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Pornhub is urging tech giants to enact device-based age verification
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
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Technology
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This would require "verified" operating systems: No alternative Android-based OSes. No Linux phone. Hell, no Linux desktop, or at least we would be stuck with a big-tech-built proprietary web browser.
This is a terrible idea.
Pretty sure this is the direction big tech and government want to take things. Mandatory ID to use your operating system, perfect tracking and as targeting, no anonymity, censorship, consolidated monopolies, etc. Pornhub won't be the only website requiring verified OS and ID. They want to build a locked down, surveiled internet, and moral panics are the way they're doing it.
What constitutes a "verified" operating system?
Whatever Apple, Microsoft, and Google decide it does.
Whoever lobbies the govt the most to wrote the legislation
Verified Operating System is the one where the manufacturer or OEM has built, installed, with a guarantee that it has not been tampered or rooted in any manner which can hinder DRM or any security guarantee it offers by default.
Think SafetyNet and verified boot on android, Or UEFI secure boot on windows.
Well it requires a verified source for the data. I don't see why it excludes open source at all.
Because of who decides how such verification gets built. Just look at what is happening with Android apps to know how big tech companies will handle it. https://f-droid.org/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration-decree.html
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i am glad, however, that we’re not reshaping society in order to be more convenient customers for pornhub…