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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

#721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am never providing my ID to anyone who can store it indefinitely. I am an adult and have no problem showing it in a shop if required as it isn't stored. Unless it can be proven it wont be stored (i.e. the bytes are never sent from my laptop) I will not provide it.

Your ID is effectively stored by the issuer indefinitely. What’s the difference between one and two entities? What’s the difference between two and a hundred?

The difference between one and two is being able to link two things I did. If you know who I am, that barely affects me. But if you can then cross-check whether I also went ballroom dancing, or went to a golf course, or went to a sexclub, or went to a ball-game. Then it starts affecting me.

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

#722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if the alternative is complete lawlessness, then I suppose I do want digital borders. AMA.

This ruling kind of assumes the opposite in some ways, that the strictest law anywhere applies everywhere. It's not digital borders, it's no borders but where the most draconian authoritarian law supercedes everything.

How does it do that? It doesn't seem to mandate age verification when a user from Poland access a server in France. Only when one of the parties (either user or hoster) is within the jurisdiction.

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

#723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about client vs server, wouldn't it be even less wide-ranging, less costly to enforce, and more appropriately targeted if such mandates are one-time and on the client side - only on device manufacturers and OEM-shipped OS? Suppose new mass market devices are defaulted to parental controls on, until unlocked by an adult at point-of-sale or afterwards through a form of validation? The KYC of who unlocked it co…

Are you ok with all devices considering the user hostile and coming with heavy encryption and locked bootloaders? > There should be a clear exemption threshold for low volume indie products, build your own PC, and open source self-install like Linux - since the purpose is to protect ignorant/apathetic consumers. Then everyone will just follow a YouTube tutorial to reinstall their operating system and bypass restricti…

> Are you ok with all devices considering the user hostile and coming with heavy encryption and locked bootloaders?

This might be the least bad option. If it prevents server side enforcement, then settling on government enforcement of the commercial status quo might be less bad.

And what you describe is already the case for almost all devices anyway. The commercial incentives are there. And sadly, from a security PoV it is also quite valuable.

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

#724

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]

that is the responsibility of parents. and why is gay erotica any worse than straight? Kids have sought sex information out once they got curious about sex and since there have been things written down and humans learned to read.

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

#725
post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There needs to be a law that requires clients to look for this header if parental controls are enabled Would that require MiTM at the network level? Or, is there a custom X.509 RTA that would tell clients not to accept the certificate?

Put it in the parental controls feature of the browser. Parents have to turn it on. Parents get to decide if their kids can watch porn. The government helps parents enforce the rules parents want.

I wonder if I can detect when parental controls are engaged like that.

As of this ruling, all sites within striking distance of South Dakota must take “reasonable efforts” to age-verify, or be certain that no content could ever be politically harmful to the hypothetical minor.

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

#726
It's interesting that we, as humans, are all so neurotic about sex, and especially about allowing our kids to understand that sex exists, that we rush to outlaw any depictions of it that our kids could potentially see. While at the same time making sure adults are still able to see it, of course. Because everyone knows that when you're 6569 days old, seeing someone have sex will cause life-long scarring, but when you're 6570 days old it doesn't matter anymore.

We also outlaw the depiction of any crimes related to sex, and here we find it easier to justify the ban, but in our haste we clump together actual crimes committed against a real victim, and imaginary crimes such as e.g. a cartoonist drawing a rape scene. In the latter case we close our eyes to the fact that we claim to support something called "freedom of speech" and, in our neurotic hunt to ban things sex-related we trample our principles.

Same goes for e.g. CSA, but in that case in particular, logic and consistency seems to go out the window and principles are sacrificed in the blink of an eye. It makes me a little depressed to see.

As for individual countries trying to enforce their local socio-cultural norms on the rest of the world, that is of course equally silly. The US is great in many ways, but introspection and ability to follow principles is sometimes lacking for sure.

I wouldn't be surprised if our sexual neurosis is what makes an AGI finally decide that we're not competent to captain the ship anymore.

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

#727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, there’s a difference between access to programming materials and the unethical majority of the internet. I had access to the former at about 12 but no access to the internet until age ~23. Was about perfect.

When did you grow up?

Why is the comment downvoted so much? Am GenX.

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

#728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but since when do we allow the majority to dictate what healthcare options are available? The mode for treating trans kids is puberty blockers until they’re 18 and then they can choose their own treatment - but that pathway is being blocked by more and more laws and fear mongering about kids being transitioned against their will

> Yes, but since when do we allow the majority to dictate what healthcare options are available? We've always done so - popular opinion as reflected by the voters dictate that you aren't getting a prescription for arsenic (anymore? Or crack cocaine, for that matter.) The government, for good or bad, regulates all healthcare, and that government is guided by its voters. The majority of voters don't see this as a bigge…

> We've always done so - popular opinion as reflected by the voters dictate that you aren't getting a prescription for arsenic (anymore? Or crack cocaine, for that matter.)

As someone else pointed out, the idea of gov deciding what our doctors can and cant give us is a VERY modern concept.

But your examples: arsnic & crack

1. Cocaine is legal for doctors to prescribe and use in specific circumstances. What is legally prohibited is recreational use. Most of the restrictions on use are due to the threat of addiction, not the threat of appropriate medical use.

2. Arsnic is similarly entirely legal for medical use. Restrictions are around putting it in FOOD because it’s POISON. Nobody is saying you can’t treat cancer with it, if it’s shown to be effective.

Your examples are not examples of the majority regulating medical care for individuals.

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

#729
post #726

It's interesting that we, as humans, are all so neurotic about sex, and especially about allowing our kids to understand that sex exists, that we rush to outlaw any depictions of it that our kids could potentially see. While at the same time making sure adults are still able to see it, of course. Because everyone knows that when you're 6569 days old, seeing someone have sex will cause life-long scarring, but when you…

Not "we, as humans". Only for we, as third world country
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