“Here in Louisiana, porn sites are required to verify age and the State has an app in place that makes it very simple. We also require photo ID when voting. Guess maybe we’re not so backward as some might think” – Top comment on the TownHall.com article “Supreme Court to Decide Whether Texas Can Impose Age Verification Requirements on Porn Sites,” posted Thursday afternoon.

You can read it like this guy simply knows about the verification process secondhand. Or just roll with the near-certainty that he’s sharing his personal lived experience with how it works. According to The 19th, what he’s referring to as an “app” is not specifically purpose-built to verify the ages of masturbators but it’s actually the state’s digital drivers’ license app, which maybe has some kind of API auth token component going through a browser login portal. Not the worst setup as opposed to, say, uploading a pic of one’s license to the porn site itself, as the state app’s data is likely encrypted.

But holy shit, lol. There’s about zero chance this asshole or any of those who upvoted him did not scream bloody murder over people having to present a COVID vax card to sit down and eat at a fucking Applebee’s in 2021, now they’re suddenly cool with the government potentially knowing EXACTLY which porn they jerk off to? Is it simply because the governor’s a far right Republican that they suddenly trust him to protect their freedoms? What in Christ’s name can they point to as a reason to rest assured that the browsing data isn’t being logged after the verification step?

Even if that’s not happening it’s still a lot closer to certain that some database somewhere in Louisiana’s government systems is at least logging which licensed drivers used the system to verify their age. Just the very existence of this whole workflow guarantees that some hackers somewhere have their sights set on it, knowing they can embarrass a lot of people in a deep Red State.

“How is this a case of the govt invading people’s privacy. The govt isn’t involved anywhere in the age verification transaction. It is up to the porn purveyors to ensure privacy and manage the data properly. It is no different than when we were kids and the 7-11 had to keep the Playboys and Penthouses behind the counter or in sealed cellophane and you had to be 18 to buy one,” says the second top comment. Amazingly this fucking idiot posted it 57 minutes after the top one. The thread has only seven posts as of 5:39 PM EDT on Thursday, and still he completely missed it, lol.