Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat hit with tough new EU safety regulations - Lemmings.world
lemmings.world
There is a discussion on Hacker News [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38707809], but feel free to comment here as well.

Porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat face stricter requirements to verify the ages of their users after being officially designated as “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

I personally have mixed feelings, as the information collection could be used to link individuals and profile them. Possibly leading to discrimination if abused.

But I also feel that any random kid shouldn’t be able to just go to these sites and see porn freely.
Ofc, there’s always going to be those who mange to circumvent any protection put in place but it’d be much harder then just clicking a link or typing in the address.
I also feel that parents should actively monitor their kids online activities and step up a Blocklist to pro-actively prevent kids from reaching these sites to begin with.

What are your thoughts on this?

  • BrikoX@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1013·
    11 months ago

    But I also feel that any random kid shouldn’t be able to just go to these sites and see porn freely.

    So they will just go to another site that doesn’t have age verification and doesn’t implement any security measures instead. Big sites are required to age check people before they are allowed to upload anything, that is not the case for most of the internet.

    All age verification does is aggregate personal information and make it easy target for bad actors to steal. Instead of needing to go thought 100 sites, now that information & identities will be tied to a single database.

    It’s also a slippery slope, since the same adult content is available not just on dedicated adult sites, but mainstream social media. Lemmy, Mastodon, Twitter, TikTok, Twitch (just recently wanted to allow nudity). Do you really want to have your identity tied to your online activity?

      • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
        11·
        11 months ago

        Perhaps, but too many parents are terrible at their jobs.

        Would you argue the same thing with other age restrictions, such as buying alcohol/drugs, driver’s licenses, or child labour?

        • PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk
          20·
          11 months ago

          I’m making the assumption that you’re not deliberately daft enough to conflat the two issues of “a cheeky tug looking at some low resolution grot” and “mass casualty attack planning”, but surely you must see the difference between harmful content and porn, and why measures should be taken (however easy to circumvent) to disrupt terrorism or other large-scale atrocities?

        • DaDragon@kbin.social
          7·
          11 months ago

          What? It is not illegal for children to access pornography. It is at best illegal for people to allow children access to pornography. (Outside of countries where pornography is banned outright)

    • DaDragon@kbin.social
      51·
      11 months ago

      Yep. I spent a couple years as a child in a country with country-wide blocks on some internet content. However, google images wasn’t blocked (duh.) Reddit wasn’t blocked (not that I knew the site at the time).

      Only thing it changed from a user-perspective was using either shitty and seedy VPN’s or simply going to more questionable sites the authority blocklist didn’t know of yet. And I’ll be honest, I doubt that sites like xnxx (back then) are much better for a developing child than the somewhat controlled sites. There’s so many niche porn sites out there that they can’t all be blocked. You only end up blocking access to sites that are the flattest for access by minors, ironically. (To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s great that minors access that content, either)