# How do porn aggregators confirm the legal age of all the porn "actors" who upload videos? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 18, 2018, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527 "2018-09-18T11:19:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/21 "2018-09-18T22:13:16Z")
> [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](#): > > Generally, it’s identified because the revenge’d person sees themself in it. Or some ‘friend’ sees them in it, and notifies them. (Often the revenege’r ensures this, by emailing a link to it to every friend & relative of the subject.) Also, they tend to state this in the comments – that’s a away of attracting more views. > > They aren’t usually copyright violations. > Mostly they are snippets posted by the actual copyright owner, as ‘previews’ to attract paid customers. That’s why they often end with an advertisement ‘click this link to see the full video’. Just like ‘free samples’ given out in grocery stores or perfume counters, an attempt to attract new customers. Yep, they end right before the “money shot” and tell you to go to such and such a site if you want the full video. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/22 "2018-09-18T22:14:28Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Have you ever uploaded a video there yourself? How do you know how easy it is? Maybe they do make you scan your ID or something. A friend told me. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/23 "2018-09-18T22:29:59Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > The whole point of revenge porn is to ruin the victim’s life. They’re typically not only named, but doxxed as well. > And in any event the victim him- or herself is typically threatened with it or spitefully informed (the revenger typically emails the link to the victim’s friends, parents, boss… as well) ; at which point they can contact PH to hopefully get it removed. Ive **never** seen anyone named or “outed” on any amateur porn video on pornhub. While I can’t know, I hazard a guess that I’ve spent more time on that site than you (im careful to couch that as a guess tho ;)) With what is currently “en vogue” in professional porn (amateur porn seems to pick up the trends of it’s professional counterpart) its virtually impossible to identify what is real “revenge porn” and what is “revenge-play” porn. The younger generation, which is the overwhelming share of amateur porn producers, have a distorted relation with sex in general, due to the normalization of porn as they grew into puberty and beyond. An extreme imbalance in gender roles, mysoginy, no concern for the female’s pleasure, extreme and unusual sex acts, etc. These things are run-of-the-mill these days. And upon thinking for a minute, I _suppose_ it’s possible that I never even see any evidence of these doxxing revenge videos because of the fact that the perpetrators also _always_, without fail, email the victim to inform them of the devastating news and the victim _always_ manages to contact PH in a very prompt fashion AND ph _always_ immediately removes the video. I can’t rule out that possibility. I am dubious though. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/24 "2018-09-19T01:07:03Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I also note that Pornhub has tons of quite obvious copyvios. I mean, the videos will flat out say that they are only available paid. They don’t seem to care about that, either. This is because the same company owns Pornhub and a lot of the video producers. [MindGeek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek) ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/25 "2018-09-19T03:31:38Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > …do you really want an honest answer to that question? I’m at a loss as to what significance an honest answer, irrespective of whatever it might have otherwise been, you were implying may have had on him other than to satisfactorily answer his question. Care to elucidate, **SA**? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/26 "2018-09-19T06:35:20Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Ive **never** seen anyone named or “outed” on any amateur porn video on pornhub. While I can’t know, I hazard a guess that I’ve spent more time on that site than you (im careful to couch that as a guess tho ;)) Is this a challenge ? Are we going to have to have a wank-off ? :mad: OK, more serious answer : I haven’t either (but then again I’m not really into amateur porn). But they acknowledged it was enough of a problem to [address it officially](https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/13/9518029/pornhub-revenge-porn-reporting-page) and with as much alacrity as they can - due to the nature of revenge porn and the Streisand Effect, the faster and quieter videos are taken down the less chance they’re copied and re-published by third parties. [Relevant interesting funnyman bit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNIwYsz7PI). ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/27 "2018-09-19T13:17:37Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > I knew a guy that worked at a video store when the Traci Lords thing broke. They had to turn over all of her videos to the FBI, and if any were rented out they had to recover them _immediately_. Additionally, someone had to review _all_ their porn tapes to see if any had, er, coming attractions trailer which featured Ms. Lords. So the people whose job it is to watch out for stuff like that take it _very_ seriously. I’m also pretty sure that a site like pornhub keeps records of the originating IP address for its uploads and shares that info with law enforcement upon request. I’m not sure about this. I was the guy that worked at the video store when the Traci Lords thing broke (1985 or 1986 I’d guess without checking). I pulled her films, and I’d guess we had over 50 films with her. We didn’t look for trailers, we didn’t call anyone that had her films, and the FBI didn’t come knocking at our door. There had to be thousands (tens of thousands?) of mom and pop video stores back then. Most had porn. The FBI had neither the ability (or desire I’d think) to go door to door on all of those stores. We pulled them because we received a letter (a snail mail letter) from one of her distributors so there wasn’t this huge rush. As many may recall, Traci was also in the Penthouse issue that had Miss America nude when Traci was 15. Not sure the FBI was going door to door on those 600,000 copies either. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/28 "2018-09-19T13:23:04Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > I’m at a loss as to what significance an honest answer, irrespective of whatever it might have otherwise been, you were implying may have had on him other than to satisfactorily answer his question. Care to elucidate, **SA**? I meant “does he really want to know the answer to that question.” And that was a horrible sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/29 "2018-09-20T00:03:03Z")
Well I reported my first video. Let’s see what, if anything, happens. It’s an amateur video with an obviously underage brace-faced girl backstage somewhere getting, um, Manna from the Gods, several Gods, rained down upon her. At one point towards the end of the video, if you pay close attention you can hear her say (and see her mouth) “I’m 17”, in response to someone unheard off-camera. Immediately you hear a guy saying, “don’t say that”, Seems pretty cut and dry to me. But lets see. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/30 "2018-09-20T00:48:46Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > By proclaiming it is the sole responsibility of those who upload the videos to ensure that said videos are not in violation of their stated rules? That just seems like self-serving but totally toothless CYA lip service. It actually has quite a bit of bite under federal law. Take a look at the Electronic Freedom Foundation’s [summary](https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230) of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. > [@Section 230 CDA](#): > > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider In the TOS they are explicitly stating that their users, and not their site, are the content providers. That wasn’t toothless. It generally provided pretty robust protection as long as they had some kind of takedown procedure in place. Early this year there was legislation that limited the amount of protection given to hosts under Section 230. It was specifically targeted at sites profiting from human trafficking of sex workers, to include minors. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/31 "2018-09-20T01:24:22Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > It actually has quite a bit of bite under federal law. Take a look at the Electronic Freedom Foundation’s [summary](https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230) of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. > > In the TOS they are explicitly stating that their users, and not their site, are the content providers. That wasn’t toothless. It generally provided pretty robust protection as long as they had some kind of takedown procedure in place. Early this year there was legislation that limited the amount of protection given to hosts under Section 230. It was specifically targeted at sites profiting from human trafficking of sex workers, to include minors. When i said “toothless” I was referring to impact, or more specifically the lack thereof, on the ultimate outcome, regardless of legal culpability, of broadcasting underage porn on the internet. Also, I’m curious as to how they go about ascertaining the veracity of the claimed illegality of these reported videos. Certainly not all underage videos feature the girl admitting to her age _in the video_ as the video I reported did. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/32 "2018-09-20T01:36:58Z")
Missed edit window. Im wondering what process they have in place for ensuring, to the best of their ability, that they don’t remove perfectly legal material that was reported fraudulently by a person who simply did not like the video or person who uploaded the video (for whatever reasons). Do they require the reporter to submit a form of proof of claim? ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/33 "2018-09-20T01:45:56Z")
Also, if a video featuring an underage girl freaking admitting to her age _on camera_ somehow manages to slip thru the cracks for well over a year (it was listed as being posted in early 2017), I can’t help but to question the overall effectiveness of the user report-based system. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/34 "2018-09-20T01:58:50Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Missed edit window. > > Im wondering what process they have in place for ensuring, to the best of their ability, that they don’t remove perfectly legal material that was reported fraudulently by a person who simply did not like the video or person who uploaded the video (for whatever reasons). Do they require the reporter to submit a form of proof of claim? People complain about this happening on every single site on the Internet that allows uploads. The outcome depends on the process, the number of humans the site has investigating these claims, and the possible uproar elsewhere on the net. It depends. There is no one possible answer. IOW, the answer to this question is exactly like the answer to your original OP. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/35 "2018-09-20T03:15:55Z")
Those sites are policed by the users fairly well from what I can tell. The vast majority of porn consumers don’t want to look at child porn or genuine non-consensual porn (as opposed to consensual non-consent). So I’m assuming those videos get reported and taken down pretty rapidly. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/36 "2018-09-20T04:31:31Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > The younger generation, which is the overwhelming share of amateur porn producers, have a distorted relation with sex in general, due to the normalization of porn as they grew into puberty and beyond. An extreme imbalance in gender roles, mysoginy, no concern for the female’s pleasure, extreme and unusual sex acts, etc. These things are run-of-the-mill these days. My old pastor has discussed this kind of thing many times, and I was skeptical because I just wasn’t hearing or reading about it any place else, but now that you mention it, I suspect that he’s probably right. His wife even posted on Facebook that in their city, when OB/GYNs do infertility evaluations, the first question asked is, “Do you engage in penis-in-vagina intercourse, and if so, does he finish inside her?” I was like, wait, what? When I read that, I had a cat sitting on my computer table whose sire and dam were able to figure that out all by themselves, and that’s how I replied. I mean, c’mon, your average 10-year-old should know that this is how babies are made. Another thing he mentioned was the rise in forcible anal rape in “relationships”, and asked about that on a medical board and got the same kind of response, as in, “Where is this happening?”. I’m pretty sure I even started a few threads here asking if this was really true, and was asked, “What kind of weirdo is your pastor, anyway?” However, if the teenagers and young adults he works with are willing to share details like that with him, like he claims they are? I’m sure glad I’m not a young woman now. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/37 "2018-09-20T04:54:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > People complain about this happening on every single site on the Internet that allows uploads. The outcome depends on the process, the number of humans the site has investigating these claims, and the possible uproar elsewhere on the net. It depends. There is no one possible answer. > > IOW, the answer to this question is exactly like the answer to your original OP. Which seems to be a vague patchwork of partial answers. This question is _part_ of my OP question, not separate from. And I am genuinely interested and curious as to the answers, in no way am I “complaining” about anything. But it seems the answer is simply “it varies”. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/38 "2018-09-20T05:10:17Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Those sites are policed by the users fairly well from what I can tell. The vast majority of porn consumers don’t want to look at child porn or genuine non-consensual porn (as opposed to consensual non-consent). So I’m assuming those videos get reported and taken down pretty rapidly. Again, to be clear, I’m not talking about genuine ‘child porn’. I think those that are serious about providing it and those seeking it arent going to Pornhub. They know where to be and they know where to look. I’m talking more about the _physically_ matured but underage therefore illegal porn. Which, I would have to argue at this point, most hetero-male oriented porn-consumers _do_ ostensibly want to look at. Oh, as long as there exists a gossamer whisper of plausible deniability. I read the comment sections on some of these videos. That’s where the true nature of these dudes shines brightest lol. Yuck. The number of suspicious teen videos Ive come across far outnumber any rape/forced sex videos, of any flavor. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/39 "2018-09-20T14:49:36Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Which seems to be a vague patchwork of partial answers. This question is _part_ of my OP question, not separate from. And I am genuinely interested and curious as to the answers, in no way am I “complaining” about anything. But it seems the answer is simply “it varies”. I didn’t say \*you \*were complaining. I explicitly said that people who have legitimate uploads taken down complain. My complaint is that reading comprehension is not America’s fastest growing sport. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527/40 "2018-09-20T14:59:08Z")
I’ve noticed that, at any web site selling products that are age sensitive, you simply have to check a box that states you are at least X-amount of years old, and that is supposedly “proof” enough. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-porn-aggregators-confirm-the-legal-age-of-all-the-porn-actors-who-upload-videos/821527.md?page=3)