The Online Porn Free-for-All Is Coming to an End

A wave of new laws and new tech might finally bring the era of the online pornography free-for-all to a close, Marc Novicoff writes.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case concerning the legality of Texas’s law requiring age verification to view online pornography, one of many such laws passed since 2022. Similar laws have been struck down by the Supreme Court in the past over free-speech concerns. But this time around, the justices seemed inclined to erase the distinction between accessing porn online and in person.

Some of the states that have passed restriction laws implemented a digital-ID-card app, which can be used to verify a person’s age. In states without a digital-identification program, porn sites must pay third-party age-verification providers to use software to compare a user’s face with their photo ID, held up to the camera, or to use AI to determine if their face looks obviously older than 18.

“These state laws have some weaknesses. They apply only where at least one-third of ‘total material on a website’ is pornographic,” Novicoff writes. That leaves kids free to access porn on general-interest platforms such as Reddit and X, which have quite a bit of it. The law also does not apply to websites that are hosted abroad, a fact that millions of teenagers in those states likely already know. 

“Still, even prohibitions that can be circumvented tend to screen many people away from a given activity,” Nivicoff continues. Three of the biggest porn sites in America have chosen to comply with the state laws. But PornHub, the most popular porn site in America, has stopped operating in all but one age-verification state. The company says the laws threaten user privacy and will lead children to seek out porn from more troubling sources. Free-speech groups have joined in opposition. 

“The Supreme Court seemed inclined to allow Texas’s age-verification law to stand, although it might first send the case back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals with instructions to subject it to a higher standard of scrutiny than it originally did,” Novicoff continues at the link in our bio. “Either way, some form of age-gating is likely here to stay.”

Read more here: [https://theatln.tc/ABMavO2K](https://theatln.tc/ABMavO2K) 

— Emma Williams, editor, audience and engagement, *The Atlantic*

Jokes on them I still have my hard drive wank bank of porn from pre-2011 most of it is 244p and has ugly chicks

Right. And Nany Reagan’s coming for the Afghan Kush I’ve got growing in my garden.

We will be OK for two reasons.

One, people won’t act on a lot of really important political issues, but they will act on the things they use too often. When ticktoc was banned for a second there, there were a few news stories of people setting fires (among other things) to their local legislation buildings because of the ban.
Can you imagine what taking away people’s porn would cause the crazy people to do??

And two
Nothing ever happens. The internet is full of people who will find their ways around things, or inevitably just break whatever legal nonsense that it will just fade away since most of these people trying to pass internet legislation don’t even know what they are doing and will wind up just forgetting about it because they don’t actually understand it.

It will be fine just like every single other overhyped “OH NO THE INTERNET” fear monger thing has been in the past 10 years.

2030: Scientists are struggling to explain a large discrepancy in eyesight and upper-arm strength between U.S. and European males….