Porn site blocks

The age of porn site blocking is with us. It's happening in France and Germany, not just places like Russia and China.

This article explains the current state of play: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/germany-...age-checks

As I've said and linked in other threads pertaining to the international 'War on Porn', xbiz has the best coverage I'm aware of, such as more recent reporting on Germany, including adult content being blocked on Twitter: https://www.xbiz.com/news/264779/under-p...lt-content and France and UK seeking adult verification for Twitter and reddit: https://www.xbiz.com/news/264765/uk-mini...ter-reddit As part of the 'Digital Safety Bill': https://www.xbiz.com/news/265401/uk-gove...afety-bill

Thanks schvall and seducedx6 for the links. The trend towards age verification for porn is really gathering pace, but it seems that the blocks being put in place are never going to work that well because of the availability of VPNs. In Russia they have banned many VPNs to try and prevent their people from finding out the news. I just wonder if we are going to start seeing VPNs banned in western countries in order to make these porn blocks effective? Is such a thing even feasible?

I've no problem in principle with measures being put in place to stop under 18's accessing adult content.

Its just not going to work what is being proposed though at the moment. Under 18's are very tech savvy these days and will very easily find ways round age verification or filters that are designed to stop them from seeing adult content. Same for any adult content providers or companies, they'll get round any measures brought in, by hosting in a country that doesn't have measures in place to block anything classed as adult content

Plus the companies that would be possibly affected by any proposed measures will be able to successfully challenge them under freedom of speech & drag it through the courts and ultimately win. Also its going to get non adult content companies etc caught up & banned like LGBTQ+ charities, sex education & anything non pornographic that promotes sexual expression & freedoms. Which any government won't want to be seen as doing, banning things like sex education etc

Thirdly, remember what happened in the uk recently. The government tried to bring in age verification measures, but the proposals suddenly collapsed. I think this will happen again with this latest attempt as the government quietly snuck the bill out with little fanfare on the same day Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe was released as they knew it wouldn't get much attention because of Nazanin.

Back in January last year: https://www.babeshows.co.uk/showthread.p...pid2534490 I linked a good (early) overview of the 'War on Porn', by xbiz, and a sympathetic article on the BBC website, about those affected by the censorship of Pornhub by Mastercard and Visa.
Plus, in December, I posted my own overview of recent years' censorship efforts, and the way that some professed anti-censorship campaigners stumble when it comes to porn, linking a discussion with Jerry Barnett: https://www.babeshows.co.uk/showthread.p...pid2636223
Those stumblers' publishing an article, later that month, that's not far enough removed from what Mary Whitehouse might have written in the Daily Mail: https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/12/20...ent-wrong/ about which I've yet to publish anything, but soon will be, elsewhere online...

I see that Visa recently introduced new rules for porn sites, although this was not unexpected as it's pretty much the same thing that Mastercard did back in October 2021. As discussed in this thread: https://www.babeshows.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=84787

Because it's a case of Visa following Mastercard it shouldn't have much effect on sites, fortunately, as if they are compliant with the Mastercard rules, which they really ought to be, then they should be pretty well fixed to comply with the new Visa rules too.

The US state of Louisiana now has an Age Verification Law, effective 1 Jan. Anyone who wants to watch porn in that state must now be asked to age verify, although it's unclear if compliance with the law can be required from websites based in other US states or in other countries.

There's now an Age Verification Bill in the US state of Arkansas. Introduced this week, it's basically a copycat version of the new Louisiana law.

Utah is the latest state to go for age verification and it will require social media companies to age verify, though it's hard to see how any website could age verify for Utah only. As far as I know it's not feasible to age verify users from a single US state.

(05-04-2022 11:16 )seducedx6 Wrote:  the censorship of Pornhub by Mastercard and Visa.

In an echo of the above, Mastercard and Visa appear to have suspended their service to [this site or phrase is filtered - please contact a moderator for further details]. Just recently the site stopped accepting credit cards and went to crypto payments only, but now the premium service, known as [this site or phrase is filtered - please contact a moderator for further details] Red, has been removed from the site entirely.