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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

#271

Post by ndriscoll »

kelnos wrote: post #194
xp84 wrote: 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…

Flip it on its head. An age verification requirement might stop your 12-year-old from accessing a porn site headquartered or hosted in the US, but it will do nothing to keep your kid from finding porn on any of the thousands (tens of thousands? more?) of websites hosted in various other countries who don't care about this sort of thing. These sites are (or will be, if US-based sites become inaccessible) just as easy…

Are they actually just as hard to block though? e.g. I don't see much reason to allow traffic to any Russian or Chinese IPs for any reason from my network. To be honest a default blacklist to any non-American IP seems like it'd not cause much trouble for my family, and then if there were some educational or FOSS or whatever sites in Europe, those could be whitelisted on a case by case basis.

Similarly the only expected VPN traffic in my network would be inbound to my wire guard server/router. Everything else can be banned by default.

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

#272

Post by JoshTriplett »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #92
smallmancontrov wrote: post #8

"Party of free speech," my ass.

Neither of the two parties is very much in favor of free speech. The left has cancel culture and policing pronouns while the right has blocking books with gay characters and age verification laws.

There is a massive difference between other people reacting to your speech and choosing not to associate with you or propagate what you say, and the government banning your speech and prosecuting you for it. You can exercise your freedom of speech, and other people can exercise their freedom of association to want nothing to do with you.

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

#273

Post by eesmith »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #92
smallmancontrov wrote: post #8

"Party of free speech," my ass.

Neither of the two parties is very much in favor of free speech. The left has cancel culture and policing pronouns while the right has blocking books with gay characters and age verification laws.

I've noticed that cancel culture and policing pronouns is far stronger on the right. What Democrat has been canceled as much as Liz Cheney by Republicans? Certainly not the sex pest Andrew Cuomo, heartily supported by the Democratic Party leadership.

What Democratic president has issued an executive order anywhere equivalent to Trump's order requiring pronouns match the gender "at conception", and the anti-scientific claim that gender is a male-female binary?

The right also wants to block books which have nothing to do with gay characters, including “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, “Maus”, “The Handmaid's Tale“, “Of Mice and Men“ and “Brave New World”.

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

#274

Post by op00to »

tiahura wrote: post #100
op00to wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dismissing this as a “meltdown” ignores the real First Amendment stakes. Requiring ID to access legal adult content isn’t like buying alcohol. It introduces surveillance and self-censorship, especially with vague thresholds like “one-third explicit” or “harmful to minors.” That legal ambiguity alone forces smaller publishers to self-censor to avoid risk. Unlike alcohol, speech is a constitutionally protected right, n…

The "chilling effect" argument here is pretty weak. You're basically saying that because some small publishers might get confused about legal requirements, the whole system is unconstitutional. That's not how First Amendment analysis works. Courts don't strike down laws just because some people might overreact to them. If this really created such massive chilling effects, we'd see data showing widespread site shutdow…

Chilling effects are settled doctrine, not hand-waving. SCOTUS struck the CDA (Reno v. ACLU, 1997) and COPA (Ashcroft v. ACLU, 2004) precisely because vague “indecent/harmful” standards plus stiff penalties make rational speakers self-censor. Courts don’t wait for carnage. The predictable chill itself is the constitutional flaw.

We already have hard evidence of chill. Pornhub, one of the few players with the budget to fight, has geoblocked Utah, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Montana, and about ten other states. Sixteen in total as of mid-2025 rather than risk strict-liability fines. That’s exit, not “compliance.” Smaller publishers just disappear quietly. Their absence isn’t a data gap, it’s the effect you’re denying.

You flipped the First Amendment burden. For content-based rules, the state must prove narrow tailoring and minimal speech impact under strict scrutiny. Demanding that speakers first produce a body count of shuttered sites inverts that standard and dodges the real constitutional test.

That’s why your “show me shutdowns” line doesn’t work: the shutdowns are already happening, and the law not the speakers has the burden to justify them.

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

#275

Post by VBprogrammer »

al_borland wrote: post #10

All these ID check laws are out of hand. Parents are expecting the government, and random websites, to raise their kids. Why would anyone trust some random blog with their ID? If these laws move forward (and I don’t think they should), there needs to be a way to authenticate as over 18 without sending picture of your ID off to random 3rd parties, or giving actual personal details. I don’t want to give this data, and…

The slippery slope from here to banning under 18s looking at websites discussing suicidal thoughts, transgender issues, homosexually and onto anything some group of middle age mothers decide isn't appropriate seems dangerously anti-fallacitical.

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

#276

Post by queenkjuul »

api wrote: post #41
al_borland wrote: post #10

All these ID check laws are out of hand. Parents are expecting the government, and random websites, to raise their kids. Why would anyone trust some random blog with their ID? If these laws move forward (and I don’t think they should), there needs to be a way to authenticate as over 18 without sending picture of your ID off to random 3rd parties, or giving actual personal details. I don’t want to give this data, and…

Devils advocate: parents that are too busy or not tech savvy are helpless to block content without essentially forbidding their kids from using any connected device. I run a pi-hole that blocks ads and porn, but that’s way beyond the technical capability of probably 95% of people. There are some commercial products but they are expensive and also take time and at least a little tech ability to set up. … and of course…

Then they shouldn't let their kids have connected devices. It's that simple.

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

#277

Post by eesmith »

const_cast wrote: post #251
archagon wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Cancel culture” is not government policy (and never was).

Cancel Culture is actually just the free market, the invisible hand, at work. What is a boycott but cancel culture? The idea of the free market is that good behaviors and products emerge because consumers "vote" with their wallet. If a company has bad values I don't support then I don't shop there. Enough people do that and the company collapses. So, what remains is an economy where every company acts virtuously. The…

I point out to self-described "classic liberals" that what they call "cancel culture" was instead described by John Stuart Mill in "On Liberty" as an essential component of liberty:

"We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except those which tend to his improvement."

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

#278

Post by chgs »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #132
chgs wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Site generates random key Key and verification passed to verifier Verified list is published Site pulls list and checks its number has been verified Site doesn’t know who it is, and verifier doesn’t know which site was verified against

How do you prove that the generated key by the site is actually randomly generated? I certainly don't trust a random porn site to do this right. If the verified list is tied against identity, there is only a simple law change required to de-anonymize everything.

Doesn’t really matter surely, you only need to trust the identity provider not to leak your identity and your porn provider not to have a key that your identity provider can link to.

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

#279

Post by queenkjuul »

lowkey_ wrote: post #265
rstat1 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this day and age lack of knowledge is no excuse. Especially when everyone who would have this particular "problem" has access to various search tools and video websites that would explain "solutions".

I feel like, to say that, you haven't tried helping many older adults — or even middle-aged adults — use technology. If my older family member was scammed by something online, and someone said "lack of knowledge is no excuse," I think they'd really be missing the mark. Or if they shouldn't reproduce because they aren't good with technology. It's a very HN take but it's one that lacks a lot of humanity.

Maybe parents shouldn't buy their kids technology they don't know how to use?

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

#280

Post by HideousKojima »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #81
root_axis wrote: post #17

> In fact, under the laws that the Supreme Court just upheld, prosecutors in Tennessee and South Dakota can even reach across state lines and prosecute writers on FELONY charges for a single paragraph of sexually-explicit writing on my site that they think "harmed" kids in their states, facing up to FIFTEEN years in prison, for failing to implement ID-checks on my dinky little free WordPress site. > It's unlikely the…

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