I think the most damning thing about porn hysteria is that society as a whole ran the experiment of an open internet for 30 years, long enough for a full generation of people to be raised on it and -none- of the things the anti-porn crowd cried about came true. In fact things actually moved in the opposite direction. The whole think is unsurprisingly just as bunk as the hysteria over violent video games and "demonic" music.<p>It seems plain old social media is the actual damaging thing to come from the internet.
This outcome was always obvious. The internet is too big. You can degrade the sites that are legitimate enough to follow the law, but that's just a drop in the bucket in the sea of porn.
Hence why the UK govt wants to ban VPNs and have our own lil internet firewall
They're going to build an internet where every device must be attested and logged in with your personal state identification.<p>They're not just stopping filthy, sinful porn. They're making sure wrongthink will be traced to the source and jailed. You can't be allowed to have a job or be banked if you're saying harmful things.<p>You exist to work and die and be a good little ward of the state. No stepping out of line. You do not get to live as the elites live.
When I got blocked by big porn sites attempting to obey Arizona law, who demanded a selfie to proceed, I immediately switched to other sites without the restriction. It took about thirty seconds. I don't miss anything about the old sites. The age check approach won't work without an internet sized jurisdiction or a firewall that limits the reachable internet to your own jurisdiction.
<a href="https://archive.is/xQiFO" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/xQiFO</a>
That was 100% obvious that would happen, the law will only be followed by good actors and bad actors now have an additional advantage
Good news, the end goal that is being pushed by corporate lobbyists is still in sight.<p>Give it a few years (months if you're an optimist?) and you will have to use your Google/Apple hardware device to formally tie your real identity with your digital identity for every site that has even the slim possibility of being a small danger to hypothetical children.<p>I'm sure Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg will gladly join this effort to reduce harm to children as well, I'm sure that's high on their priority list. They may even already have the infrastructure in place to handle that digital ID, what an amazing coincidence.<p>Everything will be fine!
Snooper's charter ring a bell? This is the work of the UK govt, not corporate lobbyists.
> This is the work of the UK govt, not corporate lobbyists.<p>This is not an exclusive or. Corporate lobbyists from social media have a real incentive for pushing age verification and attestation. They benefit from public outcry and popular movements for age restrictions online, while also presenting age verification as the only solutions to the problems causing that outcry (which is to say, largely moderation problems on their own websites).
Officially I'm sure. It gets revived in the 2023 Online Safety Act and is followed by strong EU push for Identity Verification, Chat Control, etc. at the same time. I don't think it's wrong to look at them from the same lens.<p>It's not necessarily nefarious though: the same ideas/fears permeate all society so it makes sense they pop up together. The work may have already been done by some legislators, ready to be used by others.<p>But the corporate lobbying for weakening online anonymity and encryption is not something new either, and the benefits are clear. It wouldn't be the first issue large-scale lobbying has taken place in their interests, and for something as critical as identify verification I genuinely cannot imagine it isn't one of the most important issue in surveillance capitalism.
> Good news, the end goal that is being pushed by corporate lobbyists is still in sight.<p>It's less bigtech corporate lobbying and more evangelical lobbying (exodus cry etc.). This outcome plays along their plans. Create restrictions, which kill off the legal market/actors (good!) and push people into incompliance (excellent!) then push for harsher measures (see what a rampant problem illegal porn sites are). Their main goal is to go full prohibition on adult content.
A strategy old as time. Implement a weak "foot in the door" measure that pushes people towards incompliance, use the incompliance to justify implementing the strong "break the door and your nose along with it" measure.<p>Companies can benefit from it but this type of control in some form or another has been the go-to for the state since forever. It just recently became feasible to do it so comprehensively otherwise they would have done it ages ago.
Which site would you qualify as a "good" actor?<p>It's an honest question. Is there such a thing as ethical porn or are there only sites that pay taxes and those that don't?
There are definitely <i>more</i> ethical porn sites, e.g. ones that will take down revenge porn vs ones that won't.
OnlyFan is as ethical as porn can get
“Good” actor does not refer to ethical, but to lawful.<p>> ethical porn<p>Define “ethical porn”? Problem with ethics is that it varies from person to person; at least lawful has the taste of varying only from country to country.
I'd call the ones which have a process for verifying actors and following local laws to be good actors
It's not an honest question. A good actor is one that is not trying to show porn to children and follows the law.
That's one (very serious issue) but there are many others.<p>Pornhub is a company, has an address, pays taxes, and has a history of problems.
There are sites which follow laws and those that don't.
when you make something more difficult to access a black market profiting from easier access will always appear
Who the fuck was actually dumb enough to believe that all these laws are actually honestly intended to ""protect children""<p>..the answer is almost everyone, apparently
Another<p>The UK tried to ban choking porn. Quite reasonable given the realities of monkey-see monkey-do.<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/06/choking-strangulation-in-porn-new-uk-law-banning-vital" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/06/chokin...</a><p>Trouble is, "nobody in the UK" consumes porn.<p>Had they not passed the "ban porn site" bill then the majority of people would be viewing porn on sites which will enforce (or at least attempt to enforce), and consumption of it would reduce.<p>Instead UK people consume port from places which is quite happy to have choking, bestiality, and child porn.<p>Good job Mary Whitehouse Brigade.
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Tax and regulations always punish the good actors
The regulation could have been "adult content must be labelled", and then the logic is pushed to the client device.
Like the good actors who ship contaminated food?