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Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

deseret.com

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Re: Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

#111

Post by imwillofficial »

Buttons840 wrote: post #78
imwillofficial wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been shown by quite a few studies. I’ll try to see if I can find some for you.

I grew up Mormon and know that consensual sex between mature adults is often considered to be second only to murder in its "sinfulness". I expect this teaching mixed with accidental porn encounters doesn't help.

I studied with Mormons for a year just out of curiosity, and didn’t get that vibe at all. The people I met were big on the “be fruitful and multiply” thing.

Porn is terrible for human beings on like a million different levels, especially the young and under developed brains, and none of those reasons are religious. Just biologically it’s like a diet of sugar to a child, equally poisonous.

Re: Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

#112

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

lallysingh wrote: post #86
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but there have been proposed laws requiring deplatforming of hate speech, and some have even passed: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/tech/french-hate-speech-socia... Many keyboards have been worn out debating about the difference between the first amendment and free speech, but can we isolate to one case or the other here and set that issue aside in one thread?

Which government and which people? The link's about French laws. The parent article is a state in the USA. Different beliefs in many areas.

Ok, if a law that passed in France isn’t relevant, let’s look at proposals from politicians in the US: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/3/20965459/t...

I enjoy splitting hairs too, but I feel that the distinction between government and platform authority, and Europe and US law, would be used by either side of the porn-deplatforming-supporter and hate-speech-deplatforming-supporter dichotomy when convenient, so is not really a relevant distinction. We can probably locate similar proposals from each of the government/commercial (authority) and porn/hate-speech (content) quadrants, and observe the same dichotomy of reactions.

I feel these are all just justifications that people will deploy when applicable to the tribe they are defending, they don’t explain away the tribes.

Re: Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

#113

Post by dragonwriter »

rootusrootus wrote: post #9

I thought Utah was a GOP state? What happened to 'small government'? This seems like shoving gov't down your throat.

> I thought Utah was a GOP state?

Not just a GOP state, but specifically a politically-dominant-historically-persecuted-by-government-religious-group state.

> What happened to 'small government'?

The dominant faction of the GOP has never really been about small government, but tends to use “small government” as a slogan to avoid debating the role of government when opposing things they see as outside the proper role of government. It's dominantly a right party that seeks to appeal to libertarians to bulk up it's base of support, not a (even just right-) libertarian party (though they do have a right-libertarian faction, whose members—and even candidates—have a somewhat fluid interface with the Libertarian Party, which is a right-leaning libertarian party.)

That said, you might think the politically dominant group in Utah would be keenly aware of the dangers of a dominant group imposing strict social controls through the power of government, but clearly they are fine with that as long as they are the dominant group.

Re: Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

#114

Post by vinger »

gkfasdfasdf wrote: post #23

I understand the HN crowd may take issue with this, but the ease at which a child can stumble onto pornography or adult content is really scary. Even with google safe search, etc enabled. Growing up watching television in the US, you couldn't see topless women on public broadcast TV, let alone hardcore pornography.

I remember all of the late night movies with breasts showing.

It's a little scary they are all gone from tv.

Back then you could see some hardcore stuff at the corner store if you reached up to the nudity mags.

I remember the nudity cards.. the older ones where the women had hair everywhere.

Kinda of sad everything is repressed to a point where nothing is shown anymore but people are still worried that nudity and sex will jump out at your kids and scare them.

Re: Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

#115

Post by TimothyBJacobs »

umvi wrote: post #59
johndevor wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has probably more to do with the Morman church in Utah than the GOP.

(FYI it's Mormon*, named after the Book of Mormon) However, (also FYI), adherents prefer if you refer to the church as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and members of said church "Latter-day Saints" or simply "Christians". I know "Mormon" is a long-standing nickname and most people don't intend to use the term derogatorily, but calling Latter-day Saints "Mormons" is like nicknaming Muslims "Mohammeds…

The church did engage in a nearly decade long, multimillion dollar advertising campaign entitled "I'm a Mormon" that ended just in 2018.

Re: Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

#116

Post by ceejayoz »

hyperpape wrote: post #55
jdxcode wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a clear violation of the first amendment, right?

There is a lot of case law surrounding obscenity, and courts have ruled that bans on obscenity do not necessarily violate the first amendment (there are a variety of tests involved). The rationale never seemed sound to me, but somehow I have not been appointed to the Supreme Court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_obscenity_law

It's unlikely these filters will ban only a subset of pornography that qualifies as obscenity, though.

Re: Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

#117

Post by nexthash »

gkfasdfasdf wrote: post #23

I understand the HN crowd may take issue with this, but the ease at which a child can stumble onto pornography or adult content is really scary. Even with google safe search, etc enabled. Growing up watching television in the US, you couldn't see topless women on public broadcast TV, let alone hardcore pornography.

I'd say it is the responsibility of parents and users of digital services to protect themselves, not the government's. When the government imposes such a rule on everything unilaterally, there are two consequences:

1. It sets a precedent for future "regulatory creep": if we can force tech companies to filter porn, why not filter other things? Who will stop us?

2. When the government makes a law, it impacts everything. There is no discretion, because everyone is under equal risk of liability if the law is violated. What would the consequences of this be for modelling, legitimate sexual services, and other fields? Would the damage this does be amplified by how it meshes with other laws? There is so much ambiguity that making such a sweeping and damaging action will have reverberative consequences everywhere that nobody thought of beforehand.

Re: Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

#118

Post by jackson1442 »

throwaway803453 wrote: post #47

When I think of my 5 year old nephew and all the threats our world faces, it all seems small compared to the threat he poses to himself. And of those threats smartphone porn-addiction seems the worst. It's like giving every child a pot vape pen or alcohol flask and then wishing them "good luck". Seriously how do parents manage this and is there any young reader that cares to comment on how it affected them? If my hig…

I'm a college student, first year, so I definitely grew up in this age. Honestly, web filters do more harm than good in my experience.

Usually the filter starts with porn. Blocking pornhub and the other known sites is honestly fine, but there's only so much you can do. There's always google, bing, duckduckgo images (and ddg proxies those images).

So companies set out to make a stronger filter. People can post porn on Twitter, so let's block that. Reddit too. Instagram's bad for your child's development so we'll block that and FB as well as a plethora of other forum sites etc.

YouTube can have nudity too, so we need to lock it to restricted mode as well as google search.

You can see how this continues.

A web filter was installed at our house when I was younger (maybe 13, 14) and it took me a whopping 5 minutes to get past it, permanently, since I couldn't access imgur to see a picture on StackOverflow. I wish I was kidding.

At school, I believe people spent _more time_ off task on computers because they were constantly trying to find new things that got around the web filter. The school at one point had enough and installed a hyperstrict web filter that used some AI/ML bullshit to block sites. Not even 3 days later all teacher websites hosted on google sites (which was the standard district protocol) were being blocked. I couldn't continue my journey of teaching myself to code at school because so many of the tutorials I leaned on were on sites that also hosted tutorial content on how to make "the g word" (games) and were therefore blocked.

I personally believe these web filters are a net negative for kids and learning to self manage your access to inappropriate content is an important part of being a citizen of the internet. Kids will do what they want regardless, so you might as well make it into an educational experience instead of saying "no, this is forbidden," because that will only make them want it more.

Re: Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

#119

Post by nate_meurer »

throwaway803453 wrote: post #47

When I think of my 5 year old nephew and all the threats our world faces, it all seems small compared to the threat he poses to himself. And of those threats smartphone porn-addiction seems the worst. It's like giving every child a pot vape pen or alcohol flask and then wishing them "good luck". Seriously how do parents manage this and is there any young reader that cares to comment on how it affected them? If my hig…

My own online addiction involves news. It sounds lame, and it is, but in terms of distraction and wasting time, it can be as bad as a porn addiction. I cope by locking down my computer with LeechBlock, and my phone with AdGuard. Both share a common blocklist hosted in a text file on Pastebin. That blocklist now has nearly three hundred websites in it, everything from NY Times to local new sites. Without exaggeration, this has saved me thousands of hours of wasted time over the years.

For whatever reason, porn holds no attraction for me, but I'm sure this system would work fine for that as well.

I have two preteen kids. We live in a very small house, and all of our computers are out in our common living space. We've long been in the habit of using our phones and tablets out in the open. Everyone can see what everyone is doing. Not because I'm paranoid, rather it's always been that way so it feels normal to all of us

Occasionally I'll take a peek at my kids' chats and browsers. As long as I own the devices and the kids are still young I feel entitled to a bit of oversight, but it really is very minimal.

Re: Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

#120

Post by IgorPartola »

jorblumesea wrote: post #69
lotsofpulp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GOP policies have never been “small government” (in my life). They just like to say it.

Everyone wants whatever type of government to push the issues they care about. Dems want small government when it comes to marijuana legalization, but also the Federal government should set education curriculum across the entire country or enforce country wide mask mandates. GOP wants states to be able to ban abortions and teach creationism, but chafes at the idea that states could legalize marijuana unilaterally. It…

As a Democrat I want big government when it comes to marijuana. Why shouldn’t we have the FDA test cannabis products for impurities, set labeling standards, check that facilities that process it are safe, and that labor laws are abided?
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