My hot take is I’m actually okay providing an ID to prove my age. Where it breaks down is these idiots in governments think the only way to do that is by having the sites maintain that.
What should be done is have browsers like Chrome or Firefox. Implement a system that age gates websites, where you have to provide your ID to unlock your browser to allow you to see 18 and over material. The only thing the government would see it would be that you have unlocked 18 and above material, and sites would only have to change a metadata item saying that they are providing 18 and over material. This would be a low cost for everyone involved and would keep privacy in the forefront.
Of course, privacy isn’t actually what they’re trying to get at, they want to spy on us and everything about us. It’s not about protecting the children, it’s about knowing everything about us, so a solution like that would never be implemented
Edit: Downvote me if you want, but if the only alternative is to hand over my ID to porn sites who then will be forced to have those verified with the government then maybe it’s worth investigating some alternatives. I’m not saying my idea is rock solid folks, it just popped in my head, I’m saying we shouldn’t be letting 90 year olds in government decide what the best technical solution is, there are a thousand ways to skin a cat.
Yeeeeah, nope. Seriously, all the ways of age verification suck 'cause age verification itself sucks.
- It’s unmaintainable for both websites and browsers (there’ll always be sites that say “fuck it”, and there’ll always be people to remove those checks from the browsers);
- It gives personal info to the entities that have no business handling it;
- [For sites] that would not leak the info: would you like an unsalted md5 with that?
What’s the alternative? To not fucking verify the age. I’m really confused how even normies aren’t tired of that “protecting the kids” bullshit. Oh, they’re worried? How about trying to be a better fucking parent so that their kids don’t hesitate to talk to them about stuff or at least setting up parental control software.
Great, your opinion that it sucks is noted, and ignored by the governments. Which is why I’ve thought about things that could be proposed as actual solutions. Dislike it all you want, they’re going to get it one way or another. UK, USA, and Canada are all trying to push legislation that would force porn providers to verify IDs and store their users.
Sorry I wasted my breath with my terrible idea that would only keep your porn history private from the feds. Guess we should just give up and not pitch any other ideas.
The sites shouldn’t have to maintain that but browsers should?
Also, some browsers are open source.
There’s so many problems with this idea that I don’t know where to start. But, I do see where you’re coming from.
Sure there are, and there will be ways to get around it, it’s a jumping off point. I can say firmly though I’d much rather have a token stored in my browser proving I’m over 18 vs every porn site knowing exactly who I am and the government knowing every porn site I visit. I’d rather give up some freedom from my browser to keep privacy vs giving all of my data on my kinks to the government.
Guess I’m trying to say “There are other ways of solving it that don’t require handing over all of my data to the government or have them track me site to site”
Here’s a crazy idea: don’t fucking do any of that. What benefit is there to doing it in the first place?
See the problem is that they’re going to do it anyway. So if the “don’t fucking do it” is off the table, which I hate to tell you but it pretty much is, then wouldn’t it be at least good to have a privacy based approach?
Here’s an analogy.
You don’t eat your shit, right?
But what if you put a lot of sugar on it? Doesn’t it sound much better? At least it has some good flavor that way, and with enough sugar you won’t even see the brown parts of it. This way it doesn’t seem that bad.
Of course, not eating shit is off the table. You’ll eat it, and you will be happy if you’ve got sugar.
