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Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets
- anm89 6y agoDoes Utah actually have that much market power? Could manufacturers just stop selling to Utah?
- chmod775 6y agoI mean... yes? Just pre-installing/enabling some parental control filter on phones is way cheaper than even losing out on a few millions worth of sales. It's pretty trivial to do since those filters already exist. It will probably end with retailers having to do that at the time of sale, but still, it's perfectly possible.
- reissbaker 6y agoDoing that when building these devices at scale and handling support queries for it is probably not cheap. Most phone manufacturers don't allow retailers to tamper with the software on the phones/tablets (that opens up a can of worms in terms of security), so they'd have to do it very early, maybe even at the factory — which means earmarking which devices are bound to Utah. Responsible manufacturers (e.g. Apple) would also have to audit the filter code, or build it themselves. It gets even worse for Utah, though. The bill demands that any device activated in Utah comply with the law — not merely sold in Utah. So manufacturers would need to turn on location tracking and make it impossible to disable, for all users in the world, just to detect the corner case that they happen to be in Utah, so that they can silently turn on a Utah-specific porn filter. I doubt the bill will pass, but if it does, I doubt many manufacturers would comply.
- imwillofficial 6y agoEvery single phone manufacturer sans apple allows this. Ever heard of Verizon bloat ware? And yes, they will comply, 1) it’s the law, and 2) they won’t leave money on the table.
- reissbaker 6y agoDevice manufacturers don't have to follow random Utah laws: they can simply not sell phones in Utah and not have corporate operations there. Utah has 3 million people, it's not exactly a major population center. There are many cities in the world with more people than Utah. And I'm pretty sure "Verizon bloatware" is not installed at point of sale. What would stop a random employee from installing keyloggers? This stuff is centrally managed. They'd very likely be losing money by complying with such a law. They wouldn't be leaving money on the table, they'd be taking it off the table.
- imwillofficial 6y agoSure, they don’t have to. They will however.
- mywittyname 6y ago> I doubt the bill will pass, but if it does, I doubt many manufacturers would comply. They'd probably comply. Most could strike a deal with an existing company to provide software for this. Hell, more than likely a company who makes such software is probably a campaign contributor to many of the supporters of this bill. AFAIK, the law doesn't define how effective the filter must be. So any good-faith attempt is probably more than enough. Even if the software is just a skin of Chrome with a add-on installed that blocks a list of websites. I won't lie though, I would find it hilarious if foxnews.com was put into this obscenity filter.
- iammiles 6y agoThis was my first thought. Assuming this bill even becomes law, it seems like this might hurt local retailers.
- ceejayoz 6y agoAlternatively, could they close stores/facilities in Utah, and still sell to Utahans online? Commerce clause seems like it'd protect that.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoI don’t think commerce clause protects that, otherwise CA’s laws wouldn’t have so much sway in the market.
- colechristensen 6y agoEh, it's a tossup. Commerce clause protections for interstate trade only go so far, some attempts by states to regulate what can be sold or how have passed court tests, others have not. It hinges on whether the regulation would be discriminatory or overly burdensome. To get such a law struck down, phone sellers would have to prove to the court that setting up Utah-specific phones would be excessively difficult. I don't think it would be struck down with the commerce clause, but it would be close.
- maxerickson 6y agoIt'd be at arms length for the manufacturers. Someone with a web store would be the one selling non-compliant phones to Utah residents. When Utah shut them down, someone else would start a web store selling non-compliant phones to Utah residents.
- jliptzin 6y agoI would if I were them. Let the voters drive to the next state over to buy their phones, see how they like it.
- Buttons840 6y agoSays five other states must adopt similar laws before it would actually become enforceable law. Still one fantasizes about manufactures simply deciding to not sell cell phones to the entire state.
- lallysingh 6y agoThat's an implicit poison pill. Is any other state doing this? Is there a list of states they hope will join?
- bsharitt 6y agoIf this passed, I'd find it amusing if the only phones for sale in Utah were just a couple of the cheapest Android phones with Utah special software loaded.
- cletus 6y agoI’ll take pointless virtue signaling to moral voters for $100, Alex.
- comeonseriously 6y agoR.I.P. Alex.
- edbob 6y agoIt's neither pointless nor virtue signaling. I'm not Mormon, but it's commonly understood that Utah is an LDS state and follows LDS beliefs.
- cletus 6y agoIf only there was a reason state governments couldn’t legislate religious doctrine...
- edbob 6y agoReligion affects political beliefs, but pornography is still a political matter. Marxists and feminists also commonly oppose pornography. Pornography is illegal in China, North Korea, and Vietnam, which are all atheistic communist states.
- darig 6y agoBye, Felicia.
- dessant 6y agoI'd rather have a preactivated and effective US news filter on my phone.
- tokamak-teapot 6y agor/animetitties on Reddit is pretty good for news with the US filtered out. Yes the name seems weird - it’s not a joke.
- samatman 6y agoalright, so I took you at your word here. I dunno what I expected: but what I got was a face full of anime titties. which I'm not even opposed to in principle but: c'mon man.
- krapp 6y agotry it with an underscore (anime_titties)
- sheikheddy 6y agoThere's a typo there, it works with the underscore
- tokamak-teapot 6y agoWow, sorry. As the other comments say, there’s an underscore. I should have double checked!
- rootusrootus 6y agoI thought Utah was a GOP state? What happened to 'small government'? This seems like shoving gov't down your throat.
- willis936 6y agoUT has more overbearing regulations than any other state. They are also far and away the most conservative state. Not all conservatives in the US are aligned with them, it’s just that the cult majority have regulatory capture.
- umvi 6y ago> UT has more overbearing regulations than any other state Like what? Are you referring to alcohol laws? Because last I checked you could still by beer at the grocery store in Utah, but you cannot do that in Montgomery County, Maryland (most populous county of one of the bluest states).
- arthurcolle 6y agoHey I live in MoCo and yeah all the liquor stores are run by the county, and they aren't even open on Sunday. Such a joke
- giantg2 6y agoNot necessarily taking one side ot the other, but they also have very restrictive fireworks laws. Also, I don't know about Montgomery Co, but PG Co (and others) has liquor beer etc in all sorts of small shops.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago> Not necessarily taking one side ot the other, but they also have very restrictive fireworks laws. Utah is a really dry state. Fireworks have a bad tendency to start fires out here, fires that can get rather large. It's not that they're spoilsports (with respect to fireworks), it's that they have experienced some significant downsides.
- mandragon 6y agoSounds fine; it's their culture and prerogative. Probably a benefit to deter such consumption for as many youth and young adults as possible, given the negative impact on mental health.
- ceejayoz 6y agoJim Crow was a significant part of the South's culture, and no state has the prerogative of First Amendment violations.
- mandragon 6y agoAnd yet, the intention is to deter usage of a product/vice that is a bane on America. Cut the supply is effective at reducing consumption. Is this really 1A when we are talking about mental health of our children? It's fairly well established that no pornography consumption is a net positive.
- wait_a_minute 6y agoNo thanks, I’d prefer one state’s extremist religious inclinations not tank liberty for everyone else. They can monitor their own phones and their own computers and leave everyone else’s alone.
- mandragon 6y agoWhy would this affect other states? Isn't this legislation specific to Utah?
- wait_a_minute 6y agoWe already know what the real goal is. It's theocracy. While I fundamentally believe all religions are true, I don't want to live under any theocracy at all.
- mandragon 6y ago
- luxuryballs 6y agoI mean if it at all stops some kid from getting human trafficked or from getting a porn addiction at 12 then I can’t say that it’s one of the worst laws ever. States should be free to make these kinds of laws IMO, but not the federal government. There are plenty of states for all types of cultures to thrive without fighting. We should leave more things for the States/People to handle, 10th Amendment!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Jtsummers 6y agoNothing about this would prevent human trafficking of children. Being able to access adult content does not lead to trafficking.
- luxuryballs 6y agoWhy not? You don’t think there’s a % of idiots who bait people and a % of more idiots who fall for it and end up meeting in real life after being manipulated on some porn chat?
- mywittyname 6y agoI feel like you should already be aware that this bill will do zilch to protect anyone from anything. The filters won't be effective and it will probably be trivial to remove them via factory reset or some other manner. Chinese people have no problems getting around filters.
- easton 6y ago> require location tracking for any device activated in Utah So if I was driving through Utah and my phone was wiped, the manufacturer would have to push a porn filter down for it to be legal?
- Jtsummers 6y agoNot really. The penalty is if a minor happens to use your activated-in-the-state device to access adult content. If you, an adult, activated it within the state and you, the adult, were the only one using it for anything (including porn) there'd be no penalty, if I understood the legislation correctly. If you the adult owner activate the device and then deactivate the filter and then a minor uses it to access porn, there's no penalty either.
- gkfasdfasdf 6y agoI understand the HN crowd may take issue with this, but the ease at which a child can stumble onto pornography or adult content is really scary. Even with google safe search, etc enabled. Growing up watching television in the US, you couldn't see topless women on public broadcast TV, let alone hardcore pornography.
- darkwizard42 6y agoYes, sure, I understand the concern of having children be protected from things they aren't ready for... ...but is the government mandating this the best way to go about it? Is this implementation even sound?
- Mertax 6y agoWhat's the alternative? There seem to be obvious negative externalities which the promulgating industries seem disincentivized to address...seems to be a legitimate basis for government intervention. *Not necessarily agreeing with the proposed solution here of a mandated approach. Just saying that this may be a situation where government intervention is necessary even if it's just to sponsor public education of options that parents have to protect children.
- darkwizard42 6y agoThe alternative is to take advantage of tools already out on the market developed privately to help people lock down and filter content from the internet. Content and privacy filters have been out forever...use those instead of the government heavy handedly imposing something. My opinion (and strictly an opinion) is if diverse types of information are more readily available you can either lock down your child's access to that information OR you can prepare them for what they might encounter. Separately its also good to guide them on access and responsible use of the world's knowledge (good, bad, moral, immoral) which is literally at their fingertips
- x86ARMsRace 6y agoIt's additionally odd given that the GOP is (allegedly) the party of "personal responsibility" . You would think this translates to expecting parents to supervise children, rather than have "government interference" do it for you. Regardless of what you think of the law, it's effective at highlighting that the GOP isn't really the "small government" folks that pundits want to make them out to be.
- lunchbreak 6y agoThis has passed the Utah house as well - and now it waiting for the governor to sign it into law [1]. [1] https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/03/05/porn-blocking-bill-wins/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/03/05/porn-blockin...
- ceejayoz 6y agoAfter that, it'll be waiting - probably not long - for a court to go "c'mon, guys, really?"
- Buttons840 6y ago> “Because (children) are not developmentally ready to handle [porn], it leads to the problems of depression, anxiety and all the problems that go with that including and up to its most extreme form, suicide ideation and attempts,” Gibson said. Is this true? I have a young child and have a hard time imagining she would view porn as anything other than strange or bad being done by other people. I don't think she would take it personally, and of course, I'm not going to test it out. TV regularly depicts violent murders of innocent people, yet I don't hear claims of that leading to suicide.
- imwillofficial 6y agoThis has been shown by quite a few studies. I’ll try to see if I can find some for you.
- Buttons840 6y agoI grew up Mormon and know that consensual sex between mature adults is often considered to be second only to murder in its "sinfulness". I expect this teaching mixed with accidental porn encounters doesn't help.
- imwillofficial 6y agoI studied with Mormons for a year just out of curiosity, and didn’t get that vibe at all. The people I met were big on the “be fruitful and multiply” thing. Porn is terrible for human beings on like a million different levels, especially the young and under developed brains, and none of those reasons are religious. Just biologically it’s like a diet of sugar to a child, equally poisonous.
- Jtsummers 6y ago> I studied with Mormons for a year just out of curiosity, and didn’t get that vibe at all. The people I met were big on the “be fruitful and multiply” thing. within marriage to someone of the opposite sex, a critical detail for Mormons and Catholics. Do almost anything you want in the bedroom as long as you're a heterosexual, married couple working to make babies.
- Threeve303 6y agoIs there a legal precedent already where a state forced a private company to include specific software on a device? The Microsoft breakup in the late 90s might be one example but even that was not about setting specific kinds of software as the default, just letting users choose the default. Looking down the line at state or federal mandates for this kind of stuff, it's easy to see it venture into backdoor encryption territory. If they can mandate porn filters for safety reasons then why not expand that concept to encryption?
- onychomys 6y agoSure, California does it in the auto industry. They mandate a certain miles-per-gallon rating, some safety stuff etc., and since they're the biggest state, all the car companies go along because they don't want to lose that market.
- sbelskie 6y agoThose don’t seem to have any speech implications in the way that this does.
- maxerickson 6y agoI expect the result here would be 'not intended for sale or use in Utah' stickers.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 6y agoLet’s compare these sets of people: 1. who reacts most strongly to this story about deplatforming porn 2. who reacts most strongly to stories about deplatforming hate speech and incitement And try to figure out if the two groups have different principles about free expression, or perhaps the principles are irrelevant and only function as justifications when convenient for some kind of tribalism.
- ceejayoz 6y agoGovernment deplatforming and private industry deplatforming are vastly different things, especially at a Constitutional level.
- imwillofficial 6y agoThey aren’t when tax dollars go into the pockets of BigTech, of which every single one of them has massive government contracts. Every one.
- ceejayoz 6y agoThat's not how the First Amendment works. At all.
- imwillofficial 6y agoYour tired argument falls flat. Yes, the first admenement applies to government, but when government and private companies are so unified in task and purpose, as well as value exchange, the distinction between the two is meaningless. So no “muh private companies” holds zero water. At all.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 6y agoSure, but there have been proposed laws requiring deplatforming of hate speech, and some have even passed: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/tech/french-hate-speech-social-media-law/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/tech/french-hate-speech-socia... Many keyboards have been worn out debating about the difference between the first amendment and free speech, but can we isolate to one case or the other here and set that issue aside in one thread?
- psychometry 6y agoI know Salt Lake City has been trying to make itself into a destination for tech companies recently. Wonder how this fits into that plan?
- netik 6y agoUnconstitutional from day one, if it remotely passes, will be a short ACLU fight.
- throwaway803453 6y agoWhen I think of my 5 year old nephew and all the threats our world faces, it all seems small compared to the threat he poses to himself. And of those threats smartphone porn-addiction seems the worst. It's like giving every child a pot vape pen or alcohol flask and then wishing them "good luck". Seriously how do parents manage this and is there any young reader that cares to comment on how it affected them? If my high school had a dropbox filled with nudes and buddies sharing links there is no chance I would be able to concentrate. At least a filter on my phone would raise the barrier between study time and porn browsing. Not saying this law is the answer but it appears to address a real problem.
- MBlume 6y ago> When I think of my 5 year old nephew and all the threats our world faces, it all seems small compared to the threat he poses to himself. Really? When I think of my 4 year old daughter I'm a lot more worried she'll get hit by a car crossing the street.
- throwaway803453 6y agoStatistically a child is more likely to suffer eventual chronic illness such as diabetes due to their own bad diet choices than a permanent injury from crossing the street. A person is more likely to kill themselves than die from a traffic accident. So yes, really.
- junipertea 6y agoMost of us millennials grew up around near unlimited amount of free online pornography and we turned out pretty functional. It might help a lot to have functioning sex education from parents instead of pretending it does not exist.
- ReactiveJelly 6y agoAnd if the parents fail that (as they do), functioning sex education from schools and non-profits is a decent fallback.
- jackjeff 6y agoWhy not require ISPs to do this instead?
- smoldesu 6y ago>“One of the most difficult challenges I work with are the effects from pornography,” Gibson said. “Average age of first exposure, which is often accidental, is 10 to 11 years old. Anything we can do to help prevent that puts us in a proactive rather than a defensive position. If the most difficult part of your job is teaching kids about sex, you're doing your job wrong.
- drusepth 6y agoUtah is a Mormon state: statewide, Mormons account for nearly 62% of Utah's 3.1 million residents [1] and 91 of the 104 state legislators are Mormon [2]. The LDS teachings are against pornography (comparing it to the plague in the very first line of [3]), and a survey of 192 male Mormon college students aged 18-27 showed 100% of them considered viewing pornography "unacceptable". [4] That Utah would pass anti-pornography bills isn't surprising, IMO. [1] https://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-utah-salt-lake-mormons-20181215-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-utah-salt-lak... [2] https://apnews.com/article/286983987f484cb182fba9334c52a617 https://apnews.com/article/286983987f484cb182fba9334c52a617 [3] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/power-to-overcome?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/prophets-and-apostles/un... [4] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232507019_I_Believe_It_Is_Wrong_But_I_Still_Do_It_A_Comparison_of_Religious_Young_Men_Who_Do_Versus_Do_Not_Use_Pornography https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232507019_I_Believe...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- octopoc 6y ago> “One of the most difficult challenges I work with are the effects from pornography,” Gibson said. “Average age of first exposure, which is often accidental, is 10 to 11 years old. Anything we can do to help prevent that puts us in a proactive rather than a defensive position. I'm sure many of us can confirm exposure at such a young age. My friends and I were all exposed around that age. I hate the fact that I was exposed before I had the capacity to understand what it meant. This is absolutely a battle worth fighting. 10 year old children should not be exposed to anything so addictive. In my experience it all too often results in lifelong addiction that leads to broken marriages. Many of us think this type of action by the government violates people's rights. But when a right enables suffering and wrongdoing on a large scale, it's time to rethink that right. Rights should serve humanity, not the other way around. For example state's rights became a shield for slavery. The Civil War violated state's rights and ended thereby slavery. I think this is how it should work.
- umvi 6y ago> But when a right enables suffering and wrongdoing on a large scale, it's time to rethink that right Counter argument - alcohol? Right to buy and drink booze enables suffering and wrongdoing on a large scale, but banning it was a disaster. Maybe something like regulating marketing would be more effective, but an outright ban would not work. At any rate, I don't deny porn can be addictive and have negative effects for many people, but I don't think it necessarily should be forced upon everyone by the government IMO. If you want to block pornography in your household, setup a pi hole and grab a blocklist from GitHub that has the top million porn domains.
- edbob 6y ago> If you want to block pornography in your household, setup a pi hole and grab a blocklist from GitHub that has the top million porn domains. In my case, this would have done very little. A child gets exposed to pornography at friends' houses and at school. Once you're hooked, filters are pretty easy to work around.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
- munk-a 6y agoI sincerely hope this results in Utah becoming an absolute technological backwater due to device manufacturers being slow to equip new technology for these new requirements.
- nexthash 6y agoDoesn't this kind of law violate the Constitution in some way? This seems more like censorship hidden behind "think of the children".
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- crazypython 6y agoYou know what, I like this, as long as the filter can be fully disabled, legally. Not sure why "always on" tracking is needed, it can be local-first. A dynamic, content-based (filter video tags, image tags, not by DNS) porn or suggestive content filter would be handy. People are saying you could just turn it off. I don't see that as the point. I would keep it on, because I want less porn. The same reason I want the government to nudge me to use a seatbelt, because as an irrational human, I can be too short-sighted to look over my long-term interests. The same applies to porn: Porn can harm me in the long-term by rewiring my brain in a bad way, but gives me short-term ecstasy. It's a preactivated, effective filter for erotic content. It helps people who want to avoid porn avoid it. I see it not as "government restricts porn" but "government nudges people to avoid porn, provides switch to turn off."
- echelon 6y agoYou're making a value judgment. The reason this is dangerous is because the next step after blocking by default is asking why people want an exception. Before you know it, we're living in 1984 and we have no freedoms at all.
- bozzcl 6y agoI'm asking this completely seriously: where's the proof that pornography is harmful? People in the top comments keep saying without backing it up at all, and the claims they do sound kind of outlandish to me. I'm gonna do some research on my own after I'm done with work, but if that point is being pushed so much it needs proof.
- tonymet 6y agoI'm not for censorship, but we do need privately run, aggressive porn controls. It's an addictive substance. And like drugs, the supply side is even more insidious. The tech industry should work harder to provide market-driven porn controls so gov't doesn't have to heavy-hand censorship. Social media are the largest distributors of porn and offer free marketing to porn sites (e.g. freebies for onlyfans). Open the "explore / trending" page and in 2 clicks you will be on a porn site – massive free porn traffic (worth billions). Considering only the demand side is selfish and short-sighted. There's way more harm on the supply side, even among what we like to sugar coat as "voluntary" creators. How should we feel about a world where porn is the best opportunity for 18-25 y/o women? Every time you check out porn , you are enabling that world. https://nofap.com/ https://nofap.com/ <not affiliated> Block porn from your home network with pihole https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/
- Isinlor 6y agoIMO the exact opposite is needed i.e. normalization of sexuality. Parents should not be afraid to talk to their children about sex and how sex relates to pornography. The best safeguard against dangers is education of children. And this is only possible in a culture where adults are not afraid to mention the word "sex". Children can and sooner or later will have to be their own filters of the world. Otherwise you are creating a bubble that will pop at some point and your kid will be without tools to handle it, and without someone to ask for advice. A kid or a teenager will know that sex is a taboo that you do not mention with adults. The same applies to alcohol, cigarettes, eating habits, body image etc. It needs to be talked about.
- xtiansimon 6y agoHaha. I read this and laughed thinking Utah just announced limiting technology to flip phones and Palm Pilots. Seriously, what is the manufacturer’s willingness to accept the costs of this legislation? Making one product for Utah and another for the rest of the nation? Though, it is interesting to imagine a new middleman industry to take the manufactured products and modifying them for resale in the local market. With a little sticker a la Intel inside...