Comment by blackbrokkoli | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blackbrokkoli | Hacker News Reader

That is honestly just the same old big tech story I've must have read a thousand times now.

Sure, it is a little bit more sinister than usual even, but that's just because the company in question serves a market with some very dark corners, like the assault featured in the article.

People here argue pro or contra porn prohibition or platform specifics, but it comes down to this: The Western world decided that giant multinationals sitting above countries, laws, ethics and responsibility holding all the data are the ultimate expression of the American Dream and should therefore exist undisturbed forever, growing bigger and bigger. Shit like this is just fallout from the gargantuan power distance between megacorp and human you get, by design.

Sure, there are probably ways to get PornHub to be sorry for that, make amends, change some rules. Whatever. Last week it was Uber discriminating, here it's PornHub violating, maybe next week it will be someone having his business destroyed because he associated with a scammer in 2004 again.

Every time there is juicy drama and a micro-outcome in this or that direction, but for someone reason the macro-problem gets mostly ignored.

It is hardly just changing some rules. Pornhub killed off the majority of their content, and removed the permissive copyright system that enabled them to become dominant in the market in the first place.

For them, it’s a huge change.

Serious question: there used to be in US law a record keeping requirement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Protection_and_Obscenity... ; what happened to that which meant Pornhub could just publish whatever with no attempt at verifying legitimacy?

US law only applies to US companies

Well, up to a point; there are plenty of laws which apply to anyone deemed to be marketing to the US, especially financial services and online gambling, and Megaupload got raided by the FBI despite being in New Zealand.

Thats true, but I don't know if that necessarily means U.S law applies to those countries, as much as allies will oblige in certain cases such as the ones you mentioned and Huawei. And when I say I don't know, I very much actually don't know

Mindgeek has a very interesting corporate past. This FT article is the closest I’ve ever found to an investigation but honestly, it reads more like a really bad soap opera than an FT article:

https://financialpost.com/financial-times/the-secretive-worl...

Does PornHub "publish" the videos on their site?

My gut tells me that yes, they do. What's the alternative?

"We're just a platform your honor. We are not responsible for the rape content that we host on our website."

Seems like an unsatisfactory standard.

> Does PornHub "publish" the videos on their site?

Some, possibly not all (especially in a US legal sense, given CDA § 230), but it distributes all of them, and the law applies to distribution.

I’m no expert but couldn’t the same be asked for Facebook, Twitter and Reddit?

My understanding is that they used to "follow" that by making someone check a box saying the uploader was CPOE compliant.

The "secondary producer" (anyone who "publishes, reproduces, or reissues") has had limited enforcement and is what would cover Pornhub.

More recently they have changed to collecting legal identification of anyone doing an upload at least.

> The Western world decided...

It's not so simple[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

This isn't a BigCo's specific failure.

They're just following in the footsteps of the precedent set by the DMV et al who themselves are standing on a long and storied tradition of bureaucratic ineptitude. Heck, this crap goes back at least as far as the ancient Roman administrative state if not further. The fact that the bureaucratic run-around flies from department to department in the form of 1's and zeros instead of dried tree pulp or waxed stone tablets doesn't really make a substantial difference. This isn't anything new.

I think the argument is that if companies feared consequences from an engaged government that actively protected its private citizens' rights, this specific issue would not exist (since the company's continued functioning could then depend on its efficiently cooperating with such requests).

I think the issue being discussed here is also, "how can we make a government whose bureaucracy will be able to be engaged?" So many examples show bureaucracy and the abdication of responsibility go hand in hand. In order for the government to be empowered, its workers need to be empowered, and we have few cultural narratives of how rule following enabled great outcomes.

Instead, almost fetishistically, we embrace rule breaking as the ultimate expression of self actualization, from forming businesses to bureaucrats who actually took time during their breaks to help.

IMO, working for a company and working for the government are both exercises in limiting personal liability, and I've not yet encountered a construct that allowed people to limit liability without also limiting their agency. I also think it is important that we as a modern democracy do work to solve this issue.

Though it starts out feeling a little dismissive, I think your comment does a good job of explaining the problem we have now is not limited to the mico level, but that it's a macro level problem.

Now it's time to start talking about how we're going to fix that problem you have so rightly pointed out.

It's clear the rules need to change, and it's clear we need to claw back the gargantuan power we gave over to mega-corps.

> Pornhub has recently removed that download button.

News flash: there are many (many many many) softwares out there that can 'catch'/downlaod a video, mp3, etc. from a website.

I listen a daily radio show. Not live though. I wait till the recording is done, then wait till they upload it on the station's website, and I am using a SW to 'catch' the mp3, download it, and listen to it later at my convenience (and offline). I have written and asked them to make a podcast for each of their radio shows, they're in the process of setting it up, I just cannot listen to them live, so I do this 'illegal workaround'.

That same software can catch videos (and streams) from YT, Vimeo, and most sites I visit. I don't 'pirate', but I do download some old-time music videos because I fear that one day they will disappear (e.g. Van Halen - Right now, Chicane - Saltwater). I want to be able to watch them when I'm (very) old, and I don't know how 'old music' videos will be treated. I do pay for Spotify, so I do pay for the music I enjoy (to avoid any responses to the contrary).

> Every time there is juicy drama and a micro-outcome

(not picking a fight with you): If that was your sister, mother, daughter you wouldn't even think of writing something like that. It is cases like this though, that can bring a $50m penalty to the big bullies and their minions ("marios", "kevin"). And large corp don't give a poop for the little people. They care to not lose money. Slap a $50m penalty to PornHub, and see them changing their tune within 24h and fixing this problem within 2-3 months.

Or maybe it is just media companies trying to exert power and blowing up issues out of proportion. Just because some media outlet writes a dramatic article, doesn't mean politicians should rush to instantiate new laws to appease the journalists.

I'm not defending the hosting of revenge porn, but that specific issue does not seem to rely on the existence of porn sites.

It does rely on sites where people can upload stuff. Maybe media companies don't really like that such sites exist, because it destroys their information monopoly.

Perhaps a bit pedantic, but the American Dream isn't necessarily wholly applicable in Canada. Uber was very slowly allowed in, and developer salaries are kilometers behind the US.

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