Age Verification Laws Meet VPNs and Lawsuits in a War Over Speech and Privacy

A new crop of restrictive laws faces a friendly reception in the courts but ongoing public resistance.

Thwarted for years by the liberating power of the internet, social conservatives have resumed their crusade against sexually explicit material through age verification requirements. While sold as a means of ensuring that only adults access adult-oriented websites, the laws require people to abandon anonymity and expose potentially sensitive personal information. The browsing public has responded with lawsuits and an embrace of technology that bypasses restrictions. That may not be enough.

Government Pushes Parents Aside to Determine Which Websites are Appropriate

"This is something that I believe will save the current generation and generations to come if we're successful," Florida House Speaker Paul Renner (R–Palm Coast) commented last March upon the passage of HB-3. The bill, which Gov. Ron DeSantis subsequently signed, went into effect January 1. It bans access to pornographic websites for those under 18 years of age. It also forbids those under 14 from opening social media accounts (14- and 15-year-olds can do so with parental permission).

While people argue over whether government officials or parents should be deciding what minors can see and read on the internet, there's general agreement that at least some material is inappropriate for kids. The trick for those who want the government to act and who pushed the passage of HB3 in Florida and similar legislation elsewhere is determining the age of people browsing websites.

Louisiana, which pioneered the flurry of age-verification laws, has a digital version of its driver's license called the LA Wallet. That digital ID can be used to establish a web browser's age to the satisfaction of the law, while also revealing the holder's identity. Most states don't have anything like the LA Wallet.

"In states without a digital identification program like Louisiana's, porn sites must pay third-party age-verification providers to use software to compare a user's face with their ID photo, held up to the camera, or to use AI to determine if their face looks obviously older than 18," The Atlantic's Marc Novicoff noted in a recent article on such laws.

That's clumsy, at best. It's also an added expense that can lead to legal liability for websites if they make mistakes in carding users or handling sensitive data. Some adult sites, like Pornhub, have preferred to block access to residents of states that have age verification laws. This month, the company extended its ban to users in Florida and South Carolina, which also passed an age verification law.

The Tech-Savvy Use Technology To Bypass Enforcement Efforts

But it would be more accurate to say that Pornhub and others have blocked the users who seem to be coming from age verification states. This is where tech fixes come in. Using virtual private networks (VPNs), people can make it seem as if they're surfing the web from less-restrictive jurisdictions. Business is booming.

"Google searches for online tools like VPNs have surged in Florida after Pornhub, one of the world's largest adult websites, blocked access to users in the state," CBS News reported earlier this month. "Since the end of November, Google searches for VPNs have surged in the Florida, according to Google Trends. From the week of Dec. 22 - 28 to Dec. 29 - Jan. 4, searches nearly doubled. Since then, the numbers have gone even higher."

VPNs are popular workarounds for internet users living under restrictive laws worldwide. Others use VPNs to access streaming media content unavailable where they live. And they're popular for aficionados of adult websites who don't want to identify themselves to strangers. Publications like the Miami New Times publish guides to bypassing restrictions, though VPNs are not difficult to use.

So, problem solved, right? Control freaks who want to substitute their judgment for that of parents get to pass their age verification laws, and web users can ignore those laws with ease. Everybody is happy! Except, there's more to the issue than that.

VPNs Aren't a Solution as More Places Become Restrictive

"While VPNs may be able to disguise the source of your internet activity, they are not foolproof—nor should they be necessary to access legally protected speech," warn Rindala Alajaji and Paige Collings of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "With varying mandates across different regions, it will become increasingly difficult for VPNs to effectively circumvent these age verification requirements because each state or country may have different methods of enforcement and different types of identification checks, such as government-issued IDs, third-party verification systems, or biometric data."

VPNs rely on routing user traffic through servers in jurisdictions relatively free of restrictive laws. As governments become more censor-happy, the ranks of "safe" places where web traffic can seem to come from declines. Users and VPN companies may have to pick their poison.

"VPN providers will struggle to keep up with these constantly changing laws and ensure users can bypass the restrictions, especially as more sophisticated detection systems are introduced to identify and block VPN traffic," Alajaji and Collings add.

EFF publishes a comprehensive guide to using VPNs. But the organization emphasizes that "we must stand up against these types of laws, not just for the sake of free expression, but to protect the free flow of information that is essential to a free society."

A Future of Lawsuits, Restrictions, and Resistance

Unfortunately, after knocking down earlier legislative attempts at censoring the internet, the U.S. Supreme Court appears relatively friendly to the current crop of laws. The court recently heard arguments in a challenge to Texas's age-verification law and seemed more receptive than in the past to government efforts to apply age restrictions on the internet.

"This time around, the justices seemed inclined to erase the distinction between accessing porn online and in person," The Atlantic's Novicoff commented, comparing the laws to requirements (not always enforced, as I remember from my youth) for ID to purchase adult magazines in stores.

That may lead to a loss of anonymity on the web—not just when accessing sexually oriented websites, but possibly other material that government officials believe ought to be restricted or whose users should be tracked. It will also lead to an escalating technological race between enforcers and those dodging restrictions. Digital credentials, including Louisiana's LA Wallet, have already been stolen and misused. Techniques for fooling online identification efforts have a healthy future.

VPNs and legal challenges are only the latest developments in an ongoing war over online privacy and speech. There's a lot more at stake than who gets to decide what websites are appropriate for kids.

Comments

[mad.casual]

VPNs Aren't a Solution as More Places Become Restrictive

It's astounding the degree to which:
A) Purveyance of pornography of and to minors is just assumed to be free speech. And I say this as someone who generally regards the possession of an artifact of child porn to be a significantly lesser (even non-)crime than the production of it. If someone set up a website explicitly and/or exclusively to fence shoplifted goods, the government would be perfectly entitled to shut it down. If the goods showed up on another, legitimate website, it wouldn't be out of their jurisdiction to work with or place burden on the site to make sure stolen goods weren't sold or that the government could resolve crimes. Pawn brokers and brick and mortar have been subject to such law for decades, if not longer, and electrons aren't special. Just because the stolen goods have "Free Ross" stickers slapped on them on the internet, does not make for end-to-end Constitutional immunity and it would be stupid and dishonest to pretend like that.

B) The advocates of child pornography purveyance just assume the VPN's job is to ensure purveyance of pornography of and to children, rather than ensure the transport of information packets along any given route. Yes, laws and technologies blocking VPNs specifically is a problem for them and, yes, some VPNs may consider it their job to ensure pornography of/to minors gets conveyed, but laws age-restricting certain materials in certain places are not strictly the domain of VPNs... unless people like you continue to force the issue in support of purveying porn of/to minors.

[mad.casual]

unless people like you continue to force the issue in support of purveying porn of/to minors.

To wit, you might think that being able to openly plot someone's murder constitutes free speech, but the plotting of murder is not a critical or lynchpin libertarian issue (plotting a murder quite viably fits under initiating aggression) and if the person whose murder is being plotted feels legitimately threatened by the plot there's a viable question or doubt, about a non-lynchpin libertarian issue, that the speech is protected.

There's a LatinX, hip-swiveling case to be had that "Hey, VPNs are just abstract social constructs that just move packets, dude. It's up to the websites and/or the endpoints to ensure they're obeying their local laws!" but "We need to defend VPNs so minors can access porn (and ENB's associated 'Gays are too stupid to know they're gay without internet porn to educate them!' victimocratic idiocy.)" is not that case and actually works against it.

[Wizard4169]

"It's for the children!" is the eternal battle cry of the slaver. These laws will also make it more difficult and risky for adults to access legal content. If past experience is any guide, they may also make it harder for both children and adults to access sites that may discuss sexual topics but aren't remotely pornographic. Throwing child porn (already massively illegal) into the mix is just a blatantly dishonest way to further muddy the water. This is deeply stupid even by m.c standards.

[Longtobefree]

A minor inconvenience to exercise your first amendment rights compared to exercising your second amendment rights.

(remember when we were called crazy gun nuts for saying this would happen?)

[Medulla Oblongata]

JFK, RFK, MLK, great! ...When can we get Epstein's lists?

[mad.casual]

Once again, I go to Google and type in "gun engravers California". Note: This is *engraving*, about as superficially textual, artistic, etc., as it comes, it would just be put on a gun.

Popup at the second website: "The State of California prohibits perceived advertising or marketing of firearm related products to persons under 18 years of age."

Guess what happens when I turn on my VPN and do the same from any other State in the Union? Even better, you abject "MUH MORUL GLOBALISM!" retards, guess what happens if I VPN to the same site through Mexico or Canada? You know it's funny, in the 90s people used to mock 80 yr. old legislators who didn't understand how the internet or networks worked but you goddamned morons aren't 80 and, at this point, have been on the internet a time or two. Even the Amish understand this shit.

I don't know how else to explain the complete lack of understanding other than the fact that you're retarded and retarding. Go fuck yourselves with your moral panic about being able to purvey porn of/to minors.

[mad.casual]

Even the Amish understand this shit.

[Incunabulum]

Thwarted for years by the liberating power of the internet, social 'progressives have resumed their crusade against free speech . . .

[Nobartium]

VPNs big weakness is speed, not privacy.

American consumers are lazy, and expect connections to be fast. They will give up with long latency.

[AT]

Government Pushes Parents Aside to Determine Which Websites are Appropriate

Are any pornographic websites appropriate for children?

[Wizard4169]

If past experience is any guide this will likely end up affecting sites that aren't remotely pornographic. And the idea that either the intent or effect of these laws is to protect children is just silly. If you actually believe the "It's for the children!" bullshit then you should really take a look at this bridge I have for sale.

[TJJ2000]

Only Gov-Guns can raise kids!? /s

[JdL]

All this pearl-clutching over whether kids might be able to look around the internet unfettered! Have I missed reports of studies that show that kids, even a small minority of kids, are traumatized when they see pix of adults doing adult things? In my view, these kinds of laws reflect mental problems in the adults who write or support them, and do nothing to benefit kids.