes or early internet and it didn’t seem to fuck us up. Why are we trying to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist?
Legal sexual gratification between two consenting adults (even if some may find the way they achieve gratification taboo), so long as it’s not illegal, should not be shamed or denied.
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Kids being able to openly participate on porn sites would be a feast for pedophiles and groomers. We already have enough trouble with that on social media and dating sites/apps. And while in an ideal situation there just wouldn’t be bad people, sometimes we need to protect people from themselves because of others.
So while I am open for a discussion about lowering the age requirement, I still firmly believe a minimum age is required. But whether that’s 14, 16, or 18 I don’t know.
That’s a fair comment, and represents the core tradeoff of balancing protecting vulnerable members of society against privacy or liberty concerns.
My preference would be to - in a massively reductive statement - teach the paedos that their urges are less-than-healthy and treat them as medical cases, in order to reduce the need for such content.
The other element is that it’s rarely a great idea to make sweeping reforms of a system that is failing because silly cunts are doing illegal things. I’m pulling a stat out of my arse here but why are we implementing legal interventions to prevent 5-10% of the population from downloading or producing illegal content, when surely it would be more effective to target those involved in the criminal practise rather than the other 90-95% of happy carefree legal chuggers?
I do see your point though, and it’s refreshing to see you’ve not gone straight for the “much chuldrun” trope.