Sex censorship killed the internet we love • Hacker News Board

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#231

Post by dwighttk » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 12:56 PM UTC

pasta1212 wrote: post #18

stevenicr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some portals listed on this similar recent hn thread, in which I added to a similar comment, ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19040384 ) - basically that for many people the internet is google, and for many, especially in other countries from what I have read, 'the internet' is facebook. It appears many people do not know how to use urls or ask people about other portals. If facebook censors it, they…

> Heck people put google.com into the box and search for it rather then enter a url and hit ctrl-enter. Not even that. They google directly from the address bar. Once you could google without going to google.com, anecdotally I started to notice most people would google everything, including URLs they obviously knew

Once jerks started domain name spamming this became recommended behavior unless I’m 100% certain of my url.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#232

Post by jdietrich » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 12:57 PM UTC

Hendrikto wrote: post #218

mirimir wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even harder for old-school Japanese norms. What used to pass as mildly titillating in Japan is XXX porn in the US. And some of what's shocking there is easily child porn in the US. That's even so for some German naturalist stuff, and that was never even intended to be shocking. For example, one of my favorite Miike films ("Visitor Q") begins with sex between a guy and his teenage daughter, who has been working a…

I just read a plot summary of Visitor Q… seems completely and utterly ridiculous. Who even comes up with such grotesque stuff?

>Who even comes up with such grotesque stuff?

An internationally-renowned and highly influential director.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#233

Post by zozbot123 » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

Lazare wrote: post #207

sgt101 wrote: post #55

The real "original sin" of the free internet is the curation of the experience of using neutral information systems to drive engagement and skew users decisions away from their own interest towards the commercial interest of the web sites. Routine deception and manipulation mean that there are no clear lines or defensible moats of freedom. There is no rule of law or communal standard of fairness on the internet. This…

> Consensual sex work is mentioned, my perception is I would be more interested in data than one person's subjecting perception. > I hear of no stories where people have found happy and fulfilled lives as prostitutes One of the major points of the article is that the voices of sex workers have been driven off the internet. You can't justify censorship by saying that none of the now-censored voices are complaining. >…

The problem with legalizing prostitution is that it opens up a sanctioned venue which human traffickers can use to slip under the radar. You can have the best regulation in the world and you'll still fail to have only the entirely above-board, willing sex work that the sex workers themselves would like.

It's the same reason why e.g. we ban all new elephant ivory, period-- even ivory that supposedly does not come from poachers killing an endangered, wild elephant. Because if you try to allow "good, fair-trade ivory", the poachers will try their best to get their stuff in there. And when it comes to the balance between costs and benefits, it doesn't take many bad apples to spoil the whole barrel.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#234

Post by mirimir » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #194

mirimir wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even harder for old-school Japanese norms. What used to pass as mildly titillating in Japan is XXX porn in the US. And some of what's shocking there is easily child porn in the US. That's even so for some German naturalist stuff, and that was never even intended to be shocking. For example, one of my favorite Miike films ("Visitor Q") begins with sex between a guy and his teenage daughter, who has been working a…

Is this the same Japan that blurs out genitals in porn films? Even in puritan America that doesn't happen.

Yep, it is.

So there's less censorship involving age or species, but pixilated genitalia. Go figure.

For example, in Miike's "Fudoh: The New Generation", there's a ~preteen assassin who uses a blow gun that's hidden in her vagina. There's one sequence where she's performing in a strip club, popping balloons (and hitting her target with a poisoned dart). And yes, the actress was 22 when the film was shot, but she looks a lot younger.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#235

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #172

In general, superstitious behavior tends to win over non-superstitious behavior, even if it is a small minority . For example, say there are two communities in a given town; one of the community has decided that black doors were evil, and won't go through them. The other community doesn't care. Shops that have black doors lose the business of the superstitious community; even if that community is small, it simply mak…

Depends on the superstition, if it were "you should say 'black door' every time you see one [and you'll have good luck]" then it would make no difference. It would neither inhibit nor encourage those of the out-group.

Let's look at religion: if my religion says "give money to orphans" then you don't need to fight it, it doesn't harm you, if it says "make everyone who's not part of our group subservient or dead" then you must fight it.

Actively fighting a superstition that is not harmful would count as it's own superstition, it's not logically driven.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#236

Post by renholder » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 1:03 PM UTC

mac_was wrote: post #68

The artist claims that internet killed porn then switches to Yahoo News and is able to find what she is looking for, so it seems that she is unhappy that it is not reachable on Google. Another point is that when she worked with teenagers their biggest question was how to prevent diseases, pregnancy, one quick question- how would they find answers on porn sites? All the answers are available publicly on health related…

>All the answers are available publicly on health related sites like the NHS for example...

I hate to put it like this but the NHS is, largely, unknown to the Americans. They have their own version (e.g.: Department of Health, Surgeon General, etc.) but I think you skimmed on something that is a byproduct of that cultural mentality: Sex and nudity is bad; therefore, any education around that is bad.

People might be able to go and find that information on the NHS' website, if the actual act of doing so wasn't - itself - stigmatised.

There are ripe examples across the internet of people up in arms about sexual education in American schools (this used to be something largely concentrated to the Bible Belt, but as demographics move, has been spreading wider across their country)[0,1].

Then, you have the "think of the children!" crowd.[2, 3]

I think someone paying for advertisement time to say, "If your parents, school, government is failing you, try to look for the information elsewhere - say the NHS," might go a long but - even then - you might be "unpatriotic", "unamerican", "literally the devil", etc. for even doing so.

Fighting the herd mentality isn't without it's own plight.

[0] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sex-education-controversy-erupt...

[1] - https://pjmedia.com/parenting/2017/03/31/parents-protest-gra...

[2] - https://www.hli.org/2018/04/comprehensive-sex-education/

[3] - https://www.lifezette.com/2016/12/evil-in-the-classroom-sexu...

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#237

Post by sacado2 » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 1:03 PM UTC

beobab wrote: post #205

marcus_holmes wrote: post #127

I find the US prudishness thing so fascinating. I'm travelling at the moment, and meeting lots of Americans (and Europeans for contrast). There's definitely a huge difference in tolerance for swearing and blasphemy. Also several well-educated and seemingly intelligent Americans who hold strong racist opinions. But that's another subject. I guess it all comes down to the religion. Americans do seem to be more religiou…

Enjoying sex isn’t a sin. Sex is supposed to be held in the highest regard. It’s a wonderful and joyous thing. The point is, I believe, to avoid cheapening it, making it less than the truly awesome thing it is. It’s supposed to be a priceless gift shared with your true love. Packaging it and selling it makes it less valuable. I believe that if you approach the subject with that mindset, a lot of the decisions that so…

Replace "sex" with "food" and you just described French culture.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#238

Post by jmsmistral » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC

These types of articles are a great reminder of how prevalent censorship is on mainstream services like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

Question - what other tech/services exists out there that supports freedom? Would that be in the form of distributed tech like mastodon, for example? Could these be leveraged to trigger tech giants to revert censorship?

Meh... It's demotivating to see that everyday services that everyone uses essentially limit perspectives on how life happens.

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#239

Post by groestl » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 1:08 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #172

In general, superstitious behavior tends to win over non-superstitious behavior, even if it is a small minority . For example, say there are two communities in a given town; one of the community has decided that black doors were evil, and won't go through them. The other community doesn't care. Shops that have black doors lose the business of the superstitious community; even if that community is small, it simply mak…

One real-world example is Coca Cola [0].

While most of the consumers probably don't care, influence of a small but committed minority made Coca Cola kosher, halal, and vegan.

[0] https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/the-re...

Re: Sex censorship killed the internet we love

#240

Post by sv12l » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #172

In general, superstitious behavior tends to win over non-superstitious behavior, even if it is a small minority . For example, say there are two communities in a given town; one of the community has decided that black doors were evil, and won't go through them. The other community doesn't care. Shops that have black doors lose the business of the superstitious community; even if that community is small, it simply mak…

Something similar happened recently with Subway in Singapore. They have stopped serving bacon to comes to terms with Halal certification in order to get more business from primarily Muslims.