Pornhub lockdown and fact-free Zuckbots – welcome to 2025
- Reference: 1736766913
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/13/smut_meta_opinion/
- Source link:
Obscenity, smut, and pornography have generally won that argument since the 1960s, even in the pre-internet days when distribution was easier to police.
Pornhub pulls out of Florida, VPN demand 'surges 1150%' [1]READ MORE
These are not the 1950s, though. There's a 6-3 conservative majority in the Supremes, and the President-elect is already talking like a mob leader, threatening to take over [2]neighboring turf and [3]demanding deals with menaces . Mobsters did very well out of Prohibition, they do very well indeed out of the War on Drugs, and they profit handsomely from smut wherever smut is banned.
In all such cases, prohibition not only fails to work but does huge damage. As for the porn laws, forcing user ID into the hands of content creators and producers creates a host of problems. If everyone complies, the potential for cyber-extortion goes into orbit. Non-compliant sites will become highly attractive and equally dangerous. As for driving users into the murky world of VPNs, which gain intimate access to all your traffic, well – [4]good luck with that .
All these are mere facts, though. As Mark Zuckerberg said when he [5]abolished fact-checking on Meta properties , fact-checkers are biased and free speech is more important. This nicely aligns with the incoming administration, where facts will never get in the way of a good time. It also nicely removes any obligation on Meta to ensure the accuracy of the [6]swarms of AI bots it is busy breeding in its vats. Nobody made Zuck sack the fact-checkers any more than anyone made him appoint Republican activists to Meta's board. Just good ideas.
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Students of the [8]radicalization of Germany in the 1930s will know a useful term, "working towards the Führer." Alongside coordinating radical reforms in the civil service and judiciary, this was a much more nuanced process where organizations and individuals moved to synchronize their activities with fascism on the grounds that it would find favor. No laws needed to be changed, no orders issued, you just knew what to do – and what would happen if you didn't. Many [9]heads of industry felt it prudent to conform . Who knows, you might even get your own government department to control the regulatory environment in which your businesses operate.
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Whether or not you find this idea applicable today, it remains an exhaustively documented fact – there's that word again – and thus useful to compare your own observations against. If there is a pattern, it's best to be aware.
[12]After China's Salt Typhoon, the reconstruction starts now
[13]Eight things that should not have happened last year, but did
[14]'That's not a bug, it's a feature' takes on a darker tone when malware's involved
[15]The sweet Raspberry taste of success masks a missed opportunity
All of us who work in tech have a special responsibility here. If Arkansas or Florida say that forcing ID on porn sites will protect children without increasing risks to everyone, then those who understand how the internet actually works, technically and socially, have to pay attention and ask what the real motivation is. Likewise, canceling facts in an environment where engagement is driven by algorithms. Technology and its regulation have always been at the heart of every modern state. Both are complex and endlessly changing. Both are easy to misrepresent, but facts will always trump opinion. Try configuring your enterprise border router by opinion rather than the rule book and find out.
The outcome of the Supreme Court ruling on the porn laws will be an excellent testbed for the future online regulation. If the laws prove unconstitutional, then as usual the conservative states will try to come up with some new idea that will stick next time.
If they're upheld, though, then "harmful to children" will become a magic bullet. Porn is an emotive issue, useful for excusing experiments in weakening civic rights. Once established, it's easier to break through other civic protections for other groups, no facts required. The state does not currently have the right to impose broad monitoring and reporting duties on network providers and device makers due to constitutional protections of privacy through outlawing warrantless searches and the like.
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Those rights too may be weakened, and that will mean changes in the governance and technical behavior of the infrastructure in which so many of The Register 's readership are deeply enmeshed. A great deal will depend on institutional responses to any such development, from strongly fighting it to actively signaling a willingness to comply.
The historical precedents are not encouraging, yet we are not bound by history. Those of us who have grown up through the huge changes brought about by digital technology, especially those of us who have been taking notes, have not only the freedom but the duty to say what we see and what we think it means.
Opinion is free, facts are sacred, and those who herd bits know the facts about the digital world better than most. 2025 is going to need us. ®
Get our [17]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/05/pornhub_vpn_demand_surge/
[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/08/politics/trump-greenland-canada-panama-analysis/index.html
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp313e41jy1o
[4] https://www.wired.com/story/residential-proxy-network-cybercrime-vpn/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/07/meta_eliminate_fact_check/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/08/meta_ai_bots/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z4VGvO8-7pcEO11KTVVWRQAAAI0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/how-and-why/why/radicalisation-of-nazi-administration/
[9] https://www.adl.org/resources/news/german-industry-and-third-reich
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z4VGvO8-7pcEO11KTVVWRQAAAI0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z4VGvO8-7pcEO11KTVVWRQAAAI0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/06/opinion_column_cybersec/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/01/opinion_column_tech_fails_2024/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/23/firmware_malware_opinion/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/16/opinion_column_future_raspberry_pi/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z4VGvO8-7pcEO11KTVVWRQAAAI0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: It's an easy go to
I think the only good option is to curtail "freedom of speech" because if they don't, what else can this widely misunderstood concept [*] be weaponised for? Antisemitism? Discrimination? Hate speech? Fake news?
* - It shouldn't give people the right to spew whatever ill educated bullshit their minds are capable of articulating, no matter what Musk says. There should be potential consequences for saying bad things, or you'll end up with a population of Alex Joneses...
Opinion are perhaps free for now, but the consequences can be severe, and the protections negligible, especially when opinions are no longer ephemeral.
Even if data is eventually scrubbed, networks memoize training data, with removal possible but not implemented.
In cryptography one needs to consider not if encryption can be broken, but for how long a message can be useful to an adversary before the encryption is broken, and desing protections accordingly.
These days you need to apply that principle and remove the encryption aspect, then consider if it's safe posting.
Mobsters did very well out of Prohibition
The people who didn't do so well were the established brewing companies. And if the court passes a think-of-the-children judgement, this is going to be a huge pain for, amongst others, Zuck and Musk with their absolute-freedom-of-speech pose. The Republican election victory needed a coalition of libertarian tech bros and moralising fundamentalist bible bashers, and whatever the court decides, at least one of these factions is going to be extremely unhappy with the outcome, probably with lots of angry blame being placed on the other.
I find it amusing
That you guys still try to find the "good", and are assuming there are still laws, in tech.
These are not good people doing good things. They are very bad people who will strip the skin off babies and eat them for breakfast before holding up their bones for their mothers.
Then they will retreat to their private islands and underground bunkers to watch you turn on each other.
The ONLY thing that can stop them is you. You have to stop using their web sites. You have to stop clicking on their outright evil click bait posts, and you have to stop clicking on the headlines with their insane exclamations in the headlines. Every time you do, you empower them, and enrich them...and you cannot do it. You can't. They have you by the balls.
People in the US are checking out and disappearing. They don't want anything to do with these people or their cult of personality. I suggest the rest of the world do the same.
The U.S. knows that if you are on line, you will be brain washed, baited, manipulated.... Musk, and suckerberg, are what happens when the internet warps your mind. Many people will have to be deprogrammed, many will never be able to recover.
If you want a real thorn to tackle, facebook zombies are now walking around with meta glasses on constantly posting you to the internet and feeding you directly to the AI without your permission.
Get offline. Get off grid if you can, that's what these guys are doing, and they own this chit.
Re: I find it amusing
" Musk, and suckerberg"
They are low hanging fruit and easy to stop ( I have never had an account with either or any of the social media sites)... If you want more, then stop using Google, Amazon, Netflix, Social Media of all kinds, free weather apps or your phone, Waze and the list goes on..
Re: I find it amusing
People in the US are checking out and disappearing. They don't want anything to do with these people or their cult of personality. I suggest the rest of the world do the same.
The U.S. knows that if you are on line, you will be brain washed, baited, manipulated....
I have tried to parse and reparse this and it fails every time. The only way I can understand it is if there's more than one US, this one and the other one that voted for this lunacy in the first place.
A fine way to lecture the rest of the world...
Re: I find it amusing
People who normally show up to vote..didn't. You know who showed up? Minorities, young men, people who don't normally vote.... you know why? tiktok told them to. Facebook and x targeted them, with the help of putin and friends.
Re: I find it amusing
" People in the US are checking out and disappearing. "
....?
Isn't that a euphemism for self termination? Seems a bit extreme. Why not try going to Canada or something (before Trump builds another wall)? Or maybe come over here to Europe? The service industry would love an influx of people habituated to leaving big tips. ;)
Porn no big deal and no IDs
I bet most parents do not consider their kids seeing porn a big deal. The whole issue is virtue signalling by politicians.
As for solution: No personal IDs are necessary. Sell anonymous age verification cards as alcohol. Even allow alcohol makers hide the code into the bottle caps. Or cigarette packages. Then use the single use code in a browser or OS level. The rest is parents' responsibility.
And, sure, no measure is 100% kid-proof. But the 80/20 rule applies to address most problems.
"ask what the real motivation is"
We know what the real motivation is: the creation of a Christofascist state. The Project 2025 manifesto very helpfully spells out everything they plan to do to achieve it, and they're hardly coy about why.
Part of the problem here is "the definition of porn". If you depict forcible rape of someone who's fully clothed, is that porn? If you show someone comfortable and happy while sunbathing nude, is that porn? It's really in the eye of the beholder, and Justice Stewart said as much in 1964:
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
Your porn may be my art, and vice versa. As to the sheeple going along with whatever's decided by the elected leaders, the best reference may be:
"... it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or parliament or a communist dictatorship. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
Hermann Goering, International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1946)
deliberate irony? the quote
"... it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or parliament or a communist dictatorship. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country. Hermann Goering, International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1946)
Turns out to be a fake :). There is no record of Goering saying that in the Nuremberg trial. There is hearsay he said something on the same theme, but not the reported words.
The quote cited above does not appear in transcripts of the Nuremberg trials because although Goering spoke these words during the course of the proceedings, he did not offer them at his trial. His comments were made privately to Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking American intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail. Gilbert kept a journal of his observations of the proceedings and his conversations with the prisoners, which he later published in the book Nuremberg Diary.
[1]Snopes
[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/war-games/
But the nice thing about fact-free internet is that if it's on the internet he did say it.
So you have to register your name and age to watch porn
Won't it be funny when someone downloads the user database and publishes it? How many politicians, judges, senior law enforcement officers will be on the list?
Re: So you have to register your name and age to watch porn
None, they won't have to register. Only the peasants.
I miss the old Register
This opinion piece hits all the key talking points: Trump is a mobster, check. VPNs are for criminals, check. Nazi Germany reference, check.
Anyone remember when The Register's motto was "Biting the hand that feeds IT" ? Now it seems The Register wants carry the same agenda as the rest of the news media and bite the hand of every politician they can find.
Bring back the old Register. Tear the tech titans to shreds, but leave the political agenda to others.
"facts will always trump opinion"
Sorry, but it seems to me that US Republicans do not obey that little rule.
Sadly, I could foresee the current internet issues arising YEARS ago...
The simple fact is that many social media platforms allow completely anonymised identities to be used for any account you care to sign up to.
And as such, *anyone* can post anything they like, whether it is fake news, fake videos, fake photos or their mum's recipe for Victoria Sponge cake. And each person who opens an account is NOT accountable(*) for anything they post online. And this allows people to spew any information they like, which can then be copied, shared or commented on by tens, hundreds, thousands of other irresponsible people hiding behind their own anonymised accounts.
(*) And yes I know there are exceptions !
And what's worse is that the free email account providers and the social media website LOVE all of this, as it helps increase their advertising revenue, while at the same substantially increasing their popularity as it drives other users onto *their* platforms to either like / dislike or comment on the clickbait that was originally posted. !!
I'm not in favour of the idea of the "internet police" as they could so easily be corrupted or become sensors of legitimate content...but one has to wonder how 2025 (and future years) is going to evolve, if fact checking humans are dispensed with... :-(
It's an easy go to
The moment you create FUD around children, the great unwashed, uneducated masses will rally, and there's strength in numbers, particularly if you want to promote an idea, or worse an ideology.
The more you tell the lie, the more it becomes believable. Paraphrasing a certain German Propaganda leader in WW2 Germany.
Let's see what the US Supreme Court suggests is correct and go from there I say!