Court Rules in Pornhub’s Favor in Finding Texas Age-Verification Law Violates First Amendment
variety.com
Score one for Pornhub: A federal judge ruled Thursday that a Texas law requiring pornography sites to institute age-verification measures — and add prominent warning labels about the alleged …
  • Otome-chan@kbin.social
    553·
    2 years ago

    I was wondering their reasoning, here:

    We have publicly supported mandatory age verification of viewers of adult content for years, but any method of age verification must preserve user privacy and safety.

    Basically, they don’t disagree with mandatory verification, they just wish for it to do so in a way that doesn’t violate the privacy of adults legitimately accessing the content.

    Their suggestion for this is:

    The only solution that makes the internet safer, preserves user privacy, and stands to prevent children from accessing age inappropriate content is performing age verification at the device level.

    Essentially, do age verification on-device, and have the device send the okay to view signal to the site. This is something websites cannot implement on their own, until device/os developers implement such. I agree this is a good solution, but I think it’ll be difficult to push tech companies to do this without further legislation.

    I think it might be good to seek the EU to require tech companies to implement such a on-device feature, which will naturally roll out to all tech devices.

    Edit: these quotes are from the porn company, not the court.

    • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
      36·
      2 years ago

      Such an on-device feature would either be trivial to break (if it’s an ordinary API) or be impossible to implement in an open-source browser and OS (if it’s some locked-down DRM-like thing), and the latter is not privacy-preserving because proprietary software tends to be spyware.

      If these moralizers would just shut up, go away, and stop trying to ruin the Internet, that’d be great.

      • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
        5·
        2 years ago

        Not necessarily.

        Recently we got a new LG TV that has an age lock option with some other family settings. The parent can turn it on with a PIN, and they can set up restrictions.
        The same approach could be used here. But this would need 2 things: obviously support by the web browser app, and support by the OS to tie app installs, uninstalls and data wipes to the parent’s code.

        To help with cases when the device is sold, maybe the parent should press a button every year that they still want this, and also receive an email notification when the period is nearing it’s end.

        But a much better solution is that parents are dealing with their children.
        They may see up some site filters, but when they notice that their child is using a workaround then it should be punished with taking away the phone.

      • sznio@beehaw.org
        3·
        2 years ago

        Just an another HTTP header, flagging if user is an adult. Set it to False if OS reports that the account used has parental controls enabled.

        This is just meant to keep children out, not protect state secrets.

          • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
            1·
            2 years ago

            Maybe, but if their parents failed to enable parental controls or the kids hack them, they shouldn’t be allowed to blame the websites.

            There’s already plenty of options available to parents - legislators must be made to stop blaming websites when parents don’t use those tools available to them.

      • devils_advocate@lemmy.ml
        21·
        2 years ago

        Zero knowledge proof. Trusted issuer issues proof of birthdays. User submits proof of minimum age without disclosing additional information.

        • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
          4·
          2 years ago

          That would require you to disclose proof of your real-life identity to some dubious company for the purpose of unlocking porn. Definitely not privacy-preserving.

          • devils_advocate@lemmy.ml
            21·
            2 years ago

            The company you disclose your age and online reference to doesn’t need to know how their confirmation will be used. It could be an entity already knowledgeable (DVLA, IRS).

            But yes, if porn is the only use case then this method is self incriminating.

            • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
              4·
              2 years ago

              But yes, if porn is the only use case then this method is self incriminating.

              That is precisely the problem. It will mostly or only be used for porn.

              • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
                1·
                2 years ago

                Not really. Most social media involves some rudimentary age verification, even though their age threshold is lower. Same goes for banking and interacting with government sites. Far from the only ones.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      152·
      2 years ago

      This is actually really good ruling. I’m shocked at the level of level headedness shown here. It’s not on brand America, stop it.

    • PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml
      81·
      2 years ago

      Makes sense. If a device was flagged as < 18, then that device could include that info in each http request and www sites could respond accordingly.

      Would be easy, could be as simple as a checkbox in OS settings or parental security settings that are easily found in Apple & Microsoft.

  • s38b35M5@lemmy.worldEnglish
    101·
    2 years ago

    I remember when age ‘verification’ was a curtain in the video store, or a blackout bag on the magazine rack.