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> 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 t

by 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.
  - danShumway 3y ago
    > Again, I never commented on the specifics of the policy. I just said the plaintiff's position is weak We don't disagree on the duty of porn companies to protect kids. We disagree on whether it makes sense to blindly support a policy that you know nothing specific about. > And now you're even using their pathetic tactic of saying I only "claim" to care about children. I will apologize for this, I can't speak to your motivations and I don't have any insight into what you feel about kids. I shouldn't have included that phrasing. I will however say that however much you do care, you don't seem to care enough about kids to actually make sure the policies you're supporting will help. I'm reminded of FOSTA/SESTA once again; people had good intentions, just not good enough intentions to figure out if they were helping or hurting. They did care about sex workers, but ultimately they cared about the image of helping sex workers more than they cared about the reality of helping them. So they passed laws that looked good but were ultimately harmful, and when people pointed out that those laws were harmful lawmakers did exactly what you're doing now -- they accused critics of abdicating responsibility and supporting trafficking. The Texas law is the same. It's an ineffective, harmful policy but it feels good, so it's easy for you to be outraged and say that people who point out that it's harmful just don't want to protect kids or don't believe that porn companies should protect kids. It's irresponsible for me to read into your intent about why you're doing that, I apologize. You could very well be doing that because you want to protect kids. But I can pretty confidently say that your instinct to protect kids is not winning the fight against your instinct to look like you're protecting kids. It's irresponsible for you to advocate for laws that you don't know the impact of and where you don't know if those laws will help, and it's irresponsible for you to characterize criticism of those laws as antipathy to kids being exposed to porn. Criticism of bad policy is not the same thing as dereliction of duty. I know you didn't comment on the specifics of the policy. My point is that you should have looked at and commented on those specifics.

by jpcfl 3y ago

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.
- danShumway 3y ago
  > Again, I never commented on the specifics of the policy. I just said the plaintiff's position is weak We don't disagree on the duty of porn companies to protect kids. We disagree on whether it makes sense to blindly support a policy that you know nothing specific about. > And now you're even using their pathetic tactic of saying I only "claim" to care about children. I will apologize for this, I can't speak to your motivations and I don't have any insight into what you feel about kids. I shouldn't have included that phrasing. I will however say that however much you do care, you don't seem to care enough about kids to actually make sure the policies you're supporting will help. I'm reminded of FOSTA/SESTA once again; people had good intentions, just not good enough intentions to figure out if they were helping or hurting. They did care about sex workers, but ultimately they cared about the image of helping sex workers more than they cared about the reality of helping them. So they passed laws that looked good but were ultimately harmful, and when people pointed out that those laws were harmful lawmakers did exactly what you're doing now -- they accused critics of abdicating responsibility and supporting trafficking. The Texas law is the same. It's an ineffective, harmful policy but it feels good, so it's easy for you to be outraged and say that people who point out that it's harmful just don't want to protect kids or don't believe that porn companies should protect kids. It's irresponsible for me to read into your intent about why you're doing that, I apologize. You could very well be doing that because you want to protect kids. But I can pretty confidently say that your instinct to protect kids is not winning the fight against your instinct to look like you're protecting kids. It's irresponsible for you to advocate for laws that you don't know the impact of and where you don't know if those laws will help, and it's irresponsible for you to characterize criticism of those laws as antipathy to kids being exposed to porn. Criticism of bad policy is not the same thing as dereliction of duty. I know you didn't comment on the specifics of the policy. My point is that you should have looked at and commented on those specifics.