Sniffies Gay Hookup App Falls Victim to New Age Restriction Laws

Sniffies Gay Hookup App Falls Victim to New Age Restriction Laws

Many states have passed age verification laws over the last two years which are now starting to take effect, even harder in anticipation of the new presidential administration. These restrictions will directly affect queer content creators who generate income from Pornhub, OnlyFans, and JustForFans. This will also affect adult film studios' websites. The queer (and general) adult industry is about to have a major shakedown that could leave many without income. Falling victim to these state-mandated age restrictions is the gay hookup app Sniffies. We have applauded Sniffies' rise in popularity by being an easy app to use, fun and playful, and super sexy. It's hooking up at its easiest. Sniffies is being proactive and making some changes to its interface to comply with state restrictions. Sniffies is explicit in nature, with users being able to share nude and sex act pics. Opponents of these age restriction laws say they may be a violation of free speech and the right to privacy. Obviously watching pornography is not illegal, and it is not illegal to use hookup apps, but these laws are being put into place to restrict access to minors.

If you are in the following states, your porn viewing will change and your Sniffies will look a little different in the near future.

Alabama
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Montana
Nebraska
North Carolina
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia

At the beginning of the new year, Sniffies stated that they would be "advancing trust and safety with enhanced ID-based age verification and comprehensive safeguards." What does this mean? Get ready to upload your government-issued ID! You must upload your ID which is then securely verified using an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system that will confirm the user's age. They will also institute a "face liveness check" that will verify your face via a camera in real-time to make sure it is the same face as in the uploaded ID. The company acknowledges the motivation behind these restrictions, supporting limiting access to minors. Are you going to be willing to go through all of this in order to log on and hookup? Will this be a leg up for Grindr? Grindr is not following suit (they technically don't allow nudity in main profiles, but you can share nude photos at will.) Sniffies has been catching up to Grindr, but that could all change.

Pornhub's parent company, Aylo (they also own Men.com), has been very vocal about these restrictions and has already pulled out of a number of the states that are restricted. The company, although the world's leading source of porn, has already seen a significant decline in traffic. They also maintain that users in these restricted states won't stop accessing porn, but will find other darker avenues to do so, being open to security and privacy issues.

 

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These restrictions will have a major effect on the adult industry's economy. Queer OnlyFans and JustForFans content creators will be directly impacted by the loss of income from restricted states, and the answer isn't simply for them to go into gay adult studio work, studios will have less distribution online in these states as well and in turn, won't have the same budgets. This will create a domino effect.

Would you go through the verification system to access Sniffies?

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