This is a hard situation. I don’t think minors should be exposed to porn. Hell, I think even social media has a drug-like effect best kept from minors.
Age verification is the most obvious solution but comes with the downside of potentially leaking private adult activity or information.
I suppose my POV is that the benefit here outweighs the good even if imperfect. Porn just isn’t a necessity even if some folks really enjoy it.
I don’t hold that POV strongly, I pretty much formed it while writing this comment. I’m be interested in hearing other perspectives.
How much time do you think will take for teenagers to discover VPNs? Another impossible to enforce law made by people who don't know what they're doing.
> Pornhub’s internal data from 2024 shows France is its second-largest market after the United States.
Wow - that is crazy for a country a 5th the population of the US.
We recently added a similar law in the US state I'm in. I'm (obviously) an adult who could just do the verification but just go to other sites instead. If that's me now I can't imagine how little of a shit 16 year old me would have given.
I'm not a fan of these types of laws in the first place but, if we're going to have them, punishing distribution but not consumption will do nothing. On the other hand punishing consumption via law is just silly enough to most people (for now at least) that we end up with this law which only makes it inconvenient for adults to access porn.
> Instead, users must verify their age using a credit card or a government-issued ID. This check must be carried out by an external service, not the porn site itself.
> This system, referred to as “double anonymity”, means the porn site receives only a yes-or-no confirmation that the user is of legal age. The age-check provider knows who the user is, but not which sites they visit.
Seems like a reasonable solution.
The only remainig problem (provider knowing that you watch some porn even if not - exactly what kind) could be solved by requiring some other websites to verify age too. For example horror movies or liveleak videos.
A credit card, or some money related government ID is what should be used for checking. If you make a separate ID for this, or use something "not risky to hand out", you'll just be creating a business opportunity for adults selling "verification services" using their government ID, for other (potentially) kids to make use of.
If you verify using say, bank credentials, though, then those adults can't do the same since they risk losing money. Minimum balance checks are also necessary so it's not a "nothing to lose" situation.
Important to set incentives right when doing bans like this. Historically, it's been implemented very badly wherever it's been tried.
Of course an outright ban is also not a problem IMO, but many differ on that.
Age verification sites were never required. This is a new artificially created business model. There is no need for age verification on the server side. Parents of small children can handle it assuming minor changes or reverts to devices and some apps to look for the RTA header. The server or CDN need only let the client know it may contain adult and / or user generated content via one simple header. [1]
Not perfect, nothing ever is nor ever will be. Also never try to block teens, that is a foolish losing battle.
[1] - https://www.rtalabel.org/index.php?content=howtofaq#single
Do they expect porn sites with revenge porn, pirated content to suddenly be implementing national ID age checks? Or do we expect these websites not implement the ID checks, making them easier to access by the kids?
Double anonymity seems as a great means for enforcing privacy in general for any data you generate taht you don't want other people to see.
Like in a location app on your phone generating (Lat Long) pairs. The app developer could just provide an inference engine running on a 3p trusted server to which an app developer has write only rights, e.g. a retrieval engine based on location — but cannot read. The user's app has read only rights — say get map tiles based on location.
Its just that this is not the universe we live in sadly...(Maybe the EU will become that)
Shouldn't the issue with porn be the people in those films are heavily exploited and most often abused and in some cases even worse. In particular women.
Why the absolute focus on demand side and none on the supply side?
I guess the issue is they just want to stop young people from seeing porn? That's it? That's all society is concerned about, regarding porn?
I don't like that we are creating a society that removes accountability from parents. I do think parents are outgunned by tech companies but I also believe that parents have relinquished a lot of their responsibility in making sure their kids are not just doing whatever online.
It will probably slow some.
But well distributing material via sneakernet is entirely possible and relatively cheap and easy. So after certain age they will get their hands on it.
And well, most will go to some other place that does not follow regulations. There is plenty of them and more will pop up.
I'm thinking for many less savvy websites, a VPN will get around this instantly?
Just make it illegal to serve the stuff to minors, and start supplying heavy fines when done so.
Let the industry be innovative and find solutions themselves to stay compliant.
It is not regulators responsibility to solve problems.
No Fap Challenge in France!
I don't understand the logic of preventing minors from watching porn specifically, when they can easily find videos of people being beheaded, blown to bits, burned alive, etc.
I have never had flashbacks from watching porn, but there are things I saw, even on broadcast TV, that still send shivers down my spine.
I am disappointed to see fellow Europeans developing American-style "sex is bad, violence is entertaining" social customs.
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>This system, referred to as “double anonymity”, means the porn site receives only a yes-or-no confirmation that the user is of legal age. The age-check provider knows who the user is, but not which sites they visit.
I don't know the specifics, but seems very reasonable if implemented matches the promise. If it's required also for some non porn sites (social media? gambling maybe), there should be no stigma attached either.