Many individuals and groups are displeased with the FCC's ruling Thursday to nix "net neutrality" rules, which kept ISPs from giving preference to or throttling some online content. But one demographic in particular is particularly hot and bothered, per the Independent Journal Review: consumers of internet porn. The site notes that, according to data on Pornhub, users ogled 4,599,000,000 hours of porn in 2016—the equivalent of more than 5,000 centuries—and that the mostly free bandwidth they used to view it may become a thing of the past without net neutrality rules. Pornhub was one of dozens of sites that took part in a virtual protest in July to raise awareness for what would happen if net neutrality disappeared, per the Daily Dot, and after Thursday's decision, the porn-sharing site wasn't happy. "Three rich men f--- all Americans. Coming soon to Pornhub," it tweeted.
Some in the porn industry say dumping net neutrality will make online porn "very vanilla and boring," possibly forcing more conservative views on what sex should be by making access more difficult for fetishes and alternative types of sex, increasing loneliness for people just trying to connect with others who enjoy the same, per a June Motherboard article. "When you slow sections of the internet, you're telling people that some ideas and sexualities and identities are second-class, and you bring that shame back," a rep for Kink.com said. A spokesman for xHamster said it's even more political than that, comparing it to restrictive regimes around the world. "The same governments that severely restrict adult content are also the ones that limit sexual expression, LGBTQ rights, women's rights, and access to different ideas," he noted. (More net neutrality stories.)
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