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As of this week, half of the states in the U.S. are under restrictive age verification laws that require adults to hand over their biometric and personal identification to access legal porn.

Missouri became the 25th state to enact its own age verification law on Sunday. As it’s done in multiple other states, Pornhub and its network of sister sites—some of the largest adult content platforms in the world—pulled service in Missouri, replacing their homepages with a video of performer Cherie DeVille speaking about the privacy risks and chilling effects of age verification.

Archive: http://archive.today/uZB13

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[-] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 68 points 2 weeks ago

Everyone who ever submits for age verification will have their information stolen. It is a matter of when, not if.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I mean, a VPN is way cheaper than whatever hoops Idaho wants you to jump through to watch some 10/10 goth hottie get their ass eaten.

[-] snekerpimp@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago

Yea, but soon we’ll have no states to vpn to, and we will have to start using the Quebec servers, then all the websites will be in French and I’ll have to learn a new language.

[-] kambusha@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 weeks ago

Omelette du fromage. Omelette du fromage!

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago

I VPN to Montreal servers. Everything is still displayed in English.

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[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago

Ironically? If we were a less prudish society this genuinely wouldn't matter.

"Oh no! Sarah likes threesome porn. Uhm... okay?"

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[-] unphazed@lemmy.world 45 points 2 weeks ago

Watch them retreat once Grindr states that due to increasing safeguards and transparency, all of their files will be released to the public.

[-] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 41 points 2 weeks ago

The death of freedoms by the day.

[-] MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip 11 points 2 weeks ago

They can applaud because they have both hands free

[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

those aren't claps you're hearing. might just be the half that can still watch porn...

[-] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

I wouldn't care if 1% of the population watched it. The truth is that enough of the population watches it that it is a useful tool to track and dox the population. People in power don't care who you fuck or don't fuck, they care how they can use who you fuck against you.

[-] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 34 points 2 weeks ago

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.

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[-] chunes@lemmy.world 32 points 2 weeks ago

Never thought I would live to see this day. Utterly pathetic. I remember even 20 years ago online censorship was extremely taboo.

Making it easy for normies to get online was a massive blunder.

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[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 30 points 2 weeks ago

I'll end up becoming an artist and drawing my own porn before I give my ID to a website to view it.

[-] Prox@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago

All this actually does is push people to porn sites outside of Missouri's jurisdiction and/or sites that don't give a fuck about being "legitimate businesses" or whatever. It's effectively prohibition and the outcome will be the same.

This shit never actually makes anyone safer, it just draws more normal users to seedier parts of the internet.

[-] MimicJar@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago
[-] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

You must send me a copy of your photo ID before viewing the rest of this comment:

Tap for spoiler

(.Y.)
 ).(
( # )

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[-] baldingpudenda@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

Can't stop my imagination GoVeRnMeNt! I'll masturbate to all those geriatric fucks.

[-] Asfalttikyntaja@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 weeks ago

Luckily enough I have a rich imagination and I can wank without any porn.

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[-] njordomir@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago

Is there any organized fight against this? I feel like open access to porn is something people can get behind (pun intended).

People could literally put porn in everything until it's reversed and put their red state into porn overload. They could slip porn between the pages of the newspaper,or drop a copy of bad babysitters 5 in every DVD player in best buy at the same time. They could mass mail stills from 2 girls 1 cup, goetse, and blue waffle to their Congress people. They can wear the raunchiest t-shirts they can find and pack a town hall. These assholes already created a climate where woman are (understandably) even more afraid to have sex, now they want to lock down porn too. I'm not a degenerate because I watch porn; I'm a degenerate because I in ironically enjoyed Spongknob Squarenuts. But degenerate or not, I believe freedom of inquiry is important and I want to know exactly what she If you are gonna strip people of their economic output, abuse workers, stifle culture and art, etc, you at least have to give people a blowoff valve somehow. Reading the Bible after a double shift at work isn't gonna get anyone hard except maybe JD Vance and it probably still comes second to furniture warehouse ads.

Fuck these assholes.

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

drop a copy of bad babysitters 5 in every DVD player in best buy

Soooooo, 0 dvd players? Best Buy stopped carrying physical media years ago.

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[-] TriangleSpecialist@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

That will protect the children, for sure.

If I lived in the US, I'd be far more concerned about sending my kids to school but whatever.

[-] FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

Also church. I wouldn't want them to get diddled by a pastor.

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[-] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago

I'm waiting for huge spike of trojan-infected computers from people trying to bypass the law by torrenting their porn from unknown sources.

[-] tonytins@pawb.social 14 points 2 weeks ago

I wouldn’t be surprised if they wind up hitting the very people who thought these laws were good in the first place.

[-] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Those folks aren’t looking up “two adults having sex,” we’ve seen the contents of computers and it’s ALWAYS an R screaming about porn with 7 year olds in a folder on the desktop.

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

I mean......by that logic their ramblings make sense. Porn to them is child porn. So if all porn is child porn (in their minds) then blocking access to porn isn't a bad idea.

The whole thing falls apart however if they were to realize that most people DO look at porn, but most people DON'T look at child porn.

I watch porn most days. I've never in my life had any desire to restrict others ability to watch porn.

But then again, porn for me is a woman fucking a dude in the ass, or 4 women standing around another woman who's tied up and they're tickling her until she screams bloody murder.

You know. Normal shit. Harmless shit. Fill in the blank of your own kinks, but at no point do kids come into play in my mind.

If I equated "porn" to "child porn" then yeah, I'd be trying to pass those laws too. But that says more about the way they think than anything.

Especially when you consider that schools are one of the most common places for public shootings, but you don't see them racing out to pass common sense gun reform laws.

It's such a hard problem to tackle, when you're self defeating in your attempts. No other country has this issue.

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[-] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 15 points 2 weeks ago

*half of the us requires you to "visit" iceland to watch porn

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[-] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

For anyone curious, the privacy video is in their latest(?) blog post on their site. It should be viewable anywhere as it's outside the NSFW area and before the 18+ notice.

(Just bear in mind that while it should be SFW, it is still under a porn-site's domain.)

https://www.pornhub.com/blog/age-verification-in-the-news

[-] FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

Keep this shit up and I'll have to go back to having sex with my wife.

[-] dhork@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago

We'll all have to go back to having sex with your wife

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[-] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 weeks ago

Don't forget to bring your copy of Chairman Trump's little thin-blue-line book when you leave the house, patriot! Otherwise the little 'murica-guards will get you!

[-] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 weeks ago

Any site that makes me do this immediately loses my traffic and I go to tor or a service that doesnt give a shit about us law.

[-] danhab99@programming.dev 8 points 2 weeks ago

When I read about this I'm always brought back to the conversation of "internet as a public utility". I hope it's cool if we can take a tangent.

See unlike any of our other utilities like natural gas electricity water and sewage, the only thing that could potentially give any meaningful information about us is our sewage,, and the government already tests sewage for diseases. If we allow the government to "sell" us our internet they would basically be able to know everyone we are "talking too". Also how could we ever have enough regulatory oversight to protect everyone on the internet. Symmetrically if the government wants to have so much regulatory control over our internet it should maybe pay for it.

Like I wouldn't mind even paying another 50 bucks a month extra for "private internet" just so the government can have their free and regulated "public internet". Or would I (⁠・⁠–⁠・)⁠ゞ?

[-] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Like I wouldn't mind even paying another 50 bucks a month extra for "private internet" just so the government can have their free and regulated "public internet".

That’s basically how cable TV started. Over-the-air TV stations were ad-supported and public broadcast was largely supported by public funds. Cable TV got off the ground by marketing itself as a commercial-free way to watch.

And then once everyone had switched to cable, they went “hey, why don’t we introduce commercials anyways? I bet people will keep paying for our service if we just gatekeep the media that people have gotten hooked on…” And that’s exactly what happened. They pivoted away from the “commercial free TV” sales pitch, and moved towards “gatekeep media and force people to pay for it” model instead.

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[-] fodor@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago

Haha not if you use a VPN or international websites or pirate that shit.

[-] SnoringEarthworm@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

If you VPN into the UK or Australia, you'll run into the same restrictions.

As more countries pass this kind of legislation, VPNs become less and less of a solution, and they were only ever a solution for people who can afford them.

[-] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The problem is that these kinds of laws are becoming widespread. When they become the norm, simply VPN’ing to a different country won’t save you, because there won’t be any “safe” countries.

Shit like this is why I unironically considered spinning up a NSFW Jellyfin instance. At least if I save the degen content like a data hoarder, they can’t legislate away my access.

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[-] bramen49@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It's almost like these reps want to have the same leverage over their constituents that Russia has on them...
.../s
.../?

[-] PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

There is no sarcasm here. You are right. They'd love that.

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[-] Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 weeks ago

I'm going back to physical media. Guess that will include my porn soon too.

Hmm, might actually still have some old playboy somewhere 🤔

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[-] BanaramaClamcrotch@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago

So much for small government…

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[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago

This may be the real reason r's are losing all of the elections, lol. They are entirely red states.

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/16/adult-website-age-verification-states

[-] Avenging5@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago

Freedom! Fuck yeah!

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this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025
217 points (98.7% liked)

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