There are a lot of GOP-controller legislatures in the USA pushing through so-called “child protection” laws, but there’s a toll in the form of impacting people’s rights and data privacy. Most of these bills involve requiring adults to upload a copy of their photo ID.

165 points

Considering these are Republican states, they’re just going to define Wikipedia articles about gender dysphoria as pornographic lol

Think carefully and double check before you ever agree with a Republican about anything.

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47 points

This is literally the goal. They are using porn as a trojan horse because they know nobody is going to stand up and fight them on letting children see porn

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0 points

Think carefully and double check before you ever agree with a Republican politician about anything.

FTFY

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55 points

I guess, but like, there’s only one party that wants me in a concentration conversion therapy camp for being trans.

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3 points
*

That doesn’t make the rest automatically trustworthy. Just not genocidal. Though I tend to agree with Progressives and Socialist Dems or Socialists more often than not. Regular, middle of the road Dems, not as much.

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2 points

Perhaps, but it was a bipartisan effort that led to requiring ID to buy music.

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25 points

All politiicans should be listened to with scepticism, but the Republicans have gone to full on lies, alternative truths, fraud, grifting and fascism. It’s not a both sides issue.

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13 points

This attempt of bothsidesing has failed.

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75 points
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Deleted by creator
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-5 points

As an analogy, should governments allow children access to strip clubs and have parents handle it or should that be illegal and have kids banned from those physical spaces?

It’s interesting because I think banning kids from strip clubs is pretty popular, but the digital laws are not as popular. I don’t know of a way to enforce a ban in a digital space that doesn’t infringe on individual liberties though

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39 points

The reason is a technical one. At a strip club, none of your information is being transmitted; it’s just the bouncer making sure you’re of age by looking at your ID.

Per the EFF:

Age verification systems are surveillance systems. Mandatory age verification, and with it, mandatory identity verification, is the wrong approach to protecting young people online. It would force websites to require visitors to prove their age by submitting information such as government-issued identification. This scheme would lead us further towards an internet where our private data is collected and sold by default. The tens of millions of Americans who do not have government-issued identification may lose access to much of the internet. And anonymous access to the web could cease to exist.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/age-verification-mandates-would-undermine-anonymity-online

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26 points

Being forced to reveal identification before you’re allowed to view pornography is the equivalent of only being allowed to masturbate while your parents are in the room watching you.

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-10 points

I understand that completely, but if we’re saying kids shouldn’t see strippers, why should they be able to see far more graphic content?

I’m not saying I support these bills as written, basically for the reasons you’re saying. I do think watching extreme content online can damage children’s understanding of sex though. You have to go out of your way to find porn that looks like real sex.

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14 points

Banning children from strip clubs in no way impacts the rights of other adults to enjoy strip clubs.

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-5 points

And, again, I am against the laws as written. But I’m asking more broadly about children accessing porn. I would never support a law that requires people to upload their ID, but there has to be some safe way to pull this off.

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72 points

The government has way too much influence over children already. Governments could do so much for children that would actually benefit them (better education, free lunch at school, better public libraries, ensure no kids are starving because of poor parents, no wars in foreign countries, whatever) but instead they use children to increase their control over people.

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62 points

I think it has nothing to do with children. It is about requiring ID registration for online services so that identities can be tracked. Every time authoritarians want to push another mechanism of control it’s always “about the children”.

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6 points

Ultimately, I agree with you and that’s why I’m against these laws, but I really do wish there was a good way to do it anonymously. Porn is not good for kids and it’s pretty much impossible to keep them away from it without drastic measures that are more harmful than porn.

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3 points

Not sure if it’s actually possible given how far outside out evolutionary context internet porn is, but the correct solution here would be to train your kids to deal with the temptation of dopaminergic reinforcement buttons.

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3 points

As a population, that isn’t a realistic course of action. It won’t work for even most parents that care to try.

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-1 points

What if the block is more harmful than just letting curious kids sneak a peek at porn sites? If all the legitimate places to get porn block anyone without ID then a lot of those prove will seek out unregulated places - they’re going to see far worse things and be in communication with potentially very dangerous people.

And of course the next step would be to totally limit any access to the internet to stamp out any unregulated communication and file sharing thus giving the corporations a total monopoly on the internet… It’s not about protecting kids it’s about controlling all of us.

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If I didn’t want my kids looking at porn online, I already have plenty of things to prevent them from doing so.

Not giving them access to a device without supervision. Using firewall filters. Child-mode browser/OS settings.

We don’t need more regulation for this. Parents just need to get off their ass and do their own parenting. But these bills aren’t actually designed to protect children. They’re designed to gain access to adults’ personal info and will be used more for oppression than safety.

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15 points

And from the party of “Small Government”, too!

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4 points

I’m a conservative but I’d never be caught dead calling myself a Republican.

Republicans are corrupt, despicable, and stupid. Democrats are corrupt, naive, and arrogant.

I really wish we had runoff voting, so that the American ecosystem could move away from two party balanced dominance.

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5 points

Ranked choice voting!! Let’s see how long the two party system lasts when it’s not “you have to vote for the lesser evil”.

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3 points

Only when it’s convenient

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3 points

Oh, it’s fine. They make sure it’s always convenient to rile up their base with lies, hatred, and culture-war nonsense…

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6 points

Most effective way to prevent kids from looking at porn is to encase them in spray foam insulation with feeding tubes and catheters.

This also prevents that pesky physical growth which turns them into military-able adults.

You can cut down on porn and terrorism in one go!

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