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British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

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Re: British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

#61

I'm still confused about the purpose behind these laws. Are there still adults stupid enough to think that watching porn will mess a kid up? Because there's now two whole generations of kids who have grown up watching porn (my generation, and the one after). So far younger people don't seem any more fucked up than people were before, only the older people seem to be getting worse.

It's that people are so stupid as to ostensibly outsource parental responsibility to a dystopian, dysfunctional government to encroach on the rights of everyone because "think of the children".

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Re: British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

#62
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is a very weird development for a millennial like me. I think this is a GenZ/Gen Alpha thing born out of steep surveillance enforced by the policies of streaming services chatrooms and TikTok. It really seems like the younger generation has really kowtoked to advertisers and self censor words I would consider benign. It honestly disgusts me.

Late GenZ and GenA censorship is to substitute the word entirely -- porn is "corn", dead is "unalive", ass becomes "ahh", sex worker is "accountant". Asterisking is old-fashioned.

Those are, as I undersand, mostly TikTok-isms (designed around actual and perceived TikTok censorship) more than generational patterns that have escaped (but somewhat attenuated) to other contexts ("unalive" is particularly common in other social media, the rest not so much.)

Re: British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Late GenZ and GenA censorship is to substitute the word entirely -- porn is "corn", dead is "unalive", ass becomes "ahh", sex worker is "accountant". Asterisking is old-fashioned.

> sex worker is "accountant" The others are understandable enough, but what's up with this one?

Its substituting a job you can't talk about without risking repercussions on some platforms with one you can. I don't think its a lot deeper than that, and that the substitution is essentially arbitrary (though I do think it was chosen because it has an extreme opposite social valence, with accountant being among the jobs with the most laced-up, boring, vanilla perception available.)

Re: British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So far younger people don't seem any more fucked up than people were before, only the older people seem to be getting worse. If you look at levels of depression, sexual disfunction the steep drop in relationships and dating among younger people and other metrics you could argue the exact opposite, although obviously there are other factors (social media, ect) in how "messed up" generations are besides the widespread…

> there are other factors (social media, ect) "Other factors" is doing a heavy lifting here. I don't have a skin in this game, but politicians are scared to touch the elephant in the room (smartphones + social media), because they know they'll get a flack instantly. I don't think porn consumption among teenage girls are high, yet their depression rates are high as well.

IMO social media is far more damaging than porn

Re: British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

#65
post #3

This is a pretty wild story but also an illustration of just how dystopian the world has gotten. The UK has gone completely bonkers with this "real id to use the internet" law. In the US Google is using a crazy AI algorithm to prohibit people under 18 from viewing some content on YouTube. Obviously, the stated purpose of the policy is good IMO. However, I can't help but take a cynical view that Google is using this a…

Not to mention the fact that someone would want to cover their entire body and face with tatoos... It points to an underlying social issue; people aren't happy with the body they were born in and/or not getting the attention/validation they need as individuals. Extreme body modification is a symptom of that. I think this struggle to accept one's self has systemic roots. People shouldn't have to go to such lengths to feel special. I suspect related to inequality dynamics and hyper-centralization of attention.

You shouldn't have to be an extreme world-class outlier in any area in order to feel valued. It's ridiculous how everything has become an all-or-nothing deal. This is not healthy.

Re: British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

#66
post #18

There's this Deep Space 9 episode called Past Tense. The crew goes back to 21st century earth to find that being unemployed is illegal and they quickly get put in a ghetto with other indigents. At one point they're trying to get on the internet (the show was aired in 1995 so they predicted the 21st century internet) but they can't login because you have have a real identity and be a citizen in good standing (so nobod…

Also probably the most unrealistic. Why would not people in ghetto create their own version of internet? They would have all the resources in a nearest scrapyard you just need gear what works. Then use few stolen IDs to copy the controlled internet and they could have it public just for themselves. Next step would be to connect other ghettos and what is the real internet at this point? The controlled one or this ghetto one where people can create freely without being hindered by the government?

Re: British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So far younger people don't seem any more fucked up than people were before, only the older people seem to be getting worse. If you look at levels of depression, sexual disfunction the steep drop in relationships and dating among younger people and other metrics you could argue the exact opposite, although obviously there are other factors (social media, ect) in how "messed up" generations are besides the widespread…

> there are other factors (social media, ect) "Other factors" is doing a heavy lifting here. I don't have a skin in this game, but politicians are scared to touch the elephant in the room (smartphones + social media), because they know they'll get a flack instantly. I don't think porn consumption among teenage girls are high, yet their depression rates are high as well.

No skin in the game here either. I'd agree that smartphones and social media are also very damaging.

>I don't think porn consumption among teenage girls are high, yet their depression rates are high as well.

That isn't what the data says.

>Seventy-three percent of the respondents (75 percent of boys and 70 percent of girls) said they had watched online pornography. The average age they started was 12. Many began younger.

>Seven in 10 who admitted they had watched porn intentionally said they had done so in the past week.

>Four in 10 said they had watched pornography, including nudity and sexual acts, during the school day. Almost half said they had done so on school-owned devices.

>Of those who watched the past week, 80 percent said they had seen “what appears to be rape, choking, or someone in pain.”

>Fewer than half (43 percent) said they had discussed pornography with a trusted adult. (Robb and Mann, 2023).

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/raising-kind-kids/20...

I'm certainly no puritan, but it seems absurd to me to suggest that this early and mostly ubiquitous exposure to (often violent) pornography doesn't have a significant negative effect on the developing minds of children.

Edit: Just to be clear, my contention that children watching pornography is harmful to their development is in no way an endorsement of the crusade to force users to link their IDs to their online accounts under the fig leaf of "protecting children" (the universal trope used to deprive people of their rights).

Re: British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

#68
post #3

This is a pretty wild story but also an illustration of just how dystopian the world has gotten. The UK has gone completely bonkers with this "real id to use the internet" law. In the US Google is using a crazy AI algorithm to prohibit people under 18 from viewing some content on YouTube. Obviously, the stated purpose of the policy is good IMO. However, I can't help but take a cynical view that Google is using this a…

Everyone can see what is coming, but it appears we will give up everything to “protect the children.” One “reasonable” new rule at a time.

Re: British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

#69
post #46

I'm still confused about the purpose behind these laws. Are there still adults stupid enough to think that watching porn will mess a kid up? Because there's now two whole generations of kids who have grown up watching porn (my generation, and the one after). So far younger people don't seem any more fucked up than people were before, only the older people seem to be getting worse.

> Are there still adults stupid enough to think that watching porn will mess a kid up? This absolutely is a real problem, especially for younger kids. Have you talked to a teacher? Think things like "a kindergartner runs around grabbing teachers' tits and saying "I want to ..." lines you'd expect from a rape work like 50 Shades of Gray . It is neither in the child's interest nor in the interest of society at large to…

Bad influences come in many forms, and remedies aren't always laws.

Re: British man claims he's unable to watch porn as tattoos confuse age check system

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are other factors (social media, ect) "Other factors" is doing a heavy lifting here. I don't have a skin in this game, but politicians are scared to touch the elephant in the room (smartphones + social media), because they know they'll get a flack instantly. I don't think porn consumption among teenage girls are high, yet their depression rates are high as well.

No skin in the game here either. I'd agree that smartphones and social media are also very damaging. >I don't think porn consumption among teenage girls are high, yet their depression rates are high as well. That isn't what the data says. >Seventy-three percent of the respondents (75 percent of boys and 70 percent of girls) said they had watched online pornography. The average age they started was 12. Many began youn…

> had watched online pornography

This is very broad, we both know what "being too much into porn" means. I doubt that an average girl watches as much porn as an average man. And let me put it this way, most of my friends (guys and girls) are far from being puritan. Consumption type between these two groups is significantly different.

But I might be making stuff up. I just think social media is more damaging, because kids start comparing themselves to everyone else. In this case, everyone else became "global everyone else" rather than "local everyone else" (which was the case back in my middle school days). I feel like that's the biggest problem, because you people see what they're missing out on, which is basically unavailable to 99% of population. That simple thought process would bring down any kid.

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