Porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat face stricter requirements to verify the ages of their users after being officially designated as “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
I personally have mixed feelings, as the information collection could be used to link individuals and profile them. Possibly leading to discrimination if abused.
But I also feel that any random kid shouldn’t be able to just go to these sites and see porn freely.
Ofc, there’s always going to be those who mange to circumvent any protection put in place but it’d be much harder then just clicking a link or typing in the address.
I also feel that parents should actively monitor their kids online activities and step up a Blocklist to pro-actively prevent kids from reaching these sites to begin with.
What are your thoughts on this?
At some point, you have to ask - why?
If that’s the alternative to spying on everyone, I’m still opposed to spying on everyone. Unsupervised internet access leading kids to pornography certainly would not be new. It’s not the end of the world.
Just throw your warnings and have a click-through. It’ll be just as effective, much cheaper, and not leave bastard politicians salivating about their social control fetish.
Raise thoughtful, moral children. They are going to see porn in our modern society. How they process it has to do a lot with the tools they have to do that. That’s the parents job. Not to pretend a 100% prohibition or firewall can be erected, but to raise resilient children who can thrive and not become irreparably damaged by the things they are exposed to in the world they grow into.
Recognition that they will come into contact with it also does not mean you have to endorse it or present them with it. It’s not a binary thing. Choose how you want to parent and observe the results of different approaches. YMMV.
We have 3rd party verification services already, just use those. 🤷 They’re pretty good at verifying I’m a vet, I’m sure they can confirm that you definitely exist.
I agree with you, gimme back my checkbox, but it’d be better than “give the porn site your ID.”