(The VPN service is Proton VPN, for those coming directly to the comments.)
It’s smart to be using a VPN for any sort of adult internet use these days anyway. Vixen Media Group is extorting people by threatening to leak their identity if they don’t pay up[0]. And not by a 3rd-party collections company either - it’s their own parent company making the demands.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vixen_Media_Group#Legal_action
https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/1d3wfiz/my_exp...
> "and having offshore porn sites or any other third parties collect IDs from adults and becoming a repository of potential blackmail material comes with its own risks [...] A more technically sound approach would be content controls directly implemented on the devices parents chose to give their children" said the company's (Proton's) spokesperson
While I agree with their second point, the first argument sounds a bit overly dramatic, considering how the implementation seems to work. They couldn't blackmail, as the information they receive is limited.
As far as I understand how at least one of the methods for verification must be, is “double-anonymity” or "double-blind" protocol: the site never sees the user’s identity, the verifier never learns which site is being visited, and only a yes/no “18+” token is exchanged. Then other methods could be offered too.
Although if we assume the average security competence with these types of companies, handling ID documents and stuff, they'll surely get hacked sooner or later. So maybe the link between porn site and identity isn't there, but your personal data that been submitted to them will yet again float out there.
Fascinating that France is PH's second-biggest market, presumably after the US.
I wouldn't worry about the VPN's, the 8 year olds aren't going to get one. On mass, it'll be successful, but I'd be more worried about social media than the usual porn sites for early exposure.
I always wonder what it takes to start a VPN? It's super saturated yet there's clear winners. Also I wonder how the operator is able to side step liability for obvious illegal use cases.
The internet has become a very hostile place and its not just surveillance but peer to peer political persecution where someone doesn't follow the script or believe the same thing they do and they lash out and try to censor them by mass reporting or DDOS
I miss the old internet where we used to escape to avoid reality, now we go offline to avoid the internet.
Because apparently french parents can't handle the education of their children.
Another service which tries to fill this gap with a unique offering is https://getadultpass.com/
They basically add 'verification headers' to the original website through a proxy solution, allowing visitors to browse sites with some level of age verification regardless of their location. They are more focused on the 'privacy aspect'.
I am surprised Pornhub hasn't acquired a VPN company yet...
I don't even understand why people bother, given that there a millions of porn sites out there, why would you stick to pornhub in particular?
CMV: cocomelon and TikTok are much worse for children than porn
I support banning porn. You've got coordinated "teams" of men, most of them diagnosable sociopaths, who work as a group to manipulate and destroy teenagers. For every one woman you see on a porn website, there's a network of 10 men who are working as a coordinated team to manipulate her. Most of the young women are from broken homes, many of them are low IQ, and many of them were sexually abused as children by male authority figures. The male pornographer teams work together to push the teenage women into harder and harder stuff, basically stuff that causes more permanent physical and psychological damage. Once the woman has reached her capacity for pain and humiliation, she's cast out of the scene, likely with a drug addiction, likely ending up in prostitution. Saying that porn is "sexual education" or "empowering" or whatever is like saying that factory farming is the same as James Herriot-type farms. They're different in kind: in brutality, scale, and automation.
If you visit a website like Pornhub then you're complicit in this.
Lovely, people would go to prison, just to see some porn!
> engaging in illegal activities while using a VPN remains prohibited under French law.
https://medium.com/@green21/is-vpn-legal-in-france-exploring...
France has very stupid and strict laws, that apply accross borders! For example paternity test gets you two years, even when physically done in another country!
Maybe it just seems like a lot but it’s interesting how much shit Texas got for its age verification law when other western countries either were doing similar or pushing for similar laws. UK, Canada, France, Australia, I think I saw someone in the comments say Germany has something similar.
Pornography isn’t all that healthy but so is parents not stepping up and educating their kids on sex, even if it is awkward to talk about.
A better way would be to only allow soft content for unverified users, so youngsters wouldn't be brainwashed and hooked by the excessive ram up a train in someone's arse kinda mindless, cromagnon like content. Politicians must be replaced with something more human centric. All they do is bring forth rules to deny something, instead of trying to cure the epidemic porn brings into the life of everyday people.
> A more technically sound approach would be content controls directly implemented on the devices parents chose to give their children
Passive aggression level 10, and I approve.