EU parliament accepted a last minute amendment, mandating age verification for pornographic (whatever that is) content online, punishable with up to one year prison sentence.
This was rolled into a directive concerning CSAM. Because adults accessing porn need to be de-anonymised to avoid child exploitation?
Porno is not harmless. Current common US-based porno teaches young people that men abusing women is normal behavior (spanking is nearly mandatory, also rough behavior, unsolicited anal sex, even rape-like intercourse, the list is long). That is the start of a lot of problems especially for women - but mostly for society at large.
I don’t know what’s the good solution to this. Regulate porno at the source (only consensual non-violent sex allowed) ? Seems tricky. Age verification isn’t good because adults also can be influenced. Plain prohibition isn’t democratic and never works anyway, and the right kinds of porno may be good for people.
The past situation was bad and the coming one (age verification) won’t solve anything - it’s just an excuse for more police state.