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Supreme Court's ruling practically wipes out free speech for sex writing online

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Re: Supreme Court's ruling practically wipes out free speech for sex writing online

#52

There was a NYT article a couple weeks ago about Chinese morality police doing mass arrests of erotica authors, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/world/asia/china-boys-lov... ( "Chinese Police Detain Dozens of Writers Over Gay Erotic Online Novels" ) [note article contains large images of erotica novel covers] But you'd *expect* that of the PRC; the US, wow, has it ever fallen fast and fallen hard.

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Yes, I believe that ten year olds should only have parent-supervised interactions with the internet.

Re: Supreme Court's ruling practically wipes out free speech for sex writing online

#53
post #27

So, while I agree that this feels foreign and wrong to me as someone who has experienced "The Internet" for so long, I can't help but wonder if we can separate that from how the offline world works. I'm asking this in good faith. Given that: 1. The Internet is not an optional subscription service today the way it was in 1995. Every kid and adult has 1,000 opportunities to get online including on the multiple devices…

> allow any child to wander in and check out books showing super explicit porn

As far as I'm aware, online sites generally don't let children wander in either. One of the reasons being they will make a mess of the cabling.

That's obviously in jest, but the point is that physical presence is the entire crux here. When entering a physical space, you do so with a physical body that society has demanded be able to be identified. And age can often be determined without even fully verifying identification, which is why our society has been so accepting of age checks.

The Internet has flourished precisely because of the foundation where one does not need to be identified. In fact one does not even need to be human, nor accessing a digital service the way the publisher intends. Separation of concerns. This has worked for what, 30 years at this point? An entire generation? If parents are still buying their kids hardcore pornography terminals these days, they've got no one to blame but themselves. And no, I do not care that "everybody else is doing it".

Ultimately, the "logistics" cannot be separated from the "morality" - it is a different type of space, and the moral thing to do is engage with it as it is, instead of demanding centralizing authoritarian changes.

These demands are from a narrow contingent of people that could straightforwardly build their own desired environment (the content blocking you've referenced as a straw man, or more accurately kid-friendly content curation), but yet have not done so. Because ultimately these types of calls are never actually about "the kids" but rather a general desire to insert themselves as morality police into everyone's business.

Re: Supreme Court's ruling practically wipes out free speech for sex writing online

#55

Does it have to be written? Does it apply to video and audio contents of similar manners?

I don't think it has to be written or even particularly raunchy, just has to be deemed "damaging to children".

Looking at banned children's books should fine you an idea of the offline precedent here.

Re: Supreme Court's ruling practically wipes out free speech for sex writing online

#57

There was a NYT article a couple weeks ago about Chinese morality police doing mass arrests of erotica authors, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/world/asia/china-boys-lov... ( "Chinese Police Detain Dozens of Writers Over Gay Erotic Online Novels" ) [note article contains large images of erotica novel covers] But you'd *expect* that of the PRC; the US, wow, has it ever fallen fast and fallen hard.

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With random lawsuits as a sort of offhand censorship of ..??

Its the parents job to curate access to the inernet. I say that as a father of three.

Re: Supreme Court's ruling practically wipes out free speech for sex writing online

#58

There was a NYT article a couple weeks ago about Chinese morality police doing mass arrests of erotica authors, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/world/asia/china-boys-lov... ( "Chinese Police Detain Dozens of Writers Over Gay Erotic Online Novels" ) [note article contains large images of erotica novel covers] But you'd *expect* that of the PRC; the US, wow, has it ever fallen fast and fallen hard.

[flagged]

Why is it everyone else's responsibility to keep it out of the hands of 10 year olds by being 24/7 surveilled by the government, instead of the parents' responsibility to regulate internet access for their 10-year old?

Not that gay erotica seems that harmful, even for a 10 year old. They probably don't seek it out as much as you thing they do. If they do, it is probably a beneficial step in their development given what they learn about themselves in a safer environment than the probable alternative.

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