Pornhub goes dark in Arkansas after age verification law kicks in::Pornhub operator MindGeek has blocked all users in Arkansas from the site after the state’s new age verification law went into effect.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Pornhub operator MindGeek has blocked all users in Arkansas from the site after the state’s new age verification law went into effect on Tuesday.
The Arkansas law, SB 66, doesn’t ban Pornhub from operating in the state, but it requires porn sites to verify that a user is 18 by confirming their age with identifying documents.
On Wednesday, Pornhub blocked all traffic from IP addresses based in Arkansas in protest, arguing that the law, which was intended to protect children, actually harms users.
“While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk,” MindGeek wrote in a message replacing the site’s front page for affected users.
Responding to this wave of bans, MindGeek has decided to block access to its sites from states where the laws have gone into effect.
So, instead of rolling out age verification systems, it says it decided to block access entirely, calling on users to contact their state representatives to oppose these laws.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Having one in link posts really should be mandatory in the rules for most communities
I appear to be in the small minority, but I do not think we should be relying on an AI to summarize stories for us because the AI doesn’t actually know what are important details.
What is the expectation for compliance here? Are users supposed to scan their physical ID and upload that to PH, then PH checks age against that?
The bill says that commercial entities serving pornography are required to do age verification through either verifying a driver’s license, verifying another piece of government-issued identification, or through the use of any commercially viable age verification mechanism.
So, yeah, I’d imagine compliance to look like either uploading a photograph or scan of an identity card or document for the site operators to check, or uploading it to an affiliated service which does age verification on their behalf.
Which is obviously horrendous from a privacy and information security standpoint for the consumer, and exposes the site operator to costs and legal risk associated with verifying and storing sensitive personal information.
Arkansas: your kids should be working in a mine, not wanking online
Arkansas: where the people rule! (Until we, the ones decidedly ruling over the people, decide we don’t like what you’re doing and think it’s icky.)
Everyone in Arkansas is still watching their porn, from the pimply teenagers on up to the crotchety old politicians who came up with this shit.
It’s all a political stunt so that the (significant) bloc of evangelical/social conservative voters in the state can feel like they got a win, and in turn they’ll reelect the old white guys that signed it into law next fall.
Politicians get a win, evangelicals get a “win”, and everybody keeps on watching exactly the same amount of Internet porn as they were before this law went into effect.
I know a lot of Republicans that hate how both parties have become. We need some independents to vote for. There’s a lot of us that are caught in the middle. I agree with the small govt part of traditional Republicans, and agree with a lot of what the left has. For whatever reason. All we get is some bullshit extreme from either side.
What about normal ass people that just want people to leave them the fuck alone, pay taxes, keep their roads working, and stop wasting (literally stealing) our fucking money
Oh no. I’m in Arkansas.
Guess I’ll turn on the VPN.
I grew up there. The northern part of the state is honestly one of the prettiest parts of our country. It is also filled with some of the most vile people. Vile people from everywhere else go there to retire and add to the smegma pot.
It is a beautiful state, especially the part in the ozark mountains. But there is no way I could live there because of the people. It also lacks a single great city (Little Rock is a dump).
I’m European so I don’t know that much about stuff like this, but isn’t it kinda easy to move from state to state in US?
I recommend using Tor browser as an alternate option. For anybody who can’t use a VPN or doesn’t want to.
I’m not sure if streaming 1080p video over Tor would be very appreciated by the rest of the network. Or that it would be a very pleasant experience.
Do you always stream porn in 1080p? I guess I never thought about the quality, but I honestly don’t expect anything more than 720
I think a vpn is simpler than tor personally. Also then videos gonna be buffering for a minute on tor lol
It’s not “simpler” at all because it includes the step of paying. But, indeed, better for this application.
The party of small government.
For a party that prides itself on being all about “small government” and “no nanny state,” this is some surprisingly big government nanny state shenanigans
The small government libertarian types were lowered in priority in the party after two decades of people pandering to them because there’s basically nobody out there that’s a fiscal conservative and a social liberal.
Trump and his grip on the GOP are evidence again of that same thing. There are more “conservatives” that are actually fiscal liberals and social conservatives than there are right libertarians.
The rich would (for the most part) love to get the tax breaks and allow people to do whatever they want socially, but that (and virtue signaling) are not enough to rile up the fascist voters and evangelicals anymore.
They’ve crossed the Rubicon with Trump and now it’s full on censorship and other Nazi tactics to take us back to the good old (non-existent) days.
In fairness, this is a state law. States rights being part of the Republican platform during my childhood. Just another reason not to go to/live in Arkansas
Is it?
I think “you can’t show porn to kids” seems like something well within the authority of a state to make a law about, even if the implementation is hamfisted and ineffective.
My understanding is that porn would be considered obscenity, and obscenity is generally not protected by the first amendment, and can generally be regulated much more strictly.
Small government is allegedly still at part of the Republican platform at the state level. For a small government party, they sure do like to dictate what’s going on in people’s bedrooms.
Republicans only cry States Rights when the federal government is attempting to make someone’s life better or when they want to take something away
They cry states rights as a tactic because they can control some states. If they had a supermajority on the national level they’d be passing abortion bans, contraceptive bans, trans bans, and any number of other abhorrent piles of garbage through at the federal level.
Note how they give not a single shit about states rights to regulate firearms or allow abortions.
You know, there is a reasonable reading of the comment that doesn’t involve the assumption that they are telling people to move FROM Arkansas. Intentionally avoiding visiting the state, and intentionally avoiding relocating there, are quite different than the standard “LEAVE THE STATE” comment.
They used to claim they wanted a small government meaning not telling people what to Jack off to. It wasn’t solely about the federal government. Of course if you ask them you quickly find out it’s freedom for them to do anything they want while subjecting all of us to disgusting fascist fascinations
