Summary
The Supreme Court’s hearing of Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton signals potential limits on First Amendment protections for online pornography.
The case involves a Texas law mandating age verification for websites with “sexual material harmful to minors,” challenging the 2004 Ashcroft v. ACLU precedent, which struck down similar laws under strict scrutiny.
Justices, citing the inadequacy of modern filtering tools, seemed inclined to weaken free speech protections, exploring standards like intermediate scrutiny.
The ruling could reshape online speech regulations, leaving adults’ access to sexual content uncertain while tightening restrictions for minors.
You gotta be a really profoundly uncomfortable, nervous human being to think of sex as bad.
What an absolute sign of weakness.
Kids are gonna start finding porn the old-fashioned way: randomly coming across discarded magazines at the park. That was my first experience.
Or torrents… It would be funny if this just ended up teaching new generations how to torrent.
Dark web mobile client?
I think Epstein highlighted that there is a much bigger problem going on than some 15 year old looking up “mum gets railed by football team”.
If we’re banning content harmful to children why dont we start with Capitalist propoganda and religious indoctrination :3
And those brain washing shows on YouTube
*rotting
The vague threat of “think of the children maybe being exposed to sexual things” challenging our first amendment right but it becomes some huge debate if a woman is being harassed/stalked/threatened online.
**they are justififying destroying our rights for their feelings **
Free speech for pornographers, but instant IP/device ID ban if you criticise Israel online.
So we can ban content that is claimed to be harmful to minors but not weapons that actually kill children…
Even in terms of speech, it’s ridiculous to claim that boobs are more harmful than a social media diet of assholes claiming women or racial minorities aren’t people.
Well yeah it’s never really been about what they say it is
Close your eyes for just a moment and imagine the scales of Justice.
Imagine white kids on one side and brown kids on the other.
Why aren’t the scales balanced?
Might as well just turn off the internet if they are this concerned about harmful content.
Notice how we’re already asking past the sale with the tacit labeling of “sexual material harmful to minors,” with the presupposed declaration that sexual material is automatically harmful to minors.
The all-consuming mission to look at boobies is essentially universal for all pubescent boys from about 12 all the way to the age of majority. This is well known, and none of us came off any the worse despite widespread availability of older brothers’ back issues of Hustler, Usenet, dial-up BBS systems, and ultimately the world wide web.
If teens weren’t naturally interested in sex where wouldn’t been all them teenage pregnancies. Q.E.D.
This is an excellent observation.
We now no longer have the debate over whether or not this content is necessarily harmful to minors. It’s now automatically bad, and the new framing is: shouldn’t we ban bad things?
Should expect more of this kind of newspeak/doublespeak as the Trump years continue.
Just saying, the shit you can find on the Internet does not come even close to what Hustler was. There is instant access to all kinds of weird and fucked fetish shit that just wasn’t accessible in the 90s and earlier.
Bizarre fetish shit was very much available in the 90s and earlier. It just wasn’t in hustler or playboy.
There’s a vid on archive.org of the Spice Channel that must have been off someone’s VHS tape. It flickers a lot and is barely watchable, but I was curious what we were all missing back then.
Turns out, way more softcore than I was expecting. Slightly more hardcore than Skinamax at the time, but not by much.
How else they going to keep up viewership if you aren’t edging for hours?
Get ready for the slippery slope. Anything conservatives don’t want you to see or read will be placed behind an “identify yourself” firewall.
Define “sexual material.” What about the minors who get sexual gratification from Linux installation media repository mirrors?
I’m not a minor but WHO TOLD YOU ABOUT MY KINK?!
You can sudo mount and fork my box anytime…
Can I watch through my dirty unwashed windows?
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
There’s an entire fediverse dedicated to it. It’s called Lemmy.
To quote a former Supreme Court justice and asshole, “I know it when I see it.”
Seems a bit redundant there.
Soon *nix will be the only legal fetish. Until they get to it.
They’ll probrally say “nooo those programming socks and skirts are indecent, banned”
It’s just the first amendment.
Freedom of speech is so important it is literally the first thing they remembered to add in.
They didn’t even mention individuals having the rights to own guns, but god damn they had to add that one to the second amendment through the courts.
“A well regulated militia”
Back then that meant a gun group with regular training, any civillian in the militia could also own guns for private use
Militias are armed citizens…
My point is that the courts have been taking the most generous possible interpretations of the 2nd amendment.
An individual is not a militia, yet every citizen can own a gun based on the generous interpretation of the courts. Even if you aren’t in a well organized militia.
Open carry? They read the 2nd amendment and thought it said individuals should be allowed to open carry for any reason at all.
These are generous interpretations of the second amendment. But for the first amendment, the courts are much more eager to limit rights.
Can you explain your position? Honest question, because if I just take your post “Militias are armed citizens” I can use logic to know that to be false. Militia can be comprised of armed citizens, but armed citizens are not militia…
A log cabin is made of logs, but a log isnt a cabin?
Can you explain your position?
‘Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary’ - Karl Marx
I had no idea Karl Marx was an author of the constitution of the United States! Wow! Thanks!
I mean we’ve got plenty of others.
What’s taught in schools: the parents should have a say! Don’t let the government decide what to teach our kids!
Books in libraries and content on the internet: the government must step in and make certain content illegal!
Of course, fascists don’t care if they’re hypocritical. They say whatever gives them the most power in any situation, so calling out hypocrisy won’t stop them. It’s still good to do, though.
Don’t let the government
decide what toteach our kids!
I don’t care if kids see porn. They shouldn’t. But it’s simply not a big deal.
If that’s the worst thing we’re talking about, versus rampant censorship and tracking, it’s not even a question.
Constitution smonchstitution. We don’t need rights where we’re going.
Buckle up!
