Pornhub to (Mostly) Block the UK Over Ridiculous Age Verification Laws

Pornhub says that UK access to its site will cease as of February 2nd for most users, giving people more incentives to use things like VPNs.

If there was ever a policy that made it so painfully obvious that governments around the world have abandoned evidence based policy making, it’s age verification laws. Anyone who has knowledge on such things have long been actively shunned and accused of all sorts of things, blatant corruption is practically celebrated, talking points are considered the golden rules, and history is actively suppressed.

Australia has been long seen as ground zero for these terrible laws (you know, the same country that brought you the failed link tax laws). Experts have warned of the consequences of such laws being implemented, those laws were passed, and the consequences, well, happened. The technology, dubbed “industry standard”, “double blind”, and a host of other obviously fake things by supporters, was so bad that it was defeated by a sharpie… and golden retrievers. The technology was so insecure, we saw the Discord data breach, the AgeGO scandal, and several other leaks and breaches. As it turns out, trying to will this technology into existence by writing a law and saying “make it so” does not magically make this technology. Shocking, I know.

Now, the sensible reaction to all of this is to look at everything and go, “Wow, that didn’t turn out like we expected it to. Maybe we should rethink this whole thing before even thinking about trying it again.” Unfortunately, we live in a completely insane world where it is practically an obligation to do the same thing and expect a different results. In fact, the mainstream media in general did a bunch of the legwork by completely re-writing history and proclaiming that this whole social experiment has gone off with barely a hitch. So hey, sure this whole thing was a complete disaster, but it’s nothing that weapons grade denial can’t solve, right?

So, unsurprisingly, when the mainstream media lied about the situation in Australia, other countries responded by saying that Australia has led the way on this issue and it is up to other countries to follow suit. After all, jumping off a cliff really is the sensible thing to do at this point. So, this is exactly what the UK did. They saw the complete and total disaster that was the Australian experience and decided, “Hey, we got to get in on that action too!” So, they decided to repeat history and implement Australia’s failed age verification laws.

Much like what happened in Australia, the UK got to experience the “joy” of watching their age verification laws fail in pretty spectacular fashion. People flocked to VPNs, fake IDs were being generated, and people began to head to unregulated sites instead (no doubt to the delight of the security community who are collectively having heart attacks right now over this).

With this repeat of history playing out, the UK government eventually freaked out over what is happening here. What was once dismissed as a very small minority trivially defeating age verification has gradually morphed into a full blown war on VPNs with some calling for VPNs to be roped into the age verification schemes or even going even dumber by demanding that VPNs be banned altogether. Yes, the slow to react government things they can ban a tool designed to circumvent censorship. Good luck with that. So, just how far are some UK lawmakers willing to go to try and force this issue? Apparently, they are even willing to outlaw encryption to make it all happen. So, declaring war on math on top of everything else. It’s extreme lunacy because when you find yourself in a hole, you don’t keep digging. Here, the UK is demanding that someone bring in excavators to help with the digging.

Throughout all of this, there has been a full denial that the technology is broken. For some, the technology is perfect in every way. It’s reality that is in the wrong here and it’s up to reality to change its ways to conform with their personal beliefs on how technology should work. This with fun little talking points like how age verification technology just wasn’t properly implemented or give it time because age verification technology is new and it shouldn’t immediately be cast off as a failure. You know, because all the epic failure so far shouldn’t be an indictment on the failed technology. Just let it run its course and, eventually, the magical fairy dust will kick in and it will figure out how to work all on its own someday. Yeah, and I still have the odd person here and there wonder why I’m “so mean” in all of this.

Recently, though, famed porn website, Pornhub, has said that they will be blocking the UK over all of this silly age verification stuff. From Engadget:

Pornhub will stop offering full access to new users in the UK on February 2, its parent company Aylo said Tuesday, citing the nation’s Online Safety Act and its age-verification requirements. The company said users who already verified their ages before the cutoff will still be able to access the adult site through existing accounts.

The move follows the Online Safety Act’s Protection of Children Codes, which took effect last summer and require adult sites to use “highly effective” methods of age verification. Aylo claims the system is backfiring and shifting both adults and minors to noncompliant porn sites that don’t verify age or moderate content according to Politico. Aylo’s lawyers argued that only device-based age verification methods sufficiently protect user data.

Alexzandra Kekesi, VP of Brand and Community at Aylo, said “anyone who has not gone through that process prior to February 2 will no longer be able to access [the sites] and they’re going to be met with a wall,” according to 404 Media. The adult site was similarly made unavailable in various US states after the passage of age-verification laws that Pornhub claimed put users’ privacy at risk. “These people did not stop looking for porn,” Aylo said at the time. “They just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don’t ask users to verify age, that don’t follow the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even moderate content.”

This should have been the universal reaction to all age verification laws from the very beginning. If your country is demanding age verification, then it’s clear that they don’t want the internet doing business in your country. Therefore, the only logical move is to pull up stakes and leave. Just because the law demands that the technology be “highly effective” doesn’t magically make such technology exist (it still doesn’t exist).

Sadly, what is complicating matters is the fact that the larger platforms decided to throw their users under the bus and implement such laws. As a result, the large platforms basically surrendered and gave lawmakers a social license to say that age verification is the new normal. So, give up all of your privacy rights and personal information, bend over, and take it because this is the new normal. As a result, it makes it much more complicated to take a stand and say, “hey, this isn’t right!”

So, while the move is certainly welcome, such moves have now become more muted because platforms like Pornhub can be seen as an outlier in these positions, not the natural response to such laws. It’s hard to say if this marks a turnaround for such laws, but the move certainly isn’t unwelcome. At most, it does send a message that there are ways to implement such laws, but the UK approach got it wrong. It’s better than nothing, I suppose.

Still, as more websites increasingly get gated off, it is going to be training more and more people to use anonymous tools online. This regardless of whether the site blocks traffic altogether or surrenders their userbase to the government. After all, the only winners in all of this are VPNs and cyber criminals.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.