Govt regulations to SAVE online porn?
 

At least half of you guys will instantly hate me for making this statement, but there is some sense to this idea, so at least think about it for a moment.

If people in porn had a lobbyist group of their own, this might be a position to take....

Allow the government to regulate porn online (don't shoot me yet - hear me out). If you are 12 years old and you walk into a convenience store, the porn mags are off limits to you. You must be 18 or older.

If you are 12 years old and you visit ANY adult site (especially tubes), you are able to watch as much free hardcore porn as you like, even though you are underage.

Using the above as the angle to regulate online porn, the govt could continue to state that porn falls under "free speech" and that they don't want to take any of your first amendment rights away, but in order to view this material (which is intended for Adults Only), you must prove you are of legal age via a credit card or a checkig account - period!

We can all still promote our sites using soft images (no nudity, blurred boobs, etc.), as well as within certain environments where surfers have had their age verified, but the days of endless free smut would be over!

The politicians who would get on board with this plan would look like they were taking some sort of moral stance, so they would quickly get on board, but in reality, if nothing is done soon, this industry will self-destruct within a year or two, tops!

The insane proliferation of totally free porn is nothing more than a race to the bottom! When your next business move is to set up a tube site, to compete for visitors by offerring more free porn than the competition, then maybe it's time to find a real job, because you are simply contributing to the collapse of this industry.

If porn were restricted to those who could prove their age via a credit card or checking account, then sites that offer free porn would be history.

The govt may become your best friend soon, because if online porn is finally restricted to adults (as it should be) then it will be harder to find for free, and those who wish to view it will have to pay for it, as it should be as well.

In addition, this industry is teaching the next 2 generations that you never have to pay for porn, because IT IS FREE!

The thought that this would be impossible for the govt to accomplish is silly. All of us now have to have 2257 links on our pages in order to comply with today's laws, and if we don't, then many reputable billing companies can easily reject your site, so you cannot process signups.

I hate to say it, but regulating online porn may be our only hope to stay in business.... as crazy as it may sound.

You can not continue to run an industry that is in the business of offering more and more free content without blowback. At this time the blowback is less sales, but soon it may be even worse - like an all out assault on online porn, once little Jimmy begins to print out hardcore porn to share with his 10 year old classmates for example.

It is clear we cannot regulate ourselves, so something really must be done soon, if this industry has ANY hope of continuing. It's like everyone in this business has the mental capacity of an immature teenager, and unless a Daddy figure steps in we are really all doomed.

Anyway, like I said, at least half of you will hate me for making this statement, but some sort of regulations may be our only hope. Then if a file sharing network allows porn to be downloaded and distributed for free, they will be shut down (at a minimum), and if you set up a fucking moronic tube site to distribute free porn, then you too will be fined, shut down, filtered out, etc.

Free porn = no porn sales. Some of us may be okay today, but not nearly as well off as we were yesterday, and certainly not as bad as we will be doing tomorrow - unless something changes big time.

Okay, go ahead and start shooting holes into this plan. I know this position is totally controversial, so what is your opinion?

If we all click our heels 3 times, we will be back home!

I completely agree with you. Also, it won't happen.

The porn industry is too divided to work together on something like this. Moreover, you wouldn't just need national regulation - the internet is a rather global thing, with global competition.

I think that it could help make more money for us in the long run. But like Libertine said, its a global thing.

However Visa and Mastercard and most of the cards that people process belong to American companies, and the Gubment could lean on them to make the international companies conform.

Isn't he talking about copa pretty much?

I completely agree with this statement (minus the massive amount of fraud and chargebacks this would cause).

Visa and MasterCard, coupled with processors like CCBill, could definitely force some changes for sure, with international reach.

Not really. They could put pressure on the sites actually selling memberships, but not on the ones giving stuff away for free and using the traffic to promote entirely different things.

This will all fail. Not all free porn sites are US based, thus you it would fuck US based porn companies since they could only promote non-nude stuff and would require cards. All traffic woudl go to teh sites that still have free porn

umm didnt a group of people here start some lobbying thing and basically they just take a bunch of donations (nothing really gets done) but a bunch of backdoor deals are done meanwhile the flag holders keep cheering on "free speech" blah blah blah?

LOL

become a member, donate, nothing will happen but youll feel like you did something.

BUAHAHA

Exactly. Regulation from individual countries will not solve the problem.

Right, that's why this post is so cotroversial. To force the industry changes that are necessary it would really require govt intervention.... blocking and/or shutting down sites that offer porn without age verification.

It's an ugly prospect, but I remind you of the title of this post.

everyone just call your congressman and tell them kids are getting access to free porn from tubes sites and see where that gets ya.

Right, hence the crazy idea of completely blocking unregulated porn sites from US access to begin with, which would be followed by partner countries soon thereafter (UK, AU, etc.). All politicians jump on board when laws are layed out in front of them that include "protect the children" within the text.

I know this idea is totally controversial, but we clearly can not regulate ourselves.

Do a Google search for "Free Porn" and you can see how this industry is obviously in self-destruct mode.

Its an impossible idea really. Who is going to police every page of pornography online?

You seem to assume that every single country in the world can ban free porn on the same day, and is equally able to police the new laws.

And this idea that a free porn prohibition in the US will make government filtering possible is pretty far out. The EFF and ACLU would aggressively fight against any government blacklist of sites.

Legit site owners would flag unregulated sites left and right if something like this were to take place., to make sure there were no sales leaks.

We all act like we don't care what the govt says, but if fear of consequence were not real, then why are most sites complying with the 2257 regulations now?

Also, list a few US based sites promoting scat, piss, fisting, beastiality, etc. Very few indeed, because no one wants trouble, so govt regulations DO effect the industry.

I can see a lot of potential for abuse there.

Have you looked at some of the 2257 statements ? even most of the US sites don't have them in order. They're there to give the impression that anybody cares when in fact nobody does till they get searched.

I won't list you US based sites but I can list you scat, piss, fisting, bestiality sites galore.
What does that mean ? That the money goes to someone else and US is left drolling.


Your statements would be correct if you weren't thinking inside the box called US. More policing for US sites means more money for the rest of the world.

This post is mostly to take on a position of devil's advocate. In reality my views are as liberal as the next guy, maybe even more so.

The truth is more free porn = less porn sales, no matter how you cut it.

Last I checked the majority of porn sales are US based, so the US citizen is still the targeted customer for most, so what our govt allows in, is very valid.

Restrictive countries (like China) already filter out what they do not allow, and if the US decided to block free porn sites, you would see most western leaning nations fall in line soon thereafter.

Hey, I am not pro-censorship, I am just trying to come up with new ideas to save our asses, because free porn will put most producers out of business within no time - or at least make this business useless.

Some of you say adapt or die, but if that means we need to join the race to the bottom, then the saying should be changed to "adapt and die" as the goal seems to be a competition to give away more free content than your competition.

I only read the first few paragraphs. So let me get this straight, we will make more money by requiring age verification on ALL of our sites, while people outside the USA don't use verification? Sounds like we'd basically be handing them our traffic.

interesting idea
i agree that it would be next to impossible without industry input

anyway this subject made me remember a comment Colin/Wasteland made at Cybernet about German traffic to his sites.

you may want to check out
German ISPs may block porn, infringing pages, search engines...

The UK Labor Party, Socialists, recently had their party conference, convention, and the Prime Minister made some comment about stopping children seeing things they should not on the Internet. Problem is he does not have a clue how to do it.

Yes Visa and MasterCard have a lot of influence and control on what is processed via them. Yes they could pull the accounts of people they don't like. Truth is they don't unless it's dragged in front of them. Like Scat.

If someone does not spend $30 on a porn site he spends $30 on gas, using his credit card. They would prefer it were gas rather than porn. We lose out, they don't.

Will any Western Government do anything to stop children accessing porn? What can they do is a better question. The German experiment failed miserably, the 15 year olds and the 60 years olds get porn from non German sites. Blocking access would be a joke as well. They are part of the EU. Which ensures free trade.

I understand your frustration and it would be nice if we could ban free porn. But this industry can't get together to fight stolen porn on sites stealing sign ups, so not expecting it to lobby the White House.

Someone wasn't around for the AVS days :helpme