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Internet porn has pushed Playboy Magazine to go PG-13
Tonight in a New York Times article, Playboy Magazine announced the biggest change in its 62-year history: starting next March, it will no longer include pictures of women fully nude. Playboy.com dropped nudes in August of 2014, and the company released a new SFW app earlier this year. According to CEO Scott Flanders the problem is online porn, "You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture." Despite what you may think, after changing things on the website Playboy says its traffic jumped from four million to 16 million users each month. Readers -- who now definitely will be picking it up "just for the articles" -- will still see a Playmate of the month, but should expect something closer to a racy Instagram feed. The new Playboy will be unveiled next March, although if you find yourself missing anything we're pretty sure the entire internet can fill in.
Pornhub launches a Netflix-style subscription service
If you've ever googled the phrase "Netflix for Porn," you'll find more than a few people wishing for a one-stop shop to satisfy their sexual peccadilloes. Pornhub is hoping to fill that hole by relaunching its premium offering as a $9.99 monthly subscription service that boasts a wide range of HD content. The business contains all of the usual features you'd expect including 1080p video, high-speed servers and exclusive content that, we're told, you won't find anywhere else.
India will partly reverse its online porn ban
It looks like the Indian government's broad attempt to block internet porn didn't last long. Officials say they'll lift a ban on many of the 857 sites just recently cut off for being "immoral and indecent." They should be fine as long as they don't promote child porn, the country's communications minister says. It's not certain what prompted the change of heart, but a public backlash didn't help -- critics argued that the censorship violated personal liberty and wouldn't be very effective given the ease of finding alternatives. As it stands, Indian researchers argue that it's more important to tackle sexual violence than keep images of consenting adults off of people's screens. [Image credits: AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh]
India blocks hundreds of sex sites in the name of 'decency'
India's government has been threatening to crack down on porn in the country, and it looks like the administration has made good on its word. The Department of Telecommunications has blocked 857 sex sites (including everything from Fleshbot's blog through to hookup site Adult Friend Finder) in the name of "decency." While the restrictions may not affect everyone -- some mobile users report unfettered access, for example -- they're definitely noticeable on at least some landline internet providers. Officials claim that India's IT Act grants them the authority to block content if it preserves "public order" and prevents sites from inciting crimes.
Microsoft makes it way easier to report revenge porn
Revenge porn is disgusting, destructive and getting to be tragically common, so much so that titans of the web have been cooking up ways to deal with it. Microsoft is the latest to join the fray, as it just joined Google in giving victims a way to shut down illicit stuff they don't want seen. Starting today, people can fill out a form on Microsoft's support site to flag the content in question, confirm that they didn't want whatever it was to be distributed in the first place and provide legal documentation if they've got it.
Space Sex: PornHub wants $3.4 million to make orbital whoopie
Despite the associated physical difficulties of boinking in orbit, PornHub recently started an IndieGoGo campaign raising funds for the world's first space-based sex scene. The online pornography clearinghouse is seeking to raise $3.4 million over the next 60 days in order to send up AV stars Eva Lovia and Johnny Sins. The crowdfunding campaign's funds will go towards shuttle transportation and video equipment with the company reportedly footing the rest of the bill. "This will be a grand experiment in learning how intercourse works after penetrating the Earth's atmosphere," Corey Price, vice president of Pornhub, said in a statement.
SFW 'Playboy Now' app is only here for the articles
19 million people visit Playboy.com every month, 80 percent of which reportedly coming via mobile devices. In response to that demand, Playboy magazine has released a new mobile-centric app that gives its rabid fanbase exactly what they want: Buzzfeed-style listicles and light reading. Wait, what?
Revenge porn is now a specific crime in the UK
Posting revenge porn has always been a bad idea, but the UK is about to make examples of those heartless enough to share nude photos of their exes. As of Monday, the country's Criminal Justice and Court Act treats revenge porn as a specific crime. Publicize racy private images with the "intent to cause distress" and you'll face up to two years in prison. While the law could technically punish this behavior before, the Act is meant to discourage those who otherwise wouldn't get the hint.
UK government plans to block porn sites without age verification
It's election season in the UK, so get ready for a near-endless stream of new policies, proposals and promises from the major political parties. The latest from the Conservatives is actually an old idea that's been kicking around since last autumn: to force sites containing adult material to introduce proper age checks. It goes beyond the UK government's rather unpopular porn filters, which ISPs are now forced to offer customers as an "unavoidable choice." Simply highlighting the feature was supposed to encourage adoption, particularly from parents, but the latest figures from Ofcom suggest its impact has been limited. Now, the Conservatives want "effective age verification controls" for all online pornography, and plan to block sites which refuse to implement proper checks.
Google won't ban adult content on Blogger after all
Well that was fast. Google only declared that it would begin cracking down on adult content posted to Blogger a few days ago, but it's already decided it was a bit hasty in its decision. After coming under fire over the introduction of a retroactive change that would ban sexually explicit images and video and also required owners to delete older content, the search giant has told users that it will crack down harder on the publishing of commercial porn instead.
Reddit requires consent to post nude photos or videos
When nude celebrity photos hit the internet last year, Reddit was a landing spot for the hacked snapshots. After today's security update though, photos or video of naked people or folks engaged in sexual acts cannot be posted without consent. If you'll recall, the hacking incident last fall -- referred to as "The Fappening" -- resulted in nude photos of celebs like Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and more circulating around the web. "I really want to believe that as we enter the next 10 years of Reddit life, essentially the most trafficked media site on the Internet, the opportunity here to set a standard for respecting the privacy of our users," Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian told The New York Times. The new policy will include moderation tools and practices, so in addition to hacks and leaks, it should cut down on would-be revenge porn posters on the site, too. [Image credit: Mark Davis/Getty Images]
Porn studios' copyright takedowns are making it hard to find code
Aggressive anti-piracy efforts often have their share of unintended victims, but the porn industry's crackdowns are leading to some decidedly unusual collateral damage: open source software. TorrentFreak notes that copyright takedown requests from studios like Wicked Pictures are removing Google search results for GitHub code projects whose names are only vaguely similar to adult movies, or even the studios' names. Among the casualties are Facebook's Rebound (a spring physics add-on), Netflix's Lipstick (workflow visualization) and OpenSUSE Linux's Wicked (a network setup tool).
Film company does the inevitable: shoots porn using a drone
Here's the deal: if a device has a camera, it will be used to shoot porn. No exceptions -- not even if that device is a drone. Brooklyn film company Ghost+Cow shot a project called, erm, Drone Boning, using only unmanned aerial vehicles. Despite the name, the film really is quite artistic and focuses more on the landscape than on the porn itself. In fact, you can barely spot the actors in some of the shots, as you can see in the image above (clue: they're hidden somewhere behind the "censored" mark). One of the filmmakers even describes it as a "Where's Waldo?" challenge, except you need to find naked people instead of a bespectacled man wearing a striped shirt.
Posting revenge porn could soon become a serious criminal offence
The posting of 'revenge porn' may become unequivocally illegal in England and Wales soon, after the House of Lords agreed yesterday the law should be amended to specifically include the practice. Currently, anyone that shares explicit images to humiliate a former partner can be prosecuted under sex offense laws -- something the Crown Prosecution Service was keen to highlight in new guidance released a few weeks ago. To deal with the growing problem more directly, however, the Lords' amendment would consider the sharing of such images a serious criminal offense in its own right, carrying a maximum prison sentence of two years. Should MPs in the House of Commons approve the amendment, perpetrators would be more easily punishable, and victims would have stronger grounds to demand the removal of any published images. Clarifying the law with regards to revenge porn isn't the only crackdown on bad internet behaviour currently under consideration, as the UK Justice Secretary recently called for the maximum prison sentence for serious trolls to be increased from six months to two years.
iOS users are the biggest porn hounds
Which smartphone users partake in mobile pornography the most? According to Pornhub's data, the majority of the site's smartphone traffic comes from Android users, who make up just over 48%. iOS, trails behind with a little over 40%, while the remainder is made up of Windows Phone, BlackBerry, and other platforms. But while Android has the biggest slice of the porn pie, it doesn't tell the whole story. If you take into account smartphone market share -- where Android thoroughly dominates iOS thanks to countless budget handsets a plethora of manufacturers -- Android users actually don't watch all that much porn. On the other hand, while iOS makes up less than 12% of worldwide smartphone market share, it accounts for 40% of Pornhub's traffic. iOS users are indeed the most porn-hungry. This trend is further amplified when tablets are analyzed, as the iPad's domination of the market results in over 77% of Pornhub's tablet traffic coming from an Apple device. Android makes up just 21%, and Windows tablets account for less than half of a percent. In short, you're a bunch of filthy, filthy individuals. I'm proud of you.
Engadget Daily: Hot-rod Tesla Model S, adventures with a homemade standing desk and more!
Let us help you brighten your Monday a bit, yeah? Today we've got everything from a concert violinist playing a tune while surgeons fiddled with his brain, the unsurprising news that even North Koreans are accessing porn and a bit more! It's all waiting for you in the gallery below.
The majority of Brits are disabling government-backed porn filters
Don't be too shocked, but the UK government's porn filter isn't proving very popular. A new report from communications regulator Ofcom reveals that just one in every seven customers are letting the big four UK ISPs guard them from porn and other online nasties. While tiny minorities of users at Virgin Media (four percent), BT (five percent) and Sky (eight percent) opted to keep the filter, TalkTalk ranked as a significant outlier: it reports that 36 percent of customers enabled the government-mandated filters on their home router. TalkTalk puts it down to the fact it pre-ticks the selection box, meaning more customers are likely to keep the option enabled on their account.
German court rules that you can't keep your homemade porn after you break up
If you're with someone and own a smartphone, you've at least considered aping those arty monochrome shots on Tumblr by making some homemade erotica. What happens to those images, however, when you and your significant other part ways? A German amateur photographer has found out after his ex-girlfriend took him to court, which ruled that the subjects of smutty pictures can withdraw their consent if they're naked. The shutterbug was able to keep the clothed pictures, however, as they weren't considered to compromise the reputation of the woman in question. It's certainly a blow to the burgeoning "revenge porn" industry, and will hopefully ensure that private smut remains, you know, private.
My VCR taught me about sex
Sex. The word alone still makes me giggle. But that's more to do with my status as a self-described man-child, and a proud one at that, than any real sexual immaturity. Blame my parents. They never sat me down for a serious talk about the proverbial "birds and the bees." Neither did my older brother and sister, the supposed torchbearers of all pre-teen sex how-tos. So I got my education elsewhere; from a keen bit of advanced (for the time) videocassette-recording technology called the VCR and premium cable. Timeshifting made me a man.
China wages war on internet porn and rumor-mongering (again)
If you're a porn connoisseur or troll in China, chances are your year hasn't been great so far. Some 110 Chinese porn websites and 3,300 social accounts on services like Sina Weibo and WeChat have gone dark since January as part of the government's new Cleaning The Web 2014 campaign, and that crackdown shows little sign of stopping. It's not just porn that's being hunted, either -- this rigmarole is just as much about clamping down on odious internet rumors as it is about rooting out NSFW pics and slash fiction.
