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The wording of the bill is as follows: (c) A business entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on th

by zdragnar 11mo ago

The wording of the bill is as follows: (c) A business entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on the Internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of such material shall prevent persons from accessing the website from an internet protocol address or internet protocol address range that is linked to or known to be a virtual private network system or virtual private network provider. In effect, Wisconsin is demanding that no publisher of obscene materials (porn, basically) allow anyone to access their content via VPN. The wording of the bill doesn't care whether or not either the person viewing the content or the data center that publishes the content is in Wisconsin. With that said, Wisconsin won't be able to bring charges, and the civil liability portion won't trigger, unless one or the other does happen to be in Wisconsin. Where the bill gets its teeth on the VPN side of things is in section (4) of the assembly bill, which is probably intended for parents of children to sue publishers: (4) Civil liability. (a) A person alleging a violation of sub. (2) or (3) may bring an action seeking actual and punitive damages, court costs, and reasonable attorney fees notwithstanding s. 814.04 (1). A person bringing an action under this paragraph is not required to first exhaust any relevant administrative remedies. In short, if my child uses a VPN to circumvent the age verification rules or some other safeguard to access the obscene materials, I can sue any site that operates in or employs people in Wisconsin for damages in a civil lawsuit for punitive damages. Alternatively, if my child accessed the material from a computer in Wisconsin, that would also be grounds for such a lawsuit. I'm not a lawyer, don't take this as legal advice.

TZubiri 11mo ago
So it seems that the article is factually incorrect and is quite obtuse in interpreting that the lawmakers are idiots. The bill demands that porn distributors OR VPN providers that deliver content to Wisconsin residents, must block traffic from virtual private networks. "In short, if my child uses a VPN to circumvent the age verification rules or some other safeguard to access the obscene materials, I can sue any site that operates in or employs people in Wisconsin for damages in a civil lawsuit for punitive damages." I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but I believe that any company that operates outside of the State but serves residents of the Wisconsin state would still be in violation and the State of Wisconsin and its laws would still have jurisdiction. If your website serves users from Wisconsin, it must abide by Wisconsin laws and both Wisconsin jurisdiction and venue is proper, absent any other agreement (which would be null anyways if the Wisconsin resident is a minor). I think it's more that the author of this article is being obtuse AND "has no idea" about law.
qingcharles 11mo ago
What does it mean for an IP range to be "known" to be a VPN? Where are web site owners supposed to get this data? (also it only affects web sites, so gopher is still good my friends)
- techjamie 11mo ago
  Serve it over FTP under the user imover18 with no password. Don't know if that counts as age verification, but it's not a website!
- zdragnar 11mo ago
  I am throwing out a wild guess here, but some services already block ranges of IP addresses on the basis that they have VPN servers running. Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video all do something along these lines to protect geographically restricted licenses. Presumably, the authors of the bills were aware that these services were already doing it and want that same behavior to be legally required for obscene material.
- TZubiri 11mo ago
  It's not the first time that word appears on the bill, itspecifies that the publisher needs to "knowingly and intentionally..." do the deed. So there is no responsibility created to actively discern (IANAL) traffic, but if you already have that info, you would be compelled to act upon it. Again IANAL, but this could create responsibilities to avoid estoppel, for example if you filter users from VPNs for purposes like reducing spam, then you receive the benefit of identifying VPNs, and you might be compelled to bear the responsibility of it. Another nuance is that the vpn identification might be provided by a 3rd party (see cloudflare) in which case the provider would not KNOW, but then again CF might bear the responsibility considering that they would be the distributors with knowledge of the VPN lists. I think the law plays out very sensibly.
TZubiri 11mo ago
Btw the wording says publishers or distributors, so it applies to both porn websites, vpn operators and ISPs, which could technically block vpn ips from connecting to porn ips. I'm not sure of the implications of "knowingly or intentionally though", I'm just saying they could do that. The nuances and legal theory are a very deep discussion that the original article ignores completely by focusing on a political agenda.
- zdragnar 11mo ago
  ISPs and search sites are specifically exempted at the end of the assembly version of the bill. I haven't looked at the Senate version but I imagine it's in there too.
  - TZubiri 11mo ago
    Oh cool. Shame that I can't access the bill, but that's for the better, it's after all a domestic issue that you guys want to keep domestic. The US network policies were so open that it sometimes felt voyeuristic, in my country we are also implementing national firewalls organically due to malicious traffic, so it seems the world is converging on closing the networks a bit, thanks Russia and China. best of lucks!
torginus 11mo ago
I don't get it - doesn't this only apply to content hosted in Wisconsin? I doubt they have any jurisdiction outside, especially outside the US
- zdragnar 11mo ago
  It'll apply to any business that does business in Wisconsin. For example: collecting sales tax on membership subscriptions, or hires remote workers who reside in WI.

TZubiri 11mo ago

So it seems that the article is factually incorrect and is quite obtuse in interpreting that the lawmakers are idiots. The bill demands that porn distributors OR VPN providers that deliver content to Wisconsin residents, must block traffic from virtual private networks. "In short, if my child uses a VPN to circumvent the age verification rules or some other safeguard to access the obscene materials, I can sue any site that operates in or employs people in Wisconsin for damages in a civil lawsuit for punitive damages." I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but I believe that any company that operates outside of the State but serves residents of the Wisconsin state would still be in violation and the State of Wisconsin and its laws would still have jurisdiction. If your website serves users from Wisconsin, it must abide by Wisconsin laws and both Wisconsin jurisdiction and venue is proper, absent any other agreement (which would be null anyways if the Wisconsin resident is a minor). I think it's more that the author of this article is being obtuse AND "has no idea" about law.

qingcharles 11mo ago

What does it mean for an IP range to be "known" to be a VPN? Where are web site owners supposed to get this data? (also it only affects web sites, so gopher is still good my friends)

techjamie 11mo ago
Serve it over FTP under the user imover18 with no password. Don't know if that counts as age verification, but it's not a website!
zdragnar 11mo ago
I am throwing out a wild guess here, but some services already block ranges of IP addresses on the basis that they have VPN servers running. Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video all do something along these lines to protect geographically restricted licenses. Presumably, the authors of the bills were aware that these services were already doing it and want that same behavior to be legally required for obscene material.
TZubiri 11mo ago
It's not the first time that word appears on the bill, itspecifies that the publisher needs to "knowingly and intentionally..." do the deed. So there is no responsibility created to actively discern (IANAL) traffic, but if you already have that info, you would be compelled to act upon it. Again IANAL, but this could create responsibilities to avoid estoppel, for example if you filter users from VPNs for purposes like reducing spam, then you receive the benefit of identifying VPNs, and you might be compelled to bear the responsibility of it. Another nuance is that the vpn identification might be provided by a 3rd party (see cloudflare) in which case the provider would not KNOW, but then again CF might bear the responsibility considering that they would be the distributors with knowledge of the VPN lists. I think the law plays out very sensibly.

TZubiri 11mo ago

Btw the wording says publishers or distributors, so it applies to both porn websites, vpn operators and ISPs, which could technically block vpn ips from connecting to porn ips. I'm not sure of the implications of "knowingly or intentionally though", I'm just saying they could do that. The nuances and legal theory are a very deep discussion that the original article ignores completely by focusing on a political agenda.

zdragnar 11mo ago
ISPs and search sites are specifically exempted at the end of the assembly version of the bill. I haven't looked at the Senate version but I imagine it's in there too.
- TZubiri 11mo ago
  Oh cool. Shame that I can't access the bill, but that's for the better, it's after all a domestic issue that you guys want to keep domestic. The US network policies were so open that it sometimes felt voyeuristic, in my country we are also implementing national firewalls organically due to malicious traffic, so it seems the world is converging on closing the networks a bit, thanks Russia and China. best of lucks!

torginus 11mo ago

I don't get it - doesn't this only apply to content hosted in Wisconsin? I doubt they have any jurisdiction outside, especially outside the US

zdragnar 11mo ago
It'll apply to any business that does business in Wisconsin. For example: collecting sales tax on membership subscriptions, or hires remote workers who reside in WI.