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Comment by 2OEH8eoCRo0 | Hacker News Reader

> Pornhub asked for a link to each video, the username of the account used to upload it, the title of the file, or screenshots of the page. Rachel sent the information when she had it, but the videos were often uploaded in tiny clips that she found impossible to track. Each time one was taken down, more appeared.

This is where Pornhub should be sued. There is no recourse for victims if things like this can be re-uploaded.

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> the videos were often uploaded in tiny clips that she found impossible to track

1) I just want to point out the obvious comment that if she found the number of clips impossible to track, maybe video hosting sites would also find it impossible to track. Short of creating a ContentID type of system (with its own host of big problems) that would check each edited clip for this content, it's almost impossible for a platform to police an entire Internet's worth of clips. (and a content checking system for homemade porn would probably be a lot harder than a system for a relatively limited catalog of corporate media)

2) IMO, the flaw here is passing the buck from legislators/prosecutors and outsourcing their job to web apps. If criminal acts are being performed, it's not Pornhub that's the police. It's legislators and prosecutors that need to create laws (and enforce them) against harassment, blackmail, malicious acts, etc. Pornhub's job should be to comply with any court orders with all available information for investigation and prosecution.

3) As a general comment, at the risk of being pilloried for victim-blaming, some big problems would be avoided by teaching more smart thinking to young people. If you're in a community that cares about this kind of thing, don't let your significant other setup the camera in the bedroom and don't send nudes that include your face. Even if everybody followed this advice perfectly, it wouldn't solve every problem, but many bad outcomes may be avoided.

> it's almost impossible for a platform to police an entire Internet's worth of clips.

Should such a platform exist then? You aren't off the hook because it's difficult to do.

> It's legislators and prosecutors that need to create laws

I agree. What we have is not working.

> some big problems would be avoided by teaching more smart thinking to young people.

Perhaps. I think society should just get over this sort of thing. People fuck each other- imagine that! But as long as society wants to use evidence of that against you it's still harmful for the victim unfortunately.

> You aren't off the hook because it's difficult to do.

IANAL (I am not a lawyer) and I guess the reason for this can be interpreted in different ways, but keeping companies off the hook partially because it's difficult for private companies to be the police is arguably what society has decided to do through Section 230 of the CDA.

> I think society should just get over this sort of thing. People fuck each other-

Perhaps, but this seems like something ingrained into many humans for a variety of reasons on a level that maybe can't be overcome.

With deepfakes and plenty of ways to obfuscate videos to get around detection via editing, there's NO recourse and it isn't the fault of Pornhub, Youtube or any other website who takes good faith measures to identify the users who upload the content. The victims have recourse in court - with those who uploaded it.

Beyond that, all roads lead to users can't be trusted with cameras or the ability to upload digital content.

A user who reuploads without knowing should be held to the same standard as a sexual predator uploading without consent with intent to harm?

Someone who uploads videos of others who didn't know the people were all 18 didn't take the necessary precautions. Sites make one declare and certify everyone is 18 in the videos.

And for standards, that's exactly how it works for cp victims, the doj will take steps to notify the victim anytime they catch someone who posted or possessed it, so there can be civil damages in addition to criminal.

Feel the same way about Scihub?

For me, it makes a huge difference if a paper of mine got uploaded to the internet, or a private porn video.

From a legal point of view the responsibilities are very similar, if not exactly the same. Making Pornhub responsible for user uploaded content would also make Scihub/YouTube/HN responsible for user uploaded content. I'm not aware of any law that classifies porn as some kind of special responsibility (other than in areas where it's banned, i.e. when crossing the US border as a foreigner or in the more sexually repressed countries).

The particular Sci-Hub trade-off is one that shouldn't worry you. If Pornhub are made responsible for user uploaded content it won't make any difference to Sci-Hub because they're already flagrantly infringing. It's not a grey-zone user-upload operation, its express purpose is to "remov[e] barriers in the way of science" in defiance of copyright law. It's "black" Open Access (in the sense of the pirate flag) and not something within the reach of US regulators (otherwise it would already be toast).

Perhaps you're right, Scihub is a bad example as the service clearly breaks almost all known forms of copyright law (though it really shouldn't be, in my opinion, but that's just the publication industry having too much control).

> Making Pornhub responsible for user uploaded content would also make Scihub/YouTube/HN responsible for user uploaded content.

1) So what?

2) You'll note of course that HN has no user uploaded content, and even comments are regularly moderated.

> 1)

In practice this means you can't upload anything anywhere safely. Not just to your favourite website, but anything served on your own servers or your home network as well. Imagine the police breaking down your door because a porn bot posted an illegal comment while you were asleep.

> 2)

The moderation of comments actually makes HN responsible for what users type here under certain laws, assuming the moderators fail or choose not to act on illegal content.

If some thread here starts linking and discussing tactics of acquiring child porn then dang needs to act real quick real fast before there's going to be a very unpleasant conversation with some very grumpy police officers, at least in my jurisdiction.

Clearly this is unthinkable on a forum like this, but for any moderator this is a real reason for concern

You realize this is a fundamentally ridiculous comparison? This is such a strange comment. What point are you trying to make? Let's be clear here, footage of minors being abused is a thousand times worse then a scientific paper being pirated. Sure, it might be "the same thing" in mechanism but these are vastly different things in reality.

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