i think it should be a little harder for a child to watch anal prolapse fisting porn than “click yes if you’re of legal age”….
but… not a good excuse for creating a citizen surveillance database.
Fair point on the current system being theater, but here’s the thing - any centralized age verification system creates exactly the surveillance database you’re worried about.
The “harder than clicking yes” solutions all have the same fundamental flaw: they require collecting and storing sensitive data that becomes a honeypot for both state actors and bad actors. Upload your ID? Now there’s a database linking your identity to your viewing habits. Credit card verification? Same problem, plus you’re creating financial trails.
The technical reality is that determined kids will circumvent anything you put in place. We already saw this play out - VPN registrations exploded 1,000% in France within 30 minutes. You’re not actually protecting kids; you’re just normalizing data collection on adults while teaching every teenager in the country how to use Tor.
Better approach would be device-level parental controls that parents can configure without creating centralized databases. Let Apple, Google, Microsoft handle age verification through their existing account systems where the data stays local. That way you get actual protection without building the infrastructure for a surveillance state.
The French solution gives you the worst of both worlds - ineffective protection AND mass surveillance. Classic government efficiency.
that’s a lack of imagination….
just because i can’t think of a great solution doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
off the top of my head, here’s a system without a centralized surveillance database:
porn site gives you a random token,
you then hash that with a time-stamp,
get the token signed by your government ID system (like a dmv),
return the signed hash.
the government only knows that you used age verification for something somewhere….
now the hard part is just explaining cryptographic signatures and hashes to people….
of course people could still give a kid a verified account, but at least it’s harder for them to access it, i don’t need perfection….
i think it should be a little harder for a child to watch anal prolapse fisting porn than “click yes if you’re of legal age”….
but… not a good excuse for creating a citizen surveillance database.
Fair point on the current system being theater, but here’s the thing - any centralized age verification system creates exactly the surveillance database you’re worried about.
The “harder than clicking yes” solutions all have the same fundamental flaw: they require collecting and storing sensitive data that becomes a honeypot for both state actors and bad actors. Upload your ID? Now there’s a database linking your identity to your viewing habits. Credit card verification? Same problem, plus you’re creating financial trails.
The technical reality is that determined kids will circumvent anything you put in place. We already saw this play out - VPN registrations exploded 1,000% in France within 30 minutes. You’re not actually protecting kids; you’re just normalizing data collection on adults while teaching every teenager in the country how to use Tor.
Better approach would be device-level parental controls that parents can configure without creating centralized databases. Let Apple, Google, Microsoft handle age verification through their existing account systems where the data stays local. That way you get actual protection without building the infrastructure for a surveillance state.
The French solution gives you the worst of both worlds - ineffective protection AND mass surveillance. Classic government efficiency.
that’s a lack of imagination….
just because i can’t think of a great solution doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
off the top of my head, here’s a system without a centralized surveillance database:
now the hard part is just explaining cryptographic signatures and hashes to people….
of course people could still give a kid a verified account, but at least it’s harder for them to access it, i don’t need perfection….