I know this is not going to be well received here, but we as a society do need to do something to prevent children from being able to access pornography. We are just now getting research showing the detrimental effects of social media and internet pornography on developing children’s brains. There hasn’t been concrete evidence until recently, and now we know. Things do have to change.
However, this needs to be done with as little information as possible collected and distributed. Zero-knowledge proofs should be used to establish that a person is above a certain age without telling the site what their age actually is. This can be done, however I do imagine they are going to skip past all of that and just go to collecting all the information possible.
No one is saying that kids should be able to access pornography. People are saying that it shouldn’t be the states job to raise your children for you.
Effectively blocking pornography for everyone in the country unless you dox yourself to shady websites is not the answer. The answer is developing the tools and simplifying processes required to stop children accessing these things on the device and local network level and putting those tools in the hands of parents. Doing this is almost certainly orders of magnitude cheaper than trying to police the internet
The Great Firewall of Britain is a frankly stupid concept.
People are saying that it shouldn’t be the states job to raise your children for you.
This logic does not hold up in most other cases. We stopped selling alcohol and cigarettes unless you dox yourself to shady gas stations and stores. Parents should be able to stop their kids from being able to buy that shit, why should the stores have to do more work to enforce it? You’re seriously going to inconvenience all the adults that can legally buy it just to prevent kids from being able to buy it? Why can’t we keep our cigarette vending machines? Surely it’s cheaper just to have parents control their kids, rather than manage every single store in the country.
The internet is different, and it’s currently the wild west. Because it’s different, it’s also possible to prove your age without doxing yourself (like I mentioned with zero-knowledge proof). It is possible to prove you are over an age without telling anyone anything about yourself. Unlike being required to give your drivers license/ID card to buy alcohol or cigarettes which gives all of your information to every person you hand it to.
Not all parents are going to have the know-how to lock down a child’s internet access. They may need to use 3rd party tools, many of which would cost money. Does it really make more sense to have parents try to secure every place a kid may access internet pornography rather than securing it at the source? Again, if done correctly, it can be done privately and securely. I am not advocating that we give our ID to every sketchy internet site. I am advocating for a widespread secure and standardized solution. That makes more sense than to put all of the onus on the parents.
We stopped selling alcohol and cigarettes unless you dox yourself to shady gas stations and stores.
Both of which famously keep databases of everyone’s IDs, and require transmitting your ID over who-knows-what network to who-knows-where.
Oh, wait, no they don’t.
Again, if done correctly, it can be done privately and securely. I am not advocating that we give our ID to every sketchy internet site. I am advocating for a widespread secure and standardized solution.
Right, and such a solution will ultimately just require everyone to trust the fact that it’s been “done privately and securely”
Both of which famously keep databases of everyone’s IDs, and require transmitting your ID over who-knows-what network to who-knows-where.
Scanning ID’s into a database is a thing. It’s not everywhere, but I have seen places do it. Usually Hospital’s and Casinos
Right, and such a solution will ultimately just require everyone to trust the fact that it’s been “done privately and securely”
No, that is not true. It is possible to set it up with zero trust, so we do not have to trust them. It will be setup properly in the first place. It’s like the fact that Bitwarden can be open source and yet people can’t just decrypt vaults despite everyone having access to the code. Zero-knowledge proofs can be done without requiring us to trust anyone. That is what I have been saying, but it keeps seeming to be skipped over. There would be an initial proof with a government identification (which basically everyone already has) and from there the system could be setup in a way that you can prove you are over the age without them knowing literally anything about you. It is possible to prove you are over 18 without them even know your age (other than it is greater than or equal to 18)
And regardless, how are parents that struggle to setup their email going to keep their kid from accessing porn? What would you have them do? Install a 3rd party software? Setup a local DNS filter? Prevent them from using devices that can access the internet? When it is as easy as googling “naked girl” how on earth are parents going to stop them from access it. The answer? The aren’t. There is nothing even the most diligent parent can do to stop them from accessing it while it is so readily accessible.
You haven’t demonstrated what harm comes from googling naked girl and seeing boobs.
If you want devices with parental control you will need to pay for them.
Devices like school computers already have such. This won’t stop a determined person from borrowing their friends phone and googling naked girl but that is a reasonable trade off honestly.
I don’t want to turn the entire Internet into 1984 so your kids doesn’t see boobs until he’s 18
You haven’t demonstrated what harm comes from googling naked girl and seeing boobs.
I cannot, since I am not a researcher. The research is out there though.
If you want devices with parental control you will need to pay for them.
If it is definitively negative, parents should not have to research, install, and pay for such restrictions onky to be easily avoided on another device.
I don’t want to turn the entire Internet into 1984 so your kids doesn’t see boobs until he’s 18
I don’t have kids. This about an entire generation and all future ones. Have you read 1984? While sueveillance is a part of it, it’s largely about authoritarianism and the control of reality itself. Being ID’d for a porn site is not that. 1984 is already happening, and the porn has nothing to do with it. Regardless, you have made no comment on the idea that I want it done with zero knowledge proof. The site would know nothing about you except you are over 18. There is absolutely nothing 1984 about that
That’s what people said when they took away cigarette vending machines. Why should adults have to suffer because other people can’t control their children
I guess if you still hold that belief, then it is fair you think ID for internet pron is also wrong. Though I imagine most people support the controling of alcohol and cigarette sales. In which case internet pornography should fall into the same category
Kids aren’t born with internet-connected devices in their hands. Adults give devices to them and then walk out of the room.
Would you let the average internet poster or YouTuber babysit your kid? Because that’s literally what you’re doing.
I grew up in the '80s and '90s. My mom did her best to pay attention to the shows/movies I was watching, the books I was reading, the music I was listening to. And up until I was about 13, it was all very tightly controlled. It’s still possible to have that kind of oversight, but it’s more work than a lot of parents are willing to do.
I live outside the US now, and most of my elementary-school students have parents who very tightly control their screen time and actively monitor their usage. The kids have sports training, dance classes, and other activities that get them out in the world. It’s very, very different from the kids I used to teach in the US.
Why do we regulate alcohol and cigarettes? Why dont parent’s just parent their kids? How would the kid even bave the money to buy them in the first place? To be clear, when these restrictions were being put in place, people absolutely had the exact same arguments you are making right now. The onus is on the parents.
Even kids with parents that have reasonable restrictions are easily able to access internet pornography because internet devices are everywhere. Internet devices are easier to access than cigarettes and alcohol, and can do just as much damage to their development. Why wouldn’t the government also control access to confirm someone’s age.
Please do not respond to me about giving out your ID if you do not acknowledge my comment on use zero knowledge proof’s to verify you’re over an age.
Fuck that. I was raised in a rural area. My only potential sex partners for my first 20 years of life was my family. Without being able to use dial-up to access hentai manga and VNs, my sexuality would have completely withered on the vine. Many of my years of youth were sexless, and by the time I had some agency, my body wasn’t up to the task of enjoying sex for more than several minutes at a time.
Puritans have no place in dictating who should have porn, because they cannot account for the circumstances or nature of a person’s sexual existence. People should be allowed to explore and enjoy sex, and if they don’t like it, then they don’t have to infringe on other people’s ability to partake.
I am not religious, and religion should stay far the fuck away from government and laws.
However, if there is conclusive research on the negative impacts of watching internet pornography during developmental years, why should that be allowed? Once someone is an adult, they can do whatever the fuck they want with internet porn. But we stopped letting kids drink alcohol and smoking cigarettes because of the negative health impacts that were far worse when consumed prematurely.
I explained my circumstances, and you ignored them. You have demonstrated why conservative values are evil, as they would have prevented me from finding myself as a person. My emotions were stunted by living in rural isolation, and only started to grow after being exposed to VNs and porn.
Not all people have YOUR privilege of having friends, platonic or otherwise. What you trying to steal from my childhood, is a better future for someone you don’t know. Your values exist expressly to benefit those who live by narrow-minded sexuality, and have a community of likeminded people. This sucks, because you are advocating that people outside of your ingroup shouldn’t live full lives as humans.
Not all people have YOUR privilege of having friends, platonic or otherwise. What you trying to steal from my childhood, is a better future for someone you don’t know.
Are you advocating for replacing social interactions with internet porn due to rural conditions? Basically all of human history has had a very limited number of people they can interact with, and that only changed very recently.
My emotions were stunted by living in rural isolation
Research has shown that not socializing during development harms their emotional and social growth. There are people there you could have socialized with, but you didn’t have to because the internet provided an escape.
I explained my circumstances, and you ignored them. You have demonstrated why conservative values are evil
I am not conservative. I am not religious. I am literally only talking about research, which is neither a religious not conservative thing to do. Even if someone had anecdotal experience as to why alcohol helped them get through their childhood, that does not mean we should allow children to have alcohol. Likewise, it does not matter if it benefited you (which I am skeptical of to begin with) if research shows it to be harmful to kids and teens.
You ignored my life experience. Again. I had no access to people beyond my own family. No friends, let alone people to have sex with. You would have to walk many miles to find other people, most of whom were at least three decades older than me. Plus, my parents DIDN’T have friends nor social lives.
I don’t give a damn about your “research”, because it is clearly intended to ruin the lives of people. People discover their sexuality through media and other humans, the former often allowing them to identify what kinds of folks are compatible with them. It could be the camaraderie of furries, perhaps girls liking girls and finding their partner. The key thing, is that in our formative years, our sexuality is either discovered or destroyed. Your position exists to stifle the humanity each of us have.
You are welcome to ignore your own sexuality. All I ask is for you to not repress children from figuring out what makes them happy, because that dictates whether they possess a guiding light for the rest of their lives.
I don’t give a damn about your “research”, because it is clearly intended to ruin the lives of people.
I don’t think you understand how research works.
No friends, let alone people to have sex with. You would have to walk many miles to find other people, most of whom were at least three decades older than me. Plus, my parents DIDN’T have friends nor social lives.
You didn’t go to school? You didn’t interact with people your age? Could your lack of friends not be partially caused by your dependency on the internet
Look. Some people DON’T have access to school. Just because there are phone lines, doesn’t mean there are cultural centers, especially for children. This world is made by adults, to serve the interests of adults. The young are inherently dependent on their elders to provide all things, including community. My parents didn’t. Simple as that.
I know this is not going to be well received here, but we as a society do need to do something to prevent children from being able to access pornography. We are just now getting research showing the detrimental effects of social media and internet pornography on developing children’s brains. There hasn’t been concrete evidence until recently, and now we know. Things do have to change.
However, this needs to be done with as little information as possible collected and distributed. Zero-knowledge proofs should be used to establish that a person is above a certain age without telling the site what their age actually is. This can be done, however I do imagine they are going to skip past all of that and just go to collecting all the information possible.
No one is saying that kids should be able to access pornography. People are saying that it shouldn’t be the states job to raise your children for you.
Effectively blocking pornography for everyone in the country unless you dox yourself to shady websites is not the answer. The answer is developing the tools and simplifying processes required to stop children accessing these things on the device and local network level and putting those tools in the hands of parents. Doing this is almost certainly orders of magnitude cheaper than trying to police the internet
The Great Firewall of Britain is a frankly stupid concept.
This logic does not hold up in most other cases. We stopped selling alcohol and cigarettes unless you dox yourself to shady gas stations and stores. Parents should be able to stop their kids from being able to buy that shit, why should the stores have to do more work to enforce it? You’re seriously going to inconvenience all the adults that can legally buy it just to prevent kids from being able to buy it? Why can’t we keep our cigarette vending machines? Surely it’s cheaper just to have parents control their kids, rather than manage every single store in the country.
The internet is different, and it’s currently the wild west. Because it’s different, it’s also possible to prove your age without doxing yourself (like I mentioned with zero-knowledge proof). It is possible to prove you are over an age without telling anyone anything about yourself. Unlike being required to give your drivers license/ID card to buy alcohol or cigarettes which gives all of your information to every person you hand it to.
Not all parents are going to have the know-how to lock down a child’s internet access. They may need to use 3rd party tools, many of which would cost money. Does it really make more sense to have parents try to secure every place a kid may access internet pornography rather than securing it at the source? Again, if done correctly, it can be done privately and securely. I am not advocating that we give our ID to every sketchy internet site. I am advocating for a widespread secure and standardized solution. That makes more sense than to put all of the onus on the parents.
Both of which famously keep databases of everyone’s IDs, and require transmitting your ID over who-knows-what network to who-knows-where.
Oh, wait, no they don’t.
Right, and such a solution will ultimately just require everyone to trust the fact that it’s been “done privately and securely”
Scanning ID’s into a database is a thing. It’s not everywhere, but I have seen places do it. Usually Hospital’s and Casinos
No, that is not true. It is possible to set it up with zero trust, so we do not have to trust them. It will be setup properly in the first place. It’s like the fact that Bitwarden can be open source and yet people can’t just decrypt vaults despite everyone having access to the code. Zero-knowledge proofs can be done without requiring us to trust anyone. That is what I have been saying, but it keeps seeming to be skipped over. There would be an initial proof with a government identification (which basically everyone already has) and from there the system could be setup in a way that you can prove you are over the age without them knowing literally anything about you. It is possible to prove you are over 18 without them even know your age (other than it is greater than or equal to 18)
It’s your job to keep your kid from cruising porn on the devices you own
What about the devices you don’t own?
And regardless, how are parents that struggle to setup their email going to keep their kid from accessing porn? What would you have them do? Install a 3rd party software? Setup a local DNS filter? Prevent them from using devices that can access the internet? When it is as easy as googling “naked girl” how on earth are parents going to stop them from access it. The answer? The aren’t. There is nothing even the most diligent parent can do to stop them from accessing it while it is so readily accessible.
You haven’t demonstrated what harm comes from googling naked girl and seeing boobs.
If you want devices with parental control you will need to pay for them.
Devices like school computers already have such. This won’t stop a determined person from borrowing their friends phone and googling naked girl but that is a reasonable trade off honestly.
I don’t want to turn the entire Internet into 1984 so your kids doesn’t see boobs until he’s 18
I cannot, since I am not a researcher. The research is out there though.
If it is definitively negative, parents should not have to research, install, and pay for such restrictions onky to be easily avoided on another device.
I don’t have kids. This about an entire generation and all future ones. Have you read 1984? While sueveillance is a part of it, it’s largely about authoritarianism and the control of reality itself. Being ID’d for a porn site is not that. 1984 is already happening, and the porn has nothing to do with it. Regardless, you have made no comment on the idea that I want it done with zero knowledge proof. The site would know nothing about you except you are over 18. There is absolutely nothing 1984 about that
Literally none of this is my problem. I do not give two shits what other people’s children do on the Internet.
That’s what people said when they took away cigarette vending machines. Why should adults have to suffer because other people can’t control their children
Those people were correct.
I guess if you still hold that belief, then it is fair you think ID for internet pron is also wrong. Though I imagine most people support the controling of alcohol and cigarette sales. In which case internet pornography should fall into the same category
Yes, it’s called “parenting”
This. Times 1000.
Kids aren’t born with internet-connected devices in their hands. Adults give devices to them and then walk out of the room.
Would you let the average internet poster or YouTuber babysit your kid? Because that’s literally what you’re doing.
I grew up in the '80s and '90s. My mom did her best to pay attention to the shows/movies I was watching, the books I was reading, the music I was listening to. And up until I was about 13, it was all very tightly controlled. It’s still possible to have that kind of oversight, but it’s more work than a lot of parents are willing to do.
I live outside the US now, and most of my elementary-school students have parents who very tightly control their screen time and actively monitor their usage. The kids have sports training, dance classes, and other activities that get them out in the world. It’s very, very different from the kids I used to teach in the US.
Why do we regulate alcohol and cigarettes? Why dont parent’s just parent their kids? How would the kid even bave the money to buy them in the first place? To be clear, when these restrictions were being put in place, people absolutely had the exact same arguments you are making right now. The onus is on the parents.
Even kids with parents that have reasonable restrictions are easily able to access internet pornography because internet devices are everywhere. Internet devices are easier to access than cigarettes and alcohol, and can do just as much damage to their development. Why wouldn’t the government also control access to confirm someone’s age.
Please do not respond to me about giving out your ID if you do not acknowledge my comment on use zero knowledge proof’s to verify you’re over an age.
Fuck that. I was raised in a rural area. My only potential sex partners for my first 20 years of life was my family. Without being able to use dial-up to access hentai manga and VNs, my sexuality would have completely withered on the vine. Many of my years of youth were sexless, and by the time I had some agency, my body wasn’t up to the task of enjoying sex for more than several minutes at a time.
Puritans have no place in dictating who should have porn, because they cannot account for the circumstances or nature of a person’s sexual existence. People should be allowed to explore and enjoy sex, and if they don’t like it, then they don’t have to infringe on other people’s ability to partake.
Porn should be normalized.
I am not religious, and religion should stay far the fuck away from government and laws.
However, if there is conclusive research on the negative impacts of watching internet pornography during developmental years, why should that be allowed? Once someone is an adult, they can do whatever the fuck they want with internet porn. But we stopped letting kids drink alcohol and smoking cigarettes because of the negative health impacts that were far worse when consumed prematurely.
I explained my circumstances, and you ignored them. You have demonstrated why conservative values are evil, as they would have prevented me from finding myself as a person. My emotions were stunted by living in rural isolation, and only started to grow after being exposed to VNs and porn.
Not all people have YOUR privilege of having friends, platonic or otherwise. What you trying to steal from my childhood, is a better future for someone you don’t know. Your values exist expressly to benefit those who live by narrow-minded sexuality, and have a community of likeminded people. This sucks, because you are advocating that people outside of your ingroup shouldn’t live full lives as humans.
Are you advocating for replacing social interactions with internet porn due to rural conditions? Basically all of human history has had a very limited number of people they can interact with, and that only changed very recently.
Research has shown that not socializing during development harms their emotional and social growth. There are people there you could have socialized with, but you didn’t have to because the internet provided an escape.
I am not conservative. I am not religious. I am literally only talking about research, which is neither a religious not conservative thing to do. Even if someone had anecdotal experience as to why alcohol helped them get through their childhood, that does not mean we should allow children to have alcohol. Likewise, it does not matter if it benefited you (which I am skeptical of to begin with) if research shows it to be harmful to kids and teens.
You ignored my life experience. Again. I had no access to people beyond my own family. No friends, let alone people to have sex with. You would have to walk many miles to find other people, most of whom were at least three decades older than me. Plus, my parents DIDN’T have friends nor social lives.
I don’t give a damn about your “research”, because it is clearly intended to ruin the lives of people. People discover their sexuality through media and other humans, the former often allowing them to identify what kinds of folks are compatible with them. It could be the camaraderie of furries, perhaps girls liking girls and finding their partner. The key thing, is that in our formative years, our sexuality is either discovered or destroyed. Your position exists to stifle the humanity each of us have.
You are welcome to ignore your own sexuality. All I ask is for you to not repress children from figuring out what makes them happy, because that dictates whether they possess a guiding light for the rest of their lives.
I don’t think you understand how research works.
You didn’t go to school? You didn’t interact with people your age? Could your lack of friends not be partially caused by your dependency on the internet
🤦
Look. Some people DON’T have access to school. Just because there are phone lines, doesn’t mean there are cultural centers, especially for children. This world is made by adults, to serve the interests of adults. The young are inherently dependent on their elders to provide all things, including community. My parents didn’t. Simple as that.