Live data from Hacker News

Sex censorship killed the internet we love

engadget.com

101–110 of 520 posts

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#101

What's interesting to me is how Americans don't bat an eye on all the violence exposed in movies, music and games, but then become prudish when it comes to sex. And these are the traits of the exported American culture. In my European country it is perfectly normal to have pictures of your children naked. It's also OK for them to see a nude body now and then, like at the beach (and yes I am aware that I'm not talking…

It reminds me of the story about the TV show Hannibal. There was an episode where a couple was murdered and flayed but because they were naked and their butt cracks were visible, the network wanted to censor the scene. The solution? Fill it with blood. The network's happy and they get to keep their TV-14 rating.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#102
post #12

"Google News shows one lonely result for "porn," an article that is 26 days old." Must be a regional thing. Gives plenty of fresh (less than a day old) articles when searched in Estonia. Edit: this is for Google search "news" tab. If I go to Google News ( https://news.google.com ) and search from there, get no results.

[deleted]

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#103

What's interesting to me is how Americans don't bat an eye on all the violence exposed in movies, music and games, but then become prudish when it comes to sex. And these are the traits of the exported American culture. In my European country it is perfectly normal to have pictures of your children naked. It's also OK for them to see a nude body now and then, like at the beach (and yes I am aware that I'm not talking…

> So as a citizen of an EU country [...] why do I have to suffer from the censorship of US companies?

Technically, because you volunteer to. If the internet companies on your continent are not relieving your suffering, it's either the fault of them or an extremely unfortunate side effect of applying the lowest common denominator of laws on a global medium. Considering the latter, one might similarly question why other countries have to suffer the internet censorship laws of EU countries/companies.

Speaking of double standards, I do find it amusing that depending upon the article one might either despise or cheer country-specific rules affecting the global internet. We should be mindful that others may not share our morals when we impose our will on a global medium. Instead we should apply our morals to ourselves and try to encourage what we want instead of punitively trying to get our way.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#104
I don't see this for Google, using a German IP. But I do see it for Startpage, until I turn off the family filter. Searching for "porn start suicide". First hits:

Google: Fifth porn star dies: Drugs, suicide factors in deaths - The Mercury News " rel="nofollow">https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/22/fifth-young-porn-star...

DDG: Fifth young porn star dies: Drugs, despair, suicide factors ... " rel="nofollow">https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/22/fifth-young-porn-star...

Startpage: Did porn star August Ames really commit suicide because of cyber ... " rel="nofollow">https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6544965/Did-porn-st...

Searx: Suicide Girls Porn Videos | Pornhub.com " rel="nofollow">https://www.pornhub.com/video/search?search=suicide+girls>

It is interesting that Searx (using Bing, I think) returned Pornhub as the top hit, rather than one of the news stories. But maybe that was just randomness.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#105
"Because it is women, people of color, LGBTQ communities, writers and artists who compose the majority population of sex communities"

While it seems her concerns are warranted, that kind of writing just puts me off. It seems also unlikely that women are more concerned with sex than men. And it is not nazis and incels taking over the internet and censoring sexual content, but presumably US puritanism. And also, presumably, liberals who worry that porn is exploitation of women. Google and Facebook are dominated by SJWs, not by nazis (unless you admit those amount to the same thing).

Maybe Puritanism simply won - their work ethic resulted in creating Silicon Valley, so now they get to establish their puritan rules in the global digital network.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#106
Tangentially related: Holvi [1], a digital banking service, just froze the account of a Finnish BDSM association without warning, referring to a clause in their terms of use that forbids "items that are considered obscene, or sexually oriented materials or services". The phrasing, especially the word "obscene" makes me suspect that the policy is dictated by big payment service providers (that is, credit card companies and PayPal) and Holvi is just covering its bases here; I doubt the company itself cares very much at all.

[1] https://about.holvi.com/

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#107

What's interesting to me is how Americans don't bat an eye on all the violence exposed in movies, music and games, but then become prudish when it comes to sex. And these are the traits of the exported American culture. In my European country it is perfectly normal to have pictures of your children naked. It's also OK for them to see a nude body now and then, like at the beach (and yes I am aware that I'm not talking…

It's actually even weirder. If Janet Jackson shows a bit of a tit on US television, it's a national scandal for a week (same in the UK). In France or in Italy, you regularly have full frontal nudity of both sex in movies or even in some commercials!

But go to a gym. In the US or the UK, people will happily wander around naked and shower together without thinking anything about it. In France and Italy, there are cabins everywhere to enforce the most strict prudery.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#108

What's interesting to me is how Americans don't bat an eye on all the violence exposed in movies, music and games, but then become prudish when it comes to sex. And these are the traits of the exported American culture. In my European country it is perfectly normal to have pictures of your children naked. It's also OK for them to see a nude body now and then, like at the beach (and yes I am aware that I'm not talking…

America's attitude towards sex is more nuianced than just being prudish. On some fronts it's also hyper sexual: Music videos, advetisments, going-out fashion, tons of the world's porn is made in the US, etc.

My theory is that these two attitudes, the surface level prudishness and the hyper sexuality are actually a reaction to each other, pushing them both to become more extreme as time goes by.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish every link could get a score based on how shitty the things it links to are, in terms of banners and paywalls. I need to know way in advance about toxic sites in a way that links that lead there get docked points for linking to toxic places, PageRank style.

Isn’t this what google was supposed to be doing?

It highlights how bad Google as become. An increasing number of my google Google searches point me to paywalls or content farms, and end up wasting my time. Google can stop this (esp. links to paywalls), but for one reason or another they don't want to.
Post reply on HN