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An peripatetic (not to say priapic) traveler may have noticed that several states have blocked access to Pornhub. Instead of thumbnails of naked people bumping uglies, visitors from Texas, Utah, Arkansas, Virginia, Montana, North Carolina and Mississippi are greeted by the following less-than-salacious text:
As you may know, your elected officials in North Carolina are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. 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.
The Show-Me State (Missouri) isn't one of the seven states mandating user age verification for "adult" sites. Nor is it one of the five (Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky and Nebraska) about to join the growing anti-pornography gang bang. Jihad? Campaign? Something.
Pornhub's Road to Damascus
Pornhub's home page defense against the flurry of porn user ID laws opens with a simple declaration: "safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission."
This from a company once home to tens if not hundreds of thousands of rape, revenge and spycam videos. A company that failed to remove and/or block the illegal and amoral content in a timely manner, even after complaints from their distraught and damaged victims.
To be fair, growing public outrage put Pornhub on the road to Damascus.
In December 2020, the Canadian company launched their "commitment to trust and safety." Content providers now have to verify their identity. Pornhub polices content and responds quickly to complaints. Owner MindGeek publishes a yearly Transparency Report.
At this point, whether or not Pornhub's conversion to ethical porn was motivated by self-preservation is besides the point. Despite its unconscionable past, by opposing these user ID laws, Pornhub is doing the Lord's work. Albeit not very well.
Censorship
Pornhub's home page asserts that porn user ID laws are "not the most effective solution for protecting our users." Hang on. Which users? Adults or children? Protection from what? What is an effective solution?
Pornhub's PR peeps point out that the ID laws create "a substantial risk of identity theft, phishing and other harms."
Data-compromised consumers of Adult Friend Finder, Brazzers and Luscious can relate. Not to mention the blackmailed victims of the Ashley Madison breach.
Yes but – the possibility of a data breach is out there, anyway, on any and every website or app used by anyone for any reason. The real danger of these new porn user ID laws to adults: government censorship.
Indiana's cut-and-paste porn user ID law covers any "adult oriented website that displays material harmful to minors."
A description that a social justice warrior with a District Attorney day job could apply to a website denying climate change. Or the January 6th "insurrection." Or condemning homosexuality. If you give a mouse a cookie...
Pornhub's home page statement doesn't draw attention to Big Brother's red flag flying. Instead, the porn provider contends that user ID laws "put children at risk."
Pornhub's polemic argues that "without proper enforcement" the law "drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place."
Wait. What? Pornhub opposes user ID laws because they're not tough enough? Leading kids to sites with the kind of bad porn Pornhub used to post, rather than Pornhub's latter day ethical porn?
Aside from this own goal, Pornhub fails to address the elephant in the room: the government has no business deciding what content children should or shouldn't watch.
Unless I woke up in Communist China this morning, that decision is a parent's perogative. Unfortunately, Pornhub's "solution" to the problem of underage porn access isn't a call for better real world supervision.
Pornhub's Counter Proposal
We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification.
Who's stupid enough to think kids aren't smart enough to unblock or circumvent a device blocked from a porn site or sites?
Besides, there are plenty of easy-to-use apps that can block a specified website or type of website from a specified device (at least until the kids find a workaround). To that end, Pornhub is RTA [Restricted to Adults] compliant.
The Road to Hell...
is paved with porn. Well, some people think so. Other people think pornography can be safe, pleasurable and useful for adults, and future adults exploring developing sexuality.
How and where parents draw the line for those young 'uns is not an easy question to answer. But deferring that responsibility to government or porn sites is a huge mistake.
The porn user ID laws open the door to the Nanny state. A place where people are subject to the government's fantasies, rather than peacefully pursuing – or just perusing – their own.
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