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Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

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Re: Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

#91

Post by stickfigure »

yau8edq12i wrote: post #87
stickfigure wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone of your comment implies that the wikipedia article supports the "porn bad" narrative, but the article does not support that at all. I'm not sure why you linked it.

First, I did write "I'm not saying that it's black and white". My main point is that one person's subjective anecdote isn't enough to discuss policy. Second, the article absolutely points out ill effects of pornography on young people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_pornography_on_youn... > Problematic pornography use (PPU) or pornography addiction, is understood as a pattern of pornography viewing which ca…

Those "caveats" are pretty much direct contradictions. And the actual article on pornography addiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_addiction has even more such caveats. A fair summary is nothing like "porn bad".

So given that, I've got a better idea. Let's not regulate the thing until there's clear cause to do so.

Re: Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

#92

Post by jijijijij »

Buttons840 wrote: post #14
HDThoreaun wrote: post #2

Im in Utah which has this law. Now pornhub is effectively inaccessible because Im not giving them my ID but I think it largely backfired because everyone uses offshore sites now. Tbh Im kind of grateful because the offshore sites have much better content since its all pirated, but I never wouldve even thought of them until I was kicked off ph.

Now we begin discussing a national firewall. With talk of regulating TikTok, I've wondered what the US would do if TikTok sent a notification saying, essentially, "just connect to our servers in China". The kids would do it, and then what? There are a few Internet regulations I've seen discussed that would require a national firewall to achieve their stated goals.

> Now we begin discussing a national firewall.

It's kind of already in place, since gatekeepers (Google search, Youtube, Apple Appstore, Twitter ...) all have region-specific content filters implemented and control your informational freedom and "digital mobility".

For most non-tech people, if it isn't indexed, it doesn't exist, since search results are basically their DNS.

> I've wondered what the US would do if TikTok sent a notification saying, essentially, "just connect to our servers in China".

TikTok may not be able to send that notification, or have an alternative connection be made at all, if Apple complies with the law and bans the app. I think this shows how important it is for something like the iOS ecosystem and the Apple Appstore to be broken apart, or it will become an instrument of censorship.

Now, I really don't give a fuck about TikTok and China's loss here, but it's easy to see how closed ecosystems of gatekeeper companies are a grave threat to freedom and democracy:

Today it's "protect the children", tomorrow it's "protect the morals"...

Today it's Pornhub, tomorrow it's Grindr...

Today it's TikTok, tomorrow it's Signal...

Today it's Terrorism, tomorrow it's smuggling contraceptives...

... enforced in totality through effectively absolute technical interface/access control.

Imagine there were only locked-down iOS devices, anymore, in control of the US-based company Apple, and then consider the lawful implications of their tight grip in light of a future laid out in Project 2025 [1] or Agenda47 [2]. The threat is very real.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

[2] http://archive.today/7mXlj

Re: Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

#93

Post by itishappy »

quesera wrote: post #84
itishappy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of ways to bypass parental consent, and as a former 12 year old, I assumed it to be my raison d'être. My favorite racket was the prepaid credit card laundering scam. I'd give my cash allowance to a friend, whos parent would buy a prepaid credit card as a gift for some vague friend's birthday. I could then use the credit cards for online purchases (specifically a Runescape Membership).

Why involve the friend at all? Following your description, couldn't you have just bought the prepaid (debit) card with cash yourself? Also FWIW "laundering" is a well-defined thing that this is not, and "prepaid credit" is an oxymoron! :)

I was 12, and most of my store visits were supervised, largely because I didn't drive much.

It certainly felt like laundering, but you raise a great point!

Re: Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

#94

Post by lo_zamoyski »

nerdjon wrote: post #10

> Texas cannot enforce a provision requiring porn websites to "display health warnings about the effects of the consumption of pornography." Well at least some common sense prevailed, there is zero reason to have a notice like that. Like I kinda get on paper how you could come to the conclusion of needing to do something like this (the ID part), I mean generally (unless you look a certain age) you do have to show you…

A porn user claiming he's fine carries about as much weight and authority as a drug addict claiming he's fine. You've been watching since your early teens, and presumably wanking. It's all you've known for practically your entire post-pubescent life. Porn is very damaging, and habituates destructive habits, disordered views of human beings, disorders the appetites, and impacts cognition and perception of reality (which used to be called "mental blindness" in the classic texts). It creates a fantasy harem in the mind, an escape into delusion, and cripples one's ability to relate to members of the opposite sex in a healthy manner. Never mind the destructiveness of wanking itself.

No one has the right to make, distribute, or watch pornography. The idea that it even could be a right is absurd, as no one has the right to what is unethical. And it isn't free speech. It is obscenity, and obfuscation of this fact is tiresome. If banning the production and distribution of this filth outright is too difficult to achieve politically, then burdensome regulation is a good Plan B. I would prefer targeting the industry, personally, rather than individuals, but perhaps there are reasons why that, too, is too difficult to achieve politically in the current climate. Recall that Alan Dershowitz pulled off a nice piece of legalistic sophistry when he defended porn as "free speech". Perhaps that's the notion that needs to be roundly defeated first, before we can crush the industry as a whole.

But it is worth mentioning that restrictions on pornography use are not new. Israel effectively requires citizens to register to be able to view it. That's quite a light touch, but obviously goes beyond what we see in the West. The law has an instructive dimension, and banning porn and stigmatizing it can help nudge most people away from such bad habits, and signal that it is not good, serious, and shameful. Consider that porn is also weaponized, and has a history as an instrument of psyops, both domestically and against foreign enemies. (In a military context, and since we mention Israel, recall how Palestinian airwaves were flooded with pornography when the IDF captured a Palestinian TV station in Ramallah some years ago. You think the Israelis were trying to "liberate" the Palestinians by doing that? If porn was a nothingburger, you think it would have been used in that manner? The US has employed similar tactics.)

Re: Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

#95

Post by nerdjon »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #94
nerdjon wrote: post #10

> Texas cannot enforce a provision requiring porn websites to "display health warnings about the effects of the consumption of pornography." Well at least some common sense prevailed, there is zero reason to have a notice like that. Like I kinda get on paper how you could come to the conclusion of needing to do something like this (the ID part), I mean generally (unless you look a certain age) you do have to show you…

A porn user claiming he's fine carries about as much weight and authority as a drug addict claiming he's fine. You've been watching since your early teens, and presumably wanking. It's all you've known for practically your entire post-pubescent life. Porn is very damaging, and habituates destructive habits, disordered views of human beings, disorders the appetites, and impacts cognition and perception of reality (whi…

> Never mind the destructiveness of wanking itself.

I could maybe, maybe! buy that porn has some negative problems.

But if you seriously think that self pleasure has any negative problems it invalidates everything you are trying to say that I don't even feel like taking the time to respond to the rest.

Self pleasure is an incredibly important part of discovering yourself, study after study has proven that.

Everything else you said is just the usual puritanical views and I am not going to hold Isreal up to a beacon of what societal views on sex should be.

Re: Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

#96

Post by yau8edq12i »

stickfigure wrote: post #91
yau8edq12i wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I did write "I'm not saying that it's black and white". My main point is that one person's subjective anecdote isn't enough to discuss policy. Second, the article absolutely points out ill effects of pornography on young people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_pornography_on_youn... > Problematic pornography use (PPU) or pornography addiction, is understood as a pattern of pornography viewing which ca…

Those "caveats" are pretty much direct contradictions. And the actual article on pornography addiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_addiction has even more such caveats. A fair summary is nothing like "porn bad". So given that, I've got a better idea. Let's not regulate the thing until there's clear cause to do so.

> A fair summary is nothing like "porn bad".

It's a good thing that I never wrote that except when I quoted you, then. Keep your strawmen.

Re: Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

#97

Post by lo_zamoyski »

Exposure to pornography among minors is a huge problem today with the advent of the internet, and especially given the ubiquity of smart phones among minors. The harms cannot be overstated. Those who are old enough to remember the days before the internet may remember how accessing porn was more difficult, especially for minors. The typical story is about how boys would get a hold of a copy of some sad uncle's "dirty magazines". That's in the last 50 years. Before that, it was virtually unheard of, as it was only in the 1970s that production codes and norms were broken, and obscenity laws were loosened.

This law may very well be just about protecting children, but if it were also a part of a broader strategy of containing and eventually obliterating the porn industry and the normalization of porn use, then I welcome it.

Re: Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

#98

Post by jorvi »

twiclo wrote: post #71
jorvi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the negative effects seem to be....nothing. One of my colleagues has a 14-year old daughter, and she has TikTok. It’s not uncommon for girls of her age to post stuff like “the right place for a hand during kissing”, and it’ll be a (subtle) reference to the throat. There’s nothing wrong with consuming porn at that age per sè, but without good parental / sex ed guidance it shapes kids their concept of what “norma…

This is the argument that always bother me. It boils down to "Parents just need to parent heir kids." Look at the impossible task of raising a child who's brain isn't impacted by our pornified society today. Why do we think parents are on their own when it comes to keeping their kids from porn but are more than happy to help them keep their kids from cigarettes/alcohol?

> Why do we think parents are on their own when it comes to keeping their kids from porn but are more than happy to help them keep their kids from cigarettes/alcohol?

Because those are physical goods that require a point of sale.

Porn is available at a click’s notice, for free. You’ll never stop access to that, kids are much more clever than people give them credit for. So the logical step is to teach them how to manage that in a healthy way.

Like, you can lock down all home PCs, filter your router, apply parental controls to their mobile phone, and they’ll just have their buddies send them obfuscated porn, or sneakernet it to them.

Re: Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

#99

Post by nerdjon »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #97

Exposure to pornography among minors is a huge problem today with the advent of the internet, and especially given the ubiquity of smart phones among minors. The harms cannot be overstated. Those who are old enough to remember the days before the internet may remember how accessing porn was more difficult, especially for minors. The typical story is about how boys would get a hold of a copy of some sad uncle's "dirty…

> The harms cannot be overstated.

Proceeds to not state said harms…

Maybe tell us those supposed harms.

Re: Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules

#100

Post by shrimp_emoji »

nerdjon wrote: post #99
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #97

Exposure to pornography among minors is a huge problem today with the advent of the internet, and especially given the ubiquity of smart phones among minors. The harms cannot be overstated. Those who are old enough to remember the days before the internet may remember how accessing porn was more difficult, especially for minors. The typical story is about how boys would get a hold of a copy of some sad uncle's "dirty…

> The harms cannot be overstated. Proceeds to not state said harms… Maybe tell us those supposed harms.

And the punchline is they're actually vanishingly marginal and esoteric compared to those from junk food, guns, tobacco, booze, and social media.
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