> Texas cannot enforce a provision requiring porn websites to "display health warnings about the effects of the consumption of pornography."
Well at least some common sense prevailed, there is zero reason to have a notice like that.
Like I kinda get on paper how you could come to the conclusion of needing to do something like this (the ID part), I mean generally (unless you look a certain age) you do have to show your ID to buy porn or any related places...
But it just feels unnecessary and reeks of data collection that could be used for bad reasons.
I know I started looking at porn at... middle school timeframe. Maybe freshman of high school but pretty sure middle school. So 13/14 years old time frame.
I am just fine. I am not saying that kids should have free access to it, but we need to remove this stigma.
If anything, the stigma is growing, not fading. I’m not sure why. People who grow it tend to say that there’s new evidence porn will cause mental problems. Or relationship problems. Both claims seem suspect, but I don’t doubt that some people react badly to it.
Unfortunately the era of "viewer discretion advised" seems to be closing. Today it’s punish the broadcaster if viewers have an issue.
I do think there need to be tighter restrictions on the industry exploiting people, though. That seems to be a consistent fact: many people have claimed the industry is exploitative, and that there are few if any protections against it.
Yeah sadly it does seem to be growing, I have been noticing that in many areas of the US a stigma around sex is getting worse and worse. Sex is natural and fun and we should be able to talk about it.
I am thankful that within my group of friends we can openly talk about it.
> I do think there need to be tighter restrictions on the industry exploiting people, though. That seems to be a consistent fact: many people have claimed the industry is exploitative, and that there are few if any protections against it.
I for sure agree with that. There are problem with the industry, particularly how woman are treated.
>Today it’s punish the broadcaster if viewers have an issue.
Always has been. MO of the U.S. regulatory State has always been "go after the platform". It's why "freedom of the press" is about more than newspapers and reporters. Even if no one seems to argue on those grounds.
Hmm. Plenty of people end up with porn addiction and lots of men who watch extreme porn can't get it up for plain old vanilla sex. And be honest, most porn isn't vanilla, and is horribly misogynistic and frequently violent. And men trying to normalise "porn-style" sex isn't doing women any favours. The whole industry is ... just extremely unpleasant.
Aside from porn, if I had kids under 14 I'd straight up ban them from accessing hyper-addictive / damaging social media.
Anyways, you're fine. That's great. Lots of people aren't. On a personal level, I like the idea of moderating my appetites and controlling my consumption. Mastering temptation is key to a healthy and happy life, including not killing yourself with alcohol, drugs or food. I see sex as "just another appetite" that can be satisfied in a number of ways, some healthy, some not.
Besides all of the above, I don't think it's possible to forcibly remove stigmas. Stigmas don't work that way.
We can acknowledge that there are problems with the porn industry, and I agree there very much are, without stigmatizing the entire industry and the people that consume it.
Not being excited about "vanilla sex" really isn't a problem, sex should be fun and regardless of the reason you should be able to explore it. Even if that is the only sex you enjoy, that's fine. If that is the case, porn is just the thing that helped you find out you enjoyed a certain kink but you could have found that out another way. We should not be putting rules (or expectations) on what type of sex people should be having.
Porn can be a healthy part of someone's sexuality.
As far as forcibly removing stigma, obviously no. But we can analyze there that stigma comes from and push against it when it doesn't make sense.
> I have a theory that the people who fall over themselves pushing "modesty" laws are ones who really just want to add a layer of "performing forbidden acts" to their own sexual perversions.
Maybe some. I have another theory that people pushing "modesty" laws want to enforce their values on a world that doesn't share those values.
100%, it is one of those things that I think feeds into itself.
At a young age you may have been told to repress certain desires, or that anything outside of sex to procreation was bad (I mean self pleasure is still seen as a negative even though it is very important to learning about yourself) and then you grow up get and when you have the power to do something about this you are filled with anger and so much self hatred that you push for laws like this.
Edit: I just realized I misread your first sentence. But I still stand by this.
One of my colleagues has a 14-year old daughter, and she has TikTok. It’s not uncommon for girls of her age to post stuff like “the right place for a hand during kissing”, and it’ll be a (subtle) reference to the throat.
There’s nothing wrong with consuming porn at that age per sè, but without good parental / sex ed guidance it shapes kids their concept of what “normal” sex is before they are given the chance to figure that out on their own.
This is the argument that always bother me. It boils down to "Parents just need to parent heir kids." Look at the impossible task of raising a child who's brain isn't impacted by our pornified society today. Why do we think parents are on their own when it comes to keeping their kids from porn but are more than happy to help them keep their kids from cigarettes/alcohol?
> Why do we think parents are on their own when it comes to keeping their kids from porn but are more than happy to help them keep their kids from cigarettes/alcohol?
Because those are physical goods that require a point of sale.
Porn is available at a click’s notice, for free. You’ll never stop access to that, kids are much more clever than people give them credit for. So the logical step is to teach them how to manage that in a healthy way.
Like, you can lock down all home PCs, filter your router, apply parental controls to their mobile phone, and they’ll just have their buddies send them obfuscated porn, or sneakernet it to them.
Theres all sorts of statistics about the increasing amount of men that are virgins into their 20s and beyond, declining marriage rates, declining birth rates, "inceldom" etc. etc.
Its certainly plausible that at least for some subset of people becoming porn addicts when they enter puberty is disrupting their ability to form relationships as an adult.
Having said that its not really clear censorship is the answer. Probably over time phenotypes overly sensitive to porn addiction will just go extinct.
You really believe the negative effect has been nothing? I totally oppose this law, but I think claiming that widespread access to internet pornography has had no ill effect at all is denying your own lying eyes.
Obviously the "sex crazed delusional woman abusers" theory didn't play out, ironically domestic abuse fell off cliff as internet porn became widespread. Not saying they are necessarily related, but the prude hot heads of the early 00's were _completely_ wrong.
But this isn't a popular thing to raise because it contradicts the insane zero-evidence misandrist talking point we've had shouted for decades that rape is about "male power" or "controlling women". Turns out it's actually about "being horny with criminal intent".
You see no negative effects because your brain grew up on porn just like everyone else you interact with. If everyone is sick then it's going to look normal. To really see the effects of porn you need to ask what could porn affect? Possibly someone's understanding of sexual ethics? Could it push their sexual interests into more and more extreme positions? The generation before has better mental health, less divorce, higher birthrates, etc. Now virtually everything is seen through a sexual lens.
There's a growing problem of women damaging their anuses
You're making a lot of claims there without proving causes and ignoring a whole swath of socioeconomic factors in favour of your bugbear, but just to disprove one, divorce rates have been on a downward trend since online pornography became really ubiquitous. So it turns out porn saves marriages!
Both of those issues sound less like problems with the porn itself but there being so much stigma around it that we can't openly talk about what is real and what isn't. (Or "Normal", for lack of a better term here. Basically what doesn't require training to do)
We have these discussions around R rated movies, Violent Video Games, and many other things. But if we could actually discuss porn and sex as naturally as we talk about these other things than people would actually properly understand what they are seeing.
A porn user claiming he's fine carries about as much weight and authority as a drug addict claiming he's fine. You've been watching since your early teens, and presumably wanking. It's all you've known for practically your entire post-pubescent life. Porn is very damaging, and habituates destructive habits, disordered views of human beings, disorders the appetites, and impacts cognition and perception of reality (which used to be called "mental blindness" in the classic texts). It creates a fantasy harem in the mind, an escape into delusion, and cripples one's ability to relate to members of the opposite sex in a healthy manner. Never mind the destructiveness of wanking itself.
No one has the right to make, distribute, or watch pornography. The idea that it even could be a right is absurd, as no one has the right to what is unethical. And it isn't free speech. It is obscenity, and obfuscation of this fact is tiresome. If banning the production and distribution of this filth outright is too difficult to achieve politically, then burdensome regulation is a good Plan B. I would prefer targeting the industry, personally, rather than individuals, but perhaps there are reasons why that, too, is too difficult to achieve politically in the current climate. Recall that Alan Dershowitz pulled off a nice piece of legalistic sophistry when he defended porn as "free speech". Perhaps that's the notion that needs to be roundly defeated first, before we can crush the industry as a whole.
But it is worth mentioning that restrictions on pornography use are not new. Israel effectively requires citizens to register to be able to view it. That's quite a light touch, but obviously goes beyond what we see in the West. The law has an instructive dimension, and banning porn and stigmatizing it can help nudge most people away from such bad habits, and signal that it is not good, serious, and shameful. Consider that porn is also weaponized, and has a history as an instrument of psyops, both domestically and against foreign enemies. (In a military context, and since we mention Israel, recall how Palestinian airwaves were flooded with pornography when the IDF captured a Palestinian TV station in Ramallah some years ago. You think the Israelis were trying to "liberate" the Palestinians by doing that? If porn was a nothingburger, you think it would have been used in that manner? The US has employed similar tactics.)
> Never mind the destructiveness of wanking itself.
I could maybe, maybe! buy that porn has some negative problems.
But if you seriously think that self pleasure has any negative problems it invalidates everything you are trying to say that I don't even feel like taking the time to respond to the rest.
Self pleasure is an incredibly important part of discovering yourself, study after study has proven that.
Everything else you said is just the usual puritanical views and I am not going to hold Isreal up to a beacon of what societal views on sex should be.
I'm not saying that it's black and white, but I hope we can rise above the level of discourse of "I watched porn when young and turned out just fine". It's about as interesting as e.g., "I started smoking when I was 16 and turned out just fine" or "my parents beat me as a kid and I turned out just fine". First of all, what you might consider "just fine" is perhaps, well, not fine. Second, it's one single data point; well, not even a data point, but rather a hot take.
The problem with a lot of these studies is they are also done in a society that highly stigmatizes sexuality and porn.
Many of these things can also be mitigated by an ability to have open conversations about feelings about what they see. Same with playing violent video games, watching R rated movies, or whatever.
Maybe I should have added, I also hope we can rise above the level of discourse where a single though is viewed as enough to dismiss a bunch of studies.
I am not dismissing the studies, but we have to look at the studies through the society that they were done in.
To ask, is the study saying that there is an inherent problem with porn in an isolated bubble or is the problem with porn in the way our society is setup. That is a very important question and drastically changes the conversation and the action items.
The tone of your comment implies that the wikipedia article supports the "porn bad" narrative, but the article does not support that at all. I'm not sure why you linked it.
> Problematic pornography use (PPU) or pornography addiction, is understood as a pattern of pornography viewing which causes significant distress to the individual personally, relationally, socially, educationally, or occupationally. The prevalence of PPU by adolescents, lies at under 5%. Frequent users of pornography are more likely to show symptoms of PPU. Higher levels of depressive symptomatology in adolescent boys, and sexual interest, predicted increase in compulsive use of pornographic material over time. Baseline levels and subsequent growth in pornography use subsequently predicted higher levels of PPU, independent of religiosity, negative emotions, and impulsivity. Higher frequency of pornography use is associated with higher probability of suffering from CSB. LGBTQ-Adolescents aren’t more likely to develop PPU.[3]
> Adolescent pornography consumption predicted greater sexual engagement, greater sexual insecurity, and greater sexual dissatisfaction, and is linked to sexual intercourse (anal sex, oral sex, sexual encounters, sexual desire, earlier sexual initiation, sex with prostitutes/partners/friends),[3] more experience with casual sex, and a higher likelihood of exercise or experiencing especially among female adolescents. However, there isn't any evidence connecting frequent pornography consumption to a wider range of sexual practices. Meaningful evidence linking pornography and sexual risk behaviors is lacking.[14]
> A 2021 review which compiled evidence from other empirical sources such as surveys found that representations of women in pornography may lead adolescent boys to view women as sexual objects, with disregard and disrespect for gender equality.[15] The review, however, does not claim anywhere proving a causal relationship of consuming pornography and changing views of sexual objectification or gender inequality.[15]
---
Yes, there are caveats, and yes, the article also has a section called "Positive effects" (that has all the same oratory precautions and caveats as the sections I quoted). My point isn't "porn is bad". My point is, again, that one's person anecdote doesn't mean that we can just deregulate the whole thing without further thought.
Those "caveats" are pretty much direct contradictions. And the actual article on pornography addiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_addiction has even more such caveats. A fair summary is nothing like "porn bad".
So given that, I've got a better idea. Let's not regulate the thing until there's clear cause to do so.
I'm probably thinking too much like an engineer and not a lawyer, but what if the sites this bill is intended to apply to add enough SFW content to push the NSFW below 1/3 of the total? Or does the phrasing of "distributes" mean it needs to be <1/3 of consumption and not just <1/3 of what's available?
I think we've finally found use for AI image generation that doesn't end up in a dystopian hellhole (I suppose the morally uptight would disagree). For every porn video uploaded, upload 2 pieces of AI generated nightmare fuel of the same length.
Result (like most bad internet legislation): More content on the internet will be pushed towards one of a few centralized websites (Reddit, Twitter, etc.) which have enough content to dilute it and/or lawyers to handle it.
> (6) "Sexual material harmful to minors" includes any
material that:
> (A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to or pander to the prurient interest;
> (B) in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors, exploits, is devoted to, or principally consists of descriptions of actual, simulated, or animated display or depiction of:
> (i) a person's pubic hair, anus, or genitals or the nipple of the female breast;
> (ii) touching, caressing, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks, anuses, or genitals; or
> (iii) sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation, flagellation, excretory functions, exhibitions, or any other sexual act; and
> (C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
> designed to appeal to or pander to the prurient interest
This is the part that really concerns me, to be honest. The main meaning of "prurient" is "characterized by an inordinate interest in sex."
The main reason this concerns me is because some people believe LGBTQ issues to be inherently sexual; and thus this law could be used to suppress general LGBTQ content as well as pornography. It depends on who enforces it and who interprets it, of course. But when you consider it in light of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills filed this year alone, it just worries me.
Porn isn't speech. It falls under obscenity. Questions like
> What counts as a porn site?
are really stale, and too often sophistic attempts at obfuscating what is rather clear.
If banning the production and distribution of pornography is not possible with an outright ban, strangling this monstrous industry through onerous regulation is a pretty good tactic. And it's not new. Israel effectively requires citizens to ask for permission from the state to view pornography, for example, while also using pornographic content against what it regards as its enemies (e.g., pornographic broadcasts from a captured TV station in Ramallah some time ago).
In the US, you are dreadfully wrong. Also, obscenity has a very specific, and strict, definition. The second prong under the Miller test is:
> Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law
There is a large amount of porn that isn't going to satisfy this prong because it's not going to be sexual conduct--fetishes like BDSM could well fail to depict any sexual conduct whatsoever. It wouldn't surprise me if less than half the videos on PornHub were actually considered obscenity under the Miller test.
> If banning the production and distribution of pornography is not possible with an outright ban, strangling this monstrous industry through onerous regulation is a pretty good tactic.
Sorry, you don't get to curtail constitutionally-guaranteed free speech just because you don't like it, and "strangling [...] through onerous regulation" is no more viable a vehicle than an outright ban is under strict scrutiny.
> Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Some people prefer to effectively exclude "porn" from this by definition, but I don't think that aligns with mainstream use of the term, and I also doubt that those people are using a similar standard to what would apply in a First Amendment case.
Im in Utah which has this law. Now pornhub is effectively inaccessible because Im not giving them my ID but I think it largely backfired because everyone uses offshore sites now. Tbh Im kind of grateful because the offshore sites have much better content since its all pirated, but I never wouldve even thought of them until I was kicked off ph.
With talk of regulating TikTok, I've wondered what the US would do if TikTok sent a notification saying, essentially, "just connect to our servers in China". The kids would do it, and then what?
There are a few Internet regulations I've seen discussed that would require a national firewall to achieve their stated goals.
It seems outrageous to consider a national firewall in the United States, but you're absolutely right. That is where this has to go. The saddest part to me, is that it's probably going to happen. All they have to do to sell it to the the average person is to say that it's to combat CSAM and it will be palatable. They will start by making it very small, and limiting the scope to only CSAM. Then as new use cases arise, they will slowly expand it. This will get it slowly ingrained in society to where it is just obvious and expected, much like the TSA airport security is now.
> It seems outrageous to consider a national firewall in the United States, but you're absolutely right. That is where this has to go.
Maybe not a "firewall", but the USA (and in fact the entire world) has effectively already banned communicating some types of data. Pictures of naked children is the prime example. You would have to be a brave man to have a picture of your child frollicing in the sea naked for the first time.
To put it into perspective, 30 years ago that was perfectly fine where I live in Australia. Everybody understood the photo just captured a step in the child's life; that time when water was new to them but clothes didn't matter. It's a moment a parent might want to share with relatives.
That and a lot of other things were innocently posted to the internet in the beginning. Then a collective "internet consensus on morality" seemed to take hold and they quietly vanished. No firewalls were needed.
It's been fascinating to watch in real time how a group of humans develop a common morality, despite being separated by distance, cultures, and ages. I think the power of it is underappreciated. After all, it has effectively banned what had been perfectly acceptable behaviour in Australia for decades. This was driven home when someone in Australia was jailed for having cartoons in their possession, parodies of the Simpsons. Just a couple of decades ago that was unthinkable.
But back to firewalls - so when are they needed? It seems only when a minority was to change the majorities moral stance on some issue, but can't convince them to just "do it" of their own accord. So they force it on them with a firewall. I doubt that's going to work too well over the long term in a democracy.
So the Great Wall of China is bad because it confines China, and the Great Wall of the USA is good because it confines the USA*. Oof, this kind of development is quite unsettling, especially because we see where is China going with it...
Yep, agreed. I think a big driver behind it is that the culture in the US is one that is much more favoring of safety over security. The reactions to Covid certainly didn't help things as it made "freedom" a partisan issue that is now framed as selfishness rather than a high ideal. (and truthfully, selfish people did often use "freedom" as a banner to enablement, but that doesn't negate the importance of freedom as a principle, nor does it justify it's abolishment or abdication IMHO).
>With talk of regulating TikTok, I've wondered what the US would do if TikTok sent a notification saying, essentially, "just connect to our servers in China". The kids would do it, and then what?
Regardless of how you feel about TikTok, the current bill as written is completely absurd on the face of it. It names China as a "foreign adversary", as if everyone just suddenly forgot that our entire economy is completely interdependent with them as our largest foreign trade partner, and that the loss of that trade would mean a massive loss of wealth for most Americans.
Both things can be true at once. I think its very clear that China is vying to increase its influence and mantle the US as the defacto hegemon of the world, or at least create a sphere of influence as strong as the US.
This means they're competing with the US, not that they're enemies. Competition for economic leadership is something expected from any large country and it does not equal to evil doing. It is the US that has officially adopted the "enemy" language, in my opinion as a sign of weakness, because they know the economic leadership is slipping fast.
> wondered what the US would do if TikTok sent a notification saying, essentially, "just connect to our servers in China"
That would be fine. The bill [1] bans Americans from listing it in app stores or providing it hosting services if it hasn’t been sold to a non-foreign adversary country within the required timeline.
I feel like if there is one country where this wouldn't fly, it's the US.
Not only because of the population but politicians would have a hard time justifying it when they openly complain about the same thing in other countries. Not that it has ever stopped them, but it'd be harder I think.
The US still projects an image of freedom to the rest of the world. It's certainly not idolized as much as a few decades ago but, when compared to other powerful countries, the general population still maintains a good perception of it (at least in the Western world?).
Anyway, a national firwall would create roadblocks for business and money talks.
I really hope that you are right, but where I suspect you may not be is in the assumption that to the average person not having a national firewall is freedom. If there is one thing we have seen in the US, it is that many of the people who value freedom and proclaim it the loudest, will gladly accept restrictions like this as long as they are in a nice sounding package such as the US Patriot act.
Americans are very comfortable doing things that they condemn in other countries. They only need some silly explanation that ends with liberty or democracy, and they will do anything other countries do.
Conservatives fear and already suspect mass Internet censorship of election stealing and conservative viewpoints, etc. They would be skeptical, for only partially legitimate reasons though. An unreliable ally in this fight I think.
Also, US trust in mainstream media is falling and people are turning to other sources of news. These alternative news sources won't be happy to see mass censorship, because they know it could happen to them.
If they do ban TikTok (or ruin it somehow), an entire generation of kids will be embittered against the government and learn an important lesson; a silver lining.
With TikTok, presumably one way to achieve a ban without a firewall is on the supply side (i.e. make it illegal for entities doing business in the US to buy ads on the service, reducing the revenue from the service in the US to $0). That could also include the app store owners, forcing all new users to side-load.
I’m fine with a compromise where TikTok is still available on the web but you can’t install the app, because at least that removes the obvious malware/spyware vector.
Yes, and then a few years later there also will be a ban on VPNs once the congresspeople realize their firewall is a lot less effective than they’d like it to be
It's kind of already in place, since gatekeepers (Google search, Youtube, Apple Appstore, Twitter ...) all have region-specific content filters implemented and control your informational freedom and "digital mobility".
For most non-tech people, if it isn't indexed, it doesn't exist, since search results are basically their DNS.
> I've wondered what the US would do if TikTok sent a notification saying, essentially, "just connect to our servers in China".
TikTok may not be able to send that notification, or have an alternative connection be made at all, if Apple complies with the law and bans the app. I think this shows how important it is for something like the iOS ecosystem and the Apple Appstore to be broken apart, or it will become an instrument of censorship.
Now, I really don't give a fuck about TikTok and China's loss here, but it's easy to see how closed ecosystems of gatekeeper companies are a grave threat to freedom and democracy:
Today it's "protect the children", tomorrow it's "protect the morals"...
... enforced in totality through effectively absolute technical interface/access control.
Imagine there were only locked-down iOS devices, anymore, in control of the US-based company Apple, and then consider the lawful implications of their tight grip in light of a future laid out in Project 2025 [1] or Agenda47 [2]. The threat is very real.
On the other side of that, the pornography is also likely to be dodgier and the sites shadier. Not saying Pornhub isn't, but it had that cull a while back, and it seems to be trying to be semi-above board, and that can't be said for every site. And "the children" are still able to access pornography.
Nobody wins, except those offshore sites, and I guess the prudes who are only in it for the sound bite.
Right as I said it backfired. Now the government has legit zero control over porn consumption, where before revenge porn and the like was inaccessible as ph would take it down.
You can't legislate freedoms. You can try, but we've always had the tools to subvert (most likely legally on the federal level) and skirt the unconstitutional (face value, not a lawyer) nature of such things.
I'm a Christian, and live within my belief structure, too. BUT the path to redemption is either a chicken finger sub if you are a secularist, or a pulpit if your God fearing individual.
I just can't stand politicians who have 0-faith that try to leverage it without consulting those on the opposite side of the idle that need that Adam and Eve 12" whatever demonstrated on pr0nh0rb.
You certainly can legislate freedoms. The biggest news of last year was enabling legislating away access to abortion in many states for example.
Internet freedom is harder to legislate, but with enough backing you can legislate things in a way to make it difficult for the common person to access certain websites, which is certainly impactful.
It hasn't happened yet but there is nothing to say it wouldn't happen with enough time and backing of certain politicians.
> "the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in preventing minors' access to pornography. Therefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment."
The idea that the government takes an interest in whether a minor views pornography doesn't make sense to me. I can see why their parents would take an interest, but it's harder for me to justify why the government ought to weigh in on it. I get that the government gets to say what they have a legitimate interest in and what they don't, but if you follow that logic you just wind up back where you started. It seems pointless and overreaching. This is a completely different matter than child exploitation or sex trafficking, or any matters tangential to porn.
That's democracy for you. The government is the solution to all ills, if enough people want a rule then the rule becomes real. Parents are the government in a democracy.
I'm partial to a republic, a set of difficult to change rules that protect us against mass hysteria and tyrrany of the majority, subjecting us all to the will of the majority in potentially every fascet of our lives is a recipe for disaster. There are some things that are nobody's business but mine, restricting the scope of the civic process is an absolute necessity IMO.
Let's hope a new generation of kids learns the wisdom in cooking up fake IDs. I was worried it was dying out due to today's children not boozing as hard as my peers.
I can understand being opposed to these laws on the principle of freedom of information and freedom from government interference, but why are you explicitly hoping for specifically children to receive pornographic material? That's a very strange thing to wish.
Pretty much this. That and I'm suspicious of the claim that the content in online pornography is worse than the selection available 20 years ago. "Online pornography is teaching our boys to be misogynists who are bad in bed. Yes, it's worse than the stuff you watched with your friends as a teen. Source? It's obvious to see (a.k.a. just trust me, bro)."
It's illegal at the federal level to distribute pornography to people under the age of 18. I don't understand why people don't advocate for repealing this law while at the same time saying internet companies deserve an exception to it. There is no other age-gated product, such as alcohol, tobacco, or firearms where "well they told us they were of age" is sufficient, nor does the responsibility for verification lie on anyone but the distributor.
Personally I'm more of the free-for-all, repeal the obscenity laws type of person, but this logical inconsistency irks me.
Exposure to pornography among minors is a huge problem today with the advent of the internet, and especially given the ubiquity of smart phones among minors. The harms cannot be overstated. Those who are old enough to remember the days before the internet may remember how accessing porn was more difficult, especially for minors. The typical story is about how boys would get a hold of a copy of some sad uncle's "dirty magazines". That's in the last 50 years. Before that, it was virtually unheard of, as it was only in the 1970s that production codes and norms were broken, and obscenity laws were loosened.
This law may very well be just about protecting children, but if it were also a part of a broader strategy of containing and eventually obliterating the porn industry and the normalization of porn use, then I welcome it.
And like is said elsewhere, how many of those problems come from the stigma around porn and sex and our inability to discuss this with friends and family without it being uncomfortable. We all (well most, asexual people exist) have sex. Most of us exist because of sex.
If we could openly talk about porn and sex, would the “problems” exist?
Too much of anything could be a problem. Video games, movies, whatever.
The slow drip of government interference means people forget what a free and open interent was like. Slowly, its becoming segmented by chickenshit regulation, censorship, and corporate control. We don't care because its only Texas and its adult content, but this is what the slow chipping away of freedom looks like: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I have already forgotten all about the open interent, all we're left with is this internet thing full of closed gardens with nations each trying to claim parts of it fall under their jurisdiction.
Agreed, though it's not just gov interference but also the wrong kind of regulation. We've let mega corporations larger than many countries create digital fiefdoms that take away our agency. There is no free and open internet if a company doesn't want the blue bubbles to talk to the green bubbles.
An alternate point of view is that one day we will look back with deep shame at this hopefully brief period where we made porn and gambling available to children instantly in limitless quantities.
Not saying it’s easy to figure out how to accomplish change in a free and fair way. But the status quo is pretty clearly a horrifying outcome.
Being the parents of children. Let's be clear here.
If your children are visiting adult sites in 2024, it's 100% on you.
"gambling" I'm sorry, but gambling? How is a 12 year old supposed to gamble in limitless ways without parental consent? Please, let me know. I'm actually curious.
There are plenty of ways to bypass parental consent, and as a former 12 year old, I assumed it to be my raison d'être.
My favorite racket was the prepaid credit card laundering scam. I'd give my cash allowance to a friend, whos parent would buy a prepaid credit card as a gift for some vague friend's birthday. I could then use the credit cards for online purchases (specifically a Runescape Membership).
Tell me you don't have kids without using the words "I don't have kids"
Kids gamble away a bunch of money from their parents all the time. Look at games like FIFA that are rated E for Everybody and all of the news articles about kids running up thousands of dollars in FIFA Ultimate Team Packs. Expecting parents to know that they need to be on the look out for their kids being able to spend unlimited money (well, up to their credit card limit) on a game rated E for Everyone is ridiculous.
Your example, where they spend money in a video game, doesn't match what's going on here. Adults had to attach their credit card ahead of time. This regulation won't help that, and future "prove you're an adult (in privacy invading ways) or piss off" won't help that either. This would be like dad buying a porn sub and then giving the kid their login details. The laws here don't help that.
I'm a parent. Like the person you responded to, I control purchases on my child's devices. It's not difficult, and if you need help with that - or any other parenting advice - just ask.
It seems exceedingly unlikely to me that you’re able to prevent your children from being exposed to as much pornography as they would like once they’re past the age of 12 or so.
> But the status quo is pretty clearly a horrifying outcome.
Care to elaborate? This feels like all of the ads that were warning about the "dangers of gay marriage" without ever being able to name an actual danger. Just fear mongering.
I think having children and teens exposed to limitless hardcore pornography is likely harmful to them.
Maybe I’m wrong but it seems that the benefits to society of allowing this are essentially zero and the harms likely severe, so I’d support attempts to limit it as a matter of public policy.
We should probably actually attempt to quantify this in more than just a feeling before talking about legislation.
> having children and teens exposed to limitless hardcore pornography is likely harmful to them.
Like above, the fact that you had to use the word "likely" means it is an argument of feeling not fact.
Which you do admit in your second sentence.
> benefits to society of allowing this are essentially zero and the harms likely severe.
I would argue the opposite. There is a major benefit to society to allow people to learn about themselves and their sexuality in a safe manner through exploring self pleasure and porn.
And then as a society de-stigmatizing sex and porn so we can have open conversations about it. So If I was 13 or 14 I could go to my parents and ask about something I saw in a video, something that may or may not be "normal". Maybe it was a BDSM scene and it felt weird that someone was "hitting" the other person. That leads into a conversation about consent and communicating what it is you do and do not want out of a sexual encounter.
That de-stigmatization also leads to discussions about what a real body looks like, how sometimes things may hurt and you may need to ask to slow down or stop. All of the unsexy things that are not shown in porn, that isn't a problem with the porn. It is meant to just be sexy. But we could talk about it.
We only think of this as abnormal because it's sexual related, but it's completely normal with video games, movies, whatever. To see something weird and to ask friends or family about it. Hopefully sparking a discussion.
Sex is a perfectly normal thing for most people and yet we treat it as this dirty secret that we shouldn't talk about.
How does payment help with addiction? Most porn sites would likely go with a flat rate for unlimited access. Addict levels of viewing would be no more expensive than casual viewing
There are effective ways (cryptography) to implement age verification and other forms of ID and ID-adjacent verification online that isn't a privacy nightmare.
Well at least some common sense prevailed, there is zero reason to have a notice like that.
Like I kinda get on paper how you could come to the conclusion of needing to do something like this (the ID part), I mean generally (unless you look a certain age) you do have to show your ID to buy porn or any related places...
But it just feels unnecessary and reeks of data collection that could be used for bad reasons.
I know I started looking at porn at... middle school timeframe. Maybe freshman of high school but pretty sure middle school. So 13/14 years old time frame.
I am just fine. I am not saying that kids should have free access to it, but we need to remove this stigma.