this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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I have to admit, of all the nations on earth, I never expected this sort of puritanical theatrical authoritarianism out of the french.
They've been trying to block it for many years now.
France has been going downhill for quite some time. Many proposals for chat control and tracking... even recently, we got a law proposal that aimed at banning E2EE π΅
Damn, the whole world really is going authoritarian.
When itβs not about protecting kids, itβs about fighting drugs
They always have a "good" reason to remove our freedom, because apparently security seems much more important, and it seems like itβs the only way to do it. Lol.
Authoritarians have embraced internet culture somehow.
I'm curious how they got Gen Z so curtailed.
Politicians are always trying to ban encryption in every country. I remember it happening constantly in the 90s. And it happens because politicians don't understand that you can't ban math
Wait 'til they do it. You're underestimating them.
They should actually take to the streets (again). Not joking. What is this nanny-state BS?
To clarify, the french didn't ban pornhub, it's the company behind pornhub who decided to deny it's access in France to protest a law proposal that is currently getting examined in parliament
Ps : The law in question would require all porn sites to verify the age of its users
This is how young boys learn to computer. It won't do shit to stop anything. It's a waste of time.
Well β this might be more succesful in boostering the IT skills of France's next generation than any curriculum reform.
How do you know it's just boys? Seems an odd assumption, considering the nature of omission of information with this.
Because the majority of porn watchers are male at about a 4:1 ratio. They aren't saying it was exclusively boys either, likely just what made sense from their perspective at the time.
Wait aren't they proposing the same thing in the US as well? It's a fairly standard thing of right-wing governments to just demand the impossible with no understanding about it could possibly be achieved.
They understand just how hard it would be to comply. And that's the point. Make it hard enough to meet the requirements to not make worth a business' while to comply. And the politicians can say "We didn't ban PornHub. They blocked you from access."
It's a common tool both the left and right use to control behaviors. Governments around the world do this all the time.
For now it's not nation wide, it's just up to states if they want to implement an age verification law like that. They want to make it so that in order to prove your identity/age you need to do something like upload a copy of your ID/Drivers License that will be linked with your "research" accounts.
They say it's to "save the children" and shit like that but the end goal really is to basically shame people who enjoy researching things because Jesus says it's bad.
Right, because we've never checked ID for things like tobacco and alcohol before?
These porn companies should work on efficient cost effective ways to verify adults instead of using politics and social media to increase profits. I'm sure you are aware profit is higher if children are allowed on their websites.
It's very different handing my ID to a store clerk, who barely looks at it because my birth year starts with 19, from uploading a photo of that ID to a sketchy service who now has a permanent documentation of precisely who I am and what sort of freaky shit I'm into.
Sure, the tracking services already know this, but they don't also have a photo of my ID that I willingly gave to them to prove it's me.
Are you embarrassed you look at porn? There's plenty of ways to manage without an internet connection. Go grab a compilation torrent.
Even if all these sites went verification tonight, you'd still be able to privately jerk off to whatever it is you want to hide so bad.
Torrents are even worse without a VPN. Ever heard of https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/ ?
Given that I torrent without a VPN and it had nothing on there, and it also got my location wrong by over 500km, I dont think I'm too worried.
If you're on private trackers there won't be anything
Location is estimated based on ISP. Always trash
I'm not opposed to vpns. I simply don't want porn accessible to children easily. Simple barriers to entry like an ID or credit card have worked before and surely will again once porn streaming sites give up fighting this regulation and start working to follow it.
It's too easy to go around. Make a Reddit account: NSFW access.
Search torrents, NSFW access.
Join a telegram channel, NSFW access.
Hell, just search google images and it'll work to an extent.
Discord, same thing.
With this many websites, you just can't stop it. They can't even stop the piracy websites so..
It seriously harms everyone's right to stay private and anonymous for this, and I believe it sucks.
If then want to see it, they'll ask other people, and that's where it becomes dangerous.
You have more faith in the younger generations technical skills than I do. Either way though I don't want it to be impossible to bypass, just harder to access if you aren't an adult.
Understandable, but I donβt believe requiring personal information is the way to go
It might just be the best option right now, but I haven't really read any other suggestions so I'm not entirely sure. I would be open to a different implementation though.
How about we put some responsibility on parents to keep their kids away from potentially harmful Internet content, instead of relying on the state to do it for us in large swathes, affecting literally anyone who goes to those sites, legally or not? Surely you're more on board with responsible parenting than everyone having to hand over their legal identification to a fucking porn site.
Its on both sides of the relationship, parent and porn provider. Same as with alcohol and tobacco, if you don't have parents doing their part, those kids end up with that stuff anyways.
Brick and mortar shops aren't comparable to websites, and I don't know why you keep trying to compare them. The places that sell alcohol and tobacco aren't asking me to upload a digital version of my legal identification to some cloud-backed database. They're just manually checking a date and a picture. Most places I buy from don't even make me physically hand over my ID, I can just show it to them without it ever leaving my possession.
You've never had your I'd scanned at a store before? How do you think all that works?
Yes because I'm not buying whisky online am I'm going to a physical store where I can give them my physical ID and they can look at my physical face. Unless I'm wearing a very convincing prosthetic there isn't very much I can do to hide my identity.
Online is harder, just because I have uploaded an ID doesn't mean it's mine. What are they going to do, demand a video as well, because it's not as if video generation hasn't already gotten to the point where it's perfectly capable of faking that kind of thing.
I can see you haven't thought about this at all. You should run for office.
Isn't that already the case on a lot of the internet?
I think this law requires you to upload a photo of your ID and says that it's the website's fault if underage people use it and they face a hefty fine. It's a lot more than the standard "click to pinky promise that you're definitely 18" because PornHub already has that.
I know right? Aren't there nude beaches in the south of France where people will fuck in broad daylight with others watching?
French citizens please confirm (for uh, science, and not vacation planning)!
Yes, there are. But you misunderstood the news: France didn't block pornhub, pornhub blocked France as a protest against a new law.
Age verification in a porn database is odd to me, from a privacy point of view AND a massive undertaking for the porn company. And then there's the puritan culture of wanting to block teenagers from watching porn? Seems a very anti-French thing to me, but I'm also pretty ignorant of actual French culture. I assumed French culture would be like, once you have the urges, you'll go seeking, and if you need to look at the internet in the safety of your own bedroom, is better than unexpected pregnancies to satisfy urges.
What's the deal with all of this, anyway? What are the arguments here?
I'm not aware of the exact motivations of all the actors. What follows are my guesses.
My guess would be that
You might not be aware depending where you are from, but France is on a slippery slope towards Fascism, the far right is gaining more power every day, a lot of people think it is very plausible that a far right president is elected on the next election (2027), along with a parliament's majority.
"Protect delicate children's eyes from seeing nudity"
I think that's about it
Germany had this since forever, it's just how offline laws translate to the internet: There's a difference between a) ordinary nudity, b) eroticism and c) straight-up porn. The latter was always 18+, in video rental stores etc. they would have a separate section and if you didn't look of age you'd get ID'd.
You can't order alcohol online in Germany without a proper age check, and the same applies to porn. For paid offerings that's no issue, payment providers offer age checks (your bank knows how old you are and them vouching suffices), for free sites it's a no-go, noone is going to go through the hassle. Especially as you can escape off the German-language internet onto the international one and merely click through an "are you 18" banner.
Notably, pornhub isn't blocked in Germany -- neither from the German side, nor from pornhub's. Very occasionally DNS bans are ordered when a site without age checks tries to specifically target the German market. Mostly though it's down to German google not serving up those international porn sites which in the end is good enough for the youth protection authorities because the point is not to make access impossible, it's to make sure that youth not ready for content doesn't stumble across it. And once you're actively seeking, you're ready, the hoops you have to jump through are proof of the "active" part. YMMV on "not ready for porn with 18", back in the days there was still softcore. On free TV. Probably won't hurt kids to not start out with gonzo.
Passings laws we don't like?
NO PORN FOR YOU!!!
Isnβt protest coooooo you guys?
The percentages of respondents in surveys on infidelity answering "not a moral issue" from France are a bit of a cultural difference (from Australian perspective, anyway)