• @JadenSmith@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    869 months ago

    How could American politicians be so against pornography, when so many keep getting caught with prostitutes?

    Typical. Rules for thee I guess.

    • Jesus
      link
      fedilink
      English
      569 months ago

      They pander to the Christian nationalists for their votes. They just want power, they don’t actually hold those values.

    • KillingTimeItself
      link
      fedilink
      English
      19 months ago

      because they’re conservative, and that’s a thing cons do for some reason. google “i know it when i see it” to get some history on how batshit insane it gets.

    • @masquenox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      09 months ago

      when so many keep getting caught with prostitutes sex workers?

      FTFY. If you’ve ever worked for a living, you’re a prostitute - just like the rest of us.

    • @rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      -49 months ago

      Pornography and prostitution are different.

      One is information, allowing you to dream (maybe of stupid things), another is in the physical world.

      I don’t want to think a lot of these parallels, but I’ve noticed that people close to actual government bureaucracies are in general very sceptical of imagined things against physical.

      Among other things, consuming pornography doesn’t make you feel powerful, while a prostitute is a real human working for you.

      Also 30s’ propaganda had traits clearly aimed at, eh, sexually dissatisfied youth.

      So maybe it’s just about feeling their own power, and maybe it’s about returning that device of affecting minds. I dunno

  • @Kiernian@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    679 months ago

    For those wondering about the upswing here:

    If the age verification movement goes unchecked, it’s possible that you could be forced to tie your government ID to much of your online activity, Gillmor says. Some civil rights groups fear it could usher in a new era of state and corporate surveillance that would transform our online behaviour.

    “This is the canary in the coalmine, it isn’t just about porn,” says Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights advocacy group. Greer says age verification laws are a thinly veiled ploy to impose censorship across the web. A host of campaigners warn that these measures could be used to limit access not just to pornography, but to art, literature and basic facts about sex education and LGBTQ+ life.

    • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      259 months ago

      Yup, and this is exactly why I plan to use a VPN once my state starts enforcing this law. There’s no way I’m going to show ID to any website unless they absolutely need it. There are very few websites where that’s necessary, so I’ll just use a VPN to a neighboring state (or even to Canada) instead of complying with that nonsense.

      I already have to worry about identity theft, I don’t want to make that even easier…

      • KillingTimeItself
        link
        fedilink
        English
        49 months ago

        i’ve been toying with the idea of hosting deep web porn front ends. Not sure how legal it would be. But morally, you’d be on pretty good grounds.

        I mean what 13 year old is using tor browser lmao.

      • @toynbee@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        09 months ago

        I don’t think there’s any website where it is necessary, excluding ones that adhere to unjustified laws.

        • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          79 months ago

          I’ve had to submit it for remote work authorization, travel on a cruise line (not required, but strongly recommended), and to prove my identify for a web host when their automated check failed (that was the fastest way). So yeah, pretty rare, but still a thing.

    • @Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      -19 months ago

      I’m going to link my ID and look up the most mind blowingly vile, while remaining legal, porn. If they want to talk to me about it, then I am going to make them describe each video before I “remember” what I saw, after which point I will refuse to acknowledge it as porn.

      Sure, it’s dumb, but it’s fun dumb.

    • Flying Squid
      link
      fedilink
      English
      119 months ago

      Too many American corporations rely on VPNs for that to happen. The last thing politicians want is to piss off their corporate masters.

      • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        59 months ago

        They mostly use self-hosted VPNs, not your regular, everyday VPN like Mullvad or Proton VPN. So they’re not going to ban the tech, but maybe they’ll try to ban the public services.

        I already host my own, so they’ll have no power over me. Even if they successfully prevent me from making a VPN, I have other options (SOCKS proxies, SSH tunnels, etc).

    • GladiusB
      link
      fedilink
      English
      69 months ago

      Fuck that. My VPN keeps my information safe. It’s a basic goddamn right. There ain’t no way they are taking it without me knowing about it and saying it’s ok. It may not be the best way, but it’s an easy effective way to stop most people trying to scam information.

      • @rottingleaf@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        99 months ago

        You can’t hide forever and eventually you’ll be cornered and will have to fight back. It’s always better to have the initiative in choosing the field of battle. If you hide until you are cornered, it’s your enemy who has that initiative.

      • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        4
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        VPNs don’t keep anything safe, they just make you appear as if you’re in a different location. Your information is secured by TLS, and that works with or without a VPN.

        What VPNs do accomplish is improve your privacy. Since you appear like you’re from somewhere else, and you can easily change where that somewhere else is, it’s much harder to track you across sites.

        I don’t see how it helps with scams though. Most scams come from data breaches, and they care far more about the data you provide to that service (credit card info, login creds, etc) than where you connect from. It’s more helpful to prevent tracking from the likes of Google and Meta.

        • GladiusB
          link
          fedilink
          English
          09 months ago

          Well that’s because identify theft is based on WHERE you live. So VPNs mitigate that information. I am not saying it will stop all, but it helps. And it’s my choice. Not some corporations.

          • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            1
            edit-2
            9 months ago

            No, you can’t steal someone’s identity with their IP, that’s not how that works, and a regular attacker can’t figure out your IP anyway, unless you visit a website they control. And that info is pretty useless.

            Identity theft happens with a breach of some service you trust. So maybe a bank will expose your SSN (or equivalent in whatever country you live in), and they’ll cross-reference that with a breach in a streaming service that has credit card info (includes name, address, etc).

            A VPN won’t protect you from identity theft. Like, at all. That’s not what it’s designed for. What it does is three fold:

            • moves your IP to a different region
            • hides sites you visit from your ISP - make sure you’re using DNS over HTTP as well
            • mixes your traffic with others - mostly makes tracking more difficult

            None of that has anything to do with identity theft. If your VPN claims it does, then that’s stupid marketing and they’re probably hiding other issues they have (e.g. logging policy), and you should probably use a better VPN.

            • GladiusB
              link
              fedilink
              English
              09 months ago

              As someone who has had identity theft happen and hired lawyers to fix it, I’m going to trust those close to the case. My information was definitely compromised. And what won in court? The dumbasses put a location I have never been to. Which was why it was overturned.

              I do hear what you say and agree with the fundamentals of your explanation. But my experience has shown that with even your location it can cost you thousands.

              • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                English
                1
                edit-2
                9 months ago

                I don’t use a VPN and had someone try to steal my bank account. When they tried to scam me, they also used an invalid location. They weren’t trying to steal my identity, just my money, so it’s not quite the same thing.

                That said, identity thieves are just as lazy. They usually just buy some compromised credentials on the dark web and go to town opening credit cards and loans and whatnot. They don’t compromise websites you visit to steal your location, it would be much easier to grab that from another breach (just cross-reference one breach with another).

                So I’m standing by what I said, a VPN will do nothing to help here. Identity thieves and scammers don’t coordinate with hackers that compromise websites to steal your IP. If they get far enough that they’re pointing you toward a website they’ve created, a VPN isn’t going to help, they’re going after your login creds.

                So again, get a VPN to hide your traffic from your ISP, limit tracking by advertisers (limited value, they can track through fingerprints), and appear to be in a different area for things like streaming services. But don’t think that a VPN protects you from fraud, that’s BS. Your best options are to freeze your credit, use secure passwords (password managers are great), enable MFA/2FA, and check your credit every so often (once or twice per year is fine).

  • @schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    219 months ago

    We had these kinds of debates when I myself was a minor (in the late 2000s). I would have thought it would be over by now and people would have realized that allowing teenagers to watch porn isn’t actually very harmful to them at all. Seems not, humanity doesn’t get smarter over time.

    • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      139 months ago

      Idk, I think teenagers watching porn is harmful, but preventing them from watching it is more harmful. As a parent, you want your kids to come to you with any questions or problems, and locking down everything breaks every ounce of trust you might have with them.

      My state is doing this crap, so I’m installing a VPN on my wifi to a state w/o these stupid laws so my kids can make their own choices.

    • @rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      89 months ago

      Humanity is smart, those making such laws 1) want the information collected by identifying people, not to forbid porn, 2) just hate autistic people. Because non-autistic teenagers will find something. But then, TBH, autistic ones too.

    • @untorquer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      3
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      Biggest problem is that generic production stuff too often models bad sex, a cartoon version of sex that’s not healthy or pleasurable for anyone, let alone unsafe.

  • @RustyNova@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    209 months ago

    Why are they even in war against porn?

    /j lust is just the second layer, try doing something about worse stuff like greed or gluttony

    • Obinice
      link
      fedilink
      English
      49 months ago

      Religious extremists that work tirelessly to impose their god’s laws on everybody else.

      They’ve actually embedded themselves in US government now, over many years and much effort, and the burning embers of their religious war against the rest of us are finally starting to catch fire in a big way.

      They recently took away a person’s right to an abortion. Madness, I know. What will they take away next?

    • @NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      29 months ago

      Why are they even in war against porn?

      First time that I heard that, and I really don’t think it’s a real war. Maybe a tiny quarrel :)

      • @forrgott@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        19 months ago

        Well, they’re the ones that know which pizza shops have pedophile sex dungeons hidden underneath. So, I guess they’re fighting themselves. (As I typed that out, it occurred to me how true is a statement it was…😝)

    • @frezik@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      19 months ago

      They tried and failed to control Internet porn in the 90s. With Trump, conservatives think they’re more popular than they are, so they’re trying this shit again. As with lots of things in Project 2025, they’re quickly discovering that they’re not as well liked as they think.

    • TipRing
      link
      fedilink
      English
      19 months ago

      Because they want to use antiporn laws to restrict books and other media with LGBTQ content.

  • @MehBlah@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    18
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    Not Americans in the sense I see it. Flag pissing regressives is what they are. A minority that gerrymanders their way into power and pushes their childish backward thinking on the real Americans. Many the rot in their closets from which they only emerge every four years to crash grinder.

      • @MehBlah@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        19 months ago

        Sure that works as well but I myself prefer regressives. It speaks to their mindset that they want to take the country back to some imagined golden age. Where men were men and women were chattel. Where brown folks were not equals and it was okay to attack anyone who wasn’t them without fear of consequences.

    • @rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      19 months ago

      It’s not childish. This is just the appearance because people are not afraid of “stupid” politicians as much as they should be.

      In fact all these changes are consistent and all in one direction.

      Information is power, and all these actions create a system where you can’t avoid being identified and visible in everything you do. Then the people in power, if you somehow threaten that power, may assure that you won’t anymore without any open repression, without jailing you or murdering you or even censoring you. You just won’t get anywhere near visibility or power to affect the world, and it will all seem pretty natural and chaotic, so you won’t even see your path being corrected so that you wouldn’t affect politics.

  • Kokesh
    link
    fedilink
    English
    159 months ago

    If I was a teenager, I would find a way.

      • @otp@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        29 months ago

        PornHub is run by a Canadian company, and the guy looking to be our next PM wants to do the same ID thing. So that might be out too, lol

        • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          49 months ago

          PornHub is already unavailable in my state because they refuse to comply (at least last I checked), but it’s totally available in the datacenter in the next state over. :)

          • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            39 months ago

            One step ahead of you, I’m actively replacing all of my online accounts with self-hosted alternatives. My state passed both porn ID and social media ID laws, and I assume they’ll try to add this to anything with age gates (e.g. streaming sites).

            So I’m moving my stuff to my personal cloud:

            • Jellyfin - I’m going back to buying Blurays and DVDs and adding them to my own streaming service
            • NextCloud/ownCloud - still playing with it, but I got Collabora set up for docs and spreadsheets, at it supports calendar sync as well
            • Vaultwarden - working on switching from the hosted Bitwarden
            • Actual Budget - I switched from Mint -> TillerHQ (hosted at Google Docs), and this is the next step (it integrates with SimpleFIN for bank sync)

            All of this is available both over my self-hosted VPN, and over the internet with certain services exposed over my domain (all use LetsEncrypt certificates). So I can access whatever I want wherever I am. I do offsite backups with Backblaze B2 ($6/month/TB), and I sync important stuff to my phone w/ syncthing.

            It’s a bit of a pain, but there’s no way my state can take any of that away from me. I’ll be adding more services as I find time, and I’ve got a good system now where a new service only takes a few minutes to spin up. Basically, my setup process is:

            1. add subdomain for the service to my DNS - could use a wildcard, but I like control and ability to move things around
            2. add haproxy config at my VPS - just copy/paste like a dozen lines of config
            3. update Caddyfile on my NAS to handle the new service - again, copy like 5 lines
            4. add and configure container in my compose.yml
            5. docker compose up -d (to build the new service) followed by docker compose restart to get Caddy to reload the config

            Caddy fetches the TLS certificates, and docker handles setting up the service. Unless I make a mistake. Since everything is in docker, I don’t need any ports exposed except 80 and 443, which is managed by Caddy.

            I wouldn’t have bothered if Netflix had kept reasonable rates for ad-free watching, but here we are. And now my state is being a pain, so I’ll probably configure my WIFI with a VPN out of state so I don’t have to deal with the stupid ID verification crap.

            • @mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              19 months ago

              This is fantastic. Hopefully, crazy politics will at least have a side effect of all of this self hosted software becoming easier. It’s gotten to the point where companies like Hetzner will maintain nextcloud services for a monthly fee but Caddy is already more intuitive compared to what came before it.

              • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                English
                29 months ago

                Yup. I’m thinking of making a blog series or something about my setup. It’s a little complex, but the individual pieces are pretty simple, so anyone with time and interest could totally replicate it. Mine would focus on Linux, but since everything is in containers, it could easily be replicated on Windows as well.

                Oh, and I’m working from the worst possible setup, I’m behind CGNAT, so I have to go through an outside server to make my internal stuff public. A lot of people can just use their router IP instead, which eliminates the VPN entirely (just port forwards from your router).