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Originally Posted by asorelli
Yet very little to no legal action was taken by any companies in the adult industry to try and prevent it.
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If you've been following the past 5-7 years of age verification law, then you know this isn't the case. Maybe if you ask ChatGPT you'll get that kind of an answer.
Numerous companies have been beating the drum, filing suits, and spending money. Not site just site operators, but hosting companies too. XBiz has been putting out dozens of articles on every movement in this space. The top lawyers in the industry are constantly putting out videos and tweets.
From a web development perspective, I was asked to start integrating age verification solutions as far back as 2018 due to UK laws which were not realized until this year. They were fought and defeated then, but not now.
My login management software started implementing age verification in 2024. It seemed like this was the way things were going to go globally. I have a feeling things are going to get much worse before they get anywhere close to better.
Quite frankly, most people just said "it's not going to happen." Why would they invest into something they thought was never going to happen? Even on this forum, you can read the numerous age verification threads over the past year, the Project 2025 thread, and so many others. In fact, the best legal minds in the adult industry seemed convinced that this outcome wasn't realistic. Their commentary comes off pretty shocked.
The United States Supreme Court ruled that states can set age verification laws on online pornography. I don't think people are laying down and taking it. They're adapting to the laws. We're way past the point of lobbying.
You would have to literally challenge every single law, and sue every single state and country implementing AV to challenge where we are. In the United States, that means hiring 50 different attorneys, all with credible experience fighting governments, willing to push to federal courts if necessary.
Who has cashflow for something like that?
If you have the cashflow for this, I'm definitely available for consultation and hiring.
More realistic: Who has the comradery to band together to make it happen?
We're talking probably tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees. Pharma companies and social media companies are profiting in the billions. Of course they can afford lobbyists.
Maybe if the industry had created an NRA-equivalent 15 or so years ago, we would be in a different position, but that's hindsight.
One of the top lawyers in the industry posted on this very forum months ago and said: if you want to do business in a country, or a state, you need to follow their laws.
The unique makeup of the United States, and the vulnerability of GeoIP accuracy, means that not following these laws puts you at risk, even if you try to block that state. I don't think VPNs are going to protect anyone. At least that's what my takeaway from Corey Silverstein's webinar was.
This isn't legal advice, but site operators have to make money, and they have two courses of action in the short-term:
* Comply with the law.
* Not comply with the law.
In Silverstein's webinar a couple weeks ago, he spoke about what he thinks is likely to happen next, and it's going to be litigation. I'm paraphrasing, but AGs are going to sue companies (and have) and those AGs are going to try and shut down and destroy porn.
Those site operators are now going to have to litigate in front of a jury that they did everything reasonable to prevent minors from viewing explicit content.
That's why I keep saying I don't think age estimation is a long-term solution. I'm seeing people bypassing age estimation on Twitter for Discord and other services using WWE games. This is why my LoginBlue product isn't integrating any age verifiers (outside of a demo or test) who do not take this very seriously. We seem to be at the risk aversion stage, and no one is going to mitigate risk for you. You need a lawyer to give you guidance.
OnlyFans "rolled over" and implemented age verification because they saw the writing on the wall, but more importantly, they figure they're so unique and big, that people will verify because they have no alternative--and they'll be protected, because they have the cash to litigate.
You should watch that webinar, and the other videos that preceded it, they're on YouTube and on Corey Silverstein's channel. People have been ringing the bell for a long time.
EDIT:
Did I see someone mention that OnlyFans models do not promote? I build landing pages for OF models and they hustle hard. Harder than you would think. They spend anywhere between 20-30 hours a week working on promotion and marketing. And the Instagram models? Double that, because they're creating mainstream AND adult content. It's a lot of labor.