No, your original point was, and I am literally quoting you here:
> They should be proposing systems that they believe are reasonable to meet their obligation, but they are not. Instead, they've gone from at least requiring credit cards to... absolutely nothing. They've frankly brought this on themselves.
This is categorically false. Not only are they proposing alternatives, not only have they only pulled out of states that do not offer a government ID system (even though it's offered criticism, Pornhub has not pulled out of Louisiana), they also proposed systems way before this legislation took effect -- like you said, RTA standard has been around for ages.
No, Pornhub has not preemptively lobbied for it to be legislated, but that is hardly unusual and hardly a cause for criticism; companies generally don't preemptively lobby for themselves to be legislated unless they're shooting for regulatory capture. Quite frankly, usually when companies lobby against regulation, they don't put forward alternatives. It's unusual that content companies are going this far out of their way to try and help solve the problem instead of just pointing out flaws with the government proposal.
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> Like now I really don't understand what they're suggesting.
There are several ways of approaching this: one is to do age verification using a standardized system -- ideally that system would be standardized on a federal level. Where states have such a system, Pornhub hasn't pulled out. This is the least-good solution, but it is a solution that Pornhub in specific seems to be generally fine with.
A better way of approaching this is to do age verification using a standardized system that is purely device-bound -- ie, a system where a flag is set purely locally, possibly with one-time verification through a company like Apple or Google, and where requesting websites are sent no data other than a general "yes/no" byte alongside requests. This would be a considerably better system for privacy and security, and it is the ideal that Pornhub in particular is advocating for. One reason why this system would be better is because once verified, verification data would never need to be transmitted off-device at any point. It would also not run the same risks of training customers to upload ID information to arbitrary websites, which is a large phishing risk.
Pornhub's stance on this is weaker than my own. I would prefer for this to be handled entirely through filtering. In practice, the vast majority of parents can easily enter an age into a device when creating an account, and then any standardized age verification system could pull from that parental control with no need to ever expose sensitive ID information to even Apple/Google/Microsoft. Or, even better, parents could be given the option to be more granular with their filters, relying on devices to filter specific content and pages based on their own determinations about what their children can and can't see.
Pornhub also advocates for filtering solutions, but is comfortable with verification/blocking if there are systems in place that make that secure and private.
I don't know the specifics of Utah's digital ID system, but given that Pornhub hasn't pulled out of Louisiana, I would guess the reason they have pulled out of Utah is because they believe that Utah's system isn't secure enough or comprehensive enough to meet their needs. I can only guess what the reason would be -- whether it's a lack of desktop support, or whether the app transmits more data than Pornhub would like to receive, or some other critique. Maybe they will eventually adopt that system in Utah.
But the biggest critique Pornhub has around these laws is a defacto requirement to use 3rd-party ID systems or to collect data themselves. Because they (very correctly) point out that 3rd-party ID systems have security risks, are generally run by shady companies, and generally teach users bad data and privacy habits. Again, their stance is less extreme than mine, Pornhub is only lobbying for a workable ID system, I would argue that these ID systems are inherently insecure, inherently raise 1st-Amendment questions, and as designed fundamentally do a worse job of protecting kids than labeling laws would. I would also argue that several of the states pushing these laws have directly proposed creating registries of trans and LGTBTQ citizens and that like 3rd-party verification industries, those governments themselves should also not be trusted with touching ID verification data at all (again, I would note that none of the bills bar collection of data for these purposes).
But Pornhub is OK with those systems... if they exist and are (somewhat) secure and private. Pornhub has some other critiques that I think are pretty reasonable (and that have been spelled out in the articles that I've linked), including the fact that the enforcement mechanisms (lawsuits rather than direct regulatory action) generally leave smaller and less responsible porn sites untouched and make kids more likely to visit them. And we've already covered how these laws fail to protect kids from porn spread on general social media like Reddit and on non-commercial sites like Mastodon. But the most basic critique Pornhub has is that the 3rd-party ID verification ecosystem as it exists today makes it dangerous to do this kind of verification.
> Why are they starting discussions with Apple and Google to build it? Shouldn't they be integrating with the wallet provider who already has?
A general solution here built into platforms is obviously preferable to a state-by-state solution, particularly given how bad most states are at building secure software. It makes a ton of sense to work with Apple and Google directly on this -- governments themselves should be working directly with Apple and Google on this.
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> My read at this point is that this is more an attempt at stalling tactic.
Okay, think through this for a second. This doesn't make sense. Pornhub is pulling out of these states. Pornhub does not win in any of these interactions; there's no benefit to Pornhub to stalling, every day they stall hurts their business.
Paypal "stalls" when I try to withdraw money because they get something out of it, they get continued interest on the money they hold. Apple "stalls" on app store regulation because they get something out of it, they get continued revenue from the app store while regulators go back and forth with them. Pornhub doesn't get any of that -- they get zero revenue from these states while this is being litigated.
This does not make sense as an analysis. If Pornhub thinks that they're going to need to go back to these states, they lose more money the longer they wait. Clearly there's something else here going on other than just greed.
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> Movie ratings are not mandatory because they are not obscenity without artistic merit. An R rated movie will be safe. A porn movie likely not.
What percentage of Reddit porn doesn't have artistic merit? This is nonsensical, you're still looking at a situation where 50 Shades of Grey and Game of Thrones are legal to show to children. That content would rightly fall under NSFW classifications on most sites, and I think most adults would agree that content shouldn't be shown to minors. By any reasonable definition, 50 Shades of Grey and Game of Thrones contain pornographic content. But it's still legal, and you're arguing that this kind of content wouldn't be covered under these laws.
> As far as I know no one's challenged it.
This does not necessarily mean that if it was challenged, it would hold up. Most of the movie industry voluntarily restricts access beyond what the law requires. What we do know is that when these laws have been challenged, particularly on the federal level, and particularly where the Internet is concerned, they've been difficult to defend and have been struck down in high-profile cases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act)
Regulations on technological capabilities are not free from constitutional risk, but they are far less likely to run into these problems.
Now, if your point here is that these filtering laws are only going to protect kids from X-rated full-on smut with no plot, and that artistic pornography won't be covered -- then these aren't effective laws. They're not protecting kids. Yes, we have obscenity laws in the United States, but if we're going to go in-depth on those laws, we have to start with the point that "porn" and "obscenity" are not the same thing legally speaking. Porn can be obscenity, but not all porn is classified that way. You draw a bright line between R rated movies and X rated movies, but it's not the government that makes that classification, it's a completely arbitrary industry-drawn line. Where content online is concerned, there is no easy test to determine whether a pornographic piece of art or video has artistic merit -- and in fact R-ratings are not based on artistic merit or social value, only on how graphic or disturbing the content is.
Yet the laws you're championing require making that distinction on such a large scale that we would be able to tell what percentage of a website consists of obscenity. It's not realistic, it can't be done without disregarding 1st Amendment concerns.
If you're trying to protect kids from porn, it is not enough to target obscenity -- there is plenty of 1st Amendment protected pornographic speech that should never be shown to children. Which is why filtering laws in these situations are preferable; because they dodge (some) 1st Amendment concerns while allowing parents agency to filter material that would not fall under obscenity law, but that is still probably not a great thing for kids to look at it.