mta_2_train said:
Wait, the E621 servers are all in arizona?

E621 is owned by Bad Dragon, under their subsidiary Dragonfruit Ventures.
It is being hosted through the company's servers, so it is safe to assume that the servers are also located where the company is.

regsmutt said:
If you go to the site linked in the announcement you can see which states are currently trying to pass or have passed legislation.

maybe we can relocate to louisville...or alberquerque

hawkye said:
That votervoice thing wouldn't let me submit because I don't live in the state in question. As if that keeps me from being affected.

Odds are, you probably have a similar bill being pushed in your state. Now might be a good time to take a look: https://action.freespeechcoalition.com/age-verification-bills/

And for anyone thinking this bill might be a good thing, keep in mind that parental controls exist in several forms and have existed for over two decades. All we need are for lazy parents to actually freaking use them.

Tbh I don't even know what to do at this point, even as an artist

sigh

I hate this decade

I've only just entered adulthood and started an online tutorial to learn the fundamentals of drawing, and after looking up payment platforms for NSFW creators I find out that I am at serious risk of being deplatformed and left to starve for daring to express the deepest part of my own nature. My fantasies have become such a large part of me at this point, and it's a damn shame this entire anti-porn situation I'm suddenly now aware of has shattered my reality so early. I'm honestly questioning if this life is worth living now, if I'm simply not allowed to be myself. I can only hope these crackdowns will make the general public realize just how fragile their rights are in this twisted world.

The Internet is no place for kids anyway, in my opinion.

strikerman said:
hey, we're not dead

You're not fooling anyone, you'll be stone dead in a moment :p

zeniarmr said:
I hate this decade

You're not the only one. I miss the freedom of the 90s and early 00s. Things have been getting increasingly puritanically oppressive ever since.

Man this year has been so disheartening when it comes to these stupid laws. If this keeps up then VPN companies are going to have a very merry christmas this year.

I'm all for child safety and preventing them from accessing porn, but this is just dumb. Maybe just telling parents to get some parental control app or just, you know, be parents might have been better. But oh well, governments gonna government.

I have three questions:
- I am not a US citizen, how the hell do I verrify my age? Does it work like everyone else? (I won't do it anyways if have to)
- Once that law passes, how long until servers are relocated? Days? Weeks? Months?
- Are there ways to get news/update from e6 out of the website? I know there's a twitter account but it's never been touched in years IIRC... Or has it? Anything lther than that?

regsmutt said:
If you go to the site linked in the announcement you can see which states are currently trying to pass or have passed legislation.

Today I learned my state's trying to pass an age verification mandate and it's been on the move for 3 months. And I've yet to hear a peep about it before this site. Interesting.

Contacted the reps sponsoring it, but given the political landscape where I live it's probably not gonna do much lol. Honestly, given the amount of states in the US trying to pass similar bills, I'm starting to feel like this is going to become "normal" soon. Not cool.

scalesalad said:
- I am not a US citizen, how the hell do I verrify my age? Does it work like everyone else? (I won't do it anyways if have to)

A question that not even the lawmakers themselves can answer. They put no thought into the technical complexity involved in handling all this nonsense, to the point where not one person or company is going to comply with it, since they're far better off either moving or shutting down in that region.

hawkye said:
That votervoice thing wouldn't let me submit because I don't live in the state in question. As if that keeps me from being affected.

crocogator said:
Yep, same. Welp, I tried.

I went straight to the governer's website and copy-pasted the pre-canned text from the site we couldn't submit from; it seemed to have been accepted even though I'm not an Arizonian.

https://azgovernor.gov/office-arizona-governor/form/voice-an-opinion

yotty said:
The war on porn is the new war on drugs (in terms of stigmatization).
I was allowed access to porn when I was a young teen and it's been a positive experience for me, and most importantly helped me overcome religious abuse.
With this bill, I guess all that talk about parental rights from conservatives was a lie.
If parents want to protect their children, the #1 thing to do is not let them on the internet. Now we have to jump through hoops because of their child neglect.
They'd rather have a nanny-state than raise their kids.

Is Tor or I2P a viable alternative as a secondary option?
Parents today don’t know how to raise children.

I’m not from US and find this law they try to enforce ridiculous.There’s gotta be a way for this site to do something about that.As frequent user and someone who’s always coming to this site i’d hate to see something happen to it.Hopefully solution comes up fast enough.

midnite-sunrise said:
I've got a question.

So let's say someone lives in Arizona, and browses e621. If the bill passes and e621 moves to another state/country where this bill doesn't apply to them, what happens to this person in Arizona? Are they able to access e621 freely even if Arizona has a bill about requiring age verification, or will they be blocked from the site?

Any VPN or use of mobile data should give you full access

tee_go said:
States passing these laws and them not getting vetoed is ridiculous. It is literally a violation of the 1st amendment. The worst thing about this is that we as a community aren't as centralized like the music industry was in the 80s, when the government tried to pull this bs then. Send an email to your congressman, even if the law has already been passed in your state. The more we push back, the more they are likely to listen.

You really should read the explanation I gave earlier in the forum unless you just came here to vent as to why it's unlikely to be vetoed

Also is technically not a 1st amendment violation as the law doesn't restrict content from being shared, bought, created, ect., it's a 4th amendment violation because it requires government ID for access which is inevitably going to be used to create a database of private citizens porn habits

okc said:
maybe we can relocate to louisville...or alberquerque

Nope, Kentucky has pretty much the same bill going to the governor. As for New Mexico it's likely they'll have a similar bill too due to the fact that it's a red state

Moving to another red state is stupid

calydor said:
You're not the only one. I miss the freedom of the 90s and early 00s. Things have been getting increasingly puritanically oppressive ever since.

Uuuuh, I think you're forgetting how dominant right wing phycho behavior was back in those days, between forcing video game publishers and musicians to testify before congress because they blamed them for the columbine shooting, how everyone was emotionally manipulated into surrendering their constitutional rights after 9/11 and accused of wanting the terrorists to win if they objected to the war in Iraq, to the fact gay marriage was mostly illegal and the thought of it being legal was a joke, to the fact that no state had recreational weed.

Come to think of it, the South Park movie is kind of a reflection of today's moral panic reguarding the internet since it was inspired by parents trying to blame Bevis and Butthead for motivating a kid to burn down his trailer and kill his sister (even though he never saw the show) rather than any parent hold themselves accountable for being shitty parents. I bring that up to point out that nothings changed in the last 20/30 years except the technology.

The internet has just made everyone more aware of things because it allows information to travel freely for better or worse. It's kinda like how police brutality didn't just become an issue, it's been an issue for decades but now we've got cameras to record and the internet to share it.

Don't be such a doomer, no period in time was free of political or cultural strife, especially not in America, we're all just a lot more aware of the problems and we're living through it now.

lonetraveler said:
Man this year has been so disheartening when it comes to these stupid laws. If this keeps up then VPN companies are going to have a very merry christmas this year.

VPNs got a huge sale boost in Texas after they passed a similar law, and VPNs are a lot less likely to be regulated by the government since conservatives don't have any narritive to weaponize against it since its whole buisness model appeals to libertarian types

scalesalad said:
I'm all for child safety and preventing them from accessing porn, but this is just dumb. Maybe just telling parents to get some parental control app or just, you know, be parents might have been better. But oh well, governments gonna government.

I have three questions:
- I am not a US citizen, how the hell do I verrify my age? Does it work like everyone else? (I won't do it anyways if have to)
- Once that law passes, how long until servers are relocated? Days? Weeks? Months?
- Are there ways to get news/update from e6 out of the website? I know there's a twitter account but it's never been touched in years IIRC... Or has it? Anything lther than that?

I can only answer the first one, if there's no law in your region reguarding age verification, you won't be affected whatsoever, the only issue here is that the servers are in the state where this law would potentially pass

smuglytherat said:

Also is technically not a 1st amendment violation as the law doesn't restrict content from being shared, bought, created, ect., it's a 4th amendment violation because it requires government ID for access which is inevitably going to be used to create a database of private citizens porn habits

It's also a 1st amendment violation if it could reasonably be expected that people would be disincentivized from visiting the site. Porn is still speech, and making it riskier to access it would fall under that scope. Anyone with privacy awareness would want to avoid handing over their ID to third parties because of the risks it carries (identity theft for one), and thus it's still a 1st amendment violation. The government is not allowed to restrict access in any way on the basis of the contents of the speech, and that's exactly what they are trying to do by creating a risk that didn't exist before.

matirion said:
It's also a 1st amendment violation if it could reasonably be expected that people would be disincentivized from visiting the site. Porn is still speech, and making it riskier to access it would fall under that scope. Anyone with privacy awareness would want to avoid handing over their ID to third parties because of the risks it carries (identity theft for one), and thus it's still a 1st amendment violation. The government is not allowed to restrict access in any way on the basis of the contents of the speech, and that's exactly what they are trying to do by creating a risk that didn't exist before.

And sadly despite everything in the amendments, Religion still heavily influences politics and they continue to make "exceptions" for shit like this. It's disgusting.

matirion said:
It's also a 1st amendment violation if it could reasonably be expected that people would be disincentivized from visiting the site. Porn is still speech, and making it riskier to access it would fall under that scope. Anyone with privacy awareness would want to avoid handing over their ID to third parties because of the risks it carries (identity theft for one), and thus it's still a 1st amendment violation. The government is not allowed to restrict access in any way on the basis of the contents of the speech, and that's exactly what they are trying to do by creating a risk that didn't exist before.

A court is likely to decide that this technically doesn't violate free speech out of pure technicality.

Since they're likely to say e6 or pornhub, for example are using their free speech as private companies to not follow regulations and withdraw their services, therefore it's not the law stopping them from expressing free speech, and any producers of nsfw aren't entitled to a platform

It's similar to the defense of any social media platform either enforcing or not enforcing their TOS reguarding hate speech. They're a private company and therefore aren't subject to upholding the first amendment since they're not the government.

Court battles are a bunch of battles of technicalities and smart-assery in order to push through/justify rulings, sorry but 1st amendment violations are easy to bullshit their way past in this case, especially against conservative judges, lawmakers, and governors. Plus you're forgetting this whole thing is n amendment snuck into later versions of a bill that's meant to increase penalties for sex offenders which nobody's wants to be the one to veto, even if it has a biullshit amendment in there.

And even if it does get Vetoed, it'll go back to the state legislative branch and could pass anyway with a 2/3 majority vote which is likely to happen anyway considering the overwhelming bipartisan support it already has

smuglytherat said:
A court is likely to decide that this technically doesn't violate free speech out of pure technicality.

Since they're likely to say e6 or pornhub, for example are using their free speech as private companies to not follow regulations and withdraw their services, therefore it's not the law stopping them from expressing free speech, and any producers of nsfw aren't entitled to a platform

It's similar to the defense of any social media platform either enforcing or not enforcing their TOS reguarding hate speech. They're a private company and therefore aren't subject to upholding the first amendment since they're not the government.

Court battles are a bunch of battles of technicalities and smart-assery in order to push through/justify rulings, sorry but 1st amendment violations are easy to bullshit their way past in this case, especially against conservative judges, lawmakers, and governors. Plus you're forgetting this whole thing is n amendment snuck into later versions of a bill that's meant to increase penalties for sex offenders which nobody's wants to be the one to veto, even if it has a biullshit amendment in there.

And even if it does get Vetoed, it'll go back to the state legislative branch and could pass anyway with a 2/3 majority vote which is likely to happen anyway considering the overwhelming bipartisan support it already has

The sad truth of it, really. Washington said "don't let this shit happen" and it did anyways.

scalesalad said:
I'm all for child safety and preventing them from accessing porn, but this is just dumb. Maybe just telling parents to get some parental control app or just, you know, be parents might have been better. But oh well, governments gonna government.

This whole thing was never about the children. It’s about slowly taking away peoples rights by first going after the “easy” things like our right to look at titties without worrying about identity theft.

dumbbub19 said:
This whole thing was never about the children. It’s about slowly taking away peoples rights by first going after the “easy” things like our right to look at titties without worrying about identity theft.

I haven't mentioned it yet, but a lot of these politicians and rabid right wingers see the existence of lgbtq+ people as an obscene threat to children, hence why they try and paint is all as either groomers or straight up pedos.

They may not be explicitly trying it across the board yet (, right now you'll mainly see this in Florida, Oklahoma, and Michigan), but they are very likely to try and redefine anything queer as pornographic.

I'm not gonna cite examples cuz there's enough anxiety in this forum and I don't wanna veer too far from the subject at hand, but yes, this isn't about the safety of children, their well-beingis just a shield from any criticism, it's about eroding civil rights and its unlikely to stop here.

dumbbub19 said:
This whole thing was never about the children. It’s about slowly taking away peoples rights by first going after the “easy” things like our right to look at titties without worrying about identity theft.

Pretty much, this slightly reminds me of prohibition, going after something “degenerate” saying “ThInK oF tHe ChIlDrEn” excuse me mr/mrs “Im a prostitute who likes getting spit roasted by the elites” but only dipshits believe this has anything to do with children, stop using them as a scapegoat(?) (Idk what term you’d use)

But I wholeheartedly agree that this is the start to a slippery slope that could destabilize if not destroy the internet, it’s like nuking a city to kill a bug that some schizo thinks he saw.

fliphook said:
E6 is not going to die it'll just have a hurdle to access

Right...?

The problem with it is that any mandatory barrier to access is a way for puritanical cunts to get their foot in the door.

It says right in the post, 'Such system would be required to go through third party vendors, who in turn must go through a government database to verify every user's age.'

Just like the mastercard/visa cartel, they'll simply use that to force websites to shut down. They don't like your content? They won't partner with you for age verification. And then what can you do? You're forced to have age verification, but none of the third parties will partner with you to provide it because 'ew you have cub porn on the website'. The EXACT same way mastercard and VISA lean on websites like furaffinity, patreon, etc, to censor their content with the constant looming threat of cutting off payment processing if they don't toe the puritanical line.

They'll all stand up and say 'yeah, we'll partner with you. After you remove all of the extreme fetish content'.

And as a REQUIREMENT to operate, it means the website CANNOT operate in that state until it removes the extreme content.

What's the practicality of using something like the Permanent Booru on the TOR network or similar methods (like an outright mirror of e6) as an extreme solution? Bills like KOSA are bound to make these decentralized networks very popular. Whether governing bodies will magically be able to actually control them is dubious afaik.

crayzee79 said:
What's the practicality of using something like the Permanent Booru on the TOR network or similar methods (like an outright mirror of e6) as an extreme solution? Bills like KOSA are bound to make these decentralized networks very popular. Whether governing bodies will magically be able to actually control them is dubious afaik.

Most normies don't know how to use a TOR browser nor do they really know what it is, and neither do I if that answers your question about practicality

smuglytherat said:
I'm pretty sure it's being snuck in with a bill reguarding sex crimes against children in general, the state I live in is trying something similar and the bill is in the same spot.

That's the trick, propose a bill about prosecuting sex offenders, add in the porn verification thing in later amendments, and when someone objects accuse them if being creepers themselves.

Basically it's very likely the bill will pass cuz nobody wantsto be the person vetoing a bill that's supposed to increase penalties for sex offenders, even if it has an amendment in later versions of the bill that violates everyone's 4th amendment rights

"OH, but won't you think of the children, don't you want to protect the poor children?" the governor says, while the NSA carefully indexes all of my interests and likely relationships should I ever commit "treason".

How much you wanna bet the people passing this bill either a. Have no idea how the web actually works and what the consequences of their actions are or b. Are guilty of something much, much more deviant themselves?

If you ask me, the state government is just acting as a sockpuppet for the feds. Just saying

smuglytherat said:
Most normies don't know how to use a TOR browser nor do they really know what it is, and neither do I if that answers your question about practicality

Tor is also pretty slow due to the low number of volunteer nodes compared to the high amount of traffic, so the site would certainly run slower and all video content on it would be tricky to even open. That's another caveat to consider as a user.

crayzee79 said:
What's the practicality of using something like the Permanent Booru on the TOR network or similar methods (like an outright mirror of e6) as an extreme solution? Bills like KOSA are bound to make these decentralized networks very popular. Whether governing bodies will magically be able to actually control them is dubious afaik.

0 Because TOR Networks are slow and do yiff like it's 2002 it's not for everyone

xianyu said:
The problem with it is that any mandatory barrier to access is a way for puritanical cunts to get their foot in the door.

It says right in the post, 'Such system would be required to go through third party vendors, who in turn must go through a government database to verify every user's age.'

Just like the mastercard/visa cartel, they'll simply use that to force websites to shut down. They don't like your content? They won't partner with you for age verification. And then what can you do? You're forced to have age verification, but none of the third parties will partner with you to provide it because 'ew you have cub porn on the website'. The EXACT same way mastercard and VISA lean on websites like furaffinity, patreon, etc, to censor their content with the constant looming threat of cutting off payment processing if they don't toe the puritanical line.

They'll all stand up and say 'yeah, we'll partner with you. After you remove all of the extreme fetish content'.

And as a REQUIREMENT to operate, it means the website CANNOT operate in that state until it removes the extreme content.

What about inkbunny? they don't seem to have a problem with Extreme content

big_gay said:
I almost want to doubt that the bill will pass. Even the most extreme Republicans don't want to give up their porn. Porn is popular.

For anyone who might have this mentality: Texas literally did this to PornHub, PH refused to comply, and now it's just straight up unavailable there without a VPN.
Don't be foolish. If you can, make the calls, do whatever it takes. Find some safe script you can read to them, and do it.

These sort of laws are NEVER about the children. They don't give a damn. It's about controlling the internet, privacy, and all that stuff. Especially with big movements being around now, the "war on porn" is just an attempt to make things like showing your ID everywhere normal. Because then it's easy to target certain groups of people, yadda yadda. Yes, like it or not, that's the real reason.

Red states will absolutely do this and continue doing it. It's not a matter of taking sides or being political, it's just knowing how things work up there. You can ban away, but this is your truth. You can be like "oh they won't do it" and then they do it and you cry into the void, being left powerless to change what's already happened, or you can go and do something. At least try. Don't be scared to talk about porn making people's lives better. And don't be afraid of saying that children should not be allowed online, not even into "safe" spaces. And while you're at it, fight for rule changes so that minors can get charged the same ways adults can. They know they can't be, but we get punished because they're stupid.

See you all on the other side. Things are going to get a lot worse because most people will have this mentality of "nah dude not happening" and will do nothing while the old farts will trample all over our privacy. It's not "progress", it's regression. 60 years backwards.

shinywoofy said:
For anyone who might have this mentality: Texas literally did this to PornHub, PH refused to comply, and now it's just straight up unavailable there without a VPN.
Don't be foolish. If you can, make the calls, do whatever it takes. Find some safe script you can read to them, and do it.

These sort of laws are NEVER about the children. They don't give a damn. It's about controlling the internet, privacy, and all that stuff. Especially with big movements being around now, the "war on porn" is just an attempt to make things like showing your ID everywhere normal. Because then it's easy to target certain groups of people, yadda yadda. Yes, like it or not, that's the real reason.

Red states will absolutely do this and continue doing it. It's not a matter of taking sides or being political, it's just knowing how things work up there. You can ban away, but this is your truth. You can be like "oh they won't do it" and then they do it and you cry into the void, being left powerless to change what's already happened, or you can go and do something. At least try. Don't be scared to talk about porn making people's lives better. And don't be afraid of saying that children should not be allowed online, not even into "safe" spaces. And while you're at it, fight for rule changes so that minors can get charged the same ways adults can. They know they can't be, but we get punished because they're stupid.

See you all on the other side. Things are going to get a lot worse because most people will have this mentality of "nah dude not happening" and will do nothing while the old farts will trample all over our privacy. It's not "progress", it's regression. 60 years backwards.

That’s what I’m concerned about, and I 100% agree with you, we either need to somehow find a way to make tor run faster, while maintaining its security, or a few things might/will happen,
(1.) video pornography is probably gonna go extinct, because with the onion router, everything is gonna run slower than how these old boomer farts fuck, especially if all us yiff enjoyers overload tor.
I really love how nonrestrictive this websites policies are, it’s like a time capsule to old websites like 4chan, also speaking of 4chan,
(2.) I don’t think the autists on 4chan are gonna like it when us furry refugees show up looking for a place to host our more extreme pornography.
Or lastly and most extreme,
(3.) Protests and riots are gonna break out, and that one would be kinda absurd, but removing a major form of distracting the peasants is essentially political suicide, because the coomers are gonna start to resent the government and will have nothing better to do
These are all possibilities that I could see happening, and I’d advise that we try to “ally” with sites that haven’t been molested by the government yet, apes together strong

Or maybe I’m just talking out my ass

shinywoofy said:
For anyone who might have this mentality: Texas literally did this to PornHub, PH refused to comply, and now it's just straight up unavailable there without a VPN.
Don't be foolish. If you can, make the calls, do whatever it takes. Find some safe script you can read to them, and do it.

These sort of laws are NEVER about the children. They don't give a damn. It's about controlling the internet, privacy, and all that stuff. Especially with big movements being around now, the "war on porn" is just an attempt to make things like showing your ID everywhere normal. Because then it's easy to target certain groups of people, yadda yadda. Yes, like it or not, that's the real reason.

Red states will absolutely do this and continue doing it. It's not a matter of taking sides or being political, it's just knowing how things work up there. You can ban away, but this is your truth. You can be like "oh they won't do it" and then they do it and you cry into the void, being left powerless to change what's already happened, or you can go and do something. At least try. Don't be scared to talk about porn making people's lives better. And don't be afraid of saying that children should not be allowed online, not even into "safe" spaces. And while you're at it, fight for rule changes so that minors can get charged the same ways adults can. They know they can't be, but we get punished because they're stupid.

See you all on the other side. Things are going to get a lot worse because most people will have this mentality of "nah dude not happening" and will do nothing while the old farts will trample all over our privacy. It's not "progress", it's regression. 60 years backwards.

9 other states have the same law as Texas and Texas wasn't the first, the first was North Carolina

So far the list is Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia

Orwell clearly wasn't joking when he wrote that fucking book man

Well get there, eventually

smuglytherat said:
9 other states have the same law as Texas and Texas wasn't the first, the first was North Carolina

So far the list is Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia

Right, thanks for that. I can't keep up with everything happening in my own place let alone everywhere else. I just pointed TX out because it was the one talked out the most and loudest (as most things happening there).

So yeah. Things don't look too good. But I hope we can somehow turn things around and soon. Scapegoating kids for online security is super bad, and it's so easy for your identity to get stolen. Especially sites with weaker security and less money to throw around, they can get breached and then a whole lot of people is in trouble. Adults shouldn't suffer because of kids' stupid actions. No excuse for anyone supporting these laws.

I know what I'm about to say may seem crazy but, the only way for Adult content creators and porn sites in general to move forward is to free themselves from these shackles. We need to create our own international adult platform free from the US government, we need to create our own payment methods that are not tied to Paypal, VISA and MasterCard. Independence from tyrannical companies and governments is the only path forward. Adult Artists and the Porn Industry must band together now.

kow93 said:
"OH, but won't you think of the children, don't you want to protect the poor children?" the governor says, while the NSA carefully indexes all of my interests and likely relationships should I ever commit "treason".

How much you wanna bet the people passing this bill either a. Have no idea how the web actually works and what the consequences of their actions are or b. Are guilty of something much, much more deviant themselves?

If you ask me, the state government is just acting as a sockpuppet for the feds. Just saying
Tor is also pretty slow due to the low number of volunteer nodes compared to the high amount of traffic, so the site would certainly run slower and all video content on it would be tricky to even open. That's another caveat to consider as a user.

It's certainly not ideal to use TOR or other networks, considering the sheer amount of content, their speeds can certainly improve as more people deploy nodes. I'm sure much more sensible solutions for the internet at large will come about that normies can pick up easily.

shinywoofy said:
Right, thanks for that. I can't keep up with everything happening in my own place let alone everywhere else. I just pointed TX out because it was the one talked out the most and loudest (as most things happening there).

So yeah. Things don't look too good. But I hope we can somehow turn things around and soon. Scapegoating kids for online security is super bad, and it's so easy for your identity to get stolen. Especially sites with weaker security and less money to throw around, they can get breached and then a whole lot of people is in trouble. Adults shouldn't suffer because of kids' stupid actions. No excuse for anyone supporting these laws.

I blame parents more than anything else for not knowing they can use content filters on their own WiFi, but again, it's not about kids safety, that's just an excuse to force Christian nationalism down our throats and potentially begin censoring content by redefining porn legally.

kalupto said:
Orwell clearly wasn't joking when he wrote that fucking book man

Well get there, eventually

As for you, that's not really productive to the conversation.

That's petty much just venting which other anxious people coming here for info don't need more of.

We really don't need this forum turning into a pessimism echo chamber, cuz that's just unproductive and negative

Now might be a good time to start downloading your favorites if you haven't done so already.
Just sayin'.

It may be worth considering some sort of decentralization program going forward, like how e-hentai has their hentai@home program where people can volunteer bandwidth and storage to help serve some of the database. Some trusted members could host mirrors or proxies of the site itself and more users with enough bandwidth could host parts of the media database. That way it would be less likely that any one US state's laws would affect the site so drastically. I think making a separate adult-oriented platform with its own economy is a great idea in an ideal world, but it will take a long time to get there if it is even feasible at all. This decentralization idea would also take considerable time, but since it is already used in practice could be set up much sooner than the international adult platform. With a veto looking more likely than not, e621 should thankfully have enough time to consider ideas and implement them without any noticeable interruption to service.

salesdepartment said:
that's probably the plan if the bill passes. knowing politicians though, it's probably going to get signed in other states too, they'd have to try and find a specific state which is unlikely to sign this kind of bill.

There are already several states where the bill was already rejected, to take them into consideration
https://action.freespeechcoalition.com/age-verification-bills/

thedemonthatcomes said:
It may be worth considering some sort of decentralization program going forward, like how e-hentai has their hentai@home program where people can volunteer bandwidth and storage to help serve some of the database. Some trusted members could host mirrors or proxies of the site itself and more users with enough bandwidth could host parts of the media database. That way it would be less likely that any one US state's laws would affect the site so drastically. I think making a separate adult-oriented platform with its own economy is a great idea in an ideal world, but it will take a long time to get there if it is even feasible at all. This decentralization idea would also take considerable time, but since it is already used in practice could be set up much sooner than the international adult platform. With a veto looking more likely than not, e621 should thankfully have enough time to consider ideas and implement them without any noticeable interruption to service.

the idea sounds good

so, how fucked are we

thedemonthatcomes said:
It may be worth considering some sort of decentralization program going forward, like how e-hentai has their hentai@home program where people can volunteer bandwidth and storage to help serve some of the database. Some trusted members could host mirrors or proxies of the site itself and more users with enough bandwidth could host parts of the media database. That way it would be less likely that any one US state's laws would affect the site so drastically. I think making a separate adult-oriented platform with its own economy is a great idea in an ideal world, but it will take a long time to get there if it is even feasible at all. This decentralization idea would also take considerable time, but since it is already used in practice could be set up much sooner than the international adult platform. With a veto looking more likely than not, e621 should thankfully have enough time to consider ideas and implement them without any noticeable interruption to service.

Try suggesting this to NotMeNotYou, it might help the team come up with a solution

thedemonthatcomes said:
It may be worth considering some sort of decentralization program going forward, like how e-hentai has their hentai@home program where people can volunteer bandwidth and storage to help serve some of the database. Some trusted members could host mirrors or proxies of the site itself and more users with enough bandwidth could host parts of the media database. That way it would be less likely that any one US state's laws would affect the site so drastically. I think making a separate adult-oriented platform with its own economy is a great idea in an ideal world, but it will take a long time to get there if it is even feasible at all. This decentralization idea would also take considerable time, but since it is already used in practice could be set up much sooner than the international adult platform. With a veto looking more likely than not, e621 should thankfully have enough time to consider ideas and implement them without any noticeable interruption to service.

I'm pretty sure that H@H is only responsible for part of E-H's distribution and is more meant to lower server load than actually be a fully decentralized content distribution method.

more information here: https://ehwiki.org/wiki/Hentai@Home

hiddenbird said:
so, how fucked are we

haha, I know right? I honestly doubt this site will disappear, and even then not for too long of a time.
what I'm worried about, and something that will convince me to deactivate my account or something is that "third party verification" shit. does that means no guest access either? Because that's a damn shame. This website and youtube are like the only sites I even use anymore, but I only ever log onto here.

smuglytherat said:
9 other states have the same law as Texas and Texas wasn't the first, the first was North Carolina

So far the list is Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia

Considering that Arkansas is full of a bunch of Bible thumpin boomer dipshits, it’s only a matter of time before this site is blocked
Source: I’m from, currently live in, and will probably die in this shithole of a state

kadachi-kun said:
Now might be a good time to start downloading your favorites if you haven't done so already.
Just sayin'.

kinda wish there was a bulk "download all favorites" option so i wouldn't have to go through all 4k+ images individually, cause if there was i'd do that

(Since this is mainly a lurking account, this will be my first and only forum post I'll make on this matter, so I'm gonna make every word count)

So I've been keeping up with this stuff from the sidelines since 2022 when the Louisiana law was brought into effect. While I'm not an Arizonian, I know that my state government has been trying to get this enacted 3 times. The first time was last year and it was essentially a copycat bill. It failed due to being introduced late in the legislative session. The second time was when it was introduced back in February 2024 and so far not much has happened when it was assigned to the senate chamber back in March 6. Coincidentally, those first two instances were by the same Republican sponsor. And now as I'm typing this, the same bill is being reintroduced again today by a different sponsor, except this time the AG is given full authority to enforce a lawsuit.

As far as I heard from people who live in different states, the main problem surrounding these bills--other than being political theater/intimidation tactic--is the amount of loopholes to get around it. If not for the fact that it's so easy to install a VPN to bypass the block, then it's the fact that very few sites were willing to mandate it because most of them are not based in North America. Plus, the big sites like Pornhub just blocked the IP Address all together since there was no real way they were going to risk jeopardizing security for the sake of controlling what people do in the privacy of their own home. Obviously, there are states like Florida that are trying to extend the outreach of age verification beyond several adult sites. Even the KOSA bill is meant to mandate it on a national scale. Normally I wouldn't be this nervous if HB 164 died in the senate chamber but now with HB 393, there's no telling what will happen from here til May 20, since that's when the session is adjourned. So yeah that's as far as I know with my state's prospects on the whole thing.

Putting all that aside however, I do have some questions that need to be answered.

1. Based on how things are looking right now, do we have a shot at getting this AZ bill vetoed?
2. Will the vetoes be enough to keep the bill at bay for just a little longer until there's a backup plan?
3. Other than challenging it, are there any other options that can reverse not just this bill but all the other bills out there in other states?

And more importantly...

4. If none of this goes our way, would it be safe for me to delete my account all together?

hiddenbird said:
kinda wish there was a bulk "download all favorites" option so i wouldn't have to go through all 4k+ images individually, cause if there was i'd do that

re621 can do this, i back up my favs once in a while lol

michaelwave1997 said:
re621 can do this, i back up my favs once in a while lol

sweet, thanks

nightosphere1606 said:
4. If none of this goes our way, would it be safe for me to delete my account all together?

I'm not sure there'd be any reason to... if you wanted to delete your account in the event of an age verification law being passed in your area but didn't want to do the verification to log in you'd likely be able to contact the administration off-site or through email and request them to deactivate your account for you.

moonlight_umbreon said:
I went straight to the governer's website and copy-pasted the pre-canned text from the site we couldn't submit from; it seemed to have been accepted even though I'm not an Arizonian.

https://azgovernor.gov/office-arizona-governor/form/voice-an-opinion

Thanks!

nightosphere1606 said:
1. Based on how things are looking right now, do we have a shot at getting this AZ bill vetoed?

I'd say it's likely to be vetoed, given ABadBird's previous analysis of the Arizona Governor's previous vetoes. It's not completely assured, but given her history of vetoing legislation for being thinly veiled attacks on LGBTQIA+ people and legislation that had serious privacy concerns, this bill seems to fall cleanly in those same crosshairs.

nightosphere1606 said:
2. Will the vetoes be enough to keep the bill at bay for just a little longer until there's a backup plan?

As long as she (or someone with similar sensibilities on this topic) remains Governor to keep vetoing any continued attempts, and those for this kind of legislation don't get a super majority to override a veto.

nightosphere1606 said:
3. Other than challenging it, are there any other options that can reverse not just this bill but all the other bills out there in other states?

Once they're signed into law, challenging it is the only way. These laws will certainly be challenged, as they have serious first- and fourth-amendment implications, and affect interstate commerce which puts it squarely in federal (not state) jurisdiction. The problem will be the courts (including the Supreme Court) being heavily conservative-leaning, who aren't above going on the "porn is bad" and anti-gay train to let it slide. Hopefully, however, there's enough sense regarding the obvious constitutional problems to ultimately reject these kinds of laws.

nightosphere1606 said:

Putting all that aside however, I do have some questions that need to be answered.

1. Based on how things are looking right now, do we have a shot at getting this AZ bill vetoed?
2. Will the vetoes be enough to keep the bill at bay for just a little longer until there's a backup plan?
3. Other than challenging it, are there any other options that can reverse not just this bill but all the other bills out there in other states?

And more importantly...

4. If none of this goes our way, would it be safe for me to delete my account all together?

Here are your answers

1. Here's what we know about the governor, she's been known for vetoing tons of bills like crazy and isn't willing to let right wing extremism get a foothold in Arizona while she's in office.

She's an open supporter of women's rights, she's Pro-choice, and a Democrat, but that's all we really know at the moment because she's only been governor since 2023.

After looking at the bill, it looks like it ONLY concerns age verification unlike the one in my state which had it sneakily added in a later amendment reguarding increasing penalties for child sex offenders which is a dirty political trick to get it passed. https://trackbill.com/bill/arizona-house-bill-2586-harmful-website-content-age-verification/2481758/

The governor also seems to have Vetoed multiple bills from the sponsor of the bill Republican Arizona House of Representatives member, Tim Dunn and Ben Toma.

That is the stage set right now, and even if she vetos it there's a potential the house/senate pass it anyway with a 2/3s majority vote, but as of now there's no way of making a statement in certainty. Nobody knows and we cannot assume one way or another, we must just consider the possibility of it passing and not take our rights for granted.

2. A Veto will do one of two things, kill the bill until another is introduced and the process starts all over again from square one, possibly after another election cycle where seats change. Or two send it back to the house/senate where it'll be able to pass with a 2/3's majority vote, which it doesn't look like it had in the first place at the house or the senate, but votes change upon reintroduction with no way of knowing one way or another.

3. There are legal challenges right now in other states already with pornhub and free speech groups on the forefront of it. Unfortunately it's up to judicial review I think which has varying results depending on the state and has a long and tedious process. Texas is pretty much fucked though since they've got such extreme state government officials that're currently defying the supreme court reguarding who's responsible for border security, and they have an attorney General who openly wants to prosecute all gay people (his name in Ken Paxton and he's insane).

If it hits the federal Supreme court now, well they're likely to say that these laws are constitutional because it's full of right wing extremists who openly want to ban contraception, gay marriage, and legal protections for the lgbtq community against discrimination, possibly even making being gay illegal. That's really gonna be a close call that'd come diem to a random swing vote or a lobbiest bribing one of the judges for financial gain, which is too much of a wildcard to rely on. But if they happened to rule in favor of free speech and rights to privacy, it would strike down this law in every state simultaneously.

4. It wouldn't matter if you deleted your account becsuse worse comes to worse, access gets blocked for a while since e621 made it clear they will not violate our privacy by forcing us to submit government IDs for access.

Your account would just kinda exist in limbo for a bit until the servers can open up again and if you're in av state where access happens to also be blocked, just use a VPN or mobile data to bypass it. I know a guy from Virginia who tells me mobile data is enough to bypass state restrictions, at least for now.

You'll be safe, don't worry.

realistically, what happens if this passes? do the owners physically pack up and move to another state? or do they comply with the ID verification?

hiddenbird said:
realistically, what happens if this passes? do the owners physically pack up and move to another state? or do they comply with the ID verification?

The main admin stated in the newsletter that they will not comply with the age verification law due to privacy and security concerns, that's all they've told us so far.

It's unlikely however that it's game over if it does pass though.

smuglytherat said:
The main admin stated in the newsletter that they will not comply with the age verification law due to privacy and security concerns, that's all they've told us so far.

It's unlikely however that it's game over if it does pass though.

gotcha. hopefully we get some clear answers soon

California is pushing the same shit with AB 3080. I can't believe this state has fallen sooooo fucking hard, man. Might have to move to the state of vices and hookers, Nevada. State literally built off of telling Mormons and Puritans to fuck off. During the Civil War no less!

ssno5 said:
California is pushing the same shit with AB 3080. I can't believe this state has fallen sooooo fucking hard, man. Might have to move to the state of vices and hookers, Nevada. State literally built off of telling Mormons and Puritans to fuck off. During the Civil War no less!

CA AB 3080 is bill that died back in 2020 that's being reintroduced but hasn't gotten anywhere yet,
you can literally introduce any bill, even if it's a bill that says every man is legally required to allow cops to kick them in the balls if they feel like it.

Introduced doesn't mean much, it's not until it gains traction in the house or senate where it becomes a concern https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1211993

fliphook said:
But can't there be like a new license just for internet age verification nothing else

Don't get this wrong: these laws aren't about verification, or safety, or children at all. It's legal obstructionism, a strategic move. They disapprove of expression involving sex, but can't ban it because of the constitution; so they just try to make it onerous and expensive to make/access etc to strangle it. They use the same strategy against reproductive rights. Compromise only works with people acting in good faith. They deserve nothing and we compromise nothing for them.

smuglytherat said:
CA AB 3080 is dead https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1211993

that's a different bill iirc. this one got introduced last month. https://action.freespeechcoalition.com/bill/california-ab-3080/

smuglytherat said:
CA AB 3080 is dead https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1211993

Well, least California did one thing right. Figured it wouldn't because freedom of human expression is ingrained in California's near 200 year history. It's a shame it's too expensive to live except in VERY small enclaves and those are usually prone to forest fires.

hiddenbird said:
that's a different bill iirc. this one got introduced last month. https://action.freespeechcoalition.com/bill/california-ab-3080/

They first come for your guns then your porn. Fucking pieces of shit.

smuglytherat said:
Nope, Kentucky has pretty much the same bill going to the governor. As for New Mexico it's likely they'll have a similar bill too due to the fact that it's a red state

Moving to another red state is stupid

Uuuuh, I think you're forgetting how dominant right wing phycho behavior was back in those days, between forcing video game publishers and musicians to testify before congress because they blamed them for the columbine shooting, how everyone was emotionally manipulated into surrendering their constitutional rights after 9/11 and accused of wanting the terrorists to win if they objected to the war in Iraq, to the fact gay marriage was mostly illegal and the thought of it being legal was a joke, to the fact that no state had recreational weed.

It's not as simple as 'red vs blue', and also the bill for New Mexico was already rejected earlier this year

arrow189 said:
Don't get this wrong: these laws aren't about verification, or safety, or children at all. It's legal obstructionism, a strategic move. They disapprove of expression involving sex, but can't ban it because of the constitution; so they just try to make it onerous and expensive to make/access etc to strangle it. They use the same strategy against reproductive rights. Compromise only works with people acting in good faith. They deserve nothing and we compromise nothing for them.

Also yes, this is correct here

aidt said:
It's not as simple as 'red vs blue', and also the bill for New Mexico was already rejected earlier this year

An overwhelming majority of the sponsors of these bills are Republicans and all the states that passed these bills are red states.

Not to mention project 2025 is a Republican government takeover plan that includes banning porn too.

Republicans ARE the aggressors here, don't be naïve

Also Dusty Deevers of the Oklahoma senate wants to go further with a 20 year prison sentence for anyone who buys, views, procures, or possesses porn. Even sending nudes consentually would be illegal if he had his way

That isn't to say Dusty Deevers is likely to get his way, but he's still representing his parties values, just without any phoney appeal to populism, normie voters, or any sense of pragmatism.

yeetedfigs said:
And idea is to move e621 into a different state. Just saying.

I live in North Carolina so I have to use a VPN to look at e621. My plan in the future is moving to California because they value the privacy of others. If you look at a political trifecta map and you see the red states, you will see that it is those states that are pushing for this porn ban nonsense.