Never forget my 4th grade teacher Mrs Sowerby cradling a ginormous stack of hustler and penthouse magazines as she walked down the hallway with various pages full of raunchy nudes poking out from her arm pits and elbows as she held them to her chest. There was a stash behind a tree on the P.E. field I suspect was some neighbor kid. Was a good ride until someone ratted out what all the kids were doing behind the tree instead of playing soccer.
Not sure I have much sympathy. It’s a business that deals in adult material with communities asking them to ensure they are transacting with adults. Doesn’t seem like a big ask.
Most adults don’t want to verify through a 3rd party to look at online porn. Not quite the same as flashing your ID at a theater to a single person. The bottom line is there is no effective way to prevent it. This is just a way to extract money from the largest purveyors of pornography. Those who don’t know to use a VPN will just go to the third or fourth or fifth site down the list that isn’t blocked (the vast majority aren’t) and those are the sites that have far less moderation in terms of what they host/show. Kids will just end up finding the super raunchy weird extreme shit. This is a bullshit law that does not achieve the goal of preventing children from accessing porn and could have negative unintended consequences. and I agree with the idea that it needs to be regulated. But there just isn’t any good way that I’ve seen proposed.
sticking pages together in the woods for decades lol Finding your dad's playboy mags and hoping he wouldn't find out.
Your two arguments are: Adults don’t want to hassle with verification and there are ways to break around verification with VPN. Feels flimsy. Adults may not want to age verify for beer but they have to. And since when does a law have to be utterly fool proof unbreakable to be in place? Speed limit signs don’t stop anyone when police aren’t around yet we still have a speed limit. I’m sure there is a better example.
My argument is that this is a silly law that will have no impact on the issue it intends to address: children accessing online porn. But the lawyers are happy.
Personal responsibility of parents to raise their children. Why is the government “nanny state” telling me how to raise my children? sound familiar?
Bullshit. Adults shouldn't be forced to provide their IDs to access pornography in their own damn home. Is Louisiana actually enforcing it? The reason they pulled out of Texas is because Texas sued them.
If a clerk or bartender sells alcohol to a minor the business can and is held responsible. In some places the person selling it can be as well. Why is this any different? Should alcohols sales be legal by the internet? I know numerous parents who have intercepted young teens buying vapes over the internet, there was no real verification. Should that be allowed?
Why is this different? 1. You're doing it in your own home. 2. You're not purchasing anything. 3. They're not going after the companies for selling porn to children. They're going after them for not having an age verification process these states agree with. 4. The process they're insisting on is far more intrusive than necessary and won't actually stop kids from accessing porn. Yes. In fact, Florida is one of the few states where it is legal to purchase beer, wine, AND liquor over the internet and have it directly shipped to your home. Should what be allowed?
You’re right. It’s just extraordinarily difficult to effectively enforce. Just so many work arounds on the internet, from using an adult account to using a VPN. It’s not even like you need to be the most tech savvy person in the world to work around it. Hard to just say “parents need to parent” too just because of how both accessible and necessary the internet is for kids in middle school and high school. No clean answer for a real problem. The next generation is going to be pretty screwed up.
The porn is not in their home. It’s being delivered to the home even if just digitally. Seems reasonable to have an age restriction to have it delivered to the home. Once it is in your home it’s an adults right to do whatever. Would you be ok with an xxx tv channel that broadcasted all day long over the air free to the house with commercials of course?
I do think there needs to be social movements pushing kids at least in elementary school away from internet use just because of the likelihood of accessing inappropriate content, harmful to the development of children. It becomes much harder to control kids once they enter middle school and high school especially with respect to a tool they need to stay competitive in school. Best thing you can do IMO is educate your children on vices and discipline. Hopefully they have the judgment to understand the dangers of the former and value of the latter. Feels like as time passes, kids are forced into losing their innocence at a younger age. Whether it be via modern competitive standards or the normalization of content meant for adults being accessed by children. Sad. Sometimes it feels like kids can’t be kids anymore.