this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025
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As of this week, half of the states in the U.S. are under restrictive age verification laws that require adults to hand over their biometric and personal identification to access legal porn.

Missouri became the 25th state to enact its own age verification law on Sunday. As it’s done in multiple other states, Pornhub and its network of sister sites—some of the largest adult content platforms in the world—pulled service in Missouri, replacing their homepages with a video of performer Cherie DeVille speaking about the privacy risks and chilling effects of age verification.

Archive: http://archive.today/uZB13

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[–] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 406 points 1 week ago (13 children)

Everyone who ever submits for age verification will have their information stolen. It is a matter of when, not if.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 126 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

I mean, a VPN is way cheaper than whatever hoops Idaho wants you to jump through to watch some 10/10 goth hottie get their ass eaten.

[–] snekerpimp@lemmy.world 86 points 1 week ago (16 children)

Yea, but soon we’ll have no states to vpn to, and we will have to start using the Quebec servers, then all the websites will be in French and I’ll have to learn a new language.

[–] kambusha@sh.itjust.works 57 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Omelette du fromage. Omelette du fromage!

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 24 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I VPN to Montreal servers. Everything is still displayed in English.

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[–] root@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (4 children)

States are also considering banning VPNs now as well. This will never work and is a horrible idea, but it’s being considered.

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[–] TriangleSpecialist@lemmy.world 132 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

That will protect the children, for sure.

If I lived in the US, I'd be far more concerned about sending my kids to school but whatever.

[–] FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Also church. I wouldn't want them to get diddled by a pastor.

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[–] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 130 points 1 week ago (16 children)

The end game here is to require ID for social media in order to suppress dissent. This is an easy first step due to the longstanding controversy surrounding pornography.

It's all about control.

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 36 points 1 week ago

The end game here is to require ID for social media in order to suppress dissent.

in 7 days, that's what australia will have.

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[–] FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world 86 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Keep this shit up and I'll have to go back to having sex with my wife.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 105 points 1 week ago (3 children)

We'll all have to go back to having sex with your wife

[–] forrgott@lemmy.zip 25 points 1 week ago (7 children)

I'll fuck yours, if you fuck mine. That's how that works, right?

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[–] wuffah@lemmy.world 76 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I would like to dispute the primary supposition here that pornography is harmful. The use of pornography is nearly universal, and most of the harms that it supposedly causes are symptoms of other issues, or are invented to impose control of sexuality. The ability to reach out with the power of the law to impose religious edicts or project sexual hangups is one of the most esoteric, yet effective, forms of political control available other than violence. If you can control the way that people express their sexuality, you can probably also control their views through the monetization and restriction of sex.

Sexuality and privacy are human rights, and the creation of and access to pornography is protected by the first and fourth amendments under which so-called “age verification” is an unnecessary and excessive burden. If the idea is to prevent access to children, ask yourself why now all adults must now have their access prevented or interrupted.

Furthermore, it is not the state’s role to control childhood sexual development, and the idea that porn is harmful to minors is debatable at best and dubious at worst. Access to objectionable material is solely at the discretion of parents. The fact that they cannot effectively manage this is a symptom of another problem.

When Meta shows teenage girls makeup ads after they delete their selfies, or streaming apps are flooded with violent movies that are easily accessible to minors, this is acceptable. But when I want to watch porn it’s now my job to “protect minors” by compromising my privacy and security?

The real “danger” here is the availability of ideas that do not align with state power.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 29 points 1 week ago

Feels like half the country wants to outlaw gay marriage and reimplement sodomy laws, so we're not exactly coming at this issue from a great place right now.

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[–] chunes@lemmy.world 66 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Never thought I would live to see this day. Utterly pathetic. I remember even 20 years ago online censorship was extremely taboo.

Making it easy for normies to get online was a massive blunder.

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[–] sturmblast@lemmy.world 63 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yeah, I will never show my ID to a fucking porn site, get real

[–] rarbg@lemmy.zip 27 points 1 week ago

fucking porn site

No need to be redundant

[–] Sunflier@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago

Then you can't offend god by watching it and masturbating, like we intended!

-The Puritans pushing this legislation.

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 62 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I'm just over here in "hellscape" California enjoying the freedom to not have to do this, and I can walk down the street to the weed shop, and my girlfriend still has basic human rights over her own body.

Do any other states, like Texas, need some of our freedom? We've got some to spare.

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[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 59 points 1 week ago (5 children)

*half of the us requires you to "visit" iceland to watch porn

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[–] pleaseletmein@lemmy.zip 57 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The most important issue facing the world: Someone might be jerking off in the privacy of their own home.

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[–] unphazed@lemmy.world 56 points 1 week ago

Watch them retreat once Grindr states that due to increasing safeguards and transparency, all of their files will be released to the public.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 54 points 1 week ago (7 children)

I'll end up becoming an artist and drawing my own porn before I give my ID to a website to view it.

[–] Prox@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago

All this actually does is push people to porn sites outside of Missouri's jurisdiction and/or sites that don't give a fuck about being "legitimate businesses" or whatever. It's effectively prohibition and the outcome will be the same.

This shit never actually makes anyone safer, it just draws more normal users to seedier parts of the internet.

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[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 53 points 1 week ago (5 children)

The death of freedoms by the day.

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[–] Saapas@piefed.zip 51 points 1 week ago (27 children)

I'm not against proper age verifications as such, it would be like carding people in a store or a bar. But I just haven't seen an implementation of it that isn't prone to being a privacy nightmare and surveillance state shit.

I know there's some systems that generate a token that verify that you are 18 and you give that to the site, so neither side directly meet so to say. The site knows only that you have a valid token for being 18 and the app or service you use to generate the token knows just that you wanted to token for something. I think Spain was figuring out a system like that.

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[–] njordomir@lemmy.world 39 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Is there any organized fight against this? I feel like open access to porn is something people can get behind (pun intended).

People could literally put porn in everything until it's reversed and put their red state into porn overload. They could slip porn between the pages of the newspaper,or drop a copy of bad babysitters 5 in every DVD player in best buy at the same time. They could mass mail stills from 2 girls 1 cup, goetse, and blue waffle to their Congress people. They can wear the raunchiest t-shirts they can find and pack a town hall. These assholes already created a climate where woman are (understandably) even more afraid to have sex, now they want to lock down porn too. I'm not a degenerate because I watch porn; I'm a degenerate because I in ironically enjoyed Spongknob Squarenuts. But degenerate or not, I believe freedom of inquiry is important and I want to know exactly what she If you are gonna strip people of their economic output, abuse workers, stifle culture and art, etc, you at least have to give people a blowoff valve somehow. Reading the Bible after a double shift at work isn't gonna get anyone hard except maybe JD Vance and it probably still comes second to furniture warehouse ads.

Fuck these assholes.

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[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 32 points 1 week ago

Any site that makes me do this immediately loses my traffic and I go to tor or a service that doesnt give a shit about us law.

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Hear me out!

What if parents did their fucking job as they should instead of demanding the state to do it for them, only for it to get hijacked by both

  • christofascists wanting to make it illegal to not live a "christian life",
  • and corporations wanting to ensure competition will need to pay a shitton of money on age verification AI?
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[–] notreallyhere@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago (2 children)

half of states does not equal half of americans

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[–] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I'm waiting for huge spike of trojan-infected computers from people trying to bypass the law by torrenting their porn from unknown sources.

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[–] BanaramaClamcrotch@lemmy.zip 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So much for small government…

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 26 points 1 week ago (10 children)

This is going to expand. The next wave is going to be keeping kids off of social media. That means they will have to be age-verified, which they can't do, because they're kids, and don't have ID. Instead, everyone else will have to be age-verified in order to use the Internet.

Here in Florida, I've already heard one state lawmaker scoffing at any objections, saying it's the same way we keep kids from buying alcohol - by checking EVERYONE'S ID. Now they're going to do it for the Internet. Every movement and post you make on the Internet will be directly tied to your verified identity. That should be perfectly fine, as long as you aren't doing or saying anything wrong, right?

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[–] ceenote@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago

We need to keep our voters angry

I have an amazing idea

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 week ago

Don't forget to bring your copy of Chairman Trump's little thin-blue-line book when you leave the house, patriot! Otherwise the little 'murica-guards will get you!

[–] OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (4 children)

It's only a matter of time before a data leak happens.

That'll be a fun day.

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[–] l_isqof@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago

Lo and behold, ladies and gents, the land of the free, where even jerking off is chargeable...

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This may be the real reason r's are losing all of the elections, lol. They are entirely red states.

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/16/adult-website-age-verification-states

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[–] entwine@programming.dev 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I just remembered that I'm the guy everyone in my family goes to when they need someone to scan their ID or passport for whatever stupid bullshit.

Guess it's time to sign all my conservative family members up to gay porn websites!

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