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Comment by eldritch_4ier | Hacker News Reader

Is it an Infringement On Freedom to require age verification before you can purchase alcohol? Or enter a strip club? Or even walk into some bars or many clubs? Or to buy a gun? Or rent a car? Or vote? Or buy porn magazines from a store?

Why is internet porn unique in this respect?

Our society is FULL of porn. It's everywhere. Kids are exposed to it at an average age of 10.

- The question isn't "should we require age verification for adult things" (because we already do)

- The question isn't "should we require age verification for porn" (because we already do for physical porn)

The question is: why should internet porn be the ONLY exception?

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>Why is internet porn unique in this respect?

Because of privacy.

Why should the porn company and the government be allowed to track what I do in private?

And now to your other silly points..

Alcohol is literally damaging to a developing brain. So there is a completely valid reason that children should not be drinking.

Gun- a child with a developing brain that doesn't understand everyone can literally kill themselves or someone else.

Rent a car.. see gun- car can hurt people.

Strip club- oh no, a naked person! How terrible!

Vote- see developing brain- a 10 year old is generally not informed in the slightest or capable of making a decision that will affect other people

All the shit you list affects OTHER PEOPLE. Watching porn doesn't affect anyone else.

>Our society is FULL of porn. It's everywhere

Gee I wonder why that is... PEOPLE LIKE PORN. We are literally sexual beings- it's the only reason you are alive, because people and other animals before you have been fucking like mad for billions of years. And we like to watch people having sex.

So get off your high horse and deal with reality. You don't like porn? Then don't fucking watch it. You don't want your kids watching porn? TALK TO THEM ABOUT IT and do whatever you feel is necessary.

It wasn't that long ago that real name policy was the topic of discussion. Making everything on the internet require an identity verification is a concept some people have been pushing for, and in term of social credit scores it would make it much easier for some parties to keep track of their citizens. Porn is not the only exception here.

The big question is why privacy should be default, and if it is the default, what criteria should be applied when exceptions are given to the default.

Personally I would hope privacy should be default and exceptions to that rule should only exist if there are democratic chosen laws that overrule it. Then people can vote against or elect new leaders if a law is against the wishes of the people.

Every one of the things you’ve listed is a physical interaction. You’re entering a physical location, purchasing a physical good, etc.

Porn viewed online is information not a physical thing - can you think of a precedent for gating access to information behind an id-wall? I can’t.

But the more important thing is - ok, if we agree that kids viewing porn is bad: does this law actually improve that in an appreciable way? I suspect not - In fact as other commenters have pointed out this will probably drive younger viewers to sketchier places that operate outside of this law and others.

"If you outlaw murder people will just find more secretive ways to do it"

Sure, but also less murder will happen, there will be enforcement to minimize it, and murder won't be normalized.

Likewise: less children will be exposed to porn, law enforcement will be empowered to crack down on shady sites, and children watching porn will no longer be normalized (like it currently is)

I've had to show my ID to the bouncer, but he never wrote down my info.

because all of the others are not recorded

when I buy alcohol they look at my id but they don't take down my name. same with a strip club, bar

There is no record of if I'm in to whisky or vodka, whether I bought $2 wine or $75 wine. Whether I had one drink at the bar or 6 drinks. Whether I looked at blondes, brunettes, men or women.

but all of that is recorded online.

In otherwords it's different online because the situation is different. I'd prefer there be no record of if I watched straight or gay, white, black, asian, women only, men only, group, single, or couples, etc....

> Why is internet porn unique in this respect?

Because the cost of enforcement is abrogation of privacy and the creation of a new and incredibly powerful new tool for state control over technology and our communication on the internet.

It’s a very short hop from this facility, to requiring that — for example — the same cryptographic state ID be used to hold our encryption keys in escrow.

Because it does not cause harm. Alcohol, tobacco, cars, and guns etc do.

It definitely causes harm.

You can have a cigar and not be harmed.

You can have a drink and not be harmed.

Excess is harmful in everything, including porn.

I have nothing against any of the items in your list, this is purely for the conversation.

>It definitely causes harm.

That is your opinion. It has no basis in reality.

>Excess is harmful in everything, including porn.

You can't have it both ways and just spit out "porn causes harm" but then say "excess of anything is bad".

Sure, excess of porn (like anything else) is bad. But porn itself is not harmful at all. If you are going to say otherwise, you have absolutely nothing to back it up. Yeah, go google some randomly study that says it is and there are a billion more to dispute that.

Plus, if you really think watching porn is "bad", well holy shit then nearly everyone in the world is at great harm because believe it or not almost everyone watches porn.

Is there any harm in children being in the room to watch an orgy?

Is there any harm in children going to strip clubs?

Is there any harm in an adult jacking off in front of a child?

Why does a digital screen between the child and the scene make it any less harmful?

Then too much religion causes harm too.

Exactly, and this is still less restriction than we have on the other things you mentioned.

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