Supreme Court rules in favor of anti-porn law

zippy2006 said:

The strawman here is, "If the law isn't going to snuff out the crime with 100% success, then the law is pointless." On your reasoning we just shouldn't have any laws at all, since some people will always get around them. These are not serious arguments.

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No, the issue is passing a law that is obviously unable to carry out its intended purpose. One wonders why. Are the legislators clueless about the internet? I think many actually are. Are they merely signalling something?" "See? We stomped out internet porn. Hooray!" Are there possible unintended consequences we have to look out for?

zippy2006 said:

Indeed.

To say, "This isn't a perfect solution," is true, but no one was claiming that it is a perfect solution.

The prudential counter-arguments being offered amount to, "Porn isn't that bad, so we shouldn't do these things to combat it." My response would be, "So are you admitting that if porn was worse then we should do these things to combat it?" It is not intellectually honest to give an argument that places porn on one side of the scale and remedies on the other side of the scale, and then take absolutist positions. If someone is taking absolutist positions, then their "scale" is a fiction. In that case their absolutist argument is something like:

• We shouldn't do anything that is hard to do
• Legislating against child-consumed pornography is hard to do
• Therefore we shouldn't legislate against child-consumed pornography

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No, we should do it right.

zippy2006 said:

If we followed the reasoning of you or @ThatRobGuy, online credit card use would never exist. "It carries huge identity theft risks, therefore we can't do it. Full stop. There's absolutely no way that we could make online credit card transactions secure. Completely impossible! Don't even try!"

"...I guess the omnipotent guy on the internet is insistent that credit cards can never be made secure online. We'd better not even try. There is no possible outcome that could ever be worth the effort." ( )

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But there's a valid pro-cons trade off that can be made with regards to online credit card use.

It actually solves a problem or provides a service that's effective. That being, the ability to make payments in order to do commerce remotely in a way that doesn't involve mailing someone an envelope full of cash, or a vendor getting stiffed on bill as result of someone never paying them, or sending them a bad check.

Plus, there are safeguards to mitigate the risks of purchasing things online. If someone does happen to swipe my number due to weak tech systems, I simply call Chase, they reverse the transaction, and mail me a new card with a new number.


The same isn't true for a situation of using online ID verification for something like adult websites.

It's not going to solve the problem (80% of those websites are owned and operated outside of the US -- meaning, any US state can pass any law they'd like, a person looking for that material can simply choose to visit a European site)

There's no "Call Chase - get a new card number and reverse the transaction" equivalent to the "Here's this data leak that seeks to out people for looking at particular types of adult websites"

If that data does get leaked/misused. And it gets released that "Hey, Joe Smith was looking at gay erotica" (and maybe Joe wasn't ready to publicly out himself yet), or "Hey, Joe's co-workers, take a look at what Joe was looking at online", .... who does Joe call to reverse that damage?

zippy2006 said:

And that's why my grandma won't use her credit card online. Do you ever use a credit card online? Because the parallel answer here is, "Oh, you don't need to buy things online"

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It's not a good parallel, as noted in my previous post, if someone swiped my credit card when making a purchase online, I simply call Chase, they mail me a new card with a new number, and voila, damage averted.

If someone intercepts "Hey Joe Smith was looking a certain type of adult content" (as a means of trying to publicly or professionally damage him), what is Joe's recourse on that?

zippy2006 said:

You would apparently claim that Mexico just shouldn't even legislate against drug trafficking, because it will be "ineffective." How many lives would have to be saved before such a law becomes "effective"?

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The war on drugs has undoubtedly ruined more lives than it's "saved"
not a good example to choose.

We'll just take fentanyl as a particular example. People aren't dying because they're deliberately using fentanyl. They're dying because illicit dealers are putting fentanyl in pills they're selling as hydrocodone and oxycodone, or powders sold as heroin. It's substituted for those drugs because it's cheap because of how potent it is. it's measured in micrograms (millionths of a gram) where other drugs are measured in milligrams (thousandths of a gram). Because it's all illicit, a package containing a weight of fentanyl can be spread out over many more doses than actual hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine, or heroin, and weight matters when you're smuggling illicit goods. Then the user estimates how much to use based on previous doses of the real drug they were trying to buy, turns out it was spiked with fentanyl and they stop breathing and die.

Drugs get more potent with prohibition. Everyone talks about how much more potent marijuana is these days vs how it was before it was illegal. Duh. Now that it's illegal people who sell the stuff are going for more potency in lower weight so it's easier to smuggle. The exact same thing happened in alcohol prohibition, less people drank wine or beer, more people drinking rotgut liquor made in someone's bathtub.

Then add in the gang violence connected with distributing illegal drugs.
But you don't hear about bootleggers killing people anymore like you did in the 1920's why? because alcohol is regulated instead of banned. Prohibition was a failure.

Drunkenness is sin and is evil and causes a lot of harm but.. ultimately trying to ban it caused more harm than good.

zippy2006 said:

Again:


If we followed the reasoning of you or @ThatRobGuy, online credit card use would never exist. "It carries huge identity theft risks, therefore we can't do it. Full stop. There's absolutely no way that we could make online credit card transactions secure. Completely impossible! Don't even try!"

"...I guess the omnipotent guy on the internet is insistent that credit cards can never be made secure online. We'd better not even try. There is no possible outcome that could ever be worth the effort." ( )

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If the only thing they sell is smut, and all their advertising is for more smut, chances are they're just not going to be trustworthy with your info no matter how much legislation you pile into it.

ThatRobGuy said:

It's not a good parallel, as noted in my previous post, if someone swiped my credit card when making a purchase online, I simply call Chase, they mail me a new card with a new number, and voila, damage averted.

If someone intercepts "Hey Joe Smith was looking a certain type of adult content" (as a means of trying to publicly or professionally damage him), what is Joe's recourse on that?

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Yeah you can't call the government and get a new social security number if someone has stolen your identity and committing medicare fraud on your behalf. Nope, you get in trouble with the law, and they may require you to pay back what someone else defrauded the government in your name for, and unlike private debts you can't just declare bankruptcy.
They will take your home, they will garnish your wages.

BCP1928 said:

One of the biggest reasons younger kids start looking at porn is just to find out about sex. Their curiosity would be better satisfied by comprehensive sex ed.

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While, if you'll notice by my previous posts in this thread, you and I are probably on the same side for a change with regards to this court ruling...

I don't think what you're describing here is an honest assessment of the situation.

Pretending that it's just "curiosity about sex that would be satisfied by sex ed" is a non-starter.

I went to a school district that had comprehensive sex ed, so I knew all about the birds & the bees by late elementary school.

When me and my buddies would find ways to get our hands on various magazines or VHS tapes back in the day, it certainly wasn't for scientific or intellectual curiosity lol.


We wanted to look at those for the same reason a 30 year old guy (who's fully educated on sex) wants to look at them. There's naked women in them and it's a visual aid for a "certain activity"



The reality is, there are certain impulses that don't neatly bisect at the age limit we've set for "adulthood". We've set certain age limits on certain things because society realized that while the impulses may be the same, it's better to control access to "easy satisfaction of those impulses" due to other age-dependent factors. And we tried our best to set the age at something that would apply to the largest segment of the population. (are there certain instances where you can find a certain 16 or 17 year old that is more psychologically or emotionally mature than a certain 19 year old? Sure... but that's the exception and not the norm)

For example: Did the 21 year old me like seeing naked women any less than the 14 year old me or devote any less effort to that goal? Nope.

However, did the 21 year old me have a better grasp on whether or not some of those expectations (based on the content) were realistic? Yes.

BCP1928 said:

No, the issue is passing a law that is obviously unable to carry out its intended purpose. One wonders why. Are the legislators clueless about the internet? I think many actually are. Are they merely signalling something?" "See? We stomped out internet porn. Hooray!" Are there possible unintended consequences we have to look out for?

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"the internet is not something that you just dump something on - it's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."

In his opinion, Thomas said, the law "simply requires established verification methods already in use by pornographic sites and other industries.” Is that right? I don't know what that means. How does he makes that determination?

I also don't understand how explicit material is free speech in terms of the 1st Amendment. I'm sure there is a lot of precedent that I'm not aware of, but is the idea that any speech is free until it infringes on other rights?

bèlla said:

Who would vote against legislation to protect children on a christian website? Pornography is addicting and the court is right to do so. They wouldn’t have access if parents would use the resources available to block access. Which includes network monitoring and special phones.

~bella

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I think children should be able to access Christian sites, unless their parents wish to protect them from such sites like this one.

I didn't realize there was a poll to vote against the SC in this thread. Thx.

public hermit said:

In his opinion, Thomas said, the law "simply requires established verification methods already in use by pornographic sites and other industries.” Is that right? I don't know what that means. How does he makes that determination?

I also don't understand how explicit material is free speech in terms of the 1st Amendment. I'm sure there is a lot of precedent that I'm not aware of, but is the idea that any speech is free until it infringes on other rights?

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Miller v. California is the case precedent that defined it as protected free expression.

The area where these kinds of efforts (like the one in Texas) could potentially violate that is if a reasonable case can be made that the provisions themselves cause (intentionally intended) indirect "consequences" for engaging in it as a deterrent, thereby creating a quasi-impediment to the free exercise of that expression.


For example:
We know that's it's a constitutionally protected provision that people have the freedom of association.

This will be a somewhat silly sounding example, but it'll highlight the point...

Pretend that "Ford vs. Chevy" was a socially contentious subject, so much so, that associations within those factions could potentially have social/personal/political consequences.

If a group of pro-Chevy lawmakers in a state declared that "From now on, you need to upload a copy of your drivers license if you want to get to any pro-Ford website... but we're not stopping you from being pro-Ford, so see, we're not doing anything wrong"

...everyone would recognize the implications. That being, there's some personal risk of "something potentially embarrassing coming out to the wider public" involved with that association, as a means of dissuading people from doing it. (which is what they really wanted)


Same applies here... if a case can be made that, despite them not calling for an outright ban, they're purposely setting up a framework in which there's elevated risk of getting publicly shamed associated with someone choosing to "do the thing they don't like", then one could make a case that it's a violation.

I, for one, think that is a huge part of their efforts. Certainly they can't be so naive as to think that that kids aren't smarter than the adults (in general) when it comes to internet usage. I think a big part of this is them trying to deter adults from looking at it by making it more "risky" for them to consume the content. Sort of a "It'd be a real shame if it came out in your deeply religiously conservative town that you were on the Penthouse website...you wouldn't want that to happen right???"



But much like with the drug trade, removal of the "above board" options ends up leading people to deeper darker rabbit holes. Much like the back-alley pot dealer is way more sketchy than the licensed dispensary, the same is true with the porn industry.

Objectionable as some people may find it, the licensed businesses that make it at least provide certain guarantees... for example, Penthouse and Hustler are at least making sure
- That the interactions are consensual
- That people are being compensated for their "efforts" based on agreed upon contractually enforced terms
- People are being tested for STDs
- People are over 18

You know who won't be checking for ID verifications? The distributors of much worse content on places like the dark web who don't verify any of the things mentioned above.

Meh. A law designed to make the people who passed it feel like they accomplished something, the people who don’t like porn feel like they did something to remove it, the people who don’t educate their kids on internet usage or moral issues feel like everybody else is doing enough to keep them safe, and teens feel like if they put up with a minor and relatively easy to forge barrier they can still access porn without issue.

ThatRobGuy said:

Miller v. California

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Thank you. It appears the "community standards" test established then for what counts as "obscene" makes less sense with the internet. I guess that's why a previous link I shared about judges looking at more pornography is a live possibility.

ThatRobGuy said:

The area where these kinds of efforts (like the one in Texas) could potentially violate that is if a reasonable case can be made that the provisions themselves cause (intentionally intended) indirect "consequences" for engaging in it as a deterrent, thereby creating a quasi-impediment to the free exercise of that expression.

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Is that why the dissenting justices were calling for strict scrutiny verses intermediate scrutiny?

ThatRobGuy said:

We know that's it's a constitutionally protected provision that people have the freedom of association.

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Thank you. I didn't think of it in terms of association.

public hermit said:

Is that why the dissenting justices were calling for strict scrutiny verses intermediate scrutiny?

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It could be...

While I doubt it's for the same reasons (given the political breakdowns that exist), it's not dissimilar to the reason why people are hesitant about gun registries. Like when that leak occurred that gave way to an interactive map of "gun owners in your neighborhood" in California.


It comes with a number of consequences (both socially, and professionally)


"if you 'do the thing we don't like' there's a chance it'll come out and you'll be viewed as a social pariah in the area where you live" is always a deterrent.

"People finding out you're a gun guy" in parts of Cali is just as damaging as "People finding out you look at porn" in certain uber-religious areas in the south.

zippy2006 said:

Are you claiming there's no trade-off on the pornography issue? See my post #56.

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I'm claiming that the trade-off is minimal.

It's going to subject adults (who aren't as tech savvy) to liabilities, and younger people will be virtually unimpacted.

zippy2006 said:

My whole point is that those safeguards would never have been developed if the society had listened to people such as yourselves. You do realize that those safeguards were developed relatively recently?

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No, those safeguards exist because the credit card companies want to be able to offer a superior "product" compared to their competitors. If there was no "big picture" financial incentives, they wouldn't have done it.

And the credit card companies themselves eat the losses from those situations.


If the government themselves is foisting this "service" upon people, are you cool with them covering the liability for it with our tax dollars? Meaning, if something gets leaked about a person's porn surfing habits that damages them personally/politically/professionally, are you cool with your tax dollars compensating the person for that to counteract the damage?

For instance, if there was an adult male who enjoyed watching transgender adult videos, but that coming out would lead to professional & personal consequences due to his boss "not being cool with that sorta thing" and his community now shunning and poking fun at him, should that person get compensated for that by the people who insisted on the law?

zippy2006 said:

See post #55.

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I saw that post...on matters of tech, "adults who are not smarter than kids" is too blunt an instrument to describe the dynamic there.

There's a difference between "knowing things" and "the ability to learn new things" and they're two totally different aptitudes.

While there are adults like myself who certainly know more than "the kids" on tech matters (because it's my job and how I pay my bills).

For your average adult, they're not going to know more about a "new tech thing" than the kids.

There's a reason why the common scenario is "58 year old person has to call their 17 year old nephew to figure out why their printer won't work" and not the other way around.


What, you don't think I was a master at getting around the porn filter my parents paid for when I was 16? Pfft... I only wish my current professional tech projects were that easy lol.

zippy2006 said:

That's an awesome argument so long as Chase Card Services has eternally existed. The person who knows otherwise would have said, before its invention, "We should invent it because it would be worth it." You would be the guy saying, "But it doesn't exist!"

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The services they provide actually solve the issue.

"someone charged $120 to my card, that wasn't me"
"okay sir, we've taken that charge off and we'll send you a new card that will arrive in 3 business days"
Issue solved.


"Your employer, family, friends, community now know something about you that has social consequences that can cost you job opportunities and personal relationships" isn't something that can be "written off" like fraudulent charges on a credit card.