The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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As soon as the ads started to load, my antivirus software lit up with alerts. Suspected malicious files, potential malware, untrusted resources – you name a cyber threat, this free porn video site appeared to have it on hand.
But what the site also had was a quite deep and cross-referenced database of performer and director credits and a more up-to-date list of recent releases than most adult industry trade/news sites, even. And in this day of online age verification everywhere, not having to submit my ID to some unknown third party simply to double-check a cast list from a recent DVD release from a small adult studio presented a strong appeal.
Still, I couldn’t help but shake my head as I scrolled around the site. While all the content appeared to be studio-produced and most of the videos were promotional clips seemingly uploaded by the producers themselves (as opposed to content pilfered then uploaded by end users), the site was in many ways exactly the sort of site of which state legislators often complain: No age verification, extreme hardcore available to anyone with a mouse to click or a phone screen to tap on.
This, of course, is something adult industry insiders have been saying about online age verification since the idea of making such mandatory first started being kicked around in the 1990s: If you establish a system that forces the sites themselves to comply, only sites that give a shit about things like the law – and that are within the jurisdiction of the relevant court(s) – will feel the intended pressure to comply.
Sites like the one I’ve described above, sometime hosted in countries that don’t even have diplomatic relations with the United States, will feel zero pressure to comply with the laws of individual American states. Hell, they don’t even have much incentive to comply with federal laws, even criminal statutes, because it’s not like their local authorities are going to haul them in and then extradite them to the U.S. to stand trial.
Maybe someday a site like the one I described will get fined by OfCom, although good luck collecting, methinks. For all the same reasons such sites are unlikely to face consequences in American court, a fine from OfCom would be filed under “Duly Noted” by the people operating the site.
Maybe if federal legislation like the Digital Age Assurance Act passes, sites like the one I’ve described will find themselves behind the 8-ball due to those new laws? Doubtful, as it’s not a question of state vs. federal law, so much as a question of practical jurisdiction. An entity outside your jurisdiction is still outside it, whether the law you’re trying to enforce is old or brand-spanking-new.
The efficacy of laws that put the onus of age verification on adult sites is limited by this jurisdictional problem. As someone who favors a free and open internet, you might think I’d be untroubled by this limitation – and maybe I would be, if it weren’t for the fact that this inefficacy disadvantages not only domestic businesses that clearly are within the jurisdiction of state and federal courts, it also disadvantages every foreign business that makes a good faith effort to comply with American law.
The limitations of laws focused on making adult sites handle age verification is one reason groups like the Free Speech Coalition favor device-based age verification. (User privacy and data security are two other big reasons, of course.)
Whatever else legislators were hoping to accomplish with age verification mandates, my sense is they didn’t hope to boost sites operated by cyber criminals, phishers, malware distributors and other unsavory denizens of the internet. But that’s the thing about the law; what a legislator intends a law to accomplish, and the law’s practical effect often aren’t the same thing.
Yes, device-based verification has its limitations, too. But overall, when you factor in all the questions of efficacy, privacy, convenience and the reduction of burden on both adult merchants and their customers, it’s a far better approach than having dozens of different third-party vendors juggling consumer data around in haphazard fashion.
Will legislators, local and/or national, wake up to the limitations of their current approach and enact a more sensible approach to age verification? We can only hope so. But, out of respect for our health, I wouldn’t recommend holding your breath waiting for it to happen.
