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US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

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Re: US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

#211

Post by Dracophoenix »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #56
brianbest101 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what counts as obscene is not well defined. Forget newspapers you could have to age gate Wikipedia

I'm just very skeptical of the argument that, when we see a fuzzy line, we have to erase it entirely so that nobody can abuse the fuzziness.

Why shouldn't we? A law that isn't well-defined in no law in the proper sense. Ambiguity and overbreath will just be weaponized against people and organizations the government doesn't like just like the Department of Education has done with Title VI in its crusade against a nebulously defined "anti-Semitism".

Re: US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

#212

Post by AngryData »

jimbob45 wrote: post #22

You already have to show ID to see rated-R movies in the US. I don't see how this is any different.

In 95% of cases that is entirely on the studios and/or theater's personal desire to not allow minors, it isn't illegal. You can take a 3 year old into an R-rated movie as long as someone older looking is there says they can, and are not IDed themselves or known to have any authority over what a child is and isn't allowed to watch. A lot of hotels don't rent rooms to people alone under 25 or so, that doesn't mean its illegal for hotel rooms not to rent rooms to younger people either.

Re: US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

#213

Post by AngryData »

This is just "Papers Please!" for the digital world. Does your cable TV or satellite box require ID verification for skinimax shows? Didn't think so. Do you want to submit your ID to every other site and user profile? Because that is where this is obviously going. This is a bullshit law that won't help anyone while harming millions, kids see most porn on non-porn websites anyways.

Re: US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

#214

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

nomel wrote: post #178
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just make sure it is not a Facebook owned VPN which is actually used to spy on its users. https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/facebooks...

I think it's silly to think that any VPN isn't spying on you, for profit or for government compliance.

It might help short term profit, but ultimately a VPN company relies on their customers trusting it, so spying is likely to hurt them - once a reputation gets trashed their customers are going to switch.

Government compliance depends on which government has jurisdiction, so it makes a lot of sense to avoid authoritarian jurisdictions.

e.g. NordVPN was originally Lithuanian, but is now based in Panama due to its privacy-friendly laws.

Re: US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

#215

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

yablak wrote: post #115

Next step is to outlaw VPNs

Apart from being a mainly unworkable law, that's not going to go down well with businesses that have remote workers.

Ultimately, trying to crack down on VPNs is likely to lead to laws against any encryption that the govt. can't inspect as otherwise they can't distinguish between lawful/unlawful use.

Re: US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

#216

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

ndriscoll wrote: post #190
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there business destroying fines associated with non compliance? Otherwise it becomes a, “Whoopsie fine” when companies inevitably get caught selling out its user base.

They linked the law right there. Yes. > $10,000 per instance when the entity retains identifying information in violation of Section 129B.002(b); $10k per instance . If you have 1M users and retain their info, you're potentially facing a $10B fine. The sites that were protesting these laws were saying they're concerned about such retention, so no doubt they're glad to know that they and their partners are banned from…

That seems like it'd be easy to avoid if you're a small operator. Set up some embarrassing porn site, scrape user details and sell them to a separate company (likely controlled by yourself). Then close the porn business as soon as there's any chance that you'll face investigation and instead work on getting individuals to pay you for not publishing their embarrassing kinks.

Re: US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

#218

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #211
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just very skeptical of the argument that, when we see a fuzzy line, we have to erase it entirely so that nobody can abuse the fuzziness.

Why shouldn't we? A law that isn't well-defined in no law in the proper sense. Ambiguity and overbreath will just be weaponized against people and organizations the government doesn't like just like the Department of Education has done with Title VI in its crusade against a nebulously defined "anti-Semitism".

Since you bring up anti-discrimination law, I would point to the concept of “hostile work environment” as a good example. It’s fuzzy and ultimately subjective to draw the line where crude jokes become so offensive and so pervasive that they constitute harassment. But if you refused to draw any line, you’d end up with a lot of workplaces where women aren’t in practice welcome.

Re: US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

#219

Post by devilbunny »

pyuser583 wrote: post #198
devilbunny wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to a school board meeting early, before it starts. Bring up the issue, and say “if any of you doubt that this can be done, I will happily demonstrate just how easy it is - privately, and with content that is legally available to adults.” If they aren’t responsive, call a local TV reporter.

I have strongly explored such options, and decided against this approach.

I would be interested to know why, if you don’t mind sharing.

Re: US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

#220

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

raydev wrote: post #199
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah VPNs exist, but HN users faaaaar over-estimate the technical knowledge & ability of the average American used to having the net served to them on a silver platter. We can evaluate this by considering the results of DNS blocking ThePirateBay. ref: https://kagi.com/search?q=How+effective+was+dns+blocking+the...

That's not a reference, it's just a list of search results. Do you have a direct source for how many Americans accessed TPB after it was DNS blocked in all of the US?

> That's not a reference, it's just a list of search results.

Results are references. Links pasted in HN can leave some doubt what's at the other end. Usually that's fine but by presenting those same links thru a search engine, you get some text to help indicate whether they have the info you want.

The results may also include links you would want - but maybe I wouldn't choose.

> Do you have a direct source for how many Americans accessed TPB after it was DNS blocked in all of the US?

This is a very narrow scenario you've presented. It doesn't seem to address the aspects of the thread in a helpful way.

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