Searches for VPN Soar in Utah Amidst Pornhub Blockage
culturalcurrents.institute
culturalcurrents.institute
So, where there is a will, there is a way. And a VPN.
But honestly, the whole "Russian vodka bears blyat" stuff is disrespectful (and wrong). Because Russians actually prefer whiskey & brandy!!
Also, Russia is not even in the top 15 countries in terms of alcohol consumption. Ukraine is higher, Finland is higher, Ireland is higher.
But the worst offender: Russian vodka is not made of potatoes!! They use grains. It's actually the Polish who use potatoes.
I was there last week; it's not a "big" city by any means, but it's also certainly not flat by any means. Compare this to Buffalo, which is bigger, older, and still has fewer buildings over 300 feet[2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_S...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_B...
See for yourself
https://en-us.topographic-map.com/map-nptp/Salt-Lake-City/?c...
That depends on which stats you take and for which country.
But Russians are always among the top in the world, especially males.
Also don't forget in Russia muslims make 14% of the population which lowers the nation averages a lot.
In general, it seems like heavy alcohol consumption is a northern peoples trend, no?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_consumption_in_Russia
"A recent study blamed alcohol for more than half the deaths (52%) among Russians aged 15 to 54 from 1990 to 2001.[14] For the same demographic, this compares to 4% of deaths for the rest of the world."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Russia#Alcohol_consu...
I don't think it's just a stereotype.
And some of the worst times in post Soviet Russia (and former union states). Truly hopeless and desperate times.
In reality, alcohol consumption there is down significantly despite all the grasping around to hate on them:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/01/russian-alcoho...
That being said, I have a few Russian friends that immigrated years ago to Florida and they're not big drinkers. They were all from well off families though. Kinda like here, I suspect alcoholism follows poverty.
It’s an objective fact that drinking is down and life expectancy is up there.
Some people are so Rusaphobic on here that they are borderline racist. It’s gross.
Which doesn’t mean that people are doing fine there.
Not doubting you in the slightest, just adding some flavor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapoy
More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_c...
Germany #6 with 13.4 litres/year pure alcohol equivalent
Russia #18 with 11.7
UK at #25 with 11.4
united states at #46 with 9.8
china at #83 with 7.2
The impression I got was that they just consume a lot of strong booze, which happens to be vodka due to being the cheap default, not that it's their preferred drink. Whiskey and such is aged costly stuff, isn't vodka much cheaper to bring to market?
Bourdain could have gone to visit vegan monks who only drank lemonade. It would have been as entertaining and 'candid' and 'real'
No disrespect to the dead, but it's not evidence, its a show
“During the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (UDABC) relaxed enforcement of Utah's alcohol laws. This led to the passing of less restrictive laws effected in May 2003. This came after complaints, particularly after an incident in which an International Olympic Committee official complained.”
My nationality has nothing to do with it ;)
* What is the damage? (not yet another "it's harmful" sentance, I'm literally asking for details to learn what you mean, if anything).
* What is "widespread"? Presumably this can be presented in terms of % of population or other actual data shaped way.
* What is the "addiction" boogeyman in this context? What are the dreadful consequences you hint at? (again, please don't just bring the vague bullshit about "its addicting, lots of companies make money from it" - actual data is my request)
* What are the actual studies backing whatever articles you got your information from - do they even exist? Were they put out by some religious think-tank or by people who do science?
I'm going way out on a limb here, trying to assume you all are making good-faith claims rather than faith-based wishes. Currently I really suspect this is more motivated by a cult that has old dudes interrogate children about their genitals grasping at control over those genitalia than any reasonable problem solving.
Compulsive Internet Pornography Use and Mental Health: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Sample of University Students in the United States https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7835260/
Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/
Where to begin. I'll be as straight forward as I can.
Porn use cultivates lust. A false form of love that seeks easy sexual satisfaction instead of a stable long term committed relationship that's best for kids. Porn is a pretty major contributor to divorce and otherwise blowing up relationships. Some women will tolerate it for a time, or try to and even claim to succeed. But it eats at them and contributes greatly to their unhappiness.
It's another form of infidelity, which is quite infamous in human society since forever. Numerous literature pieces.
It's basically a love receptor inhibitor. The deeper you are in it the harder it will be to really love a woman. A real woman requires TLC, a great deal of it, a porn woman does not. How much energy do you thing goes into a relationship if all male sexual satisfaction is tied solely to it's health?
If you've been in it since youth you probably have never experienced the kind of real love I'm talking about. I know because I was there, myself, for years. I walked a life of porn for many years and it's taken many years to overcome that addiction. Night and day.
Citation needed.
Usually a man's porn collection is not "public". If one shows it to his wife then ...
https://verilymag.com/2017/07/causes-of-divorce-effects-of-w...
https://www.science.org/content/article/divorce-rates-double...
You can find plenty of pro porn propaganda out there too. They want to fill the channels with, at least, uncertainty.
But use your own brain and human experience. Do many women you know celebrate porn use by their husbands/boyfriends? That it doesn't bother them at all?
I don't need a study to tell me a hot stove burns.
It effects your relationship even if you successfully keep it hidden. You can't hide the effects, particularly how you objectify the women about you. It's so common lots of people think this is normal. It's not normal, it's not good, and it causes unhappiness in a woman that wants to be really loved. Her. Not her body. Not that image you saw or that video you watched in your mind while you are with her so you can sustain an erection. Just, her.
But you won't be able to give that to her. We men often natter on about the emotional sensitivities or frailties of women when they complain about things we think we are doing right. But there is something missing and she feels it. This is squelching the voice that is trying to lead you to do better, be better. To be a source of warmth, love and happiness instead of a cold stone that gets off to equally cold sex objects.
How is this in any way relevant? Touch stove -> get burned is an immediate and consistent causality chain. See porn -> get divorced is not an immediate response in almost all cases, nor is it even consistent.
Frankly the whole causality sounds a lot like people getting married before knowing important things about thier partner. (and yes if you are going to divorce someone over porn watching, it's an important thing to know about them going into the marriage, you should at least ask. On the other side, lying about it and trying to hide it are bad too - maybe honesty is a good idea in marriage situations... who knew?)
It's a metaphor. Somethings can be clearly understood, by individual experience, without needing a body of citations. As clearly as a burn.
You misunderstand the nature of the personal and relationship damage if you think that divorce is the principle issue. It is but a symptom of the unhappiness that is rooted in porn use.
Citation needed
> A false form of love that seeks easy sexual satisfaction instead of a stable long term committed relationship that's best for kids.
This assumes that everyone must want kids, and the everyone must act only in support of those who have them.
Also going to need some citations for what a true form of love is - that's something that humans have been arguing about for at least as long a writing has been around.
> Porn is a pretty major contributor to divorce and otherwise blowing up relationships. Some women will tolerate it for a time, or try to and even claim to succeed. But it eats at them and contributes greatly to their unhappiness.
Here's a crazy idea: maybe you should consider women as real people. A group of individuals who have their own sets of preferences and opinions.
Going to need a lot of actual data that all women think exactly this way.
Further, I'm going to need some serious explanation why it makes sense to go into a marriage where either one person doesn't express their true opinions of porn watching or the other lies about it. It seems irresponsible to enter into a life-long contract without understanding the terms.
> It's another form of infidelity, which is quite infamous in human society since forever.
Viewing porn is only infidelity if it's secret and against the partner's wishes. Generally the problem isn't the actual action, it's the deceit and breaking of a promise that's hurtful in those situations.
> Numerous literature pieces.
Which ones? show your work - I'm not big on "just trust me bro" from internet strangers, especially ones with such weak arguments.
> It's basically a love receptor inhibitor. The deeper you are in it the harder it will be to really love a woman. A real woman requires TLC, a great deal of it, a porn woman does not. How much energy do you thing goes into a relationship if all male sexual satisfaction is tied solely to it's health?
Love receptors... gonna need some serious citations for that to be anything other than a pathetic attempt at giving a shit opinion credibility by faking sciencey words.
Se also the whole bit above about how you really should accept that women are actually people.
> f you've been in it since youth you probably have never experienced the kind of real love I'm talking about. I know because I was there, myself, for years. I walked a life of porn for many years and it's taken many years to overcome that addiction. Night and day.
I'm glad you found something that brings you satisfaction.
I don't see how that means your weaknesses are mine. Your story is evidence that one can find happiness despite the world allowing others to seek their own path. Why do you need to force your view on everyone else - the law doesn't force you to watch porn, you have a choice - why do you need to make other's choices for them? I get it - you were weak and made bad (to you) choices - that really suggests you shouldn't be making choices for anyone else, you aren't great at it (the evidence presented suggests you have a 50% success rate at choosing things wisely).
I think it's worth noting they didn't actually advocate for taking away the choice to view porn in their post. They just described perceived harms.
A state government inhibiting that choice for minors, which is a well-established practice for all sorts of things. Alcohol consumption, tobacco, driving a car, voting in elections, gambling, and ability to enter into certain types of contracts, to name a few.
The USA are diverse and laws greatly vary from state to state. Talking about "US politics" when a single state does something is absurd.
Furthermore, many European countries like France are about do the same thing with online porn, no later than this year, are you also going to accuse France of wanting to have "charia law"? That's preposterous. France couldn't be further from a very religious country.
I'm not saying these kind of laws are efficient at stopping minors from watching online porn, I'm just saying that your characterization of USA as a country is wrong.
The majority voted for him.
Just to be precise, the popular vote was 62,984,828 to 65,853,514 in favor of Clinton, with roughly 60% turnout. The majority did not vote for Trump.
But that doesn't matter in US presidental elections.
No, we did not. The US president is not elected by majority vote and does not represent the will of the majority.
Also, overturning Roe v Wade is hugely unpopular with the majority https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-... which is already starting to show at the voting booths.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/live-update/elections-2020-upda...
Wouldn't deciding these things on a local level be more representative to the than a federal law?
Also o/t but France might not be the best example to use of healthy politics that represent the will of the people right now…
Where's the line between religious motivation and morality?
Just because you don't like the law, you accuse the proponents of the law of being religiously motivated.
When you like the law, it will be because of blah blah blah morality of course.
So it's not so much a division between religion and morality, but just an observed pattern of religions that happens to be applicable here.
> Where's the line between religious motivation and morality?
Religions are subcommunity groups, morality is interally driven.
I think looking the world through the American conservative vs liberal goggles is just ignorance.
It does that to men too, but aside from that the majority of women in porn are there consensually, many make a ton more money than they could elsewhere. That is empowering to women! As long as there's no coercion, the woman wants to do it. What happened to my body my choice?
The book "renegade history of the United States" is a great read I recommend. It really goes into aspects of our history that is never covered in school and avoided in polite company. It is both enlightening and fascinating
Are you implying that this is a hypocritical stance for feminists to have? Why do American feminists speak for all feminists in the world?
Even if these were American feminists, you could make the argument that there is manipulation and coercion happening so the "my choice" part might be less than safe to assume. So a ban may be against human trafficking and coercion first and foremost.
No, I'm asking a question in an attempt to understand.
> Even if these were American feminists, you could make the argument that there is manipulation and coercion happening so the "my choice" part might be less than safe to assume.
Unless you're arguing that any and all decisions are due to manipulation and coercion, then this doesn't get us anywhere and is a strawman version of the 'pro choice' argument. Of course there is manipulation and/or coercion in some cases (from what I've heard, it's a sickly large number at that). That is (IMHO) terrible and unethical and should not be legal. I doubt that anyone (or to avoid absolutes, very, very few people) arguing "pro choice" would take the position that there's no problem with that.
But what about situations where it's voluntary? Do you argue that there is no such situation? If there is any money involved at all, you could say that is "manipulation," but is it any less manipulation than any other job where the person wouldn't be doing it if there weren't some incentive? and does that make all jobs unethical and should be illegal?
1. Prostitution is liberating and empowering
2. Women should be able to choose what they do with their own bodies, even if it means prostituting them
For those truly arguing item 1, I couldn't say. That conclusion is certainly not self-evident to me and the chain of logic seems to include at some point something that is supposed to self-evident.
However some of the feminists that appear to argue item 1 are actually arguing item 2 but they're jumping to the conclusion.
This specific Utah porn ban is part of a broader legislative trend, e.g., https://news.yahoo.com/anti-porn-bills-8-states-231013009.ht...
This is only unusual in the sense that generally Western countries are in favour of porn. I think you could make a good argument against the universal availably of porn given its negative effects on the individuals that engage in it and on society as a whole – similar to arguments against drug use or prostitution.
I'm not saying I'm in favour of banning porn or anything, just that where we draw the line on what's permissible behaviour between consenting adults seems largely arbitrary and mostly down to cultural factors rather than a fundamental analysis of harm.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201601...
There are a lot of Americans who think the country's going to shit because of a lack of religion and morals and think they can MAGA by going hard that direction.
It's insanity.
Sure there are aspects that needed to progress for a better change, no doubt about it.
But without a moral framework, many are either reluctant or ignorant of the extra work involved in making moral choices for oneself, and aiming not to succumb to a fad ideology (this goes for both sides), a false god as it were.
The sad thing is that any sane branch of Christianity should absolutely distance themselves from these lunatics, a bad apple.. yet they don’t.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US-UT&q=VPN&hl=...
Can I think of any examples of people it helped? Not really.
Does that mean we should block it? Ultimately that's for the courts to decide.
Should we think about the impact to children? Once adults have fully formed brains and self-control mechanisms built up porn is probably not as high of a risk, but for children in middle and high school it doesn't seem like this is the right thing .
Then that’s just a baseless claim on which a law was made.
When it comes to liberties that affect one self, it should be a no brainer, government has no business there. When it comes to liberties that one person doing something can impact negatively others, than courts and legislation can come into play to make sure everyone's liberties are upheld, but honestly I'm seeing much too many things being taken up here, the bar for harm to others should be pretty high, it should follow a similar reasonable doubt process as criminal charges, you should show harm without reasonable doubt.
Enterprising individuals might consider next how the same industry could counterintuitively profit from such legislation, by starting their own VPN service (which would, for example, not suffer from similar dropouts, connection resets, bandwidth related issues, etc. as competing services). I guess it would finally put to rest the question we've all been asking ourselves all along: are people using VPN services primarily to hide their piracy-related activities, or has it been mostly to hide their sexual fetishes?
People didn't know they just needed to fill out a state form that's approved automatically pay $50 to the state, and pay a small fee $75-$80 to a certified doctor, dentist, nurse, or midwife for a cannabis recommendation.
Instead, they greenhealth charges 200 bucks to people.
It's not like vpn providers are renting out one shared server. Being able to pick between countries is a key feature. Shared servers might actually be an advantage too. If your vpn is on a unique IP, it's probably easier to deanonymise you from bulk data.
Nobody cares, and if you aren’t tying this to user value from the get-go, you’re fighting a losing battle.
I'll push a more stable version later this week. Feel free to spam me via the email in my profile desc if you have any feedback or ideas.
It requires users to provide timestamps for "sponsored by" content, so the player skips over it.
The upside is that it can work for any video without the initial user interaction. Manual/user corrections can be applied afterwards ofc.
I’m trying to figure out if it can be good enough to be considered useful at this stage. Sponsorblock looks great. The reputation score/leaderboard is a superior approach imho.
Easiest solution would be to implement that on sites requiring a DOB. Maybe then more than a miserable 24K of people would have them.
Aka, are they really going to ban TikTok for regular people or just make it so govenment personnel can't install TikTok on their device? aka, only ban TikTok for government people and not regular people
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...
I recently heard the argument that TikTok is a media control issue. Rupert Murdoch famously had to become an American to buy Fox. Applying that precedent seems cleaner than the RESTRICT Act.
Payment would still be a problem.
Bonus: while your every access to porn is being logged for the state, they can log your VPN use too just in case there is anything relevant for law enforcement to care about.
Past options that don't work anymore include SNI inspection (replaced with ESNI/ECH, but wasn't hard to circumvent; say you want good.com when you're doing SNI, say you want evil.com when sending a Host: header), and DNS blocks (but now DNS-over-HTTPS is a thing, so as difficult to control at the state level; would require a court to compel in-state DNS-over-HTTPS providers to publish fake facts, which violates federal law; but irrelevant because AWS, Cloudflare, and Google don't have any assets of value in Utah).
I'd say it's basically impossible to ban VPNs. If it happens, you'll see random VPN employees detained/arrested while on vacation or something like that, unless the news cycle blows over. China can do it, because they can just kill tech execs that won't cooperate, but we typically don't do that in the US.
The VPN provider knows the user is in Utah and connecting to Pornhub, so there might be an argument for knowingly facilitating circumvention. No clue if that's something that they can prosecute, though. I'd be de-nexussing Utah were I running a VPN company.
[0] https://www.fox13now.com/2018/12/11/walmart-joins-the-push-f...
That said though, porn access in Utah would be a hard one for the average person to stand up for because the social pressure there is immense (speaking from experience here). The dominant religion teaches that "free agency" is an important and indeed essential aspect of our lives. We are here on Earth to grow and develop and learn to make good (i.e. obedient to God) choices. They even believe that a War in Heaven happened that split the masses because Satan (aka the Devil) wanted to force people to be righteous, but Jesus' plan was to give them choice. You would think they'd be a bunch of libertarians then, but no they clearly believe that God shouldn't force you to be righteous, but the state should. Furthermore God has told their prophets that things like alcohol, marijuana, porn, are wicked and sinful. Reducing or eliminating your access to them is for your own good (and the good of "society") and is therefore justified. I've tried pointing out that when it comes to enforcing your morals on others it can literally be taken to China-level authoritarianism with the same justication of "good for society," but that never seems to get anywhere.
To this point: "porn access in Utah would be a hard one for the average person to stand up for". I suspect that the arguments will be for online privacy even if the real intention is for porn access. But it's kinda more like you said: it will certainly be interesting to see.
Drive around Salt Lake County, especially the city itself, and you'll see plenty of bars, signs offering cannabis medical cards, and even a strip club here or there. And some not bad breweries.
The state just seems to take the approach of waiting for sufficient demand for such things, then slowly adjusting to allow more, rather that just "have at it" for anything.
And of course, like everything in America, what the government really follows is the money -- they listen to business community demands, like allowing and increased number of bars where tourism and the local population demands, like at ski resorts, etc. Agreed that porn could be different though, since there's probably not a local business group advocating for preserving porn access
There's also restricted drink pours, and you must finish one drink before getting another. So like you can't order a double whiskey, nor can you order a regular martini -- although small ones are okay.
The ID scanning is because of a local law, pretty blatantly intended to target ~bar~ “restaurant” hoppers, which was naturally only controversial with members of drinking culture. Sometimes I go to lunch at a local “bar” which has to scan my ID as soon as I walk in the door regardless of what I plan to order.
In China VPN restrictions are somewhat effective because of compliance from consumer platforms, ISPs and cloud service providers all operating inside a largely isolated pocket of the internet.
If any of those stakeholders refused to play along or could operate outside of enforcement range then the VPN ban would fail.
A ban isn’t truly impossible, especially with support from courts and the federal government, but I think it’s similar to the difficulty level of banning pirated content.
> We have been a public company since 2018. In 2021, Kunlun, a Chinese public company and our largest investor, increased its ownership stake in us beyond 50%, and as a result we became a consolidated subsidiary of the Kunlun group. [...] As of the date of this annual report, Kunlun, a Chinese public company traded on the Shenzhen stock exchange, indirectly owns 55.60% of our issued and outstanding ordinary shares. As such, we are a consolidated subsidiary of Kunlun.
If someone has a contact there please tell them to fix it.
I wonder how their business continues to operate if their product is free...
Easy, even minors can acquire cash and send (international) envelopes, so send cash over to Mullvad together with your account number and you anonymously get access to a VPN.
Besides, there are plenty of VPNs that don't require any sort of digital payment. Mullvad somewhat famously accepts cash[1], and they're the whitelabeled service behind a lot of other providers.
I suppose if your bank operates in Utah or wants to do business with Utah entities, it could be enforced coercively that way. As laws in different states diverge further and further, it makes me wonder to what extent states stopping cooperation with each other is possible, or if entities will start operating entirely within a particular “safe harbor” state to protect themselves.
You know, I dislike both liberalism and conservatism but in the US specifically, I feel like there is a particular misunderstanding with liberally minded people about what the US is supposed to be. If your fundamental human rights or other protected rights are violated I get it, but watching porn is not a right if any kind, states can restrict any aspect of your life that isn't protected as a right. There is already a restriction on adult material that involved minors or unwilling participants, this simply expands it to all people, and there is plenty of research and reasoning that indicates porn is harmful to everyone, period! Personally, I find it more reasonable if you argued cigarettes are healthy compared to what porn does to your mind and therefore life. The whole point of a federal union is you move to other states when you don't like the laws, and everybody gets to exist with the most ideal liberty vs restriction ratio.
For the "land doesn't vote" people who think the electoral college should be abolished? this is exactly why it exists, so crazy states line utah or missisipi don't have to leave the union. I am far from a secessionist but the electoral college was literally a critical component of the contract that states agreed to when joining the union. You need to understand that short of a global nuclear war, there are few things that are worse for humanity as a whole (even more so for americans) than a civil conflict between american states.
The whole point of post here is that so long as these crazy state laws reflect the views of those who live there and existing (not future) rights of protected individuals are not violated, drop the exaggeration and tolerate them as you vehemently disagree with them.
It's religion as law disguised as "But think of the children!" as usual.
I bet these same folks would be up in an uproar if you mentioned gun control which have a lot more negative influences than seeing boobies…
And yet that same society will do nothing to stop the number one cause of death in children: gun violence. One has to ask why?
There's an overlap between secular and religious prohibitions, and there's no easy answer as to which rules are "religious" — you're just reflecting what's in your head as "obviously secular" and "obviously religious", and that's not how all other (secular) people view the world.
This isn’t.
As far as tithing, that money doesn’t help ”the poor”. It mostly goes toward running the church (#18 https://get.tithe.ly/blog/how-churches-really-spend-their-mo...)
Did you also notice that none of your examples take rights away from anyone?
While secularism have rationalized certain religious rules in their own interests like "your right to throw your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begin", they definitely did not originate with them. And though they have not rationalized everything, individuals sourcing laws from religion does not violate freedom of religion principles.
Three points.
The will of the majority should never limit the desires of the minority as long as it doesn’t impinge on someone else. Would you use the same justification for laws against miscegenation and “sodomy” (ie non heterosexual sex) because that’s what the “conservative lawmakers” wanted”? Why the carve out against “protected individuals”? All of our rights should be protected against religious fundamentalism. Freedom of religion also should be freedom from religion.
We see all across the United States even in conservative states that when abortion rights are put on the ballot they are consistently passing even against the will of the legislation.
I can assure you as a resident of Florida and more specifically Orlando, the number of people who want hundreds of thousands of dollars and energy wasted going after “woke Disney” is small - yet the legislation is passing laws and spending money left and right.
Consider this, a guy smokes grass and he likes it, even with no provable medical harm to himself or others, that can be restricted due to social harm (weed), we can disagree with it bit saying it is beyond the right of the people of Utah to implement a restriction is another claim.
Free speech is not absolute speech, it means speech made in good faith and that won't cause harm is permitted.
Of course when drug abuse started affecting “rural Americans”, it was no longer a war, it became “a disease” that needed treatment.
And “revenge porn” is a straw man. Once you get in that area, it’s no longer “consenting adults”.
Are we really going to start regulating everything that causes harm to the individual who chooses to do the activity but no one else?
I don't have to agree with the policy or law to say the state is within its rights.
That's not really true, depending on how you define "porn". There are very strong first amendment rights around producing and consuming all sorts of potentially objectionable content:
https://reason.com/2019/10/04/pornography-is-protected-by-th...
Is it a "fundamental human right?" Dunno, I'm not the arbiter of that. But the US supreme court has repeatedly ruled that it is a constitutional right to be able to do so free of government interference. That doesn't mean you're guaranteed to have access to it - it's a free market and others 1st amendment rights allow them to choose what they provide. But the government can't stop you, and that's a right.
"I know it when I see it." -- US Supreme Court
The distinction that you are looking for is between material that is pornographic, and material that is "obscene". The First amendment does indeed protect the expression "here is sexual content, enjoy!".
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1004/obscenity-...
"Obscenity refers to a narrow category of pornography that violates contemporary community standards and has no serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
For adults at least, most pornography — material of a sexual nature that arouses many readers and viewers — receives constitutional protection."
Speech does not have to be political to be protected.
There are almost certainly films on pornhub that some communities might find obscene and others that they would not. But your understanding of the test is wrong. There's a lot - a lot - of information about the standards for obscenity out there and what a trash fire it is to try to have a consistent and legible definition. But it's not about whether someone finds it "sexually gratifying", and porn on its own is not unprotected. Only obscenity escapes first amendment protection. (And child porn but presumably that goes without saying and isn't the topic under discussion)
While I have little interest in porn, I have a right to publish it under the first amendment and that necessarily includes a right to view it.
states can restrict any aspect of your life that isn't protected as a right
And I can reject those restrictions insofar as my own person is concerned. There's a stronger argument for states mediating conflicts of interests between persons (eg police existing because not everyone is able to provide their own security) but your interpretation is a recipe for overreach.
Oppression of the minority.
> but watching porn is not a right [of] any kind
It should be.
> there is plenty of research and reasoning that indicates porn is harmful to everyone, period!
"there is plenty of research and reasoning that indicates [gay sex] is harmful to everyone, period!"
"there is plenty of research and reasoning that indicates [free speech] is harmful to everyone, period!"
"there is plenty of research and reasoning that indicates [freedom] is harmful to everyone, period!"
> The whole point of post here is that so long as these crazy state laws reflect the views of those who live there and existing (not future) rights of protected individuals are not violated, drop the exaggeration and tolerate them as you vehemently disagree with them.
States are test tubes. When the rights in different states are unequal, you set the stage for a Supreme Court case.
Sadly, I'm not sure the Supreme Court would help ensure adults can continue existing in a non-surveillance, non-nanny state.
> Personally, I find it more reasonable if you argued cigarettes are healthy compared to what porn does to your mind and therefore life.
Absurd and incorrect puritanical view. You're basically stating that you believe having children or getting into hetero-normative relationships is more important than not developing lung cancer.
I mean yes, democratic authoritarianism is still authoritarianism. Two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner and whatnot. Our affinity for democracy is not because it's perfect system that we can entrust anything to, but rather because it's the least worst option for deciding some things.
> so long as these crazy state laws reflect the views of those who live there
You're leaning on both the democratic and representational fallacies. At best you can say this law reflects the implied will of 55% of the state's population (or however much), but it's wrong to imply that the law reflects the deliberate views of everyone who lives there. Which is why we have the basic concept of rights that transcend the whims of representatives elected by a mere plurality.
I do value the idea that states should be free to set their own policies and have some competition between them, but as I've gotten older I've come to respect that a lot of people get stuck in their circumstances for whatever reason and guaranteeing basic rights to them isn't terrible. And communications you make from privacy of your own home most certainly fall in that category.
> If your fundamental human rights or other protected rights are violated I get it, but watching porn is not a right
This statement is the standard refrain of everyone who wants to diminish individual freedoms. "Rights are important, but <specific behavior> isn't a right". Meanwhile pornography has indeed become part of 1A jurisprudence. Legally I know things are a bit up in the air these days with the Supreme Council embracing collectivism to justify prohibiting fundamental medical care, but I personally view digital freedom as flowing from the general right to be left alone coupled with computational complexity (cryptography).
As such, talking in top-down prescriptive terms about what "ought to be" is trumped by what can be accomplished by individuals with computers. Despite the sarcastic moralizing, I really do think the existence of this law is great - people have been giving away too much of their digital autonomy in favor of convenient system-condoned offerings, and this law interrupts that pretty hard.
These are the goals of the US, one of them is to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity". Where liberty in this context means:
> As used in the Constitution, liberty means freedom from arbitrary and unreasonable restraint upon an individual. Freedom from restraint refers to more than just physical restraint, but also the freedom to act according to one's own will.
Everything else is trying to achieve the above stated goals. The current set of constitutional articles describing how the political processes are setup, the bill of rights, the laws that are put in place, the courts, all that is just the mechanisms that hopefully allows us to deliver the stated goal.
> The Constitution might never have been ratified if the framers hadn't promised to add a Bill of Rights. The first ten amendments to the Constitution gave citizens more confidence in the new government and contain many of today's Americans' most valued freedoms.
Furthermore, to really drive the point that the constitution was going to truly and seriously protect people's freedom, and that it wasn't just empty words, the bill of rights was added, but obviously not able to cover all scenarios and liberties ever current or future, but at least a large set of them made explicit.
So no, I'd have to disagree with you, states cannot just restrict any aspects of your life that isn't explicitly listed in the bill of rights, because the constitution itself sets out to say that the government as described in the constitution is meant to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity".
> THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
The amendments were added for clarification to specific rights, not as an exhaustive list, they don't set out to say, those are the only freedoms that are guaranteed, they simply explicitly state that those are very clearly guaranteed as described so that it be harder to abuse power and enact laws that go against the constitution's goals.
> Amendment IX - The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
I will say, one thing I'm a bit confused about, and I think is a debate today, is the tenth amendment:
> Amendment X - The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
I think this is a hotly debated one. In the case where federal government would want to restrict freedoms, it's pretty clear that it says they cannot act with power that isn't explicitly stated.
But what if a state wants to restrict freedom further?
I know this is a debate in legalizing Marijuana for example. Some people say it's not up to the federal government to make it legal or illegal. Then it would be up to each state. But making it illegal would seem to go against the constitution goals as signed by the states, that they should secure the people's liberties, and amendment IX which says that not enumerating such a right does not deny the people's right to it.
- https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri... - https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transc... - https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/liberty - https://www.theintelligencer.com/commentary/article/What-lib...
And you’re okay with that?
> Personally, I find it more reasonable if you argued cigarettes are healthy compared to what porn does to your mind and therefore life
And we don’t outlaw cigarettes. We force manufactures to put clear disclosures on them and let adults make up their mind.
> why it exists, so crazy states line utah or missisipi don't have to leave the union.
Would we really lose much if they did? Both states take more money from the government than they pay in and are two of the main ones who love to cry “socialism”.
> than a civil conflict between american states.
Yes just like that horrible civil war that broke out after Brexit.
Not the question here, if that isn't ok then let's change the constitution, no problem with that!
> And we don’t outlaw cigarettes. We force manufactures to put clear disclosures on them and let adults make up their mind
That's a policy decision, some drugs are illegal some are restricted but the govenmrnment is within its authority to do so. Change the government if you don't like it.
> Would we really lose much if they did? Both states take more money from the government than they pay in and are two of the main ones who love to cry “socialism”.
Yes! America is such an amazing place compared to most of the world. You have this because our neighbors are not out enemies and there is very rarely an actual conflict on US soil. If even one state decides to get a divorcr then you become neighbors with your pissed off ex. By global standards even missisipi is rich and powerful enough to be a PITA! And what about the millions of americans there that don't want to leave whose rights you want to protect? And keep in mind that many americans and the military consider every inch of american soil theirs and won't give it up. It's not a question of econimics but even then the US prospered because of the U part (united) of that acronym. I wish I could respond to other lengthy replies but my whole reason for commenting is that america is a union of states, that is the most crucial aspect of the nation, states and union, that's it.
> Yes just like that horrible civil war that broke out after Brexit.
More like the civil war that broke out in america before. Brexit was an exit from the EU which isn't a country.
Let me put it this way, for whatever reason if even a small island in hawaii secedes I will support a civil war. Blood is the only way to exit this union and you can say goodbye to a stable dollar and american leadership in the global arena after that.
Why people don't understand what a precious and sacred thing union and peace are I'll never understand.
Even if say utah exits the union now you have no place for mormons in america. Then texas will exit and everyone that agrees with texan way if things exits then NE will exit and so on. You just don't get the point of the union. With all the patriotic marketing in america this message has not been delivered well.
I wonder if more states interact such laws if Usenet/Torrenting will have higher demand as well.
"Lesbian Porn Is Utah’s Porn Of Choice"
https://www.bustle.com/articles/156093-heres-the-most-popula...
[1] - https://archive.is/a9wlZ
I’m a little scared to search for it whilst in a public space
https://wour.com/nsfw-pornhub-reveals-most-popular-searches-...
Nope. Real.
Right up there with abstinence only sex ed.
I've lived in many places in the USA, from SF to Chicago to NYC to Utah. And honestly, they're just not all that different.
People's sterotypes of the predominant LDS (Mormon) religion make them believe that Utah is unique and a theocracy.
In reality much of American law is based on very similar Christian moral standards. Most states are majority Christian, the laws reflect that. The difference in Utah is that it's mostly _one_ religion, rather than say a mix of various protestant and Catholic faiths.
Try walking around fully naked in any of the places I mentioned above, like into an office building or a university or other establishment, and I guarantee you that those more liberal places will also not tolerate that behavior. Not due to any direct harm you'd be causing, but due to moral standards encoded into culture and law.
Same with alcohol, tobacco, and all the other "vices" people believe are banned in Utah (they're not). If you drive around downtown Salt Lake City, you'll see bars, signs for cannabis cards, smoke shops, and even a some decent breweries. It feels a lot like most American cities. (Granted that elsewhere in Utah like in Provo, you see many fewer of these). Nearly every state allows, but restricts and limits all of these substances and activities in various ways, from licensing to age limits, and Utah is not really very different.
For porn specifically, there have been laws on the books in many states to restrict access to minors for a long time. In the age of magazines, do you think it was legal for a business in California to sell such materials to a minor? If not, why not? Because it was either deemed harmful or immoral, beliefs eventually rooted in religion.
Beyond that, is Utah actually different than other places most Americans would respect for being more "level-headed", like the UK (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-porn-ban-digital-economy-...) or Germany (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/germany-porn-laws-age-checks)?
Now, this specific law is impractical, Utah simply does not have the market power to induce a player like Apple or Google to make device-level age verification the way that Pornhub is suggesting. So the state of Utah has put into effect a law that will result in reduced access to porn (followed by subversion through VPNs) rather than actually age verification. And in the process the state is hurting its reputation.
But the generalizations here about the state due to religious and political biases are just not helpful.
American puritanism is cultural and not just a result of christianity. Many pious christian countries have always had legal prostitution and more lax attitudes to nudity/porn
On the contrary prostitution is legal and acceptable in (more religious) italy, spain, portugal, france and there is no strong opposition to pornography
> is Utah actually different than other places most Americans would respect for being more "level-headed", like the UK (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-porn-ban-digital-economy-...) or Germany (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/germany-porn-laws-age-checks)?
In these places, you can go to jail for posting a slur on Twitter or doing a Nazi salute.
In America, that is (or should be) considered insane dystopian bullshit, not "level-headed" policy.
Also, both those places have a comically naive and hamfisted understanding of the Internet, and America is usually above that (as every modern country should be). Didn't England try to ban encryption, and didn't Germany censor all of YouTube with GEMA via a super-literal interpretation of copyright violation? Are these places that sound appealing to live in as a technophile? "Das Internet ist Neuland." *puts on 3D glasses*
> Same with alcohol, tobacco, and all the other "vices" people believe are banned in Utah (they're not).
Yes they are "legal" now (well, cannabis legality is pretty debatable), but there are some significant restrictions on their use that are absolutely not all that typical. Like, in Utah there is a state-enforced monopoly on liquor stores (from a state that in most cases would decry such anti-free-market practices). There are also draconian bar regulations. They have loosened up some of those things a bit (especially after the 2002 olympics), but there are still significant impediments, particularly if you're outside of SLC. In SLC there are enough non-Mormons that you can find plenty of bars and stuff. I remember not too long ago when "bars" were banned in Utah. You had to be a "private club" so the "bars" would charge a cover, call it a "membership fee" and when you went in you were joining the private club for one day. The radio ads that played always ended with a fast talking "xyz is a private club for members only" lol.
Educating people how to use VPN is a very double-edged sword, because people will also learn that they no longer need to pay Netflix et al.
> ... Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.
> But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one — not yet, anyway. ... All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.
-- George Orwell, What is Fascism?, 1944
https://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc
The vast majority of people who casually throw around the word "fascist" are very happy to have a large, interventionist state that controls society. All "fascist" seems to mean here is that the interventions chosen don't align with the speaker's values.
> I'd argue in Utah it's just plain Ole theocracy.
I can definitely go for theocracy as an accurate description.
Respectfully, I think this is overly reductionist. Words have meanings, and in many cases I believe "fascism" to be the appropriate classification for a number of hard-right moves in recent years, such as womens health rights and restrictions among other political bombs.
Words have meanings, and this isn't it.
This was my first thought, too. But these aren't data for VPN usage. Just searches. Why would Langley have a bunch of people Googling VPNs in March?
Has it really though? Based on Google search traffic, "porn" as a keyword is actually declining since ~2013: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=porn&hl=...
And before internet porn, the same people watching it online today would have browsed magazines or watched VHS/betamax with the same content.
Who was this guy with stacks of new magazines on demand to say nothing of thousands of VHS/betamax to go through. /g
HN needs to discuss these matters with a bit more honesty:
Porn consumption is driven by the dopamine reward system. Porn is not music. You can listen to a song a zillion times (if you like it) but a specific item of pronography will very rapidly fail to arouse in repeated viewing. New material is required.
Another aspect of porn consumption is that this 'need for variety' also creates plateaus at the content genre. Stronger material is required, progressively.
And strength in porn is not a mere matter of explicitness (which also plateaus in a given genre). Taboos and norms operate at this level, when the genre gets stronger, which by the perverse inherent mechanics of how porn and male brains interact, it must get more subversive.
So, yeah, back in the day you could get your Playboy at the 7 eleven but other materials required a visit to dodgey quarters. You also paid substantially for the privilege. And kids most certainly did not have access to hard porn. So at say 20 bucks a pop for DVD (2 hours of happy time max?) or close to 10 for a magazine (these are 20th century dollars btw) not that many people were even practically capable of getting hooked on porn. It could not even happen.
Today you have free porn on tap, and algorithms (based on well understood mechanics of porn by its peddlers) that continually goade you into 'stronger' content.
Not sure where you grew up, but growing up in Europe, porn was widespread even if it was only available via paid magazines (before video). And kids used what kids had at hand, even if it was just one magazine. Someone knew someone's uncle who was a habitual magazine buyer and sometimes let go of old magazines, or somehow randomly found magazines at some location, like in the woods.
Taking what you say as fact, wouldn't that mean that people consume more porn now than back in 2013? How does it reconcile with the fact that "porn" as a search term is declining, since then?
You're only stating a fact regarding the use of search engines and the word porn and then jumping to a conclusion. As if "PornHub" a secret that kids need to google for. You go to one, and every content has layers of URLs corresponding to how many times it has been appropriated from original producers so who needs a search engine.
And at least I'm trying to provide some data points in order to ground this debate to facts, which it doesn't seem like you're interested in as you have provided zero.
Now with AI it is even more dangerous, we have deepfakes (see recent Canada news on deepfakes of children), and the spread of more isolation and addiction with the internet “drugs” compared to genuine in person interactions with friends and family.
Technology like smartphones helped us in many ways but also they became a new way to suffer and amplified some existing problems. Shouldn’t we regulate the worst of it?
I found more dangerous than porn is the ability to communicate with random adults online as a child, with often sexual endings. I remember growing up as a teen, there were sites like Omegle and then chat apps like kik and Snapchat and then Reddit, all these places had avenues for teens and children to communicate and swap pictures with adults, etc. with little to no regulation or consequences for these companies.
You see with drug abuse that regulations do little to solve the actual problems.
The problem is loneliness is stigmatized and porn creates a "safe haven" where people don't have to confront the challenging dullness and angst of their life. Kurt Vonnegut once said: "What do my science fiction stories have in common with pornography? Fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world, I’m told."
What is the solution, to just do what Utah and sexually repressed countries do, "Sorry no porn for you, it's in your best interest, I'm sure you will stop wanting it if we arbitrarily restrict it". It's not a solution and makes people go further "down the rabbit hole" to scratch that itch.
Here's a simple way to look at it:
This is a map of where pornography is illegal or restricted in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_India#/media/Fi...
Do attitudes towards pornography scale with healthy societal sexual attitudes? Judging by the map I don't suppose so.
No considering.
"Social media companies should be included also."
Period. Because in their current form and business model they're harmful to pre-adults.
What does this mean?
What does this mean?"
a and b stand for "any number", then "years old"
eg 10-yo and 9-yo sons
I don’t see it as a freedom issue, I felt less free being manipulated by adults. I feel more free having more control over what I choose to do with my time instead of coercion via hormones.
Anyways the question is, do we really want to hurt children and teens for the sake of some adults not having to upload their IDs? I understand there are many privacy issues with this, but I’m not sure you’d understand my viewpoint unless you realize the scale of minor sexual activity with adults occurring online.
Prove it hurts children
What constitutes "damage"? What if we pretend that the sky-wizard delusion didn't care that children were aware of nipples - would it still count as damage? What populations are 'addicted'? What constitutes 'addicted' (and harmful content? and consequences?)
This whole thing reads like something gpt would spit out at the prompt: Write an extremely vague and histrionic blurb about {INDUSTRY} that can be used to trigger moral panic. Oh and throw in a bit about social media too.
It is a real problem, and we are being harmed. Obviously in many places sending explicit pictures as a minor is a crime, and finding adult study participants willing to talk about their sexual interactions with children is tricky, but you can find a lot online about negative consequences of general sexting among minors.
[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6650829/ [2]: https://cdn.mdedge.com/files/s3fs-public/Document/November-2... [3]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014019712...
By the way, you can word your comments in a far less offensive and respectful manner. You should engage with the content instead of make mockery of users, per the guidelines of this site.