Supervising Your Kids’ Internet Usage Is Your Job, Not The Government’s

by Thomas L. Knapp If you live in Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas,& Virginia, or Utah, you can’t visit Pornhub — one of the most popular “adult content” sites on the Internet. In response to state laws requiring “adult content” sites to verify the ages of its users and prevent minors from seeing videos of naked people doing you know what, Pornhub told its servers to simply refuse connections originating in those states. That’s the fantasy. Here’s the reality: Getting around the restriction is so easy that most minors can figure out how to do it in a few minutes. They don’t need to buy fake IDs, or steal their parents’ drivers’ licenses, or anything like that. All those minors — and adults just not wanting to divulge their personal information& — have to do is pick a free or cheap Virtual Private Network (VPN) service. Voila! They’re no longer accessing the site from Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas,& Virginia, or Utah, they’re accessing it from the Netherlands, Switzerland, or Japan. So, why are these laws getting passed? There’s no way they’re going to “work” in the sense of stopping your 12-year-old from watching porn if he or...