This writing is full of appeals to "nudge theory", which has been completely debunked and its authors discredited. The science behind it is cherry-picked and p-hacked, and much of the research has been retracted or has seen broad calls for retraction. Reanalysis of the data that informed the bestselling book has found that the effects were not only statistically insignificant, the effect size itself was zero.
Furthermore this analysis at least entertains the idea of age verification walls as examples of "nudges", which is just.... what? If a government agent stopping you from doing what you want and demanding to see your papers and imposing some penalty on you if those papers are not correct counts as a "nudge", then what the heck does the term even mean? Is a card check at a bar a "nudge"? Is passport control a "nudge"? Is getting pulled over on the highway and demanded to present your license a "nudge"?
This is a pervasive problem in "nudge" conversations, the original book is frequently criticized for presenting a definition of "nudging", and then proceeding to fill 12 chapters with examples of roadblocks, bans, giveaways, and punishments that are very clearly nothing at all like nudging. Even in its heyday, and even with all the bad to-be-retracted science, there were so few available examples of functional nudges that authors had to resort to telling stories of full blown face punches and hope that readers wouldn't notice the difference.
I disagree that only a small portion of pornhub users switched to VPN i think a lot of them did. People were already using VPN for things like Pirate Bay and the UK Online Safety Act wasn't even a hurdle
Oh I think a lot of people have started using VPNs, for all sorts of reasons. Been a gradual trend over the past several years. I just think that, in the past month, it probably accounts for a relatively small amount of the 47% drop-off. Even 5-10% of that being accounted for by VPNs would be a huge number of porn watchers, but would still mean the policy’s been, for me, a staggeringly effective reduction.
It's interesting that yesterday Dame Rachel de Souza suddenly discovers VPNs and wants children to be banned from using them, though many people were telling the government that the use of VPNs is exactly what would happen long before the legislation was enacted
I believe de Souza overestimates the ability of the UK government to tell companies located in Panama as to who they will allow VPN access to
I always love your stuff, on Medium, on Substack, but this one…well, I’m going to have to let it marinate for a while before I get too critical. I will say for now, while this may fall outside the scope of your essay here, how much collateral damage was done to internet content that’s decidedly not pornography—and is that worth the trade-off? I’m a US American living in Asia, but from what I’ve gathered, the Online Safety Act has banned much more than porn, it’s banned sex ed materials, news (under the abuse and harm clauses), political protests, r/periods, r/quittingsmoking, etc.
If this is true, which it seems to be from pretty solid U.S. outlets, this is an absolute travesty of a law that deserves nothing but widespread condemnation, as it’s hard NOT to think our very own fascist Republicans didn’t draft it. Maybe you can clarify. You are from the Kingdom of perpetual rain and tea, after all.
Well, I do generally have zero confidence in legislators to properly respond to digital evolution. So I wouldn’t be surprised if this were using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I suppose I’m more interested in the specifics of this change in this single use case - the Online Safety Act is broader and fraught with issues. I suppose my take is more philosophical than political. But I reserve the right to be wrong about all this!
One person's "restraining friction" is another person's "enshittification". Add enough of it (we're almost there) and you get an exodus of people towards darker places where you'll have no influence upon them at all.
This is true but not, I don’t think, applicable in this case study (it’s still easier to use a VPN or other workaround than start surfing the dark web etc). And I think the piece is predicated on a premise that porn – at the current state of production and consumption – is a net negative for society, which not everyone would agree with.
Enshittification is obviously a very hyped idea and there’s a lot of it going on (have interviewed Cory about this on the podcast). But I think if you’re trying to drive people offline, a bit of digital enshittification isn’t so bad. If you want life to be ever more digitised, then I accept that enshittification is a negative trend.
This writing is full of appeals to "nudge theory", which has been completely debunked and its authors discredited. The science behind it is cherry-picked and p-hacked, and much of the research has been retracted or has seen broad calls for retraction. Reanalysis of the data that informed the bestselling book has found that the effects were not only statistically insignificant, the effect size itself was zero.
Furthermore this analysis at least entertains the idea of age verification walls as examples of "nudges", which is just.... what? If a government agent stopping you from doing what you want and demanding to see your papers and imposing some penalty on you if those papers are not correct counts as a "nudge", then what the heck does the term even mean? Is a card check at a bar a "nudge"? Is passport control a "nudge"? Is getting pulled over on the highway and demanded to present your license a "nudge"?
This is a pervasive problem in "nudge" conversations, the original book is frequently criticized for presenting a definition of "nudging", and then proceeding to fill 12 chapters with examples of roadblocks, bans, giveaways, and punishments that are very clearly nothing at all like nudging. Even in its heyday, and even with all the bad to-be-retracted science, there were so few available examples of functional nudges that authors had to resort to telling stories of full blown face punches and hope that readers wouldn't notice the difference.
I disagree that only a small portion of pornhub users switched to VPN i think a lot of them did. People were already using VPN for things like Pirate Bay and the UK Online Safety Act wasn't even a hurdle
Oh I think a lot of people have started using VPNs, for all sorts of reasons. Been a gradual trend over the past several years. I just think that, in the past month, it probably accounts for a relatively small amount of the 47% drop-off. Even 5-10% of that being accounted for by VPNs would be a huge number of porn watchers, but would still mean the policy’s been, for me, a staggeringly effective reduction.
It's interesting that yesterday Dame Rachel de Souza suddenly discovers VPNs and wants children to be banned from using them, though many people were telling the government that the use of VPNs is exactly what would happen long before the legislation was enacted
I believe de Souza overestimates the ability of the UK government to tell companies located in Panama as to who they will allow VPN access to
Zero Knowledge Proof technology is viable solution satisfying all requirements a reasonable person will demand.
But yeah, I guess we gotta wait 10 years before a politician will stumble over the concept.
I always love your stuff, on Medium, on Substack, but this one…well, I’m going to have to let it marinate for a while before I get too critical. I will say for now, while this may fall outside the scope of your essay here, how much collateral damage was done to internet content that’s decidedly not pornography—and is that worth the trade-off? I’m a US American living in Asia, but from what I’ve gathered, the Online Safety Act has banned much more than porn, it’s banned sex ed materials, news (under the abuse and harm clauses), political protests, r/periods, r/quittingsmoking, etc.
If this is true, which it seems to be from pretty solid U.S. outlets, this is an absolute travesty of a law that deserves nothing but widespread condemnation, as it’s hard NOT to think our very own fascist Republicans didn’t draft it. Maybe you can clarify. You are from the Kingdom of perpetual rain and tea, after all.
Well, I do generally have zero confidence in legislators to properly respond to digital evolution. So I wouldn’t be surprised if this were using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I suppose I’m more interested in the specifics of this change in this single use case - the Online Safety Act is broader and fraught with issues. I suppose my take is more philosophical than political. But I reserve the right to be wrong about all this!
One person's "restraining friction" is another person's "enshittification". Add enough of it (we're almost there) and you get an exodus of people towards darker places where you'll have no influence upon them at all.
This is true but not, I don’t think, applicable in this case study (it’s still easier to use a VPN or other workaround than start surfing the dark web etc). And I think the piece is predicated on a premise that porn – at the current state of production and consumption – is a net negative for society, which not everyone would agree with.
Enshittification is obviously a very hyped idea and there’s a lot of it going on (have interviewed Cory about this on the podcast). But I think if you’re trying to drive people offline, a bit of digital enshittification isn’t so bad. If you want life to be ever more digitised, then I accept that enshittification is a negative trend.