Age verification fight in Texas getting ugly

[enslaved1]

https://gizmodo.com/pornhub-pulls-out-of-texas-1851336939

To start with, I'm not a fan of porn, it's bad for the mind, body and soul, but it's also an individual decision and falls under 1st amendment protections.  Age restrictions are important and should be upheld.

With those caveats, Texas and other states efforts to enforce age verification are not working, and create more issues than they solve.  Age verification systems are treasure troves of personal data for identity thieves and others who want to abuse information, making them major targets for the kinds of hackers who traffic in such data.  Kids know how to work around school firewalls, state based blocks (or firewalls if states decide to try those at some points) won't be any different.  Add in wastes of state resources searching for sites not following the rules (reminded of a Dilbert strip where Wally pitches a carefully worded test of the company product, then walks out of the meeting saying "I was this close to making my job looking at naughty pictures on the internet.") and prosecuting them.  Mix in sites that are choosing to break one rule will likely choose to break others, the good old slippery slope that has proven accurate time and time again.

Kids accessing lots of age inappropriate content is a major cultural problem now, but these kinds of government solutions aren't going to help the root issues, lack of parenting. 

I predict some "I found my dad's Playboys at 12" responses.  Me too.  There's a huge difference in a couple of magazines and 24/7 access to hours and hours of all the stuff that too many people move on to when the naughty pictures get boring. 

[Rick]

Tax it. A state tax by the minute/hour, and make it high. 

[Old n Grumpy]

The kids will just take naked pictures of themselves and text them to each other. There’s more important things to worry about.

[Texacon]

The kids will just take naked pictures of themselves and text them to each other. There’s more important things to worry about.

Which is a whole new problem in that it makes those kids child pornography purveyors.

Something I had never thought about until I was on the school board and went to some classes during a conference.  One of the studies was a superintendent who confiscated a young person's phone because a boy was sharing nude photos of a classmate.  The young man AND the superintendent were charged with possession of child porn!

KC

[enslaved1]

Tax it. A state tax by the minute/hour, and make it high.

Would run into the same workaround problems, generate another database, and result in many mad parents when they get credit card bills (which would hopefully result in better monitoring, but...)

The kids will just take naked pictures of themselves and text them to each other. There’s more important things to worry about.

Which is a whole new problem in that it makes those kids child pornography purveyors.

Something I had never thought about until I was on the school board and went to some classes during a conference.  One of the studies was a superintendent who confiscated a young person's phone because a boy was sharing nude photos of a classmate.  The young man AND the superintendent were charged with possession of child porn!

KC

Very good points.  Haven't overheard as many conversations from students about such things as I have in the past, but stats and logic say its still going on, and as mentioned, is it's own problem that should be higher priority.