This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I'm just over here in "hellscape" California enjoying the freedom to not have to do this, and I can walk down the street to the weed shop, and my girlfriend still has basic human rights over her own body.
Do any other states, like Texas, need some of our freedom? We've got some to spare.
I think California recently passed the Digital Age Assurance Act, which was backed by Google,Meta, and OpenAI. I think it goes into effect in 2027.
Just to be clear, because I had to look into it a bit, California's law won't require photos/IDs.
"Operating system providers need not collect additional information like photos of government IDs to verify the user’s age. Based on this age information, operating system providers must send digital signals via real-time API (age signals) to developers upon request, transmitting the user’s age range bracket – under 13, at least 13 and under 16, at least 16 and under 18, or at least 18. When a user downloads and launches a developer’s application, the developer must request an age signal from the relevant operating system provider or the application store from which the user downloaded the application."
So I'm assuming those companies backed it because they want more analytics about the age ranges of the people who use their products.
So much for small government…
Small dick government
The most important issue facing the world: Someone might be jerking off in the privacy of their own home.
Porn is just the foot in the door to force ID for connecting to the Internet. This is techno-fascist dystopian police-state shit, and the "don't tread on me" crowd is just bending over and saying "Please, sir, may I have another? No lube this time!"
I just remembered that I'm the guy everyone in my family goes to when they need someone to scan their ID or passport for whatever stupid bullshit.
Guess it's time to sign all my conservative family members up to gay porn websites!
This, here, is the winning comment as far as I'm concerned.
I don’t get the purpose of this.
It's a coalition of groups with different purposes
One group wants to ban porn entirely
One group want to collect data on everyone. Your porn habits can be valuable if you're a future political rival
Some people believe it will prevent children from seeing porn
Others use it as a way to assert control over sex workers, especially female sex workers
Probably a few other smaller groups too. End of the day, none of them have your interests at heart
Imagine the consequences of needing to give your ID to watch gay porn as a gay person in a red state.
Oooooh! Shit. Yeah. Wow. It makes total sense now and that fucking sucks.
I hope some day these fascists get branded as the terrorists they are. And I’m so fucking sorry that they’re doing this to people.
Blackmail material that can be selectively used against political enemies.
You clearly haven't thought of the children.
Nah it's just a precursor to having all your online activity tied directly to your identity. That's the purpose. I'm sure plenty of misguided elders in government think it's about saving kids from porn though.
Basically some guy came up with the idea for it, some guy made a case study that it would kneecap the online adult industry even with Article 230 style guarantees, then christofascists saw an opportunity in it to de facto ban porn.
Sorry, MAGA. If you want to stroke it to trans porn, you need to show ID.
Yeah, I will never show my ID to a fucking porn site, get real
fucking porn site
No need to be redundant
Lo and behold, ladies and gents, the land of the free, where even jerking off is chargeable...
I would like to dispute the primary supposition here that pornography is harmful. The use of pornography is nearly universal, and most of the harms that it supposedly causes are symptoms of other issues, or are invented to impose control of sexuality. The ability to reach out with the power of the law to impose religious edicts or project sexual hangups is one of the most esoteric, yet effective, forms of political control available other than violence. If you can control the way that people express their sexuality, you can probably also control their views through the monetization and restriction of sex.
Sexuality and privacy are human rights, and the creation of and access to pornography is protected by the first and fourth amendments under which so-called “age verification” is an unnecessary and excessive burden. If the idea is to prevent access to children, ask yourself why now all adults must now have their access prevented or interrupted.
Furthermore, it is not the state’s role to control childhood sexual development, and the idea that porn is harmful to minors is debatable at best and dubious at worst. Access to objectionable material is solely at the discretion of parents. The fact that they cannot effectively manage this is a symptom of another problem.
When Meta shows teenage girls makeup ads after they delete their selfies, or streaming apps are flooded with violent movies that are easily accessible to minors, this is acceptable. But when I want to watch porn it’s now my job to “protect minors” by compromising my privacy and security?
The real “danger” here is the availability of ideas that do not align with state power.
I'm not against proper age verifications as such, it would be like carding people in a store or a bar. But I just haven't seen an implementation of it that isn't prone to being a privacy nightmare and surveillance state shit.
I know there's some systems that generate a token that verify that you are 18 and you give that to the site, so neither side directly meet so to say. The site knows only that you have a valid token for being 18 and the app or service you use to generate the token knows just that you wanted to token for something. I think Spain was figuring out a system like that.
The end game here is to require ID for social media in order to suppress dissent. This is an easy first step due to the longstanding controversy surrounding pornography.
It's all about control.
Oh yes, please treat on me daddy. I was a bad snek.
bless their repressed hearts
