5 ms·

So how broad is this? Can a state now require you to verify your age and identity to read a newspaper they don't like?

by ceejayoz 1y ago

meepmorp 1y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
vel0city 1y ago
Let me start off saying I'm not a fan of this law. I don't think these requirements are workable with current technology, and I don't necessarily agree with the goals or that the goals are worth the side effects of the regulations. > Can a state now require you to verify your age and identity to read a newspaper they don't like? Most states have laws in place that regulate the sale and distribution of pornography and other "obscene" materials. This has been true for a long, long time. So yes, states have had the ability to require you to show ID to get a "newspaper" they don't like, assuming that newspaper is actually just pornography/obscenity. I don't think most people would argue Pornhub are news sites though.
- brianbest101 1y ago
  But what counts as obscene is not well defined. Forget newspapers you could have to age gate Wikipedia
  - vel0city 1y ago
    What counts as obscene has been defined for a while. And I don't think Wikipedia would count as obscene by the Miller test. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test . Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, . Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law, . Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Clearly the whole of Wikipedia is not trying to appeal to purient interests of the average person. I don't think much of the content of Wikipedia is describing sexual content in a patently offensive way, and I'd argue it has serious political and scientific value.
    - reverendsteveii 1y ago
      Even in this description you deferred to your own personal interpretation when you said "I don't think much of the content of Wikipedia is describing sexual content in a patently offensive way". Someone might, or might find it politically expedient to pretend that they do. After all, what's "offensive" is arbitrary.
      - vel0city 1y ago
        You're misunderstanding my description. You don't just need "someone". You'll find "someone" say anything, including that the Earth is flat, its 40,000 years old, and we're controlled by lizard people. The standard isn't "someone". You'll find someone who claims a table of ICD codes or a stop sign appeals to their prurient interest and is sexual in nature. You'd need "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" to say that under the Miller test and have the court/a jury to agree. Not just any person applying any standard.
        dragonwriter 1y ago
        > You'd need "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" to say that under the Miller test and have the court/a jury to agree. No, you just need the court to agree, you don't need to actually get the (non-existent, fictional abstraction) of “the average person” to say anything, you just need a judge to believe that.
        reverendsteveii 1y ago
        in a nation of 400 million people you only need 5 to agree with you (if it's the right 5) and then the 6 of y'all are "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" and the 399,999,994 of us are out of touch deviants.
        reverendsteveii 1y ago
        You're just kicking the can down the road. "Who decides what's obscene?" "The average person." "Who decides who the average person is?" In your own argument you keep pointing to how arbitrary and abusable this average person standard is as though that makes it somehow a better choice, but at the end of the day the idea of the "average person" is just someone dressing their own personal feelings in a pretty hat. There is no determining who the average person is or what they believe empirically, so the opinion of the person actually making the decision just gets labelled the opinion of the "average person". It does nothing but distance the people making these decisions from responsibility for them because they get to pretend they're just doing what everyone would want. It's 100% arbitrary.
  - bilbo0s 1y ago
    I understand the point you're trying to make. However, I wanted to point out that Wikipedia being one-third porn/obscene content is unlikely in the extreme.
    - fzeroracer 1y ago
      It's not really that unlikely. In the exact same brief upholding the Texas Porn ID law they're arguing that states have the power to decide what is obscene or not; they're setting up the blocks for saying things like any LGBT content is inherently obscene. This is especially clear in another ruling posted today [1] where the supreme court argues that parents have a right to fully withhold children from any LGBT content they might experience from school. [1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf
    - reverendsteveii 1y ago
      Not if I get to pick what's obscene
  - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
    I'm just very skeptical of the argument that, when we see a fuzzy line, we have to erase it entirely so that nobody can abuse the fuzziness.
    - Dracophoenix 1y ago
      Why shouldn't we? A law that isn't well-defined in no law in the proper sense. Ambiguity and overbreath will just be weaponized against people and organizations the government doesn't like just like the Department of Education has done with Title VI in its crusade against a nebulously defined "anti-Semitism".
      - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
        Since you bring up anti-discrimination law, I would point to the concept of “hostile work environment” as a good example. It’s fuzzy and ultimately subjective to draw the line where crude jokes become so offensive and so pervasive that they constitute harassment. But if you refused to draw any line, you’d end up with a lot of workplaces where women aren’t in practice welcome.
giarc 1y ago
Not unless that newspaper is "more than one-third sexual material".
- lupusreal 1y ago
  Huh, I think old playboy magazines might actually be under that one third.
- AshamedCaptain 1y ago
  Wanna bet what the ratio is for e.g. Reddit?
  - ezekg 1y ago
    NSFW is hidden by default iirc, so something like this would only apply to enabling NSFW content.
  - ndriscoll 1y ago
    A couple years back (around when they were adding the API restrictions/shutting down third party apps), I found a site dump that looked like it was around 50%.
- brianbest101 1y ago
  What counts as sexual material?
  - vel0city 1y ago
    Pretty much all courts in the US would use the Miller test to determine if material is obscene or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test
    - joe_guy 1y ago
      I am not a lawyer and am not behind a PC atm, but didn't Rowan v. USPS determine that the receiver of mail has sole discretion about if the material they received is pornographic or not? A more limited context of course.

So how broad is this? Can a state now require you to verify your age and identity to read a newspaper they don't like?

meepmorp 1y ago

[flagged]

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

vel0city 1y ago

Let me start off saying I'm not a fan of this law. I don't think these requirements are workable with current technology, and I don't necessarily agree with the goals or that the goals are worth the side effects of the regulations. > Can a state now require you to verify your age and identity to read a newspaper they don't like? Most states have laws in place that regulate the sale and distribution of pornography and other "obscene" materials. This has been true for a long, long time. So yes, states have had the ability to require you to show ID to get a "newspaper" they don't like, assuming that newspaper is actually just pornography/obscenity. I don't think most people would argue Pornhub are news sites though.

brianbest101 1y ago
But what counts as obscene is not well defined. Forget newspapers you could have to age gate Wikipedia
- vel0city 1y ago
  What counts as obscene has been defined for a while. And I don't think Wikipedia would count as obscene by the Miller test. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test . Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, . Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law, . Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Clearly the whole of Wikipedia is not trying to appeal to purient interests of the average person. I don't think much of the content of Wikipedia is describing sexual content in a patently offensive way, and I'd argue it has serious political and scientific value.
  - reverendsteveii 1y ago
    Even in this description you deferred to your own personal interpretation when you said "I don't think much of the content of Wikipedia is describing sexual content in a patently offensive way". Someone might, or might find it politically expedient to pretend that they do. After all, what's "offensive" is arbitrary.
    - vel0city 1y ago
      You're misunderstanding my description. You don't just need "someone". You'll find "someone" say anything, including that the Earth is flat, its 40,000 years old, and we're controlled by lizard people. The standard isn't "someone". You'll find someone who claims a table of ICD codes or a stop sign appeals to their prurient interest and is sexual in nature. You'd need "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" to say that under the Miller test and have the court/a jury to agree. Not just any person applying any standard.
      - dragonwriter 1y ago
        > You'd need "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" to say that under the Miller test and have the court/a jury to agree. No, you just need the court to agree, you don't need to actually get the (non-existent, fictional abstraction) of “the average person” to say anything, you just need a judge to believe that.
        reverendsteveii 1y ago
        in a nation of 400 million people you only need 5 to agree with you (if it's the right 5) and then the 6 of y'all are "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" and the 399,999,994 of us are out of touch deviants.
      - reverendsteveii 1y ago
        You're just kicking the can down the road. "Who decides what's obscene?" "The average person." "Who decides who the average person is?" In your own argument you keep pointing to how arbitrary and abusable this average person standard is as though that makes it somehow a better choice, but at the end of the day the idea of the "average person" is just someone dressing their own personal feelings in a pretty hat. There is no determining who the average person is or what they believe empirically, so the opinion of the person actually making the decision just gets labelled the opinion of the "average person". It does nothing but distance the people making these decisions from responsibility for them because they get to pretend they're just doing what everyone would want. It's 100% arbitrary.
- bilbo0s 1y ago
  I understand the point you're trying to make. However, I wanted to point out that Wikipedia being one-third porn/obscene content is unlikely in the extreme.
  - fzeroracer 1y ago
    It's not really that unlikely. In the exact same brief upholding the Texas Porn ID law they're arguing that states have the power to decide what is obscene or not; they're setting up the blocks for saying things like any LGBT content is inherently obscene. This is especially clear in another ruling posted today [1] where the supreme court argues that parents have a right to fully withhold children from any LGBT content they might experience from school. [1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf
  - reverendsteveii 1y ago
    Not if I get to pick what's obscene
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  I'm just very skeptical of the argument that, when we see a fuzzy line, we have to erase it entirely so that nobody can abuse the fuzziness.
  - Dracophoenix 1y ago
    Why shouldn't we? A law that isn't well-defined in no law in the proper sense. Ambiguity and overbreath will just be weaponized against people and organizations the government doesn't like just like the Department of Education has done with Title VI in its crusade against a nebulously defined "anti-Semitism".
    - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
      Since you bring up anti-discrimination law, I would point to the concept of “hostile work environment” as a good example. It’s fuzzy and ultimately subjective to draw the line where crude jokes become so offensive and so pervasive that they constitute harassment. But if you refused to draw any line, you’d end up with a lot of workplaces where women aren’t in practice welcome.

giarc 1y ago

Not unless that newspaper is "more than one-third sexual material".

lupusreal 1y ago
Huh, I think old playboy magazines might actually be under that one third.
AshamedCaptain 1y ago
Wanna bet what the ratio is for e.g. Reddit?
- ezekg 1y ago
  NSFW is hidden by default iirc, so something like this would only apply to enabling NSFW content.
- ndriscoll 1y ago
  A couple years back (around when they were adding the API restrictions/shutting down third party apps), I found a site dump that looked like it was around 50%.
brianbest101 1y ago
What counts as sexual material?
- vel0city 1y ago
  Pretty much all courts in the US would use the Miller test to determine if material is obscene or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test
  - joe_guy 1y ago
    I am not a lawyer and am not behind a PC atm, but didn't Rowan v. USPS determine that the receiver of mail has sole discretion about if the material they received is pornographic or not? A more limited context of course.