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The right wing has seemed to gain some ground on the porn-being-viewable-by-children issue. North Carolina has passed some legislation requiring age verification for adult sites. I remember Matt Walsh at least advocating for this quite strongly. Not only that, but it's not the first state to do this; laws in Louisiana, Virginia, Utah and Montana also require age verification. Pornhub's response is to block access to its website in these states, stating the following:
That statement by itself actually boosts my opinion somewhat of Pornhub; a device level safe search would probably be the best approach to this. Parents could set the birthday of the child in question, a password locked setting, and the phone could then block access to many of these sites. There probably exists some amount of parental options like this, right? I have no knowledge of them, but I doubt they quite reach the level I'm talking about here. If any of you know anything about child safety tools currently available to parents for Android or iPhone, let me know. I'm sure there's a ton for Windows and Linux, and maybe macOS too. You could even get pretty scary and start talking about algorithms that determine if local files are porn or not.
There would certainly be some ways to skirt this, but as always there are ways around any law, really, if someone is motivated enough. Even with a border wall, some Latino illegal immigrants would manage to climb or swim around it, or get in some other way. Despite all the background checks in the world, one could choose to 3d print their own gun. When lawmakers create legislation, they're not counting on that legislation stopping everyone; just stopping most people is satisfactory.
However, none of that is on the table right now. What is on the table are these current laws; Virginia doesn't specify how the sites should verify that users are 18 or older, but others like North Carolina require an external commercially available database containing user age information. The porn sites check with this database and verify the user. At least in theory, if sites like Pornhub and e621 don't decide to self-immolate in response.
I think the arguments for this are pretty obvious. For conservatives, porn is pretty obviously bad for kids, and as that article says, over half of 13 year olds have seen porn by that age. Pretty bad! Requiring some ID would at least nail the mainstream sites that they use. That alone could do a lot. And asking for this database isn't too much; we ask for IDs in various other contexts. Alcohol and cigarettes come to mind. And buying porn in person would require the same. I'm pretty sure you can buy tobacco online, though I do not know the method for verifying the age of customers.
But there's plenty of ammo for people to dislike this law, too.
What I'm mostly disappointed in are these redditors that seem to take it for granted that the legislation is a bad thing. Because they assume it's just about exerting control and the Republicans are fascist dictators and Reddit has porn anyway and it's all performative theater. I don't think these are convincing arguments. The people passing these laws are probably the same types that go for things like the Brady Campaign, they're not supervillains doing evil things for the sake of it.
Biological adults interested in sex, news at 11.
Why should society's failure to reify the pretenses it currently has about teenagers, or parents failing to parent, ever be my fucking problem?
Those who failed to learn the lessons of the early 2000s are doomed to repeat them forever; what continuously puzzles me is the proportion of parents who were children at that time that don't seem to fully understand this even though they by all rights should. Censorship is effective- that's part of why we continually insist on doing it, after all- but a technological solution to a people problem doesn't solve the people problem that, as a parent, one should obviously be much more interested in actually solving (since the legislature won't)... and if they're not so invested, I don't see why I should have to subsidize these parents' pretense that their 17 year old is still 7 for just a little while longer. Letting them pollute the commons with this extra tax is not acceptable.
Younger children don't tend to search for porn because, should you be fortunate enough to remember what being one is like, it's gross and weird if you don't have the software package that lets you appreciate it. Hell, half of the reason parents even consider turning the parental controls on in the first place is because their kid brought them something they didn't fully understand (because clearly the way you reward your child's trust in you is to respond by revoking your trust in them; it's basically like telling your son who's smart enough to tell the neighborhood creep "no" despite never having received formal instructions to do so that he must now wear a condom at all times).
As far as the teenagers go, of course, you're past the point of realistically controlling them especially if they've inherited enough of their parents disagreeableness to find other ways; general purpose computers that can trivially bypass these blocks are easily-concealable and generally within teenage budgets.
As for your other points:
Realistically, they're just going to go to sites that happen to feature a significant number of results with participants a lot closer to their own age (worth noting that this is the main reason 4chan exists). So instead of being exposed to material traditionalist-progressives are merely concerned about, they'll see material about which they're absolutely apoplectic. At least it's higher-quality than whatever self-indulgent garbage progressives think is worthy of school libraries, and sites that feature this aren't generally trying to manipulate you into clicking on uglier porn like PornHub does, but it's the same "well they banned heroin so everyone just uses fentanyl now because it's easier to get" thing. Some jurisdictions are angrier about that material existing than others; I'm sure throwing the odd teenager in jail over loli is going to make things so much better for everyone just like it already does when they catch him with a nude his girlfriend sent him, and is definitely a good use of our resources.
Legislation can, and has, replaced parenting but only in the "makes it worse for anyone with an IQ above 70" direction. Bad parents don't follow the rules, good parents don't need them, and in its majestic equality the law prohibits both from ignoring them.
You misspelled "will"; this is a target for actors with State-level resources for what should be blatantly obvious reasons.
Most countries whose citizens have at least a vague notion of free speech already get hauled to jail for posting edgy memes on Twitter (they're generally stupid enough to use their real names when signing up for their accounts). The porn equivalent of that would be bad, actually.
No, it's just the more mundane "stop doing what I don't like"/"I don't want to solve the problem, I want to ban X" thing that slave morality modes don't see as distinct from evil.
It seems self-evident to me that a citizen should have an interest in the direction of the society in which he lives. As part of that, a citizen should also be interested in the way future adult citizens are likely to turn out.
Of course, we are. As stated otherwise in your comment's parent: Using a legislative banhammer on the most compliant and controlled porn sites to replace the scalpel of "being a decent fucking parent" is blowback incarnate.
None of this shit works, and I say this as someone who believes wholeheartedly that early exposure to porn is a huge net negative. It's up there with cookie consent popups in terms of bone-headed do-goodism with no thought about the consequences.
You can’t shelter your kids that much without fucking up at least a little bit. I’ve met(and been called in to clean up) the results; without a supportive broader society, the kind of sheltering that is necessary for that makes broken and dysfunctional young men.
I agree totally that sheltering children too much is poor parenting. I see it every day, and am perhaps the most free-range parent in my generation that I personally know.
I have my limits, and they're somewhere around violent, vomitous, bukkake gangbangs being two clicks away.
There's no question that if a kid wants to get to pornography in my household at an early age, they will find a way. Erecting reasonable barriers to entry and making a reasonable case to just... hold off for a bit is my plan. Learning about sex on various textual forums served me very well, I have no intention of blocking that.
My kids are young, I don't know if it will work. We'll see.
I misread your comment; I thought you were either delusional as to the effectiveness of parental controls/internet filtering, or intending to raise your children far more sheltered than that.
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What does "being a decent parent" involve? What's the proper strategy?
A combination of managing your own household censorship regime and having frank conversations about why you've implemented it.
The analog to illegal drugs is a good one. I don't care if my 18-year-old kid smokes weed every once in a while, but I'm very uninterested in giving them the greenlight at 14.
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