Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat hit with tough new EU safety regulations | Hacker News Reader

Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat hit with tough new EU safety regulations

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Doesnt something like this just push underage viewers into going to "non mainstream" sites to get porn, and probably the stuff there has a higher chance of being illegal or at least more "unusual" than what you'd see on pornhub?

Then they can deal with those "non mainstream" sites next or adapt their regulation? I don't understand the criticism of "they can just do <x>" because it's true for nearly any regulation or law.

Some laws are much easier to evade than others, and some laws have especially bad side effects when evaded. (A law about e.g. requiring a certain type of government certification before a large construction project can be undertaken, for instance, would be far harder to evade than this one, and "they can just do <x>" would probably be a bad objection)

Using non mainstream sites instead seems like a realistic way people are going to skirt this law, and those are very hard to regulate without other unpleasant side effects on Internet freedom. I think it's a reasonable concern to raise.

Playing a slow and ineffective cat-and-mouse game seems like a waste of time.

Imposing a burden on a handful of mainstream websites that already invest significantly into "safety" will push people into sites that are less able or willing to do so. Unlike the target of most other regulations or laws, it is trivial to find and browse new websites and there is (almost) no cost or risk. The only way it can be effectively regulated is with draconian measures.

Some time ago probably yes. Now... is anything really mainstream/usual? We've had the incest porn videos on the front page for how many years now? Many porn subreddits and gen-ai porn communities are more chill and usual than pornhub in my opinion.

At this point I'm not sure makelovenotporn is even mainstream and yeah... people could sure use it as an alternative for more "usual" content.

> We've had the incest porn videos on the front page for how many years now

Now there are a lot of sexy mother/daughter dancing videos on Facebook reels. Non-nudity, but the inspiration is clear.

> Now... is anything really mainstream/usual? We've had the incest porn videos on the front page for how many years now?

Bad storylines in porn have always been the norm.

Bad story line is one thing. Heavily leaning into taboo / illegal / abuse territory is another.

Not really. The storylines are bad because they don't matter.

If they don't matter why is it always incest?

Why not?

To be more clear, the exact story doesn't matter, but to have no story can be jarring. The visuals benefit from some explanation, no matter how ridiculous, as to why two (or more) people found themselves in that situation.

Sure, you can come with a long and elaborate story about how two people met, went on several wonderful dates, and finally saw a heated passion for each other take over. Or you can just be lazy and say that they are in that situation because they are a family that lives together.

Now the economics. You have a given budget to produce a film. You can spend it on coming up with a great story, or can spend it on higher quality actors, better lighting, etc. While I am certain there is some market for both, which of the two do you think will be more likely to rise to the top – the better story or the more visually appealing work?

Let's say a woman had a establishment where she offered children's birthday parties. You scroll down the list of offerings, Jesus themed birthday, The Virgin Mary package, God's love birthday, The Holy Trinity package for triplets.

Sure she has a couple of things like Spiderman and Disney princesses in there but the reglious stuff seems to be everywhere.

Then you say that she appears to be reglious and she gets really offended and has long winded justifications rather than just removing those packages from her website if she doesn't want people to assume that's what she's trying to promote.

Well now you have me curious: Which content provider was genuinely offended by a suggestion that its presentation of incest content was in promotion of incest? How are you certain it wasn't just yet another corporate PR stunt sent out for the laughs, must like other businesses do. No other business actually cares what people think as long as the money is rolling in – why would a business in the business of porn (most especially)?

What do you propose instead?

That parents do a much better job of monitoring their child’s online activity. It’s astounding to me to see minors with unrestricted access in their pockets 24/7. This isn’t healthy for growing brains.

it is suprisingly hard to control phones/tablets for minors as the different tools to restrict kids access really do not work well and also do not work across ecosystems while kids often need to have a phone for school communication etc.

windows/mac/linux?/xbox/ps5/nintendo/steam/etc..

used to be there where physical media, now to play games you need dozens of accounts across multiple sites with different settings and services. and even screen time limits often do not work reliable as it miscounts a lot.

I think the simplest method is to monitor a DNS log and any of the children's devices could be monitored via a DNS log. For me, I just want to know when I need to have a conversation with them rather than scold or punish them based I what I see in the DNS log. I have a pfsense router on my network, and monitoring the DNS requests on the network could help flag when someone needs some 'loving parental guidance'. I'm honestly very nervous about this era of my parenting responsibilities, my eldest being 10 years old.

It’s not just online access. Some kids are drawn to screens to their own physical detriment and will stay up all night to get the endorphins hit of the next game. All kids are different, even within a family.

Agreed 100%. I've a homelab, ntop traffic monitoring and considering forcing my son's mobile device (10 years old and about to receive his first mobile device for Christmas) to go via my home network via VPN and I'm still not sure I really want to do this... He could still come across content via friends devices. My wife and I are trying to figure out a conversation/teaching method to keep his mind healthy (in terms of sex/porn) as he progresses through his childhood into teens. It's a stressful minefield; but we don't want to be overly intrusive and figuring out a balance is not an easy task. I'm certainly not going to rely on the law to cover parenting issue. A child feeling that he can have healthy, open and honest conversations with parents on these issues is critical.

So, $0.02 as a parent...

The overriding goals are to (a) avoid overly alienating him from his peers' experience (e.g. don't be the only kid who can't watch some TV at home), while (b) teaching him to make good decisions himself and use things responsibily, by (c) introducing things at a measured pace.

Consequently, you're not going to keep a teenager away from porn. Not without causing more harms in doing so.

But! You can (and in my opinion should) absolutely moderate the speed at which it's introduced.

E.g. for now, at 10, he gets restrictions via VPN on his device. And you be frank with him about this! "Some websites aren't going to load" etc

But also you sit down with him and say "Look, this is how it's going to be, for now, because of your age. But when you turn 12, if you keep your grades up... I'll turn the filtering off for a couple hours a night."

IMHO, the problem isn't {thing}, the problem is {abuse of thing}. And the best way to empower people to avoid abusing a thing is to gradually build their skills to cope with it, which means measured exposure.

PS: Also, don't ever read his DNS logs. You don't want to know. Everyone, even children, deserve some secrets. The gold standard should be he-comes-to-you-with-questions, not you-go-to-him.

"But when you turn 12, if you keep your grades up... I'll turn the filtering off for a couple hours a night."

So, $0.02 as a person who grew up with what I thought at the time were overly-protective parents...

I say this as respectfully as possible, but imo, this is an insane take and shouldn't be taken seriously at all. Letting 12 year old children watch porn for a "couple hours per night" as a reward for good grades sounds like a dystopian hellscape. Porn is not for minors, full stop. We already have a male loneliness epidemic and a drop-off in dating in young men. We don't need to exacerbate problems by conditioning them to dull their desire for real intimacy, or to be OnlyFans simps from their pre-teen years. 12 year old minds don't need to be implicitly taught that women are objects to be used for the sexual gratification of men.

Teach them about sex, respect them and give them space to grow into themselves and still respect you, but pornography is not an inevitable given in someone's life, it is not a universal constant that every person falls into the trap of. It is a toxic, poisonous addiction to an intensely dopaminergic false sense of intimacy, it's destroying our young men and women. and I cannot recommend enough regularly moderating the devices and messages of any minors in your home. 16 years old is the earliest point where I would even consider tapering that moderation off slightly.

I get it. You don't want kids watching porn. You don't think it's good for them.

How do you propose to stop it?

Fully manage their devices? Never allow them access to the internet? Only allow them at friends' while supervised? Never let them out of your sight?

The redress for the ill is what's insane.

What we have is an epidemic of overly-restricted children who fail to learn independence and self-control, because parents "think they can do better." And now, sadly, have access to the technical means to absolutely control their children.

Don't.

They will sometimes do things you disagree with. But they will learn lessons from those things and grow into adults capable of handling themselves.

It's not "watching porn for a couple hours a night," it's doing something that's blocked for a couple hours a night. What that is? Well, that's the child you've raised.

Interesting points. And, I've not yet decided what I'm going to do as a parent yet. The discussion you guys are having here is kind of what's going on in my head right now and over the last few months :D The general direction I think is best for any parent is to leave them to make their own mistakes and educate them, knowing that they can come to me and have frank conversations. The first time I watched any porn was at 13 when one of my mates found his Dad's stash. And I turned out... normal ;-) There was no accessible internet back then, unfortunately.

It's always the parent-head discussion! Because both sides are "right." But I do think too much of either side is wrong.

Kids of the pre-digital generation certainly turned out okay, broadly speaking. And we certainly had far more freedom than kids nowadays (e.g. "I'll be hanging out with {friend}, call me at their house. I'll be home for dinner!").

But... it's also true that some modern evils weren't possible. Pedophiles couldn't groom us from across the country. Information came from the library or people. Communities were smaller and looked out for each other.

The one thing I'd be pretty resolute on -- establish some form of "you don't get to always have your device" up front. Whether that's homework time, or sleep time, or whenever. And be hard-nosed about it: no exceptions.

Otherwise "you always have your device" expectations set in, which coupled with stickiness of modern apps and peer pressure, means it's World War 3 trying to part them from it.

But if "no phone o'clock" has always been a thing... everything runs smoother.

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but schools have made this extremely difficult and if a parent is not a technology professional or has a no- computer accommodation at school (which requires a 504 or IEP), they’ve already lost and likely have no idea what their child is accessing.

I have a child who is happy to bypass rules and restrictions as a past time and with firewalls, screen time limits, frequent history reviews, physical lock boxes, and school accommodations he still frequently accesses content that is not appropriate. It requires hours a week to manage as well as effectively being constantly on call while my child is at school to approve time-based access to online resources.

I have another child who is a rule-follower and could be given a phone with unrestricted access and who would only use the approved apps and sites without any additional guard rails.

At least in our school district (and many others around the US), every student is given a computer that parents have no control over and which has filters managed by organizations with different priorities and values (and competency) than every family’s.

Society gets over our distractions about online sex and focuses on real bad people like Epstein and corrupt organisations like the Catholic church.

You can use this argument against any law ever passed. Yes there will be a black market, and yes more people will turn to it than before, but if 99% of instances of the thing you were targeting have been removed then it is still a success.

Do you think it will be as successful as the war on drugs?

Dunno, is US government funding production and shipment of it like they did for drugs ?

If they are not I wager chances are higher

Or japanese pixel porn

There's a difference between banning something for everyone and banning it for minors.

I want my drugs legalized, but that doesn't mean I want to give them to children.

Not any law ever passed. Speed limits for example, in fact most traffic laws. Contract law, banking law, property law, a lot of criminal law, for example theft, assault. In fact I think the argument can only be used on laws that ban things for sale or consumption.

"If you make XYZ illegal it will only affect people who care about following laws" is a very common argument used for everything.

That argument depends entirely on whether or not the law makes it harder to access an alternative. In the case of internet porn, people simply need to go to another site.

I think the difference here is that the smaller sites aren’t a black market necessarily; they’re presumably not generally _illegal_, simply not liable to extra scrutiny as “Very Large Online Platforms”.

There are a bunch of other EU rules (under the DMA, DSA, GDPR etc) which de facto if not de jure only apply to very large players, but the difference is that most of the rules are either non-obvious to the user (the average user has no idea that sites want to sell their data, and if told that the GDPR restricts that will either see that as good or will not care), or obviously positive to the user (no-one is leaving threads because the cruel Digital Markets Act forces it to provide a non-logged-in browsing mode). A rule which is annoying to many users but can be evaded by just switching to an unsupervised smaller player seems unlikely to work.

Probably? Or maybe it will force them to search for ways to bypass EU restrictions by using a VPN to mask their traffic.

It’s like how the administrator at the local high school restricting the use of flash games on the network but can still access these games by using Google as the proxy service (google used to provide option to view cached result). Or use Google translate to access the restricted site. Or use many of the public proxy sites.

Worse, this opens up the market for "free" websites riddled with malware. This can have much broader impact than a few teens watching the wrong video.

I would guess that the "big 3" at least maintain a modicum of security, and surely don't actively try to infect visitor's computers. That's something you will lose if you push users away from VLOPs.

Probably, but they will know they're going down a seedy route. I mean did banning Trump and fighting against right-wing politics and fake news stop it? No, it pushed the people that wanted to see it to the fringes. But it also meant that people that didn't seek it out didn't get exposed to it, countering a slow drip feed of fake news and slow changing ideologies in the masses.

So... seems like european users will soon discover the joy of using VPNs daily, just like we in third world countries have been doing for years, right?

It's implemented by the same government body that wants more IT startups for the EU and is constantly wondering why don't people come make companies in the company.

It’s a great place for innovation as long as you don’t care about porn or AI.

And taxes, bureaucracy, enough workforce, and a few other things.

And taxes, bureaucracy, corporate law, right to use certain technologies, move money freely, attract venture funds, access capital markets, and the list goes on.

Source: I'm in the EU right now on this very path.

...why ? it seems to be mostly about making sure content itself is, well, not illegal, not deanonymizing users

From what I understand, it is both.

Perhaps read about what DMA is before making these statements? Why would you use VPN?

> Why would you use VPN?

Because you're underage and want to see porn. I've heard it's a thing that happens sometimes.

(This in reference to the stated goals of UK and various European national governments to age-gate)

Because you are of legal age and want to see porn and you don't want to KYC with pornhub or others.

I thought it was pretty clear that the GP comment is suggesting that PornHub et al will simply stop serving to the EU, which is a perfectly fine, legal thing to do.

If that’s what happens, you will need to use a VPN to access these sites, should you want to do that.

Not unless the EU blocks them. They could still offer the site and just not have any offices in the EU or do business with EU entities in the EU (although they could do business with Pornhub in the US I guess).

> Not unless EU blocks them.

I would love to see EU try mass-blocking VPNs without managing to unintentionally block a bunch of AWS ranges and other accidental targets. I spin up an AWS EC2 instance, use it as a VPN, and then what is EU gonna do? Ban AWS IPs?

Sure, you can say an average person wouldn’t even really know what AWS is. So being able to spin up an AWS instance and use it as a VPN is beyond reach for for an average person. But don’t worry, there are a lot of products (some of which are nearly free) and providers addressing that exact issue.

Spoiler: EU won’t ban VPNs, unless they end up fully committed to looking like clowns that are chasing CCP ambitions, but without the CCP level of expertise and skill.

I find frustrating the amount of attention the government types pay to porn, given the array of priorities. These governments are rotten, and I mean that quite seriously.

They aren't. This is about DSA which isn't about porn but big online platforms.

It's not porn per se, it's exploitation of (usually) women, sex trafficking, and child pornography that's usually illegal. There's laws forbidding minors from accessing porn as well; they're not effective, but they're still in place to ensure it's not considered acceptable.

If a porn site and / or the people uploading the content can't provide proof that the people involved are all of consenting age and consented to have their material uploaded, they're in the wrong.

No, it is about controlling the citizenry.

You would be naive to think that nowadays governments are seriously working for its citizens’ interests, it’s just a mean to further violate the privacy rights, one side is the “not the kids!” the other is “terrorism”.

Since the 70s-90s vibes are back I guess it’s inevitable that some startup is going to pitch “porn in a box in the forest” somehow.

Its like if geocaching had a sexy secret!

Real life's random loot box mechanic.

Couldn't not read that in Tina's voice from Bob's Burgers.

> porn in a box in the forest

Or just host from Russia, Ukraine, and Vietnam like most shady streams already do.

"Edge computing" has a whole new meaning!

It's interesting to see PornHub in there, but not the other Aylo (former MindGeek) properties (YouPorn, RedTube...).

I wonder if they could in theory bypass the DSA by just breaking PH into smaller services and hope for a split user base.

Once they add an age-verification gate, it will surely push their MAU down below the DSA threshold. Does the regulations then still apply?

If the numbers don't go over the threshold for a year the regulation no longer applies.

That's what I'm thinking, if they're considered separate legal entities then these laws are easily avoided. Like a lot of other laws having to do with company size, profits, taxes, etc.

I wonder how they decided to make Stripchat a large community, but not LiveJasmin. Or the other huge webcam sites.

“fulfil the threshold of 45 million average monthly users in the EU“

self-reported

Could be guerilla marketing: "look at us, we are the 3rd porn site in EU"

What happens at 44.9 million average monthly users? Why this distinction?

What happens when you have sex with someone the day before they are legal?

Before or after 44.9 million average monthly users?

Legally, nothing. However, if they report it to the police you may be under investigation. Which may also lead to nothing. The law isn't that anal, pardon my pun.

That's it! We, porn lovers, are gathering with pitchforks and scythes.

Can we not have anonymous age verification, the ID card signing some one-time challenge that the date of birth is before a certain date? And then just force everyone to implement this to prevent circumvention by going to smaller sites that are not covered by the regulation. This would certainly not be global, so it would require identifying the origin region to decide whether to present this challenge or not. Which could most likely be bypassed with a VPN but then again [almost] nothing will be without any loopholes.

Government ID based webauthn sounds like it could work to solve a lot of problems (bots and spam too). Although it'd be hard to use the internet if you're required to present one for major services (which seems inevitable). There are a lot of reasons someone may not have access to a government ID (e.g. slow bureaucracy)

Maybe a nongovernment solution would work too, where certified service providers can sell keys that verify two booleans: is_human and is_minor.

South Korea does it, and from what my friends who lived there (ranging from living there for a year to multiple years) told me, it is about as bad as you would expect.

For one, you cannot even access a ton of services and websites unless you got your alien resident card. Online shopping, games, most websites, tons of services, etc. It is such a shitshow, being without that alien resident card might as well make you non-existent. And it takes a while to get it even if you live close to a government office that schedules appointments for those, given it is a good old bureaucracy.

Question to the european residents: In the case that Brussels approves those regulations, for the European resident users that rely on those to be prohibited services (e.g. X payments [1], payments on those adult platforms, etc.) what kind of procedure can be done to ensure access? Is that even legal?

[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67749228

Back to jazz mags, randomly found.

The DSA has already been passed and there are no "prohibited" services (the digital service coordinator can under some special circumstances request a limited suspension of service in a member state but not a permanent if I'm not missing something.).

Now I do think the DSA goes to far in many aspects (with some good provisions sprinkled in there) and I'm hoping it will not do to much damage.

As for what one can do I'm not sure, VPNs are great and will continue to have a market I expect ;) (We probably ought to vote in better people as MePs as well...)

https://archive.ph/SEewY

Cool Europe, another great gem nobody asked for. I don't know who's more dystopian between China and Europe these days.

Now, if South America can solve its crime rate problem somehow we will all happily move there.

Weird thing, sexuality; who asked Apple to make sure no sex was accessible from apps installed from their App Store, even though the same apps on the Google Store didn't have that restriction? (At least, that's the reason given by Telegram and Discord for no adult content on iOS etc.).

Conversely, last time I used a public toilet in a German shopping mall, there was a butt plug vending machine by the sinks.

When I flew through Toronto once, there were condom machines in the bathroom. Leading to a whole host of questions starting with "just how snowed in do those fuckers (pun intended) get‽"

The European Union and Europe are not synonymous. I have moved out of the EU to Switzerland, partially to avoid shit like this.

This authoritarian bureaucracy needs to die. It is doing more harm than good.

The ultimate 'fuck you' would be for sites like PornHub to split into multiple entities to go under the threshold of 45 million average users per month. That would be nice.

This is just part of the drive to de-anonymise the web. The governance system (corporations, government) will make it so irritating to use the internet, we will actually be thankful for legislation that de-anonymises us, so that we can remove the too-tight shoes we are in. All artificial, fake issues and fake solutions, but with a privacy win for the governance system at the end of the road.

> mitigate the spread of illegal content like child sexual abuse material and deepfake pornography

I suspect, as indicated by comments on this thread, that a lot of HN readers will be upset by losing access to such content.

It has nothing to with porn, but rather with the fact that they are massive online platforms with millions of users. So, why exactly should they be exempted by the absolutely right compliance made to keep these large platforms in check? I am quite sick and tired of the HN kneejerk response to anything related to EU regulations. Just go live in a stateless libertarian state with Armstrong, Thiel, Musk and their bunch, and see how that plays out for you.

Meanwhile Twitch is allowing more sexual content and Steam has for a little while now has allowed porn on its store. If you ever sort by most viewed or sold on any of these platforms it is hard to miss at this point and just another sign that society is deteriorating. This also won't change anything, not when people are less social which once again lockdowns didn't help with and led to an increase in porn consumption. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41443-020-00380-w

Twitch is reverting that policy

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67747949

Well that's good news, can't blame me though for not keeping up with the reflex decision making that has been going on recently such as with OpenAI.

Twitch reversed their policy after like a day, and Steam always allowed porn.

“The world is deteriorating” is such a tired lament. Every generation says that, even as the world gets better by every meaningful measure. The word is change. The world is changing. That’s only bad if you think it was perfect when you were young and formed your worldview.

This is a naive take. Since lockdowns there is a number of research that shows that the world has become worse in many ways with mental health on the decline. Since then we also have two ongoing wars, with an increase in support for far-right policies. Your take may as well be the "this is fine" meme.

>Steam always allowed porn

This is obviously wrong.

Any short term measurement will show blips. It’s like saying climate change isn’t real because it gets colder at night.

On long term scales, everything is improving[1]. This is obvious to anyone whose ancestors were enslaved, unable to marry because of sexual orientation, or rejected for promotion because of gender. The world is not perfect (see the wars you cite) but it is so dramatically more peaceful than historic times that it really takes a huge bias toward doom to think otherwise.

Fair point on Steam, I forgot they switched from an arbitrary and capricious policy to allowing porn in 2018.

1. https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-condit...

You can't dismiss what's going on as a blip. You may be right, but to be more sure that is the outcome, you have to have at least a healthy level of cynicism and work against these issues. Positive change may be the trend on a long term scale, but it is not a given that it continues.

Better that than sexual repression leading to more rapes like in the more "puritan" countries...

Maybe a company with more than 45 million users is too big anyway. So they should be split up into smaller companies to avoid the generation of market monopolies.

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