this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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Blocking Pornhub access in Canada an option, owners say. Here’s why (globalnews.ca)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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A House of Commons committee is set to study legislation proposed by Independent Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne that would require Canadians to verify their age to access porn online.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

eventually we’ll need to figure out proper age verification and identification for some things

Don't we already have identity verification for many sites where our personal identity matters - banking, government stuff, etc? For the rest, it's like trying to change the color of the sky cause we don't like blue. Short of a fundamental protocol-level change of how the internet works (won't happen any time soon), or adding a centralized level of control like China's Great Firewall and/or forcing ISP-level censorship on top of outlawing VPNs (you'll probably be hard-pressed to make a good argument for this), controlling what one can access on the internet just won't happen.

Also not sure why anyone would think it's a good idea to hand over our personal information to random websites, even if just for "age verification". I can't even trust my bank with my data, giving it to random commercial sites that have all the incentives in the world to track my consumption habits and link them to my personal identity would be utterly idiotic, porn or not. Hell, we're already doing it with Facebook or Google tracking us across the web, now we want to be required by law to give them our ID as well?

It's a typical reactionary play to attack the surface of an issue without addressing the root problem. For this particular issue, blocking porn access on sites that will comply will just make it that they'll find their porn elsewhere, that's all, while ignoring the underlying education issue. It's a smoke show that literally doesn't address anything.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

@folkrav is right here

And I'll posit that you likely wouldn't like this ability to exist in the first place.

Let me walk you through a thought experiment. Any system that requires a verification step is likely tied to identity and putting up a gate to get in based on the identity or using it to get a token to access it ties you to that activity. Ok great let's not let the kids see porn, but the exact same approach can be used to prevent or put a chilling effect on people seeking lgbt content, anti Vax content, unionization information,church gatherings, crypto schemes,academic research, Israel, Palestine, or anything really.

The internet was never intended to be a secure place it was intended to survive a devastating nuclear attack and keep information flowing. Tacking on arbitrary mortality gates is Orwellian and not how the internet was designed to function. Maybe these guys need to a seperate network (without blackjack and hookers) just for the content you want kids to see and not tell them about the internet till later because these proposed measures are like outlawing the letter q because you don't like that it leads to the word question.

[–] ArbiterXero 8 points 8 months ago

And all of these laws are disingenuous, wrapped in classic “won’t someone please think of the children”

[–] [email protected] -5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What I am saying is eventually we’ll need to have a better age verification process than that.

I don’t want to provide my full identity, it would be cool for a zero trust information exchange. This sort of thing is being worked out already with OIDC. Allow the site access to ONLY the information it needs, in that instance age.

I am saying eventually we will have to get there, I don’t have to agree with it and neither do you. But it’s happening.

I don’t mean to argue in favor of what is being done here, I’m saying at some point we will need a better system and these things will have to happen and fighting AGAINST them is probably less beneficial than fighting for the system to be done properly.

These current events are a good place for us to highlight how dumb it’s being done.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

"Better" than what, and how, exactly?

OIDC still needs you to trust one of the parties. Who should I both trust with my age online, and would be fine with letting know where and when I'm trying to jerk off?

There's no doing this kind of thing "properly". One absolutely should fight against idiotic laws.