Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
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 your ID to buy porn or any related places...
But it just feels unnecessary and reeks of data collection that could be used for bad reasons.
I know I started looking at porn at... middle school timeframe. Maybe freshman of high school but pretty sure middle school. So 13/14 years old time frame.
I am just fine. I am not saying that kids should have free access to it, but we need to remove this stigma.
Unfortunately the era of "viewer discretion advised" seems to be closing. Today it’s punish the broadcaster if viewers have an issue.
I do think there need to be tighter restrictions on the industry exploiting people, though. That seems to be a consistent fact: many people have claimed the industry is exploitative, and that there are few if any protections against it.
I am thankful that within my group of friends we can openly talk about it.
> I do think there need to be tighter restrictions on the industry exploiting people, though. That seems to be a consistent fact: many people have claimed the industry is exploitative, and that there are few if any protections against it.
I for sure agree with that. There are problem with the industry, particularly how woman are treated.
Always has been. MO of the U.S. regulatory State has always been "go after the platform". It's why "freedom of the press" is about more than newspapers and reporters. Even if no one seems to argue on those grounds.
I'm not saying that it's black and white, but I hope we can rise above the level of discourse of "I watched porn when young and turned out just fine". It's about as interesting as e.g., "I started smoking when I was 16 and turned out just fine" or "my parents beat me as a kid and I turned out just fine". First of all, what you might consider "just fine" is perhaps, well, not fine. Second, it's one single data point; well, not even a data point, but rather a hot take.
Many of these things can also be mitigated by an ability to have open conversations about feelings about what they see. Same with playing violent video games, watching R rated movies, or whatever.
To ask, is the study saying that there is an inherent problem with porn in an isolated bubble or is the problem with porn in the way our society is setup. That is a very important question and drastically changes the conversation and the action items.
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 causes significant distress to the individual personally, relationally, socially, educationally, or occupationally. The prevalence of PPU by adolescents, lies at under 5%. Frequent users of pornography are more likely to show symptoms of PPU. Higher levels of depressive symptomatology in adolescent boys, and sexual interest, predicted increase in compulsive use of pornographic material over time. Baseline levels and subsequent growth in pornography use subsequently predicted higher levels of PPU, independent of religiosity, negative emotions, and impulsivity. Higher frequency of pornography use is associated with higher probability of suffering from CSB. LGBTQ-Adolescents aren’t more likely to develop PPU.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_pornography_on_youn...
> Adolescent pornography consumption predicted greater sexual engagement, greater sexual insecurity, and greater sexual dissatisfaction, and is linked to sexual intercourse (anal sex, oral sex, sexual encounters, sexual desire, earlier sexual initiation, sex with prostitutes/partners/friends),[3] more experience with casual sex, and a higher likelihood of exercise or experiencing especially among female adolescents. However, there isn't any evidence connecting frequent pornography consumption to a wider range of sexual practices. Meaningful evidence linking pornography and sexual risk behaviors is lacking.[14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_pornography_on_youn...
> A 2021 review which compiled evidence from other empirical sources such as surveys found that representations of women in pornography may lead adolescent boys to view women as sexual objects, with disregard and disrespect for gender equality.[15] The review, however, does not claim anywhere proving a causal relationship of consuming pornography and changing views of sexual objectification or gender inequality.[15]
---
Yes, there are caveats, and yes, the article also has a section called "Positive effects" (that has all the same oratory precautions and caveats as the sections I quoted). My point isn't "porn is bad". My point is, again, that one's person anecdote doesn't mean that we can just deregulate the whole thing without further thought.
So given that, I've got a better idea. Let's not regulate the thing until there's clear cause to do so.
It's a good thing that I never wrote that except when I quoted you, then. Keep your strawmen.
Aside from porn, if I had kids under 14 I'd straight up ban them from accessing hyper-addictive / damaging social media.
Anyways, you're fine. That's great. Lots of people aren't. On a personal level, I like the idea of moderating my appetites and controlling my consumption. Mastering temptation is key to a healthy and happy life, including not killing yourself with alcohol, drugs or food. I see sex as "just another appetite" that can be satisfied in a number of ways, some healthy, some not.
Besides all of the above, I don't think it's possible to forcibly remove stigmas. Stigmas don't work that way.
Not being excited about "vanilla sex" really isn't a problem, sex should be fun and regardless of the reason you should be able to explore it. Even if that is the only sex you enjoy, that's fine. If that is the case, porn is just the thing that helped you find out you enjoyed a certain kink but you could have found that out another way. We should not be putting rules (or expectations) on what type of sex people should be having.
Porn can be a healthy part of someone's sexuality.
As far as forcibly removing stigma, obviously no. But we can analyze there that stigma comes from and push against it when it doesn't make sense.
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.)
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.
Also backwards for privacy and security. If anything, sites should be prevented from collecting identifying info unless absolutely necessary.
> (6) "Sexual material harmful to minors" includes any material that:
> (A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to or pander to the prurient interest;
> (B) in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors, exploits, is devoted to, or principally consists of descriptions of actual, simulated, or animated display or depiction of:
> (i) a person's pubic hair, anus, or genitals or the nipple of the female breast;
> (ii) touching, caressing, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks, anuses, or genitals; or
> (iii) sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation, flagellation, excretory functions, exhibitions, or any other sexual act; and
> (C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
As with all "offensiveness" laws.
This is the part that really concerns me, to be honest. The main meaning of "prurient" is "characterized by an inordinate interest in sex."
The main reason this concerns me is because some people believe LGBTQ issues to be inherently sexual; and thus this law could be used to suppress general LGBTQ content as well as pornography. It depends on who enforces it and who interprets it, of course. But when you consider it in light of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills filed this year alone, it just worries me.
[0] https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/html/HB01181H...
etsy has the wildest stuff.
edit: maybe this is common knowledge, but I was pretty surprised when I was shopping for a chopping block last year.
> What counts as a porn site?
are really stale, and too often sophistic attempts at obfuscating what is rather clear.
If banning the production and distribution of pornography is not possible with an outright ban, strangling this monstrous industry through onerous regulation is a pretty good tactic. And it's not new. Israel effectively requires citizens to ask for permission from the state to view pornography, for example, while also using pornographic content against what it regards as its enemies (e.g., pornographic broadcasts from a captured TV station in Ramallah some time ago).
Sure it is. It's just speech some people don't like.
Just because some other government makes a shitty restrictive law doesn't mean the US should make shitty restrictive laws.
In the US, you are dreadfully wrong. Also, obscenity has a very specific, and strict, definition. The second prong under the Miller test is:
> Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law
There is a large amount of porn that isn't going to satisfy this prong because it's not going to be sexual conduct--fetishes like BDSM could well fail to depict any sexual conduct whatsoever. It wouldn't surprise me if less than half the videos on PornHub were actually considered obscenity under the Miller test.
> If banning the production and distribution of pornography is not possible with an outright ban, strangling this monstrous industry through onerous regulation is a pretty good tactic.
Sorry, you don't get to curtail constitutionally-guaranteed free speech just because you don't like it, and "strangling [...] through onerous regulation" is no more viable a vehicle than an outright ban is under strict scrutiny.
> Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Some people prefer to effectively exclude "porn" from this by definition, but I don't think that aligns with mainstream use of the term, and I also doubt that those people are using a similar standard to what would apply in a First Amendment case.
Nobody wins, except those offshore sites, and I guess the prudes who are only in it for the sound bite.
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.
Not only because of the population but politicians would have a hard time justifying it when they openly complain about the same thing in other countries. Not that it has ever stopped them, but it'd be harder I think.
The US still projects an image of freedom to the rest of the world. It's certainly not idolized as much as a few decades ago but, when compared to other powerful countries, the general population still maintains a good perception of it (at least in the Western world?).
Anyway, a national firwall would create roadblocks for business and money talks.
Also, US trust in mainstream media is falling and people are turning to other sources of news. These alternative news sources won't be happy to see mass censorship, because they know it could happen to them.
If they do ban TikTok (or ruin it somehow), an entire generation of kids will be embittered against the government and learn an important lesson; a silver lining.
You may be right. I hope you're right.
That would be fine. The bill [1] bans Americans from listing it in app stores or providing it hosting services if it hasn’t been sold to a non-foreign adversary country within the required timeline.
[1] https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites...
(* land of the free)
Maybe not a "firewall", but the USA (and in fact the entire world) has effectively already banned communicating some types of data. Pictures of naked children is the prime example. You would have to be a brave man to have a picture of your child frollicing in the sea naked for the first time.
To put it into perspective, 30 years ago that was perfectly fine where I live in Australia. Everybody understood the photo just captured a step in the child's life; that time when water was new to them but clothes didn't matter. It's a moment a parent might want to share with relatives.
That and a lot of other things were innocently posted to the internet in the beginning. Then a collective "internet consensus on morality" seemed to take hold and they quietly vanished. No firewalls were needed.
It's been fascinating to watch in real time how a group of humans develop a common morality, despite being separated by distance, cultures, and ages. I think the power of it is underappreciated. After all, it has effectively banned what had been perfectly acceptable behaviour in Australia for decades. This was driven home when someone in Australia was jailed for having cartoons in their possession, parodies of the Simpsons. Just a couple of decades ago that was unthinkable.
But back to firewalls - so when are they needed? It seems only when a minority was to change the majorities moral stance on some issue, but can't convince them to just "do it" of their own accord. So they force it on them with a firewall. I doubt that's going to work too well over the long term in a democracy.
Regardless of how you feel about TikTok, the current bill as written is completely absurd on the face of it. It names China as a "foreign adversary", as if everyone just suddenly forgot that our entire economy is completely interdependent with them as our largest foreign trade partner, and that the loss of that trade would mean a massive loss of wealth for most Americans.
China and the US are clearly rivals in many areas.
And they oppose each others' positions in others.
The word is fine and appropriate.
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.
I'm a Christian, and live within my belief structure, too. BUT the path to redemption is either a chicken finger sub if you are a secularist, or a pulpit if your God fearing individual.
I just can't stand politicians who have 0-faith that try to leverage it without consulting those on the opposite side of the idle that need that Adam and Eve 12" whatever demonstrated on pr0nh0rb.
Internet freedom is harder to legislate, but with enough backing you can legislate things in a way to make it difficult for the common person to access certain websites, which is certainly impactful.
It hasn't happened yet but there is nothing to say it wouldn't happen with enough time and backing of certain politicians.
The idea that the government takes an interest in whether a minor views pornography doesn't make sense to me. I can see why their parents would take an interest, but it's harder for me to justify why the government ought to weigh in on it. I get that the government gets to say what they have a legitimate interest in and what they don't, but if you follow that logic you just wind up back where you started. It seems pointless and overreaching. This is a completely different matter than child exploitation or sex trafficking, or any matters tangential to porn.
I'm partial to a republic, a set of difficult to change rules that protect us against mass hysteria and tyrrany of the majority, subjecting us all to the will of the majority in potentially every fascet of our lives is a recipe for disaster. There are some things that are nobody's business but mine, restricting the scope of the civic process is an absolute necessity IMO.
Personally I'm more of the free-for-all, repeal the obscenity laws type of person, but this logical inconsistency irks me.
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.
Proceeds to not state said harms…
Maybe tell us those supposed harms.
And like is said elsewhere, how many of those problems come from the stigma around porn and sex and our inability to discuss this with friends and family without it being uncomfortable. We all (well most, asexual people exist) have sex. Most of us exist because of sex.
If we could openly talk about porn and sex, would the “problems” exist?
Too much of anything could be a problem. Video games, movies, whatever.
I have already forgotten all about the open interent, all we're left with is this internet thing full of closed gardens with nations each trying to claim parts of it fall under their jurisdiction.
Not sure what about any of this is slow or quiet.
Not saying it’s easy to figure out how to accomplish change in a free and fair way. But the status quo is pretty clearly a horrifying outcome.
Care to elaborate? This feels like all of the ads that were warning about the "dangers of gay marriage" without ever being able to name an actual danger. Just fear mongering.
Maybe I’m wrong but it seems that the benefits to society of allowing this are essentially zero and the harms likely severe, so I’d support attempts to limit it as a matter of public policy.
We should probably actually attempt to quantify this in more than just a feeling before talking about legislation.
> having children and teens exposed to limitless hardcore pornography is likely harmful to them.
Like above, the fact that you had to use the word "likely" means it is an argument of feeling not fact.
Which you do admit in your second sentence.
> benefits to society of allowing this are essentially zero and the harms likely severe.
I would argue the opposite. There is a major benefit to society to allow people to learn about themselves and their sexuality in a safe manner through exploring self pleasure and porn.
And then as a society de-stigmatizing sex and porn so we can have open conversations about it. So If I was 13 or 14 I could go to my parents and ask about something I saw in a video, something that may or may not be "normal". Maybe it was a BDSM scene and it felt weird that someone was "hitting" the other person. That leads into a conversation about consent and communicating what it is you do and do not want out of a sexual encounter.
That de-stigmatization also leads to discussions about what a real body looks like, how sometimes things may hurt and you may need to ask to slow down or stop. All of the unsexy things that are not shown in porn, that isn't a problem with the porn. It is meant to just be sexy. But we could talk about it.
We only think of this as abnormal because it's sexual related, but it's completely normal with video games, movies, whatever. To see something weird and to ask friends or family about it. Hopefully sparking a discussion.
Sex is a perfectly normal thing for most people and yet we treat it as this dirty secret that we shouldn't talk about.
Being the parents of children. Let's be clear here.
If your children are visiting adult sites in 2024, it's 100% on you.
"gambling" I'm sorry, but gambling? How is a 12 year old supposed to gamble in limitless ways without parental consent? Please, let me know. I'm actually curious.
Kids gamble away a bunch of money from their parents all the time. Look at games like FIFA that are rated E for Everybody and all of the news articles about kids running up thousands of dollars in FIFA Ultimate Team Packs. Expecting parents to know that they need to be on the look out for their kids being able to spend unlimited money (well, up to their credit card limit) on a game rated E for Everyone is ridiculous.
It seems exceedingly unlikely to me that you’re able to prevent your children from being exposed to as much pornography as they would like once they’re past the age of 12 or so.
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).
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! :)
It certainly felt like laundering, but you raise a great point!
That's a fair equivalent of government regulation and source of funds attestation requirements, so "laundering" is at least metaphorically correct! :)
Right now, this sort of regulation seems like the purpose is a de-anonymised internet in a format that Republicans can accept.
Or because people don’t get addicted to things that cost money?
I am currently working on one such solution:
It works, it scales and solves the problem comprehensively.
Happy to answer any questions.