simmpli.city

simmpli.city

Age Verification

According to Bleeping Computer, the company behind PornHub has blocked their services to states that have begun to require adult websites to verify the age of visitors.

I file "age verifying website visitors" under "good idea in theory, but probably really hard to implement in a way that both works and respects privacy of individuals". I had a good discussion with someone about a related topic just the other week. Their general position was that age verification as a service would be an incredibly beneficial and viable business model. My counter was that, although good in theory, I seriously doubted if it could be effectively implemented without trade-offs to either privacy or limiting reach of the program in a way that made it not financially viable.

Something I hadn't considered but the BC article points out is that this could decrease safety by encouraging visitors (even those who shouldn't be accessing them in the first place) to visit less-trustworthy websites to get their "entertainment".