Hacker News Reader

Comment by HDThoreaun | Hacker News Reader

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

View on HN

Now we begin discussing a national firewall.

With talk of regulating TikTok, I've wondered what the US would do if TikTok sent a notification saying, essentially, "just connect to our servers in China". The kids would do it, and then what?

There are a few Internet regulations I've seen discussed that would require a national firewall to achieve their stated goals.

It seems outrageous to consider a national firewall in the United States, but you're absolutely right. That is where this has to go. The saddest part to me, is that it's probably going to happen. All they have to do to sell it to the the average person is to say that it's to combat CSAM and it will be palatable. They will start by making it very small, and limiting the scope to only CSAM. Then as new use cases arise, they will slowly expand it. This will get it slowly ingrained in society to where it is just obvious and expected, much like the TSA airport security is now.

> It seems outrageous to consider a national firewall in the United States, but you're absolutely right. That is where this has to go.

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.

So the Great Wall of China is bad because it confines China, and the Great Wall of the USA is good because it confines the USA*. Oof, this kind of development is quite unsettling, especially because we see where is China going with it...

(* land of the free)

Yep, agreed. I think a big driver behind it is that the culture in the US is one that is much more favoring of safety over security. The reactions to Covid certainly didn't help things as it made "freedom" a partisan issue that is now framed as selfishness rather than a high ideal. (and truthfully, selfish people did often use "freedom" as a banner to enablement, but that doesn't negate the importance of freedom as a principle, nor does it justify it's abolishment or abdication IMHO).

>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?

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.

Both things can be true at once. I think its very clear that China is vying to increase its influence and mantle the US as the defacto hegemon of the world, or at least create a sphere of influence as strong as the US.

This means they're competing with the US, not that they're enemies. Competition for economic leadership is something expected from any large country and it does not equal to evil doing. It is the US that has officially adopted the "enemy" language, in my opinion as a sign of weakness, because they know the economic leadership is slipping fast.

"adversary" means an enemy or a rival.

China and the US are clearly rivals in many areas.

And they oppose each others' positions in others.

The word is fine and appropriate.

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

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...

I feel like if there is one country where this wouldn't fly, it's the US.

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.

I really hope that you are right, but where I suspect you may not be is in the assumption that to the average person not having a national firewall is freedom. If there is one thing we have seen in the US, it is that many of the people who value freedom and proclaim it the loudest, will gladly accept restrictions like this as long as they are in a nice sounding package such as the US Patriot act.

Americans are very comfortable doing things that they condemn in other countries. They only need some silly explanation that ends with liberty or democracy, and they will do anything other countries do.

Conservatives fear and already suspect mass Internet censorship of election stealing and conservative viewpoints, etc. They would be skeptical, for only partially legitimate reasons though. An unreliable ally in this fight I think.

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.

With TikTok, presumably one way to achieve a ban without a firewall is on the supply side (i.e. make it illegal for entities doing business in the US to buy ads on the service, reducing the revenue from the service in the US to $0). That could also include the app store owners, forcing all new users to side-load.

I’m fine with a compromise where TikTok is still available on the web but you can’t install the app, because at least that removes the obvious malware/spyware vector.

Yes, and then a few years later there also will be a ban on VPNs once the congresspeople realize their firewall is a lot less effective than they’d like it to be

> Now we begin discussing a national firewall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the other side of that, the pornography is also likely to be dodgier and the sites shadier. Not saying Pornhub isn't, but it had that cull a while back, and it seems to be trying to be semi-above board, and that can't be said for every site. And "the children" are still able to access pornography.

Nobody wins, except those offshore sites, and I guess the prudes who are only in it for the sound bite.

Right as I said it backfired. Now the government has legit zero control over porn consumption, where before revenge porn and the like was inaccessible as ph would take it down.

You can't legislate freedoms. You can try, but we've always had the tools to subvert (most likely legally on the federal level) and skirt the unconstitutional (face value, not a lawyer) nature of such things.

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.

You certainly can legislate freedoms. The biggest news of last year was enabling legislating away access to abortion in many states for example.

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.

Strictly for research purposes, what would some of these offshore sites be?

I use porntrex

Reply on news.ycombinator.com