France moves to block access to pornography sites for minors | Hacker News Reader

France moves to block access to pornography sites for minors

reuters.com

53 pointskneebonian44 comments

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AKA France moves to block access to pornography sites for everyone who doesn't install an invasive, government-run, lowest-bidder-produced software that requires your ID to prove you're not a minor

At long last they'll have less information on what pornography predilections their population has compared to advertisers.

That aside, it looks like governments everywhere are looking to control what their citizens have access to, what they view and what they read.

So, it will be easier for kids to have access to even more hardcore porn from websites that won't care complying with that law. Felicitations.

https://archive.ph/94eYF

> People who want to visit these websites will have to install an application for government-licensed digital certification on their mobile phones to prove that they are at least 18 years old. Sites which do not comply will risk being banned from publishing in France.

What a shitshow. I feel sorry for you, Frenchies. When this inevitably backfires, at least we’ll have an example to point to when some moron attempts to legislate this in a different part of Europe.

Instead of that system, why just not say : "all phone sold/given to minors have a parental control enabled they cannot remove" ...

This way kids can't get around with a VPN, they can't get around by stealing their parents ID, and the rest of the society doesn't have to install a government spyware, and we're not building a extremely sensible database of people profile

Such a simple solution would be as, if not more, efficient while respecting everyone's privacy

Because that's an even easier market to get around. Any 18 year old can be the middleman for a minor's device purchase at an insignificant markup.

How is that not the case with the system in place here ? Any 18yo could "unlock" a minor's phone with their ID...

And with this law, any 18yo can "unlock" a minor's device with their ID, how is that more robust than a mandatory parental control ?

The degree to which people underestimate children is always interesting to me, especially on a forum such as this one where your average teenager would probably run circles around such stuff and be more than happy to jailbreak their buddies phones as well.

Isn't it underestimating them even more to think they can't install a VPN in two clicks (which is the only thing needed to bypass this law).

Also I don't know from where you assume that an "average teen" can easily crack a manufacturer-imposed lock.

Who is the "average teen" that can take an IPhone and bypass FaceID or the Pin Lockscreen ? Which average teen can bypass a password protected secure-boot UEFI bootloader ? Which average teen finds an exploit to unlock a phone bootloader without the manufacturer key ?

If the a law would force the manufacturer to take it seriously, they could make the parental control far harder to bypass than this ridiculous and privacy invasive law

When I was 14 I used some parts from radioshack, "JTAG", and some of my mom's larger sewing needles to get my xbox 360 to play videogame content I downloaded off the internet and burned to discs. I hardly understood how, I just followed some instructions carefully.

You only need one cracker. Friend-groups usually have someone patient enough to follow "tech recipes". - ingredients/parts - sequential process - result

I have an 11 year old here that sometimes really amazes me with his knowledge and persistence and I have zero doubt that if he was motivated to bypass something like this he'd get there, eventually. Never underestimate the reserves of persistence in a teenager that is determined to get their hands on something. I wished I had that kind of focus.

You don't bypass an iPhone lockscreen with your mum's sewing needle.

If Apple cares enough about locking something, no average person bypasses it easily

mfw the average "password protected secure-boot UEFI bootloader" can just be resetted by removing the internal battery

With apologies to Camus - it seems rather than just imagining Sisyphus happy, we ought to see him as actually somehow optimistic that this time the boulder will stay at the top of the hill instead of rolling back down.

Social media is incredibly sexualized too.

I'm more concerned about this than porn. I think everyone at least kind-of knows what porn isn't real, just as people know video games aren't real, or movies. Not saying these things can't affect people in various ways (which can be both positive and negative), but social media is presented as if it's real but it's often not, and the effects of this seem much worse.

10 year olds don’t know that porn isn’t real. I’m pretty sure seeing the stuff I did when I was 10 had a massively negative impact.

I’m pretty sure it scarred me in some fashion. I’m fine now, but it really did a number on me seeing some of that stuff way before I should have.

That said, I don’t support the government limiting the internet in any way. That’s the parent’s job.

I sought out, and saw, hardcore porn (magazines) when I was 10. I don't think it had a negative impact on me at all.

I was curious and I satisfied my curiosity. I continue to satisfy my curiosity, lol.

> Social media is incredibly sexualized too.

In no small part because social media is an advertising medium for porn.

Personally being a teen with adhd pornography took away my high school life, made me socially awkward and dependent on the dopamine.I had no motivation for anything, not even adderall would help. Instead I would combine porn and adderall. To this day I don’t talk about the addiction.

What about minors who watch on their computer?

It might work, especially since minors don't have credit cards to buy vpn time.

Although I am sure there are tons of free options.

Lol.

Instead they'll use free VPNs that sell their browsing habits.

You can buy VPN time with gift cards, crypto or your friends credit card that he sourced from a fake ID, or a stranger that you paid cash. You are not creative enough.

I think they should pay more attention to them softporn on TikTok…

France has been impressively based lately.

I used to be against this sort of meddling into internet freedom, but I’m not anymore. What do we have to show for it? We got a bunch of walled gardens controlled by big corporations. We got an advertising powered internet. If the French government has public support for this, then let them do it.

I remember as a kid getting access to all types of illegal content like ripped off video games, music, and movies.

It won't be hard for them to bypass this, and that means they'll be spending all their time on porn websites willing to break the law.

It also means when these websites eventually get hacked, those hackers have access to a bunch of material to blackmail huge swaths of the population.

Overall seems like a bad move.

Kids are much less technically capable these days. They grew up with iPads. They wouldn’t know a COM port from a hole in the ground. It will get bypassed for sure, but it’s not nuclear secrets. It’s enough to make it inconvenient for your average person.

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