LegalFling – Get Explicit Sexual Consent | Hacker News Reader

LegalFling – Get Explicit Sexual Consent

legalfling.io

19 pointswut4233 comments

A blockchain-based sexual consent app sounds like what Silicon Valley would come up with. Surprisingly these people are in The Netherlands. http://www.legalthings.io/

As a european, this actually makes sense to me. We've recently experienced a surge in discussion regarding consent.

For example, Sweden plans to put verbal consent into law sometime this year: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/20/sweden-to-move...

From the FAQ: > Can I still change my mind? > Absolutely. "No" means "no" at any time. Being passed out means "no" at any time. This is explicitly described in the agreement. Additionally you can withdraw consent going forward through the LegalFling app with a single click.

Then what's the point? This makes getting the consent through this app meaningless. The partner can still claim "I said No after I consent in the app" or "I passed out after I clicked consent in the App" or "I was too drunk when I clicked consent in the App".

All using this App does to me is it give the other side one more evidence that I had sex with her. So now her "I was rape" has more weight.

I'm going to hold off on this to find out if it actually holds up in court. I can just see the defense: "But your honor, she tapped 'yes' on an app before we had sex!"

Since consent can be revoked at any time, I don't see what the point of this is at all.

They even go out of their way to explain how their app doesn't actually solve that problem in the FAQ.

IMO they come close to something interesting with the "sexual preferences" matching bit - I'd imagine if they focused more on that aspect of the product they could eventually come up with something that maybe Tinder or Grindr etc could buy.

Taking that further: assuming good faith on the part of your sexual partner, perhaps this also has a role in forcing you to have an upfront conversation about your preferences and what you enjoy.

The whole sign-here-to-consent-to-sex thing doesn’t seem like a workable thing in and of itself to me either.

Absolutely right -- that's a fatal flaw.

It's good that we're thinking through these issues, but this app is not The Answer.

In current milieu, consent can ostensibly be revoked AFTER the deed is done.

I appreciate the intention and the effort behind the project. However, personally I think this is wrong, it makes things awkward and very mechanical.

The Dutch people that I know (and I’ll admit its only a handful) can be very very direct in conversation. That includes areas around sex and relationships. Before rushing to judgment, this _might_ be more culturally-alligned to it’s home country than e.g. the UK or US.

Awkward and mechanical is just fine if it holds up in court and defends someone against a false accusation.

Which this will absolutely not.

No still means no, regardless of whether this app was used, so what exactly does it do?

Also they say this is “legally binding”, but in reality it’s just a contract that could be fought in court like any other contract (including a drunkenly written note on a napkin), and not one that has been fought many times and has an accepted resolution (like copyright or a mortgage).

They say they haven't even written the app yet. This may just be a troll.

Should come with a coin called coinsent

Not Yet™

> While you're protected by law, litigating any offenses through court is nearly impossible in reality. LegalFling creates a legally binding agreement, which means any offense is a breach of contract.

Supposedly this isn’t just about recording consent in some irrevocable(?) manner, it’s about making it easier to sue people by putting what you consent to in a contract.

It’s not clear that this would make the problem of one-persons-word-against -the-other go away, which is so problematic in current rape prosecutions.

Can't wait for the Nathan for You episode that generated this

ICYMI Dave Chappelle did the non app version ten plus years ago. Nathan For You is over for good.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/jwmvxd/chappelle-s-show-love-c...

I guess this might work with celebrities or so, but according to the continental law system this app should not hold up in court.

If it did work in court, that would be a dangerous experience.

I would be crazy to write this, but I can't imagine how in the middle of intercourse someone would be able to stop it if they already signed their consent.

This site is either a good joke or poor attempt to go viral with mixed technical and socio buzzwords. Either way, I don't see how that actually might work and hold in court ("oh, I thought it was just a joke", "I pressed this button while I was drunk" etc.)

The accuser could also state he/she was coerced into pressing the button. In fact, that's what has been reported in many of the recent accusations.

What the fuck. Educate you kids instead of spending VC money on tech that can't fix society…

I swear I read a joke about a "blockchain consent app" a while ago

You should remove the media logos, they are just linking to random articles.

Why is this flagged?

This is probably not as useful as it might be unless accompanied by some sort of mobile phone breathalizer widget.

Maybe it can use gyro/camera and ask person to walk on a straight line?

Or activate the microphone, and send the recording to a speech-interpreting API to see if the user has correctly recited "I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son, and I'm only plucking pheasants until the pheasant plucker comes"?

Is this a joke?

Not sure this is a problem that an app can solve.

Good job guys!

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