Tucker posed this hypothetical: "What if there was a candidate who wanted to put the owners of Mindgeek [Pornhub's parent company] in prison? Would younger Americans support that?" Nick's answer was yes.

Almost everyone here has agreed at this point that age verification laws are meant to be an attack on the freedom of the internet, and that any effect on porn is beside the point. But for people who actually support the stated intent of the laws, it seems like legislating against the porn suppliers may be a way to effectively attack the industry without opening up another avenue of control.

What would this look like? In my opinion, fines and jail time for producers in the US and foreign websites that allow access to the US. As we've seen with social media in Europe, government pressure is enough to make companies change course.

The natural objection is that a VPN is really easy to use. That's true, but it's a barrier that would most likely severely curtail the usage of porn in pubescent children. The effect still might be substantial on adults as well. Also, it would effectively destroy the Onlyfans market since only a few determined women are going to jump through hoops to do illegal amateur porn for some company in Bulgaria.

Another objection I've seen is that women are the root cause of the breakdown of relationships, and that men need an outlet in porn to cope with that. The first part is obviously true but I don't think the second part follows. If massive numbers of young men are coping with the feminization of society through porn, that means it's a control mechanism to prevent them from getting angry enough to revolt. If we're going to make any progress against women's rights, men need to feel an acute sense of what they are missing.

There is also the possibility of knock-on effects on anime, movies, TV, etc. The only thing I really care about there is anime, but I think the collateral damage could be effectively controlled.