[HN Gopher] Searches for VPN Soar in Utah Amidst Pornhub Blockage
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Searches for VPN Soar in Utah Amidst Pornhub Blockage
Author : freedomben
Score : 141 points
Date : 2023-05-03 20:35 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.culturalcurrents.institute)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.culturalcurrents.institute)
| wepple wrote:
| What is the device based authentication the PH page mentions?
|
| I'm a little scared to search for it whilst in a public space
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| It's a call out in the law that allows access to such material
| if authenticated with a Mobile driver's license, aka mDL (
| https://dld.utah.gov/utahmdl/ ), aka ISO 18013-5.
| wcoenen wrote:
| I'm not seeing any such trend at trends.google.com:
|
| https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US-UT&q=VPN&hl=...
| [deleted]
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Ah I found it. Adjust query to a much shorter window.
| [deleted]
| mirekrusin wrote:
| past 7 days
| danielodievich wrote:
| I have a favorite Utah story that is I think appropriate here.
| Many years ago as a young and green consultant I was sent to Salt
| Lake to help with some ASP.NET/C# app with Utah Department of
| Liquor. I was told to look for the tallest building in SLC and
| the warehouse did not disappoint, it was huge (well, SLC is
| really flat and squat too). They showed me the warehouse full of
| really fancy robotic stuff (all made in Utah, and they were
| correct to be proud of it). We got to work looking over the code
| of the app, and along the way they learn that I am originally
| from USSR/Russia. "Oh" the devs say, "do you want to see our
| Russia module"? I am of course intrigued, and discover that
| during the process of organization of 2002 SLC winter Olympics
| (Mitt Romney's baby/rise to prominence), there was a huge
| diplomatic incident. The rules of State of UT at the time limit
| the number of bottles sold to any one in a given transaction, and
| the Russian delegation was refusing to come to Utah because they
| would not be allowed to buy as much liquor (likely vodka) as they
| wanted to. This got escalated to the highest levels of State
| department, and the intrepid UT legislature found a way! They
| [very quickly] passed the law that any person with Russian
| citizenship could buy whatever the heck they want in any amount.
| Now it was up to the poor saps in the UT Dept. of Liquor to
| implement it. But you couldn't just rely on people showing
| passport! No, the software team feverishly coded up the "Russian
| Module" that implemented passport number validation, making sure
| that if you did show a red passport with double-headed eagle, its
| number was valid. There was serious collaboration on the
| numbering schemes and maybe even some proto API validation to the
| Russian Federation servers. Yeah, legit module. Used for 2 weeks,
| and then decommissioned as the law sunset very rapidly.
|
| So, where there is a will, there is a way. And a VPN.
| cpursley wrote:
| Funny story if true.
|
| But honestly, the whole "Russian vodka bears blat" stuff is
| disrespectful (and wrong). Russians actually prefer whiskey &
| brandy!!
|
| Also, Russia is not even in the top 15 countries in terms of
| alcohol consumption. Ukraine is higher, Finland is higher,
| Ireland is higher.
|
| But the worst offender: Russian vodka is not made of potatoes!!
| They use grains. It's actually the Polish who use potatoes.
| juujian wrote:
| The divergence could be because plenty of Russians distill
| their own liquor
| epolanski wrote:
| > Also, Russia is not even in the top 15 countries in terms
| of alcohol consumption
|
| That depends on which stats you take and for which country.
|
| But Russians are always among the top in the world,
| especially males.
|
| Also don't forget in Russia muslims make 14% of the
| population which lowers the nation averages a lot.
| LastTrain wrote:
| Also, there is absolutely nothing "flat" about Salt Lake
| City.
| cobaltoxide wrote:
| It's surrounded by mountains, but the urban part of the
| city is indeed very flat.
| jjulius wrote:
| Huh? The city itself is really flat - I've been through it,
| _and_ a quick image search confirms as much. There are
| mountains nearby, but saying "there is _absolutely
| nothing_ 'flat'" about it is pretty disingenuous.
| cobaltoxide wrote:
| Many sources put Russia in the top five for incidence of
| alcoholism, and the life expectancy of Russian men is
| famously diminished due to their high intake of alcohol. The
| life expectancy of Russian women is 13 years longer than for
| men.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_consumption_in_Russia
|
| "A recent study blamed alcohol for more than half the deaths
| (52%) among Russians aged 15 to 54 from 1990 to 2001.[14] For
| the same demographic, this compares to 4% of deaths for the
| rest of the world."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Russia#Alcohol_consu.
| ..
|
| I don't think it's just a stereotype.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| There's a great Russian restaurant in NYC known for their
| infused vodkas, and this part of their website sheds some
| light on the history of vodka in that region:
| https://www.russiansamovar.com/vodka/
|
| Not doubting you in the slightest, just adding some flavor.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| Maybe not in alcohol consumption. But in alcoholism, Russia
| takes an honorable second place after Hungary:
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/alcoholis...
| cobaltoxide wrote:
| I googled to try to find some reference to this alleged law,
| but found nothing.
| seydor wrote:
| So this was all a plot of the VPN industry?
|
| Educating people how to use VPN is a very double-edged sword,
| because people will also learn that they no longer need to pay
| Netflix et al.
| themitigating wrote:
| No, it's Christian facism or were you joking?
| notfried wrote:
| In March, why was Virginia the highest state in the U.S. for
| searches for VPN, with a score higher than Washington, California
| and New York, per the article?
| scooter7364 wrote:
| [flagged]
| boc wrote:
| Government employees and contractors
| m463 wrote:
| spies doing remote work
| kibwen wrote:
| CIA operatives in Langley inflating the numbers, clearly.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _CIA operatives in Langley inflating the numbers, clearly_
|
| This was my first thought, too. But these aren't data for VPN
| usage. Just searches. Why would Langley have a bunch of
| people Googling VPNs in March?
| asdff wrote:
| You got to see if there are any new vpn companies you
| haven't backdoored yet every now and then
| yftsui wrote:
| My hypothesis: people who are already using VPN egress
| traffic in IAD (which has the largest AWS region), thus the
| results based on IP address is skewed by people who
| actually live in other countries or maybe even continents.
| anonymouscaller wrote:
| Wouldn't int'l users choose the location closest to them?
| If you're in China for instance you're probably going to
| be using SIN or TPE. Besides, most VPN providers avoid
| Amazon and use colo providers that give much better deals
| on bandwidth.
| paxys wrote:
| "How do I get this damn VPN to work"
| kibwen wrote:
| I appear not to have made my sarcasm obvious enough. :P I
| was amused by the thought of CIA agents being told that
| they need a VPN installed and so downloading the first
| result on Google.
| Juicyy wrote:
| lmao too realistic /s
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| Do we think VPNs will ever be banned in a state like Utah?
| detaro wrote:
| The "TikTok ban" draft (RESTRICT Act) is providing a template
| on federal level according to various comments on that.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| Is the "TikTok ban" draft (RESTRICT Act) for
| consumers/regular people or only government personnel?
|
| Aka, are they really going to ban TikTok for regular people
| or just make it so govenment personnel can't install TikTok
| on their device? aka, only ban TikTok for government people
| and not regular people
| smolder wrote:
| It doesn't appear to have much to do with TikTok at all,
| from what I saw. It looks more like a regular old power
| grab by the federal government over tech generally, moving
| us towards censorship and _overt_ surveillance and
| punishing circumvention.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| I'm 100% sure that no one who works for the government
| knows how to acquire and operate a separate smartphone
| either /s
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Its for everyone, not just government personnel.
|
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-
| bill/686...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35369075
| detaro wrote:
| Hopefully the thing is going to fail and they are not going
| to do anything. But yes, it provides for banning
| government-choosen foreign sites entirely, with heavy
| penalties for assisting in circumventing blocks. (Although
| I guess VPN services could avoid it by filtering their
| users traffic themselves)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it provides for banning government-choosen foreign
| sites entirely, with heavy penalties for assisting in
| circumventing blocks_
|
| I recently heard the argument that TikTok is a media
| control issue. Rupert Murdoch famously had to become an
| American to buy Fox. Applying that precedent seems
| cleaner than the RESTRICT Act.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I'm generally pro-migration but in Murdoch's case I don't
| think it worked out well for his new neighbors.
| swamp40 wrote:
| Don't you just have to move the VPN offshore? China could
| even spin up their own VPN companies.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Don 't you just have to move the VPN offshore_
|
| Payment would still be a problem.
| throwaway742 wrote:
| I pay for my VPN with cryptocurrency.
| ignoramous wrote:
| That will accelerate the coming of on-device AI generated porn
| apps.
| olliej wrote:
| The many (one would hope most?) tech and tech-adjacent
| businesses, the federal government, etc all require VPNs, so it
| would be hard to see how "ban VPNs for this already banned
| thing" would even work.
| paxys wrote:
| Probably not, but only because it would be too technologically
| complex for them to do. VPN companies don't operate in their
| jurisdiction and don't care about Utah law.
| struanr wrote:
| I feel like a VPN ban might be difficult to enforce due to
| corporate usage of the same technology
| [deleted]
| freedomben wrote:
| I doubt they try to ban them, but I could absolutely see them
| push an age verification requirement for "personal" VPNs that
| allow you to get an out-of-state IP address since it
| "illegally circumvents state laws". So you can have a VPN,
| but if you are in Utah the exit node must also be in Utah.
| Corporate VPNs wouldn't be a problem legally because they
| already verify your identify for state tax purposes so
| there's nothing more for corporate to do.
|
| Bonus: while your every access to porn is being logged for
| the state, they can log your VPN use too just in case there
| is anything relevant for law enforcement to care about.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| How would a law like that be enforced if none of the VPN's
| personnel or physical assets are in Utah or if they're
| entirely outside the US?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I could absolutely see them push an age verification
| requirement for "personal" VPNs that allow you to get an
| out-of-state IP address_
|
| The VPN provider knows the user is in Utah and connecting
| to Pornhub, so there might be an argument for knowingly
| facilitating circumvention. No clue if that's something
| that they can prosecute, though. I'd be de-nexussing Utah
| were I running a VPN company.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| A few years ago, Walmart stopped stocking (some) beer in Utah
| because it was too difficult for them to bother getting the
| 3.2% alcohol by weight beer which had been the limit in Utah at
| the time[0]. Ultimately Utah's legislature decided to change
| the 3.2% restriction. I suspect this will go that way; more
| services will just say that they don't need to serve that
| population and move on. There will be a lot of people saying
| they like using their VPN _totally because it keeps me private
| online_ and VPNs will just be normalized.
|
| [0] https://www.fox13now.com/2018/12/11/walmart-joins-the-
| push-f...
| freedomben wrote:
| It will certainly be interesting to see. Utah is an
| interesting case because _generally_ speaking high
| percentages of the population will praise and promote
| "freedom" and "liberty." Of course with humans often
| stated/conscious beliefs and actions are often disjointed,
| but there's still an interesting angle there where the state
| is a lot more limited on what it can do in the enforcement
| arena before people start pushing back.
|
| That said though, porn access in Utah would be a hard one for
| the average person to stand up for because the social
| pressure there is immense (speaking from experience here).
| The dominant religion teaches that "free agency" is an
| important and indeed _essential_ aspect of our lives. We are
| here on Earth to grow and develop and learn to make good
| (i.e. obedient to God) choices. They even believe that a War
| in Heaven happened that split the masses because Satan (aka
| the Devil) wanted to force people to be righteous, but Jesus
| ' plan was to give them choice. You would think they'd be a
| bunch of libertarians then, but no they clearly believe that
| God shouldn't force you to be righteous, but the _state_
| should. Furthermore God has told their prophets that things
| like alcohol, marijuana, porn, are wicked and sinful.
| Reducing or eliminating your access to them is for your own
| good (and the good of "society") and is therefore justified.
| I've tried pointing out that when it comes to enforcing your
| morals on others it can literally be taken to China-level
| authoritarianism with the same justication of "good for
| society," but that never seems to get anywhere.
| deet wrote:
| For those who are wondering, none of these things are
| "banned" though.
|
| Drive around Salt Lake County, especially the city itself,
| and you'll see plenty of bars, signs offering cannabis
| medical cards, and even a strip club here or there. And
| some not bad breweries.
|
| The state just seems to take the approach of waiting for
| sufficient demand for such things, then slowly adjusting to
| allow more, rather that just "have at it" for anything.
|
| And of course, like everything in America, what the
| government really follows is the money -- they listen to
| business community demands, like allowing and increased
| number of bars where tourism and the local population
| demands, like at ski resorts, etc. Agreed that porn could
| be different though, since there's probably not a local
| business group advocating for preserving porn access
| isk517 wrote:
| Ok, now you have me thinking about local people that
| would stand to financially benefit from internet porn
| being banned. Along the lines of does a internet porn ban
| drive more people to visiting strip clubs, etc.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| This comment makes me glad that most of my interactions
| with Mormons have been from the other side of the fence, so
| to speak. I grew up in SLC suburbs and currently live in
| South Salt Lake but I was Methodist growing up, never LDS.
| So there was never really anybody close to me who was
| Mormon except until the age by which they'd learned not to
| try to defend their beliefs to non-Mormons.
|
| To this point: "porn access in Utah would be a hard one for
| the average person to stand up for". I suspect that the
| arguments will be for online privacy even if the real
| intention is for porn access. But it's kinda more like you
| said: it will certainly be interesting to see.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Banning VPNs would be very difficult for a US state.
|
| In China VPN restrictions are somewhat effective because of
| compliance from consumer platforms, ISPs and cloud service
| providers all operating inside a largely isolated pocket of the
| internet.
|
| If any of those stakeholders refused to play along or could
| operate outside of enforcement range then the VPN ban would
| fail.
|
| A ban isn't truly impossible, especially with support from
| courts and the federal government, but I think it's similar to
| the difficulty level of banning pirated content.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| What kinds of porn do Mormons like?
| walrus01 wrote:
| Heterosexual missionary position in a dark room under a blanket
| between married couples for the purposes of procreation only
| themitigating wrote:
| Sounds like my marriage...
| 0zemp2c wrote:
| [flagged]
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Soaking
| knicholes wrote:
| There's a site that caters exactly to Mormon-themed porn, and
| having been a "Mormon," or a "member of the Church of Jesus
| Christ of Latter-Day Saints" for a couple decades, I can vouch
| that it is truly hilarious. Here's some stats per state, in
| case you were wondering about any others:
|
| https://wour.com/nsfw-pornhub-reveals-most-popular-searches-...
| nashashmi wrote:
| It is unbelievable the amount of targeted advertising they do
| to religious groups to somehow dislodge them from their
| previous strictness. Mormons are not alone.
| scooter7364 wrote:
| [flagged]
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Conversely, one could set their VPN to Utah as a quick child
| protective measure
| xutopia wrote:
| I'm just so surprised by how bad politics has become in the USA.
| It's like they want to have charia law... or Christian law as it
| were.
| kypro wrote:
| There's loads of laws about what permissible sexual behaviour
| is though?
|
| This is only unusual in the sense that generally Western
| countries are in favour of porn. I think you could make a good
| argument against the universal availably of porn given its
| negative effects on the individuals that engage in it and on
| society as a whole - similar to arguments against drug use or
| prostitution.
|
| I'm not saying I'm in favour of banning porn or anything, just
| that where we draw the line on what's permissible behaviour
| between consenting adults seems largely arbitrary and mostly
| down to cultural factors rather than a fundamental analysis of
| harm.
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| Utah is a remarkably special part of the US, in this regard.
| asdff wrote:
| There's the landed elite ski crowd in Utah, but I guess they
| just fly into their timeshare in park city for 5 days a year
| and don't much care what happens outside that idyllic
| vacation.
| a-user-you-like wrote:
| [flagged]
| themitigating wrote:
| How does this help people being exploited? Isn't that already
| illegal?
| loeg wrote:
| The Utah law doesn't ban porn production.
| sophacles wrote:
| That's a lot of unbacked claims.
|
| How is the age verification an attempt to stop an industry?
|
| Where is it stated that that's the goal?
|
| How did you decide that most porn workers were sexually
| abused as children?
| jp57 wrote:
| This two-post thread is a microcosm of American politics on
| all issues.
| buffington wrote:
| I can't imagine why, with claims this juicy, you wouldn't
| share your sources. I'd recommend showing the data, or be
| prepared to defend these ideas without it.
| [deleted]
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > I'm just so surprised by how bad politics has become in the
| USA. It's like they want to have charia law... or Christian law
| as it were.
|
| The USA are diverse and laws greatly vary from state to state.
| Talking about "US politics" when a single state does something
| is absurd.
|
| Furthermore, many European countries like France are about do
| the same thing with online porn, no later than this year, are
| you also going to accuse France of wanting to have "charia
| law"? That's preposterous. France couldn't be further from a
| very religious country.
|
| I'm not saying these kind of laws are efficient at stopping
| minors from watching online porn, I'm just saying that your
| characterization of USA as a country is wrong.
| themitigating wrote:
| Roe v Wade is a good country wide indicator. Trump
| specifically said he would appoint judges to overturn it
| during one of the debates.
|
| The majority voted for him.
| ekidd wrote:
| > The majority voted for him.
|
| Just to be precise, the popular vote was 62,984,828 to
| 65,853,514 in favor of Clinton, with roughly 60% turnout.
| The majority did not vote for Trump.
|
| But that doesn't matter in US presidental elections.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| The majority did not vote for him. The majority of the
| "electoral college" did. 2.8 million more people voted for
| Hillary than Trump.
| gleenn wrote:
| I think that in general, as an citizen here that most people
| definitely think about laws as generally similar across
| states with the odd things like liquor laws frequently
| standing out. The current push towards emphasizing state's
| rights is a slippery slope the conservatives have been
| abusing quite handily like they did with the new ban on
| abortion. The minute they got invalidated Roe v. Wade,
| suddenly it immediately swung towards a federal ban on
| abortion. States rights are important but again, as a
| citizen, you know the couple things your neighbor state does
| differently but only recently has this felt like it split so
| far.
| callalex wrote:
| I don't want to put words in your mouth so please correct me,
| but are you asserting that laws restricting porn are not
| religiously motivated?
|
| Also o/t but France might not be the best example to use of
| healthy politics that represent the will of the people right
| now...
| kelipso wrote:
| You saying laws restricting prostitution is religiously
| motivated? Laws restricting gambling? Drugs?
|
| Where's the line between religious motivation and morality?
|
| Just because you don't like the law, you accuse the
| proponents of the law of being religiously motivated.
|
| When you like the law, it will be because of blah blah blah
| morality of course.
| kelipso wrote:
| Playing the world's smallest violin for the perverts in Utah who
| now have to use a VPN...
| esotericimpl wrote:
| [dead]
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Is the law written such that the vpn is liable now or is it
| treated like the ISP?
| mindslight wrote:
| This is fantastic news! Thank you government of Utah! Your
| authoritarian grandstanding isn't likely to do much over the long
| term, given basic American values like freedom of expression. But
| in the meantime it will encourage people to get educated on basic
| ways of evading censorship, while simultaneously discouraging
| other sites from hassling visitors based on IP address.
| badrabbit wrote:
| This is such an HN comment. Democratically elected politicians
| enact laws that reflect the conservative views of their voters
| and that is totalitarian because they are controlling every
| aspect of government centrally with all decisions made my
| unelected leaders? No, because you disagree with it, that's it.
|
| You know, I dislike both liberalism and conservatism but in the
| US specifically, I feel like there is a particular
| misunderstanding with liberally minded people about what the US
| is supposed to be. If your fundamental human rights or other
| protected rights are violated I get it, but watching porn is
| not a right if any kind, states can restrict any aspect of your
| life that isn't protected as a right. There is already a
| restriction on adult material that involved minors or unwilling
| participants, this simply expands it to all people, and there
| is plenty of research and reasoning that indicates porn is
| harmful to everyone, period! Personally, I find it more
| reasonable if you argued cigarettes are healthy compared to
| what porn does to your mind and therefore life. The whole point
| of a federal union is you move to other states when you don't
| like the laws, and everybody gets to exist with the most ideal
| liberty vs restriction ratio.
|
| For the "land doesn't vote" people who think the electoral
| college should be abolished? this is exactly why it exists, so
| crazy states line utah or missisipi don't have to leave the
| union. I am far from a secessionist but the electoral college
| was literally a critical component of the contract that states
| agreed to when joining the union. You need to understand that
| short of a global nuclear war, there are few things that are
| worse for humanity as a whole (even more so for americans) than
| a civil conflict between american states.
|
| The whole point of post here is that so long as these crazy
| state laws reflect the views of those who live there and
| existing (not future) rights of protected individuals are not
| violated, drop the exaggeration and tolerate them as you
| vehemently disagree with them.
| dgacmu wrote:
| > but watching porn is not a right if any kind
|
| That's not really true, depending on how you define "porn".
| There are very strong first amendment rights around producing
| and consuming all sorts of potentially objectionable content:
|
| https://reason.com/2019/10/04/pornography-is-protected-by-
| th...
|
| Is it a "fundamental human right?" Dunno, I'm not the arbiter
| of that. But the US supreme court has repeatedly ruled that
| it is a constitutional right to be able to do so free of
| government interference. That doesn't mean you're guaranteed
| to have access to it - it's a free market and others 1st
| amendment rights allow them to choose what they provide. But
| the government can't stop you, and that's a right.
| nashashmi wrote:
| How do you define which is what?
|
| "I know it when I see it." -- US Supreme Court
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _watching porn is not a right if any kind_
|
| While I have little interest in porn, I have a right to
| publish it under the first amendment and that necessarily
| includes a right to view it.
|
| _states can restrict any aspect of your life that isn 't
| protected as a right_
|
| And I can reject those restrictions insofar as my own person
| is concerned. There's a stronger argument for states
| mediating conflicts of interests between persons (eg police
| existing because not everyone is able to provide their own
| security) but your interpretation is a recipe for overreach.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| This should be thrown out legally because "Congress shall
| make no law respecting an establishment of religion.".
|
| It's religion as law disguised as "But think of the
| children!" as usual.
| justrealist wrote:
| Judeo-Christian doctrine also has prohibitions against
| theft and murder. Should we throw those out?
|
| There's an overlap between secular and religious
| prohibitions, and there's no easy answer as to which rules
| are "religious" -- you're just reflecting what's in your
| head as "obviously secular" and "obviously religious", and
| that's not how all other (secular) people view the world.
| jiggyjace wrote:
| There's nothing happening in Utah that is establishing a
| theocracy that requires you must attend and worship a
| certain religion.
| nashashmi wrote:
| It's civility as law. And religion has it in similar
| fashion.
| erenyeager wrote:
| It's not favoring a particular religion, and even non
| religious people (including for ex some radical feminists
| you may find) can unite against pornography propagation.
| It's also not just about think of the children, but any
| society that cares for people will want to limit negative
| influences on the most vulnerable and those growing up who
| will become the future adults.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > but any society that cares for people will want to
| limit negative influences on the most vulnerable
|
| I bet these same folks would be up in an uproar if you
| mentioned gun control which have a lot more negative
| influences than seeing boobies...
| ModernMech wrote:
| > It's also not just about think of the children, but any
| society that cares for people will want to limit negative
| influences on the most vulnerable and those growing up
| who will become the future adults.
|
| And yet that same society will do nothing to stop the
| number one cause of death in children: gun violence. One
| has to ask why?
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Thanks for an unusually clear exposition of how things can
| and do work in a functioning, federated system of democracy.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > This is such an HN comment. Democratically elected
| politicians enact laws that reflect the conservative views of
| their voters and that is totalitarian because they are
| controlling every aspect of government centrally with all
| decisions made my unelected leaders? No, because you disagree
| with it, that's it.
|
| Three points.
|
| The will of the majority should never limit the desires of
| the minority as long as it doesn't impinge on someone else.
| Would you use the same justification for laws against
| miscegenation and "sodomy" (ie non heterosexual sex) because
| that's what the "conservative lawmakers" wanted"? Why the
| carve out against "protected individuals"? All of our rights
| should be protected against religious fundamentalism. Freedom
| of religion also should be freedom from religion.
|
| We see all across the United States even in conservative
| states that when abortion rights are put on the ballot they
| are consistently passing even against the will of the
| legislation.
|
| I can assure you as a resident of Florida and more
| specifically Orlando, the number of people who want hundreds
| of thousands of dollars and energy wasted going after "woke
| Disney" is small - yet the legislation is passing laws and
| spending money left and right.
| yegor wrote:
| NordVPN is probably raking it in right now with the amount of BS
| marketing that they do....
| rpastuszak wrote:
| NordVPN actually inspired me to work on my current personal
| project: a "human" ad blocker for sponsored content on Youtube:
| https://github.com/paprikka/butter
|
| I'll push a more stable version later this week. Feel free to
| spam me via the email in my profile desc if you have any
| feedback or ideas.
| yegor wrote:
| How does it work? I personally use this one
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsorblock-
| for-y...
|
| It requires users to provide timestamps for "sponsored by"
| content, so the player skips over it.
| jonas-w wrote:
| Sponsorblock is also integrated into piped for example
| https://piped.video/
| graypegg wrote:
| Really gives some insight to why VPN companies have been
| fighting for mindshare the past few years. Just waiting for a
| case like this to pop up and be the first service people think
| of.
| millzlane wrote:
| It worked for https://greenhealthdocs.com/ in Maryland. They
| advertised heavily before legalization framework was in
| place.
|
| People didn't know they just needed to fill out a state form
| that's approved automatically pay $50 to the state, and pay a
| small fee $75-$80 to a certified doctor, dentist, nurse, or
| midwife for a cannabis recommendation.
|
| Instead, they greenhealth charges 200 bucks to people.
| loeg wrote:
| $200 vs $130, billed by one provider instead of several,
| and you can figure out how to do it via the internet
| seems... fine?
| judge2020 wrote:
| The ROI on VPNs with even a little marketing is huge and you
| don't need tons of networking people to scale.
| yegor wrote:
| That's not true. Ask me how I know. :)
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Is it BS in this case though? VPNs are the best tool in this
| scenario, and when you want to avoid geoblocking in general.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| FoxyProxy gives each user a dedicated server for the same
| price as NordVPN shared servers.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Can that dedicated server magically be in completely
| different locations in seconds at the press of a button?
|
| It's not like vpn providers are renting out _one_ shared
| server. Being able to pick between countries is a key
| feature. Shared servers might actually be an advantage too.
| If your vpn is on a unique IP, it 's probably easier to
| deanonymise you from bulk data.
| mastazi wrote:
| And what is the average user supposed to do with it? I
| doubt that most people are even aware that you can ssh into
| a server and configure it for tunnelling your internet
| traffic, let alone knowing how to do that.
| JeremyBanks wrote:
| [dead]
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Given that VPN services typically require a credit card, and
| credit cards are unlikely to be available to most minors -- or at
| least provide plausible deniability to the providers -- this is
| probably 100% okay with the porn-banning Utahns.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| The Opera browser has a free VPN built-in. It would be
| interesting to see data on Opera and Tor browser downloads
| there in the last week.
| seanw444 wrote:
| They don't though. A lot of VPN services operate for free. A
| lot of my classmates in high school used free VPNs to bypass
| the school internet filters.
|
| I wonder how their business continues to operate if their
| product is free...
| seydor wrote:
| Well there is only one solution: they should require that all
| porn be paid-for by credit card. Utah will make PH rich to
| protect their boys
| paulpauper wrote:
| I used to use VPNs. What a waste of money. Nothing but captchas,
| broken functionality, slowness, etc. It's obvious that at least
| some VPNs use low trust IPs and are blocked and filtered. You are
| better off just getting an E2 instance
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| That's not been my experience. I run an always-on VPN on my
| laptop and phone and never have issues. What service did you
| try?
| paxys wrote:
| You need to find a better provider. I have regularly used
| Private Internet Access and Torguard and have never had this
| experience with either.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Mirror [1]
|
| [1] - https://archive.is/a9wlZ
| erenyeager wrote:
| Actually I think this is really good that we see more regulation
| around access to pornography, because many damaging aspects of it
| have been raised more in public awareness and these companies
| have made a lot of money off of addicting populations from a
| young age with harmful content without paying for the
| consequences. Social media companies should be included also,
| considering how many children and teens are on social media
| platforms looking for sexual activity with adults.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| The issue is porn is a natural addiction. Young people,
| especially young men will always be horny and seek out porn.
| The only deterrents to it are religious and cultural shaming.
| Is the solution to regulate porn with "education" so people
| know what healthy use is or not? Because while it seems
| reasonable to provide guidelines, 99% of people will ignore
| them.
| erenyeager wrote:
| Sometimes what seems natural is because the water was
| poisoned for so long. Yes, it is natural to have sexual
| desire, but is unfettered spread of porn with a few taps
| easily accessible at any age really something we should
| accept? And young men need a lot of support, in my anecdotal
| experience it is too easy for so many to fall down negative
| paths with little support network to prevent it.
|
| Now with AI it is even more dangerous, we have deepfakes (see
| recent Canada news on deepfakes of children), and the spread
| of more isolation and addiction with the internet "drugs"
| compared to genuine in person interactions with friends and
| family.
|
| Technology like smartphones helped us in many ways but also
| they became a new way to suffer and amplified some existing
| problems. Shouldn't we regulate the worst of it?
|
| I found more dangerous than porn is the ability to
| communicate with random adults online as a child, with often
| sexual endings. I remember growing up as a teen, there were
| sites like Omegle and then chat apps like kik and Snapchat
| and then Reddit, all these places had avenues for teens and
| children to communicate and swap pictures with adults, etc.
| with little to no regulation or consequences for these
| companies.
| juve1996 wrote:
| Regulations should be reserved for the worst problems. Porn
| consumption should be looked at, but not sure why we can
| not just empower parents to do their jobs, just like we
| empower them to control what movies they let their children
| watch on TV?
|
| You see with drug abuse that regulations do little to solve
| the actual problems.
| erenyeager wrote:
| Juul was pretty swiftly dealt with once their effects on
| children was noticed. Also, for parents the modern world
| is very difficult, there are so many influences and
| pressure on your children and they occupy an increasingly
| smaller role in influencing children these days. There
| needs to be society and government policy level
| regulations to help, individual parents enacting harsh
| rules will not end well in a society where advertisers
| are very advanced.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| I feel like use of porn is a symptom of isolation and lack
| of education/support structures. Fix those and people will
| be less vulnerable and addicted.
|
| The problem is loneliness is stigmatized and porn creates a
| "safe haven" where people don't have to confront the
| challenging dullness and angst of their life. Kurt Vonnegut
| once said: "What do my science fiction stories have in
| common with pornography? Fantasies of an impossibly
| hospitable world, I'm told."
|
| What is the solution, to just do what Utah and sexually
| repressed countries do, "Sorry no porn for you, it's in
| your best interest, I'm sure you will stop wanting it if we
| arbitrarily restrict it". It's not a solution and makes
| people go further "down the rabbit hole" to scratch that
| itch.
|
| Here's a simple way to look at it:
|
| This is a map of where pornography is illegal or restricted
| in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_
| India#/media/Fi...
|
| Do attitudes towards pornography scale with healthy
| societal sexual attitudes? Judging by the map I don't
| suppose so.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Absolutely agree about this. the ways in which this industry
| tries to catch your eyes and tries to grab your attention is
| both outrageous and evil. yes, every advertising network tries
| to do that, but there is no advertisement that leads to more
| harm than this one, and the more frequently they can be
| stopped, The healthier society will be.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _Social media companies should be included also, considering
| how many children and teens are on social media platforms
| looking for sexual activity with adults._
|
| No considering.
|
| "Social media companies should be included also."
|
| Period. Because in their current form and business model
| they're harmful to pre-adults.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| On the latest Jonathan Haidt discussion here a parent posted
| a lengthy rebuttal about someone pointing out the various
| resources found on YT. Their a-yo and b-yo sons only watch
| utter trash, Mr. Beast, videogames, 10 minute ads, all that
| stuff, and they watch it for hours on end. What a terrible
| platform. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. I only do
| wonder who has custody of their kids, who handed them the
| iPads, who gives them internet access, and who watches them
| watch trash all day, day in and day out?
| George83728 wrote:
| > _a-yo and b-yo sons_
|
| What does this mean?
| themitigating wrote:
| Prove damage
| seydor wrote:
| people will still be making porn for free if commercial
| activity is banned. always have been. It's likely that people
| watch more porn-hours on twitter than on PH. Social media
| competition treadmill otoh is unhealthy AF
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I don't understand pornhubs statement. What is device based
| authentication and why is it the best?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Somewhat ironic that they're going to be paying for the VPN (on
| top of already paying the ISP) while still not actually paying
| for the content itself.
| smolder wrote:
| Paying for porn would support the industry! That would be
| immoral! Just looking is okay, though.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Ah yes, in fact looking for free costs the providers
| something, so it's clearly an ongoing campaign to drive them
| out of business, hallelujah.
| barbazoo wrote:
| How do you know that they aren't?
| zsz wrote:
| Given how well the porn industry does regardless of the rest of
| the economy, it would be interesting to see how they would do
| if a sizeable portion of "users" actually paid for their
| services.
|
| Enterprising individuals might consider next how the same
| industry could counterintuitively profit from such legislation,
| by starting their own VPN service (which would, for example,
| not suffer from similar dropouts, connection resets, bandwidth
| related issues, etc. as competing services). I guess it would
| finally put to rest the question we've all been asking
| ourselves all along: are people using VPN services primarily to
| hide their piracy-related activities, or has it been mostly to
| hide their sexual fetishes?
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