[a4a4a4a4]

Bars and other places that sell alcohol generally don't keep your ID on file though, that's the big privacy issue. If you go to an adult store and want to buy porn, they look at your picture to make sure it's you, and check the D.O.B. Then they pretty much forget you were there.

"Protect the children" is the perfect cover for so many terribly invasive laws. I personally won't sacrifice my privacy to "protect children", and neither should you, because these children will eventually grow up to be adults who would presumably enjoy a right to privacy.

> The fact of the matter is porn is accessible to children within seconds and for the last 30 years we have done virtually nothing to try to prevent it. We know that porn is harmful, especially to children, and we have done NOTHING to try to prevent it.

The government isn't a parent and shouldn't act like one. Parents and schools can take advantage of any one of the many services which provide content filtering for kids. Once they're old enough the get around those blockers and access things anyway, there isn't anything you or the government will be able to do to stop them from accessing content. See: torrenting movies and TV, sharing plans for 3d printed weapons, child porn still being a massive problem despite being very illegal pretty much globally.

[mgkimsal]

At some point you don't get carded, because people can tell based on appearance. Not always, of course, and if they can't be sure, they'll card to be on the safe side, but... there are real world limits of how much carding people will do. I do not get carded any more for drinks - I did 30 years ago, but don't now.

[twiclo]

I agree that "Think of the children" is a really annoying talking point but it doesn't make it a _wrong_ talking point. It's often used to push reactionary policy quickly without giving anyone time to think about the repercussions. I'm on HN, I'm a massive advocate for privacy. I self host every single thing I can and use a pinephone.

That said the privacy argument is still not enough for me here. Bars have the ability to store this information they just choose not to. Pornhub also has the ability to choose not to store it. The privacy concerns are worth the risks

Pornography is a dangerous terrible thing. If exposed to it as a child it will likely impact you for the rest of your life.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Pornography is a dangerous terrible thing. If exposed to it as a child it will likely impact you for the rest of your life

Addiction to pornography is a dangerous, terrible thing. The main thing that makes pornography dangerous to youngsters is the vacuum of cultural context around sex in America. In cultures with a healthier relationship with sex, porn competes with wholesome constructs, and takes its place as entertainment versus instruction.

[RalfWausE]

> Pornography is a dangerous terrible thing. If exposed to it as a child it will likely impact you for the rest of your life.

Tell me you are an american without telling me you are an american...

[monetus]

I'm in the southeast US and only seem to see this viewpoint expressed by those who had highly religious upbringings. I'm curious what the rough equivalent of this moralizing would be in your area, wherever you may be.

[naasking]

> Pornography is a dangerous terrible thing. If exposed to it as a child it will likely impact you for the rest of your life.

I'm going to reiterate all of the other posters' requests for some evidence of this, because your whole position hinges on this one point that you are simply taking for granted.

[a4a4a4a4]

> Bars have the ability to store this information they just choose not to.

I can watch and verify that the bar doesn't store it, unless the bouncer is memorizing info. I cannot verify that PornHub doesn't store more than they say they do.

[mynameisvlad]

A lot of bars nowadays (at least in both Seattle and Vancouver for the past decade or so) will scan your ID to verify you’re not blacklisted, and share lists around.

They are definitely keeping records on banned people and I wouldn’t be surprised if they stored all scanned records for easy blacklisting post-issue.

[eatsyourtacos]

>Pornography is a dangerous terrible thing

No- it isn't.

[mildmotive]

You can’t expect parents in this day and age to have the ability to protect their children from this material where smartphones are owned by almost everyone with unlimited internet access. When something becomes a wide societal problem then using the arm of the state can become a valid option to mitigate the issue. This is not about parenting grown-ups, this is about helping parents fix something that they can’t fix themselves at an individual level.

If a grown-up really wants to watch porn, they can use a VPN. It’s not hard, no ID is needed. By adding a hurdle for children to access this material we can protect them from getting harmed by it at a young age. I think setting up a VPN is a small price to pay for if it means increasing the average age of exposure to porn.

[a4a4a4a4]

We can't expect a grown-up to set up content filters on a child's devices because it's too complicated, but we _can_ expect them to setup a VPN on their own device, and also determine what a trusted VPN provider/application looks like? The group of people who _can_ use a VPN yet _can't_ set up parental controls doesn't exist.

There's even a super nice support article on how to do it all, from Apple: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201304

And if you're talking about kids using other devices which a parent doesn't have control over: well, supervise your kids, build a good relationship with them, ask what they're doing with their friends and try to make sure their parents are on the same page.

The amount of pearl-clutching like this in this thread is shocking. The entire world doesn't need to be a plush-lined playpen for children.

[zirgs]

How would you supervise your kid when he's at school but you're at work? How could you prevent a classmate showing him porn?

Back when I was a kid I had no way to access extreme porn. Porn mags were quite tame compared to modern porn sites where pretty much anything goes.

[a4a4a4a4]

You don’t prevent it, simple. Adding invasive privacy measures that apply to all adults won’t stop the kid who wants to find porn and show it to other kids on his phone. We found ways around the content blockers at school all the time.

[zirgs]

Extreme porn can be found too easily. It wasn't like that when I was a kid. There were no ways around it. We simply could not even think of all the disgusting fetishes that are only a few clicks away nowadays.

[xwowsersx]

The LA state law does state that:

> Any commercial entity or third party that performs the required age verification shall not retain any identifying information of the individual after access has been granted to the material.

and

> A commercial entity that is found to have knowingly retained identifying information of the individual after access has been granted to the individual shall be liable to the individual for damages resulting from retaining the identifying information, including court costs and reasonable attorney fees as ordered by the court.

but I agree this is different from being carded at a bar where you can see that they're just checking your ID and handing it back to you. In the case of a porn site, you're left to just trust that they are deleting the records.

[gjsman-1000]

“The government isn't a parent and shouldn't act like one”

Then I guess the government has no right to mandate the use of car seats, investigate child abuse, or regulate school lunches.

[a4a4a4a4]

> car seats

If we're talking about setting safety standards for car seats, fine. I also wouldn't really care if the mandated use of car seats was just a recommendation. My kids would still go in a car seat until they're big enough, and I don't particularly care if other people are too careless with their kids to use car seats.

> investigate child abuse

Falls under crime, and could also be perpetrated by the parents themselves. Of course some impartial entity should be doing the investigation.

> regulate school lunches

I would say the government shouldn't be regulating school lunches beyond the normal health standards applied to all food service places. School food got substantially worse in my school district after Michelle Obama's involvement. Many foods which were completely fine were not allowed anymore, yet pizza could be considered a vegetable because it had tomato sauce on it. Maybe this improved the food in some areas, but it definitely made it worse in my area.