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Privacy The Internet

Pornhub Announces 'Biometric Technology' To Verify Users (vice.com) 63

Posted by BeauHD from the latest-developments dept.
In an effort to combat abuse on its platform, Pornhub said it's expanding its human moderation team, releasing an upcoming transparency report, and introducing biometric technology to verify users who upload videos. The announcement comes after the platform came under scrutiny in December for claims it hosted child sexual abuse material. As a result, Visa and Mastercard suspended services on the site indefinitely.

Some of the measures it took to address the issue at the time included banning all non-verified users from posting to the site and deleting all content uploaded from unverified sources -- which amounted to over 10 million videos being deleted, or more than 80 percent of all videos on the platform. Motherboard reports: Tuesday's statement says that verification will still be limited to people in Pornhub's Model Program, and verification will be done by Yoti, a digital identity verification company, "by providing a current photo and government-approved identification document." "Yoti will check the validity of the ID document and match the user's ID document to their photo using secure biometric technology," according to the statement.

Other portions of the expanded policies include details about how moderators will work going forward, including that they will "regularly monitor search terms within the platform for increases in phrasings that attempt to bypass the safeguards in place." Moderators will also be trained more rigorously, and offered support and therapy. "Content moderators will also undergo further exhaustive training to identify potentially illegal material and testing," Pornhub said. "If needed, content moderators have access to specialized support, including wellness benefits and therapeutic measures, to support them in their critical work."

In its statement, Pornhub also announced that it will release a transparency report "detailing its content moderation results from 2020, including the total number of reports filed with [the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children], as well as other key details related to the trust and safety of the platform." "Much like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other tech platforms, Pornhub seeks to be fully transparent about the content that should and should not appear on the platform," Pornhub said in the statement. "This report will be the first of its kind among adult content platforms, setting the standard for transparency and accountability in the industry."
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Pornhub Announces 'Biometric Technology' To Verify Users More

Pornhub Announces 'Biometric Technology' To Verify Users

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  • Now that's a bad mental image (Score:5, Funny)

    by SWPadnos ( 191329 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @06:25PM (#61025140)
    Porn ... biometrics. Ewww.

  • yay - sign me "up"

  • Fortunately, all of those folks probably already have a device for taking critical "biometric measurements". Whether or not that is enough to verify their identity that confirm the size of consumable products they'll need in the future....who knows.

    Put me in the "who gives a shit" contingent (I'm sure they have a device for that too).

    Best,

  • Lol, yeah, right. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @06:39PM (#61025194)

    Like anyone would give his real ID to a porn site...

    Go ahead... commit suicide, PornHub.

    Literally nobody cares.
    There are more porn sites to replace you, than grains of sand at the beach.
    Here's a good overview (note site title): http://www.downloadhelper.net/... [downloadhelper.net]

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The ID is only for the models, not the user. I think their goal here is to turn the site into an OnlyFans/ManyVids alternative, which it already was previously, but those recent changes are pushing that direction even harder. Most of the pirated content is now gone from the site and what's left is all verified models with pay content.

    • 2257 (scroll to the bottom of any porn site) (Score:4, Informative)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @07:21PM (#61025354) Journal

      Pick any random porn site and scroll to the bottom of the front page. Preferably one that looks reasonably professional, but sites one by one guy working part-time will normally have it too.

      At the bottom of the front page of most any site you'll find a link that mentions 2257. Click it. You'll get the name and address of the person who holds copies of the model's photo IDs.

      2257 refers to 18 US Code section 2257. That's the law that says porn sites are required to have on file copies of all of the models' photo IDs. Pornhub is basically announcing that they are going to start complying with federal law, like every other site does.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        2257 refers to 18 US Code section 2257. That's the law that says porn sites are required to have on file copies of all of the models' photo IDs. Pornhub is basically announcing that they are going to start complying with federal law, like every other site does.

        18 US Code section 2257 [cornell.edu] requires PRODUCERS of sexually explicit conduct to keep individually identifiable records pertaining to every performer. Pornhub is not a producer, so 18 US Code section 2257 does NOT apply.

        I'm sure you know a lot about porn, but your knowledge of the law needs some work.

        • Section 502 (Score:4, Informative)

          by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @09:19PM (#61025720) Journal

          One who produces a web site containing sexually explicit content is a producer under 2257. That fact was clarified by 109â"248 S. 502(a).

          Here's the Final Rule on enforcement for further details.

          https://www.justice.gov/archiv... [justice.gov]

          If you have any questions about particular parts, I sides in drafting some of the wording, so I can probably help with any bits that you questions with.

          • By the way, the term we used in the final rule is "secondary producer". That's someone who produces a work, such as a web site, containing sexually explicit content originally produced by another. It's typically sold to the web site by photographer through a broker. A change from the draft rule is that the broker may now serve as records custodian in some cases.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            One who produces a web site containing sexually explicit content is a producer under 2257. That fact was clarified by 109â"248 S. 502(a).

            Here's the Final Rule on enforcement for further details.

            https://www.justice.gov/archiv... [justice.gov]

            LOL! You link to a document of 48K words and don't quote from it? Christ, what a fucking douchebag.

            Here's the deal Ray, 18 US Code section 2257 has EXEMPTIONS and Pornhub is covered by them. They are in your own damn 48 thousand word source:

            (4) Producer does not include persons whose activities relating to the visual depiction of actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct are limited to the following:
            ...
            (v) The transmission, storage, retrieval, hosting, formatting, or translation (or any combinatio

            • You just absolutely refuse to ever learn anything at all, don't you? Clearly you didn't even glance at rule, deciding instead to try to intimidate me by getting stalkerish. Of course you really, really suck at that stalking part, but we'll get back to that in a minute.

              If you had bothered to glance the Final Rule, you would have noticed most of it (30 pages of it) is in the form of:
              --
              The proposed regulation had the wording ...
              Some adult industry representatives / commenters expressed concern that ... and p

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by Anonymous Coward

                You just absolutely refuse to ever learn anything at all, don't you?

                YOU are the one who claimed Pornhub is a "producer" under 18 US 2257. I have shown you and everybody else here that is NOT the case by quoting from YOUR OWN DAMN SOURCE. I have laid bare your ignorance, yet here you are saying I'm the one who refuses to learn? There is something seriously wrong with you. Get some professional help.

                Clearly you didn't even glance at rule

                Are you on drugs? I fucking quoted from it. It CLEARLY says the OPPOSITE of what you claim.

                If you actually had any interest at all in understanding the 2257 rule, you had the opportunity here of the guy who wrote some of the wording graciously offering to explain to you any parts where you may be confused.

                Gracious or not, I don't take offers of explanation from morons who quite obviousl

  • Please clean after every use

  • Please place your

  • TFA says they’re just using “biometrics” to automate the process of checking IDs. My understanding is that US-based porn companies are supposed to comply with “proof on file” recordkeeping requirements for their models, and PornHub was skirting that requirement Uber-style by claiming their amateur porn stars were independent contractors.

    Chalk that up to another company believing laws don’t apply if it’s being done through the internet.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Your understanding is faulty. US law requires producers of sexually explicit material to keep records of their models. Pornhub is not a producer of porn anymore than Cinemark is a producer of the movies it shows in their theaters.

      • A cinema has a paper trail they can follow to prove their movies were produced in accordance with applicable laws. Pornhub was allowing anonymous users to upload whatever and then vanish, leaving Pornhub as the only point of contact responsible for the legality of the content.

        It wasn't a very smart way to run a porn business.

  • to be something like that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • "If needed, content moderators have access to specialized support, including wellness benefits and therapeutic measures, to support them in their critical work."

    Critical work? Settle down there, Beavis. You're running a porn site, not Sister Mary's School for Underprivileged Youth.

    And when you choose to delete more than 80% of your own content, it tends to say a lot about perceived value. Lawyers would have fought that, if it were actually worth it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • The "critical work" is keeping child porn off the site. You may not think that's terribly critical, but it's reasonable that PornHub sees that as an absolutely critical part of their business.

        Deleting all unverified content and implementing an extreme adult verification system, that "critical work" and every employee doing it, has become completely irrelevant?

        Let's hope they find something else for them to do, because it certainly seems like the entire point of this improved security, is to not merely reduce the problem of child porn, but to completely eliminate it, along with every justification to moderate for it.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        The "critical work" is keeping child porn off the site.

        Some of this. Also revenge porn.

        But most of the bad press has come from the "Girls Gone Wild" uploads. That someone was promised would never be seen outside the borders of Obscuristan. Yeah, right.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Actually, what really screwed them in the end was a bunch of conservative Christians lobbying Visa and Mastercard to take payment away from them because in their infantile view porn = evil.

          PornHub didn't have a child porn or revenge porn problem; its illegal content vs. other content ratio was lower than sites like YouTube for example. That doesn't mean such content didn't exist, just that PornHub reacted effectively to it when notified - they removed the Girls Do Porn content for example before there was a

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            a bunch of conservative Christians lobbying Visa and Mastercard to take payment away from them

            And yet these same companies facilitate televangelists cleaning out the assets of a bunch of gullible old people, bypassing their normal fraud screening.

      • The "critical work" is keeping child porn off the site. You may not think that's terribly critical, but it's reasonable that PornHub sees that as an absolutely critical part of their business.

        I think it's critical that we get gun violence down. But do you support the idea of putting the entire population in a medically induced coma?

        The really absurd part about this is that Pornhub actively had a moderation and reporting system. On top of that they were a great source of potential logged information for stuff that was put online. What's happening now is that we decided to burn down the supermarket, along with it the honey pots within them, all because there was a single fly in the honey.

        As usual

  • Free sample (Score:3)

    by hawguy ( 1600213 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @07:27PM (#61025364)

    I already produce a DNA sample every time I visit pornhub, so I can see how this would work. I'm just not sure how to send it to them.

  • Dick pics and face clearly visible

  • Content moderators (Score:3)

    by Known Nutter ( 988758 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @07:46PM (#61025428)
    I'm trying to picture a week in the life of a PornHub content moderator. What does that look like? It's gonna take a while to become desensitized to the content. I mean, are you beating off every morning three or four times so you can get on with your day? Or, what? How much content moderation is a single individual expected to perform? Like, do I do some content moderation for an hour or two, then go code up something, or what? So many questions.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I imagine it quickly becomes boring and not at all arousing. I think there was an AMA with someone who worked at a porn studio some years ago on Reddit, where they basically confirmed that.

    • Although it's not completely the same, part of my job (for a publisher) includes the editing of 'erotic stories'. I can certainly confirm that I very quickly became desensitized to the content of the stories. I found that I quickly reached the stage of finding everything quite hilarious, then soon after that just found it all rather boring. However, every now and then I come across a passage (fnar) of text (oh) that is just dying to be read out aloud and we all have a laugh in the office. I must admit I do

  • ... and wasn't disappointed.

  • Many will have to create two accounts, because there is occasionally a big, hard difference in appearance ...

  • I can finally use my dickprint [imgur.com] to login to various services. The future is awesome.
  • I cringe for the people that would have to verify porn-biometrics? Whose balls are those? Is that an anus? And what is that wart?

    It will have to be humans, because if we try to use AI, they'll be like "fuck this, kill the humans" or some shit like that.

  • Sorry I made the site crash when I uploaded my massive dong again.

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