Pornhub announced on social media it is um, pulling out of Mississippi:
If you haven't heard, elected officials around the United States have started to introduce laws aimed at preventing children from accessing material harmful to minors online.
This is great. We've supported this for years. We believe that any law to this effect must preserve user safety and privacy and must effectively protect children from accessing content intended for adults.
Unfortunately, the way many elected officials have chosen to implement these laws is haphazard and dangerous. Here's the problem:
A number of states, including Virginia and Mississippi effective July 1, are requiring mandatory age verification of users, but they are not regulating the enforcement of these laws. So that means adult platforms can choose whether or not to comply. Responsible platforms will follow the law. Irresponsible platforms won't.
We already saw how this scenario plays out. When a similar law was enacted in Louisiana in January, Pornhub was one of the few sites to comply. Since then, our traffic in Louisiana dropped approximately 80 percent. These people did not stop looking for porn. They just migrated to other corners of the internet that don't ask users to verify age, that don't follow the law, that don't take user safety seriously, and that often don't even moderate content.
We have made the difficult decision to fully block our site in Virginia and Mississippi, as we have also recently done in Utah. We are sorry to let our loyal visitors in these states down but have opted to comply with the newly effective law in this way because it is ineffective and worse, will put both user privacy and children at risk.
The only solution that makes the internet safer, preserves user privacy and stands to prevent children from accessing adult content is performing age verification at the source: on the device. Many devices already offer free and easy-to-use parental control features that can prevent children from accessing adult content without risking the disclosure of sensitive user data. The safety of our users is our number one concern. That is why we are taking this important step to protect the users that our elected officials have chosen to endanger.
82 comments:
Obviously avoiding a sticky situation.
For once, porn addicts are finally getting screwed.
So that's what that pop up was the last few times I've been on there about contacting our legislators.
This is a hard position to be in. You can't regulate morality, and I am a hard core Republican. I also like to drink liquor, use tobacco, and look at titties on the interwebs. The doo gooders(in public) in the state's chambers need to get their paws off my ipad.
This is a hard position to be in. You can't regulate morality, and I am a hard core Republican. I also like to drink liquor, use tobacco, and look at titties on the interwebs. The doo gooders(in public) in the state's chambers need to get their paws off my ipad.
Will this lead to higher education achievement scores, though?
There should be a reach around I mean a work around otherwise everyone will have to back door it.
First two comments are on target, not to mention Kingfish's title, but the possibilities are endless on this one.
Blindness rates in Mississippi are about to plummet.
Use a VPN.
That sucks.
This comment section is fixing to be fire!
just get a $6/month VPN service, problem solved.
VPN
Damn. Now I have to go back to watching the Spice channel through squiggly lines....
They banned all of my gore fetishes long ago.
I have to go to websites hosted in Brazil, Russia, and Cambodian enjoy my kinks.
This is an exceptionally stupid, totally performative law. Prohibition never works. It only drives whatever you try to prohibit underground.
Pornhub will be one of a handful of sites to either require age ID or block traffic in the state. That's ironic, since it's one of the only sites that actually polices content to avoid things like child pornography.
Countless thousands of other porn sites will totally ignore the law. Twitter will be exempt because, despite having more porn than any other site on the internet, the law doesn't apply to it. And even Pornhub won't really be blocked in Mississippi, since Utah saw a huge spike in searches for VPNs after its law went into effect.
Strange how Republicans trust parents to decide what books are allowed in public school libraries, but don't trust them to turn on the filters on their kids' phones.
And let's be real: half the people in your Sunday school class watch porn from time to time. So do elderly people and disabled folks who have no other options. None of them should have to hand over their driver's license to a website to do that.
And they won't have to. This law will be widely ignored. Kids will get porn from sources you can't even imagine yet and the Jerry Falwell crowd will get a totally meaningless, symbolic victory in the culture war.
So how are users supposed to verify their age on these websites? Do the republicans want citizens to photocopy their government id and send it to all the porn sites they visit? I can’t imagine they would be that stupid, but they are pretty dumb so who knows.
Our naive legislators are just virtue signalling while being hypocrits. Responsible parents can block porn on their kid's computer with software that is readily available.
Regardless, pleasuring to a Playboy magazine is so 1980s.
I've never heard of VPN or Porn Hub. But, as a member of the church, such things probably don't interest me.
There are court-supported rules (laws) that restrict what we can look at. Not sure how that's constitutional but is seems to be.
By the year 2044, science will have created ways for the constabulary to know what we THINK and certain thoughts will also be illegal.
@2:14 I spit my Diet Coke laughing.
How very SMALL GOVERNMENT of them. Next thing they'll be telling me my music is too loud.
I'm glad they are SO focused on the real issues.
FYI: turn on iCloud Relay on your phones iCloud settings and they can't see you.
@2:18 PM
Doesn't sounds likes it's a hard position at all. It sounds like you agree it is BS
3:14 PM, no law banned this company from operating in MS.
They discontinued services in MS because they don't want their numbers to crash. Pretty pathetic if you ask me.
@3:14 PM Here come the crazies
Wow the republicans are really determined to be run out of office.
What boneheads.
@3:14
So because you are a member of the church, pornography and sexual content don't interest you? I too am a member of the church and I think sex is gasp.........NORMAL and AHHHHHHHH.......HEALTHY
Conservatives just actively want to tank the party, right?
That is the only reason they can be this idiotic and virtue signaling.
I hope there are enough pearl clutching grandmas to get these clowns re-elected.
Retired computer guy, here. Proton VPN is a good free VPN to use. Google it & go to the Proton website, pick to install the free version. Turn on your Windows VPN service, install the free Proton VPN, and pick from Proton servers in Japan, France, or the Netherlands. Shouldn't take more than 10 minutes.
Using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) is good internet practice for every user. You should always use it, all the time. It encrypts the body of your requests to servers and encrypts the body of the server's response. If you are banking, shopping, or paying for anything with a credit or debit card online, VPN encrypts that information & the response. It does not encrypt the address of your PC or the address of who you are communicating with (your bank, for example). But, a snoop can only see who is talking to whom, not what is being said. For instance, if you use a VPN at work and visit a porn site, your boss' IT guy can see that you visited a porn site.
This is really going to sting in Madison County.
I just go to Pornhub for the comments. Honest.
The Opera browser has a free VPN built in. Thank me later, but wash your hands first.
Is that why my keyboard and mouse are so sticky? Asking for a friend.
Elections have consequences
What is the significance of the “Hard” and “Hard Core” respondents to this article?
What are the legislator's going to do now? I guess they will continue to sleep in their pick up trucks parked near the coliseum and continue to collect their per diem pay while extending the sessions, because this is basically their only source of income. Why not adopt a policy like Texas, and tell the axxholes, you have 30 days to get it done, or continue at your own expense.
There are some much more stimulating sites than pornhub to get your jollies, or that's what I have heard.
Just ceremonial base pandering BS from the GOP, as per the norm. Literally takes 5 seconds for anyone to use a free VPN to get around it.
Wow, with all the human trafficking that avails itself to the porn world, and people come here to defend porn. It ain't a harmless vice people. It destroys women. But you get your jollies so you don't care.
"Damn. Now I have to go back to watching the Spice channel through squiggly lines.... "
Spice Channel?!? You're how old? I think Jimmy Carter was in D.C. the first (and last) time I watched that. Porn will not make you blind, but those squiggly lines sure will ;-)
They need to ban discord next. Nothing but groomers
Can't wait to hear "the conservative case for hookers and heroin" from the libertards.
I have two teenage boys and I am good with this. I know everyone us had access to the girlie mags growing up but I bet none of you had access to a midget getting crazy with a fetish for chickens plucking his pubes while getting it from behind by a tranny. Just saying.
What this is REALLY about, is providing an excuse for OUTLAWING VPNs. Bit by bit, our ability to search for ANYTHING, freely and anonymously, is being eliminated. And our ability to SAY what we want, freely and possibly anonymously, will be no more.
How many of us were able to avoid a certain "novel medical intervention", during the past few years, because we were able to search for the truth about it, and because others were able to share the truth.
Next "pandemic", next election, next move to turn us into virtual serfs, we may not be so lucky.
I’m not looking for an argument but the phrase, “we can’t regulate morality” is untrue. Morality has been regulated since the first government was created. Laws dealing with behavior (which is often morally based) are a necessity. Taking the phrase on its face, one would conclude we cannot regulate murder which we clearly can.
RMQ
Well, this article was really limp…
I wonder which sites the legislators who passed this use for their porn?
Politicians are some of the most two faces closet weirdos around….
I would love to see a list of the House & Senate folks that
were assigned ... (or volunteered)... for this in-depth research.
Wait until they learn about Reddit…
I hope they realize they are just harming those girls looking to make $1000 to $5000 a day…
I wanted to be a Pornhub star but I came up short.
@933
Thank you! Haven’t laughed that hard in a long time
@9:33 PM - Have a link?
Porn is difficult to define, but I know it when I see it.
This should be like the gun sales websites where you click on the “I’m 18 years old” to have access.
I suspect that the keyboards of the legislators and staffers who researched this are a little sticky.
I'd prefer Porn Police ticket women for shocking yoga britches on plus sized booties waddling in public.
I don't mind banning porn in MS if we also agree to ban alcohol and cigarettes.
I am just sick of the hypocritical baptists only regulating the sins they don't participate in.
If porn is ruining lives en masse, no sane person can argue alcohol/tobacco is not much worse and far more pervasive in society as a life ruiner.
They just lost a perfectly good use for their gumment phones.
The real problem isn't that a legislature in (insert state here) wasted time by attempted to ban or even regulate porn viewing, the real problem is that there are enough members in each of them so technologically uninformed and uneducated who believe their constituents believe it could be done and that there are actually any of their constituents who do believe such utter nonsense. "Next, we're gonna ban hacking and shootings, control drugs, and prevent littering with laws!"
Observers will note the wild successes legislatures have had with such things as "Prohibition"/Volsted Act/ 18th, outlawing drugs, homosexual acts and selling sex, "gun control," etc., etc., etc.
Well done Legislature! These "can't legislate/regulate morality" people need to move on. By your logic murder and theft should be legal because after all we "can't legislate morality!" Let's not bring up red herrings and focus on the issue presented. Is it the "can't legislate morality" crowd's position that children should have easy access to pornography because alcohol/tobacco something, something, something...?
Maybe if our legislature passed a law that made it illegal for juveniles to shoot someone violent crime would significantly drop.
I am the commentor with the "you can't regulate morality" comment. What I meant by that is that you can pass all the laws you want to, but if a person needs a "fix" to whatever is trying to be regulated, be it porn, tobacco, alcohol, pills, murder, theft, etc., they will find a way to get it. Look at Sudafed, did it stop meth? Look at gun laws, do they stop murder? Look at the 21 age restriction on alcohol and 18 on tobacco, are kids still getting drunk and smoking? Yes. Same with this. It's a feel-good law, that at the end of the day, will do nothing.
9:17 sounds like a wife that is happy her hubs cant see nekkid ladies online anymore, but damn sure wants to keep her wine legal.
I dont drink or watch porn so I dont care. I just think its hilarious how Mississippians love to point out other's vices while making excuses for their own to be acceptable.
I guess its human nature.
9:36AM It's amazing how you think exactly backwards. Of course that law already exists. The question is whether violent crime would INCREASE if the legislature repealed that law. Is your argument really that we shouldn't have laws because some people don't follow them?
If I can figure out how to watch scrambled porn on channel 99 when I was a kid, the kids today can definitely figure out a VPN.
This is performative crap. The only thing Republicans do these days.
@9:52 AM Chill out! That was a joke, just like the libs want to outlaw firearms because they hurt people, BUT, shooting someone is already against the law.
Just an observation: @2:18 pm has an amazingly brief refractory period.
9:40 am Crack addicts are going to get their fix. Great observation! Let's make crack legal and sell it in vending machines because "they will find a way to get it" anyway. Might as well make it easy for them.
Teenagers still drink and smoke cigarettes. Great observation! Let's sell them in vending machines in schools because "they will find a way to get it."
Your logic is exactly backwards. Laws don't stop lawbreakers, but they do deter them. Is it really your argument that teenage drinking and smoking are completely ineffective in deterring these activities? Is it really your argument that laws against murder have no impact against murders committed?
Also, please don't double down on red herrings. "Gun laws" "alcohol" "tobacco" "sudafed" etc. The issue is widespread access to pornography to kids.
You all can rest assured the Sabbatean-Frankists who run these "free" sites arent giving you anything for free. If it says free, then YOU are the product they are selling.
"I am just sick of the hypocritical baptists only regulating the sins they don't
admit that they participate
participate in. "
Fixed it for you (sort of)
"I bet none of you had access to a midget getting crazy with a fetish for chickens plucking his pubes while getting it from behind by a tranny. Just saying. "
I used to get that channel but now my cable provider scrambles it unless I pay the premium rate :-(
@10:18 - do you think this law will prevent a single child from seeing porn?
9:17am humorously wrote, "These 'can't legislate/regulate morality' people need to move on. By your logic murder and theft should be legal because after all we 'can't legislate morality!' Let's not bring up red herrings and focus on the issue presented."
Murder and theft are mala in se (wrong in itself), whereas watching "pornography," which has existed for the entirety of recorded history (even the word's etymology indicates its ancient origins AND addresses the malum prohibitum issue of prostitution), is malum prohibitum (wrong (only) by law, with no question any particular definition(s) of "morality" involved). Rape is another example of malum in se, whereas things like going over whatever speed limit might be set, arbitrary drinking, smoking, voting, consent, disability of minority, etc. are all examples of mala prohibita. In very simple terms, there is a general, worldwide, and universal consensus that murder, theft, rape is wrong, regardless of the existence of specific codified laws whereas there is little or no consensus, even within a single political entity, as to mala prohibita. It is true that many laws creating malum prohibitum crimes have reasonable theoretical support in general terms, i.e., traffic laws and consumption laws; no rational person would suggest there should be no traffic laws nor would suggest that 5 year olds should be allowed to buy alcohol and tobacco.
That said, however, this isn't a question of making "pornography" illegal, it is a question of access to it by those below and above an arbitrary age, which touches upon the very essence of malum prohibitum. I would argue that it removes any and all aspects of malum in se because it doesn't even attempt to make "pornography" illegal, it simply sets a prohibition based upon a purely arbitrary age, i.e., it would be preposterous to suggest that is "immoral" for someone, or to allow someone, 17 years and 360 days to view it but perfectly moral for someone 18 years and 1 day to view it, just as it is to suggest that such an age differential transforms the consumption of alcohol or tobacco from immoral to moral. Put another way, the now-widely applied choice in certain societal groups of 18 or 21 for majority (being a legal adult) is a relatively modern and arbitrary idea and moreover, it is wildly inconsistent even within most political subdivisions - consent, voting, drinking, tobacco, etc., etc. aren't consistent within Mississippi.
I think that many of those posting, need to read Uta Ranke-Heinemann's 'Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven'. The book traces the origins of SEXUAL PESSIMISM.
Making people afraid and ashamed of sex, was a tool for subjugating and enslaving them. Making into a sin, something which everyone does, is a way of introducing fear into the lives of everyone. You can control/subjugate/enslave whole populations, that way. Intrusive government and intrusive religion, can move-in, to "save" people from their "sin".
Today, of course, we also have those who want to "save" us from viruses, and "save" us from "Global Warming", and "save" us from eating red meat. But in backward places, there are still those wanting to grab control by offering to "save" people from seeing naked bodies.
11:18am humorously uses Latin phrases in an appeal to sounding egeekated about logic. He thinks that murder and theft are mala in se because he says so whereas pornography malum prohibitum also because he says so. It's nice to be able to define terms in a way that fit your worldview. He suggests that pornography for children is only wrong because a law was put in place that makes it wrong. It's just an arbitrary thing, don't you know? If there was no law against pornography it pornography would not be wrong! Kids should watch in kindergarten! Thank you for breaking it down for me in simple terms!
11:10 AM, fair point.
I'm not as concerned with the youths that are bound and determined to see this stuff. It's the kids who don't even know what they are clicking into and will be scarred for life. There needs to be a sensible filter or buffer zone. Not just an AR-15 fully loaded, safety off on the kitchen counter next to the cookie jar.
3:07 never in the history of the internet, have I ever been casually strolling along on the internet and got redirected to a pornhub or other porn website. Now I have searched certain key words, or phrases, and gotten exactly what I am looking for. If a kid is searching for it, he/she/it/they/them, etc, they know it's out there and looking for it. I can goggle penis, penis, penis...vagina, vagina, vagina and get more hits from MD Anderson and other clinical sources than porn websites slapping me in the face. What you mean to say you are afraid to admit "innocent" kids are searching for it and finding it. If your kids are clicking into something that will scar them for life, maybe those kids are not responsible enough for the internet, or the parents need to use some parental controls. If you have porn websites popping up or are able to browse them easily, you are already searching for them or searching dangerously close to them, or in some sketchy placed on the ole www.
9:33–that’s a little…umm….specific?
A win for the war against porn-enduced erectile dysfunction aka death grip. Don’t listen to protests from big pharma reps here. They want you limp so they can sell pills. Mississippi wives rejoice.
@ 3:44 - You need to learn to recognize sarcasm. Quit trying to compare the size of your digit with those on porn sites and discover important stuff, like recognizing sarcasm.
And give up lying to yourself about the length of your thump. That was sarcasm when you first read and believed it.
July 6, 2023 at 4:19 PM - You lead a very sheltered internet life. It is ridiculously easy for kids to go down the rabbit hole online without restrictions. When my kids were younger, the schools required them to do homework and research online. So, I made adjustments to the router/switch to limit their devices, flexibility, and time online (no, I'm not an IT geek). Otherwise, with browser filtering off, something as simple as a girl's name can take you to sites displaying nudity. The other threat is that when clicked on, these images can install malware on the PC that then spreads to your network. This law has just tackled a handful (no pun) of porn sites, but there is an unlimited supply out there.
Even if you ignore the porn aspect completely, this is just a hilarious example of how badly out of touch legislators are with technological reality.
There are MILLIONS of porn sites on the internet. Most are housed in foreign countries, have no US assets, and therefore don't give a damn what laws some local legislature makes. They will NEVER require drivers licenses or any other ID.
None of them are hard to find. Your twelve year old son HAS searched Google for a handful of bawdy words and found dozens of porn sites. He knows how to turn off Safe Search and he knows how Incognito mode works.
And it's not just Google. You can't scroll through Twitter comments (on totally innocent posts about sports and memes) in the post-Elon era without finding multiple women offering nude photos and videos of themselves.
Nothing in this law is adding a single second to how long it takes your teenage kid to find porn. Not. One. Single. Second. It's also not affecting how "hardcore" what they find is. EVERYTHING is hardcore, or links directly to hardcore stuff. No work, creativity, or knowledge is required to find it.
No law that could ever be passed outside China or North Korea could ever accomplish any of these things.
This law is for one group: Technologically illiterate religious conservatives over 50 who want to be patted on the head, given a placebo, and told, "Yes grandma, we passed a law about the porn. That's right, now the grandkids won't be able to get to it."
One - everyone who had to go over to Pornhub just to see what happened, raise your hand…
Two - Tumblr, Reddit and even Twitter have porn all day long. It’s not going away, folks will just access it from a different direction. Three - as for wanting people to enter government IDs every time they access such websites - this may get interesting, a whole new level of identity theft that, I suspect, won’t be covered by those ID Lock folks.
On the plus side for using a VPN, I just discovered that clarionledger.com allows access to to subscription-only articles when using VPN and the VPN server is located in a foreign country (Netherlands or Japan, using Proton VPN). Cool.
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