A Senate bill that would require Canadians to verify their age online before accessing porn is moving through the House of Commons without the support of the Liberal government.
At the same time it’s 18+ content and there’s currently no verification being made. When I worked in a corner store my boss would have been charged if I got caught selling cigarettes or booze to a minor, same thing could happen with porn movies when I worked in a movie rental place.
Now it’s 68% of people 13 to <18 that say they’ve watched porn on the web with the majority seeing it for the first time at 13… Now think about the kind of videos you see when you’re watching it and ask yourself, is that really what you want people that are in the middle of their development to use to learn about sex? Women choking on a dick, taking it up the ass, banging their step bro or step dad, people fucking others without their consent while they’re stuck somewhere…
Try to remember your level of maturity at that age…
I urge you to fight against this proposal on moral grounds. That might sound like an odd point of view, but hear me out.
One of the greatest challenges facing us with online activities is not what we or our children have access to, but how companies are handling critical permanent identification. Every day there is a new report of some entity that has lost control of information that has a major negative impact on those whose information was exposed.
There are ways to effectively manage such information and there are companies and government departments deploying those systems. However, there is currently no legal or regulatory framework making those systems and methods mandatory. Until that legal and regulatory environment exists, it is not just a bad idea to expand data collection requirements, but immoral.
To be clear, I’m not talking about the possibility that some person is exposed as a consumer of pornography. I’m talking about those whose incompetence and/or low standards of care allow criminals to gain access to the identifying data for use in criminal activity.
I don’t know about you, but the porn industry is the last industry I would ever trust to properly secure and manage identifying information.
I wrote my MP once in 2021 regarding the reversal of the wholesale broadband rates. Specifically, about how the Vice-Chair of Telecommunications sat down with the President of Bell Media for some beers at a sports game to discuss things after the 2019 court rulings upheld the existing rules set by the Commission.
The result, of course, was a change to the rules.
You're not going to get a real answer from your MPP, just a staffer tasked with boilerplating out an email that could conceivably be construed as an answer to your question/complaint.
The staffer has two jobs. Their first job is to send a useless mollifying email. Their second job is to make a tally mark next to the words “PORN AGE GATE – OPPOSED”. (Or these days, probably they click a button on a spreadsheet.)
Writing your MP is like voting. It’s useless individually, but in aggregate it will change their behaviour.
Banning stuff has always worked 👍👍 let’s keep doing it 👍👍👍 surely no minor will be able to access porn after this regulation 👍👍
More seriously though that probably won’t pass because I would imagine if just one of the politicians wanted to see some kinky stuff and it got leaked the party and person would be in for a great time in the news
I wonder how many senators think all porn is hosted on pornhub. It’s comical how it’s the most legally compliant and ethical porn site out there by a mile, yet it still gets targeted by every pearl-clutching legislator
They were knowingly hosting CSAM and revenge porn until not too long ago… Funny how the FBI is investigating it but as far as we know nothing’s happening on the Canadian side…
They were not knowingly hosting CSAM and revenge porn, they took quick steps to lock down the site and strengthened their verification procedures when they found out.
You’re really using a Breitbart article as a source? Also this just points to an overloaded review system, which seems to have been fixed since then. Did you even read the article or did you just glance at the inflammatory headline?
I can guarantee that most other porn sites don’t have a review system at all, and they’re chugging along business as usual.
They admit in the leaked emails that they don’t review all flagged videos, they means they knew some content was left online even if some of it was CSAM or revenge porn.
Did you even read your own link? They entered a deferred prosecution agreement so they wouldn’t have to go to court, they didn’t plead guilty but they acknowledged their responsibility, the charges are still valid for three years.
They’re still being sued by 62 victims that filled reports of content of them being hosted without their consent to which Pornhub didn’t react or replied by telling them to fuck off.
Unless you work for them I honestly have no idea why you’re defending them like that, it’s a huge corporation in a field full of abuse victims, there are actual ethical porn, don’t pretend like Pornhub has anything to do with ethics.
Ignoring flagged videos could also mean there were a lot of incorrect flags and so it was in their interest to only react once a certain threshold was reached. I’m defending them because they get far too much heat for the amount of work they put in to make the site ethical, especially considering the rest of the industry, if your biases stop you from seeing that idk what to tell you.
Also, sites that knowingly host CSAM typically aren’t granted deferred prosecution. Are you trying to say you know better than the FBI?
You can’t just ignore flagged videos when we’re talking about them potentially being videos of children being raped, are you fucking serious right now? That’s how you’re defending them? “Oh it would have cost money to do their job correctly so it was in their interest to not do it.”
The FBI got a bunch of people in prison, the charges against Pornhub still stand for three years, they just haven’t went to court because they agreed to change their practices.
Having one person doing verifications working 9-5 means that a child porn video uploaded on Friday evening could stay online all weekend without anything being done about it, once it was removed Pornhub knew exactly when it was uploaded and how much time it was on their servers, so yes, they were knowingly leaving illegal content on their website, they wouldn’t have had to change the way they process flagged videos if it wasn’t the case. Maybe they work hard now, they didn’t at the time so stop it with the “I’m defending them because they get far too much heat for the amount of work they put in to make the site ethical” bullshit, they proved its not about ethics, it’s about money and they didn’t care until it was made public.
Heck, if it didn’t happen the civil suit would have been dismissed, it hasn’t been.
This cannot work safely in the current legal and regulatory environment.
In principle, there seem to be ways to securely, anonymously, and privately handle age verification. To the best of my knowledge, no such system has been deployed or mandated.
Thus, we are left with only the requirement to hand over critical documents to those who have no “standards of care” that make it safe to do so.
Have none of these people ever heard of any company or government agency losing control of personal information? How about they put some effort into fixing that first.
Louisiana’s system sounds pretty sophisticated, although I haven’t looked into the exact implementation. Some sort of cryptographic protocol happens through the porn site between the DMV and your device, which returns a go-ahead or not, and nothing else. The “only” data leaked is your exact porn preferences to the government.
Shockingly, everyone in the state just moved to seedier sites anyway. Who would have thought? /s
Kind of? People still fax medical records around where I live, as of last I checked. Policymakers aren’t the most tech-savvy bunch, generally speaking.
Well not affiliated with them in anyway. But Mullvad will take cash in an envelope for your payment with no record of who you are. Just a thought should this pass. 😂
My NDP MP is having a community winter party next week. I’ll mention this to him. Something like “I really love the work you’re doing to get healthcare for all Canadians, but I’m deeply troubled that you supported a bill that depends on porn companies to secure people’s personal information. I can’t think of many companies I’d trust less to safeguard Canadians against identity theft. I thought it was below the NDP to stoop to Conservative fear mongering tactics politically.”
A spokesperson for the Canadian heritage minister told The Canadian Press earlier this year that the government was working on its own approach to dealing with online harms, and the Senate bill overlapped with their work.
Sounds like they don’t disagree on principle but just want it done their way.
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