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You’re entitled to that opinion. I am of the opinion that porn companies should not be able to freely provide their content to children with impunity. Parents a

by jpcfl 3y ago

You’re entitled to that opinion. I am of the opinion that porn companies should not be able to freely provide their content to children with impunity. Parents and device makers should provide censorship solutions, but that doesn’t absolve porn providers from their duty to check the ID of the people who view their content. I never said I don’t want to talk about the problems with online ID. You’re arguing with a strawman.

danShumway 3y ago
> I never said I don’t want to talk about the problems with online ID. > I was specifically focusing on that rationale, not the details of an ID system > I didn't intend to get into the details of the legislation > No matter what regulation there is, someone will have to bear a burden, but I'm not going to try to quantify that. It's very easy for you to say that Pornhub is just being lazy or that they're deliberately trying to show porn to children when you refuse to look into what it would require to comply with Texas's law or what the magnitude of that burden would be both on companies and on regular adults. Your description of Pornhub's "duty" is an abstract notion that you're refusing to connect to any practical real-world implementation online. That allows you to keep characterizing online ID as just a basic duty that Pornhub should be helping with. But you don't have anything to back that that up, it's a purely surface-level "but doesn't is sound good that Pornhub should take responsibility for this" perspective. And when I've tried to talk about the actual consequences, you just handwave that as "well sure there will be consequences, but we should do it anyway." No, if there are massive consequences, we shouldn't do it. Even if it sounds instinctively good to you or feels more "fair" because internally you're just imagining this as a casual ID check like you'd give to a cashier before buying alcohol. In fact, if a system has obvious downsides and will be worse for everyone and if better options are available, then that does absolve Pornhub from the responsibility of going along with that obviously flawed system. And digital ID is an obviously flawed system. This conversation has all the energy of law enforcement complaining that tech companies keep talking about how breaking E2EE harms security. "Yeah, we know it's difficult, but nerd harder, figure out how we can have the backdoor we want. You're not being constructive with us, you have a duty to access that information when we ask for it. What gives you the right to shirk your responsibility to know what your users are saying?" But it's not Pornhub's fault that you have an unrealistic expectation about how digital online ID would go.
- jpcfl 3y ago
  > Your description of Pornhub's "duty" is an abstract notion that you're refusing to connect to any practical real-world implementation online. It's called a thesis. We haven't delved into any of those details because we can't even agree that this is their duty. Pornhub seems to think it isn't, because it says other things should be done instead. You seem to agree. It's okay if you don't think porn providers have any duty to verify the age of their users. I think that's pretty messed up, but you're entitled to that opinion.
  - danShumway 3y ago
    :shrug: And it's your opinion to have if you think that surface-level notions of duty mean that we should pass bad policies that harm everyone. My perspective is that's incredibly shortsighted; but if the last however many decades of the war against E2EE, drugs, sex work, and privacy have taught me anything, it's that you have plenty of company that agrees with you. Luckily where a 1st Amendment lawsuit is concerned, that's very likely not the perspective that a Supreme Court will have. The notion that Pornhub is in the wrong because of some duty that overrides supposedly "secondary" details like whether the policy will work, who it will hurt, whether it can be practically implemented at all, and whether or not it's even an effective way to keep kids safe in the first place is very characteristic of a lot of conversations that people have about legislation today. Whether the law works isn't the thing they're debating, what they're debating is how the law feels and whether it feels fair or intuitive. Then a bunch of people end up getting hurt by the law, and they shrug their shoulders and ask how on earth they were meant to predict that. I think it's a misguided attitude and will end up harming the same kids you're claiming to care about, but that's just my opinion. You're right that we have different opinions about duty. I think people have a duty to build mechanisms that actually protect kids, not just to make policies that sound like they're protecting kids. And I think that means we have a duty to actually evaluate the laws we're talking about and to figure out what their effects (both positive and negative) actually are.
    - jpcfl 3y ago
      Okay, I feel like we're talking about different things. Again, I never commented on the specifics of the policy. I just said the plaintiff's position is weak, and that they have a duty to keep their pornographic content away from kids. It's very concerning how you can't even agree with me on that basic premise. And now you're even using their pathetic tactic of saying I only "claim" to care about children. Honestly, agreeing on the duty of porn companies to keep their content away from children was supposed to be a layup. Pretty concerning that we can't even establish that as common ground.

by jpcfl 3y ago

danShumway 3y ago

> I never said I don’t want to talk about the problems with online ID. > I was specifically focusing on that rationale, not the details of an ID system > I didn't intend to get into the details of the legislation > No matter what regulation there is, someone will have to bear a burden, but I'm not going to try to quantify that. It's very easy for you to say that Pornhub is just being lazy or that they're deliberately trying to show porn to children when you refuse to look into what it would require to comply with Texas's law or what the magnitude of that burden would be both on companies and on regular adults. Your description of Pornhub's "duty" is an abstract notion that you're refusing to connect to any practical real-world implementation online. That allows you to keep characterizing online ID as just a basic duty that Pornhub should be helping with. But you don't have anything to back that that up, it's a purely surface-level "but doesn't is sound good that Pornhub should take responsibility for this" perspective. And when I've tried to talk about the actual consequences, you just handwave that as "well sure there will be consequences, but we should do it anyway." No, if there are massive consequences, we shouldn't do it. Even if it sounds instinctively good to you or feels more "fair" because internally you're just imagining this as a casual ID check like you'd give to a cashier before buying alcohol. In fact, if a system has obvious downsides and will be worse for everyone and if better options are available, then that does absolve Pornhub from the responsibility of going along with that obviously flawed system. And digital ID is an obviously flawed system. This conversation has all the energy of law enforcement complaining that tech companies keep talking about how breaking E2EE harms security. "Yeah, we know it's difficult, but nerd harder, figure out how we can have the backdoor we want. You're not being constructive with us, you have a duty to access that information when we ask for it. What gives you the right to shirk your responsibility to know what your users are saying?" But it's not Pornhub's fault that you have an unrealistic expectation about how digital online ID would go.

jpcfl 3y ago
> Your description of Pornhub's "duty" is an abstract notion that you're refusing to connect to any practical real-world implementation online. It's called a thesis. We haven't delved into any of those details because we can't even agree that this is their duty. Pornhub seems to think it isn't, because it says other things should be done instead. You seem to agree. It's okay if you don't think porn providers have any duty to verify the age of their users. I think that's pretty messed up, but you're entitled to that opinion.
- danShumway 3y ago
  :shrug: And it's your opinion to have if you think that surface-level notions of duty mean that we should pass bad policies that harm everyone. My perspective is that's incredibly shortsighted; but if the last however many decades of the war against E2EE, drugs, sex work, and privacy have taught me anything, it's that you have plenty of company that agrees with you. Luckily where a 1st Amendment lawsuit is concerned, that's very likely not the perspective that a Supreme Court will have. The notion that Pornhub is in the wrong because of some duty that overrides supposedly "secondary" details like whether the policy will work, who it will hurt, whether it can be practically implemented at all, and whether or not it's even an effective way to keep kids safe in the first place is very characteristic of a lot of conversations that people have about legislation today. Whether the law works isn't the thing they're debating, what they're debating is how the law feels and whether it feels fair or intuitive. Then a bunch of people end up getting hurt by the law, and they shrug their shoulders and ask how on earth they were meant to predict that. I think it's a misguided attitude and will end up harming the same kids you're claiming to care about, but that's just my opinion. You're right that we have different opinions about duty. I think people have a duty to build mechanisms that actually protect kids, not just to make policies that sound like they're protecting kids. And I think that means we have a duty to actually evaluate the laws we're talking about and to figure out what their effects (both positive and negative) actually are.
  - jpcfl 3y ago
    Okay, I feel like we're talking about different things. Again, I never commented on the specifics of the policy. I just said the plaintiff's position is weak, and that they have a duty to keep their pornographic content away from kids. It's very concerning how you can't even agree with me on that basic premise. And now you're even using their pathetic tactic of saying I only "claim" to care about children. Honestly, agreeing on the duty of porn companies to keep their content away from children was supposed to be a layup. Pretty concerning that we can't even establish that as common ground.