Supreme Court Declines To Block Texas Porn Restriction (nbcnews.com) 145
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to block on free speech grounds a provision of Texas law aimed at preventing minors from accessing pornographic content online. From a report: The justices turned away a request made by the Free Speech Coalition, a pornography industry trade group, as well as several companies. The challengers said the 2023 law violates the Constitution's First Amendment by requiring anyone using the platforms in question, including adults, to submit personal information.
One provision of the law, known as H.B. 1181, mandates that platforms verify users' ages by requiring them to submit information about their identities. Although the law is aimed at limiting children's access to sexually explicit content, the lawsuit focuses on how those measures also affect adults. "Specifically, the act requires adults to comply with intrusive age verification measures that mandate the submission of personally identifying information over the internet in order to access websites containing sensitive and intimate content," the challengers wrote in court papers.
One provision of the law, known as H.B. 1181, mandates that platforms verify users' ages by requiring them to submit information about their identities. Although the law is aimed at limiting children's access to sexually explicit content, the lawsuit focuses on how those measures also affect adults. "Specifically, the act requires adults to comply with intrusive age verification measures that mandate the submission of personally identifying information over the internet in order to access websites containing sensitive and intimate content," the challengers wrote in court papers.
That was dumb (Score:4, Interesting)
The law likely violates the Interstate Commerce clause. Of course the Supreme threw out a questionable 1A argument.
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Stacking a court with unqualified partisan stooges might have been a bad idea.
It's not over (Score:2)
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Alito? Who referenced a 17th century judge, one who sentenced witches to die, in his opinion?
Re:That was dumb (Score:4, Informative)
No, this doesn't violate the Interstate Commerce clause - at least not rationally, but I'm sure the Feds would likely to assert that it does.
Child sexual predation doesn't seem like something they'd want to get involved in at this time, however.
"To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"
That's it. The Commerce Clause is so broadly interpreted that it's been used to prohibit local-only production of raw milk for local consumption and has largely been used as a cudgel for political purposes.
It has been largely used since Marshall as the basis for arguments in favor for a centralized, planned economy, and for largely totalitarian control.
Just like the 1st Amendment and the 'free speech zones' and other similar breaches of liberty, the Commerce Clause has been hollowed out to mean exactly what the federal government needs it to say to exert more control over the populace.
Re:That was dumb (Score:4, Informative)
Everything on the Internet defaults to commerce between the states.
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To regulate Commerce ... among the several States
I can't figure out how you could read that and think that it doesn't apply to internet pornography. Could you walk me through this?
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The law likely violates the Interstate Commerce clause.
I'd guess not. The interstate commerce clause says that Congress may regulate commerce among the several states, not that it must.
Re:That was dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
It also says states can't regulate their trade between states, that's the feds job.
How this might apply here is if the porn sites are hosted outside of Texas.
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Bingo. And Pornhub isn't hosted solely in Texas.
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Under this novel theory, all state alcohol regulations are invalid.
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Looks like you're not familiar with what your own link says.
"The Congress shall have power...
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"
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Looks like you're not familiar with what your own link says."The Congress shall have power...
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"
The statement I was disagreeing with said [the constitution] "says states can't regulate their trade between states."
The section you quote does not say "states can't regulate their trade between states."
Saying the feds can is not the same as saying that the states can't.
Re: That was dumb (Score:2)
No, but the supremacy clause (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause) in concert with the interstate commerce clause might be argued to do that.
Of course, 1A arguments are more attractive to unsympathetic plaintiffs, and someone arguing the point above might want to not necessarily hitch himself to the pr0n industry.
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No, but the supremacy clause (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause) in concert with the interstate commerce clause might be argued to do that.
Nope. If both the state AND the feds have regulations and the two conflicted, supremacy would argue the federal regulations apply.
But in the absence of federal regulations saying that states CAN'T ask for ID, the constitution says nothing about the subject.
Re: That was dumb (Score:2)
That's one reading of the law. It might even be the one that prevails. Another reading of the law says that the federal government has already asserted the authority to regulate the internet, and thus states have no such authority. I will grant you that that may be a much tougher argument to make given the actual federal regulations on the books.
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That's one reading of the law. It might even be the one that prevails.
Until and unless the supreme court rules otherwise, correct.
Re:That was dumb (Score:4, Interesting)
The law likely violates the Interstate Commerce clause. Of course the Supreme threw out a questionable 1A argument.
Internet gambling sites require age verification. Does this violate the interstate commerce clause too?
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Poorly framed question. You haven't even bothered to say which gambling sites have these requirements or why.
To address the broader point of who should or should not regulate gambling websites, keep in mind that until recently, gambling was broadly against the law in the United States. There was a brief period where poker sites were allowing g anyone in the US to gamble, and the Feds stepped in to regulate (if I recall correctly).
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Lies (Score:5, Informative)
Although the law is aimed at limiting children's access to sexually explicit content,
No it doesn't. Stop pandering to the policy makers lies.
It's obvious why those crooks would say such a blatant lie, but the rest of us do not need to pretend their lies have any hold on reality.
This law has absolutely nothing to do with limiting children's access to anything.
The law has one purpose and it is to gather a listing of adults accessing material which the state government can use to retaliate against and punish for doing so in entirely non-transparent and illegal ways.
That is the one and only thing it serves to do.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
A sane judge in Georgia tried to get that law stricken from the books, I do not know if they were successful.
The idea of 'obscenity' has been kicked around by the courts sooooo much, it seems that every single judge has a different definition. If a law that takes names and locations of people that view pornography passes, then there is a likelihood that courts in those jurisdictions will look to prosecute those people if it is deemed politically expedient, or if the religious right votes to so do.
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at one point back in the dark ages of time (the 1970's/80's) it was the law in Georgia (the state in the USA, not the country) that a married man getting head from his wife was illegal, if done in their own house with the curtains drawn.
A sane judge in Georgia tried to get that law stricken from the books, I do not know if they were successful.
The idea of 'obscenity' has been kicked around by the courts sooooo much, it seems that every single judge has a different definition. If a law that takes names and locations of people that view pornography passes, then there is a likelihood that courts in those jurisdictions will look to prosecute those people if it is deemed politically expedient, or if the religious right votes to so do.
This doesn't fall under "obscenity', it is not banned. Any adult can access it.
Re:Lies (Score:4, Funny)
This is why I always ask my lady to give me head with the curtains open. I dont live in Georgia but you cant be too careful.
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I'm not familiar with that case, but such laws were eventually ruled unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas.
Now it's legal to get all the head you want in the privacy of your own home as long as you're both consenting adults even if you are both men.
And that includes "butt stuff" too in case anyone was wondering.
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Thank you for the citation
Re: Lies (Score:3)
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It provides a revenue stream to the members of the AVPA, the Age Verification Providers Association.
https://avpassociation.com/ [avpassociation.com]
'Making the internet age-aware'. No shit.
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You do' not think it's worth any attempt at all to keep adult material away from kids until older?
Er, can peoiple stop arguing this as if it doesn't make them look like they're either disingenuous AF, or actually illiterate? Disliking a means to an end doesn't mean opposing finding means to an end, it means that particular means is problematic to them.
Re:They already have that info (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids are just not ready for some adult stuff until older.
Until around the mid-18th century, when people in English-speaking countries became wealthy enough to afford living in houses with more than a single room and, by consequence, the very novel (at the time) concept of personal privacy came about, parents, grandparents, children and other family members all lived and slept within that one room.
In that one room the parents had sex. Right besides their old folk and the children. Sometimes the old folk had energy to have sex too. And yes, the children were frequently awake and watching. That includes all of you great-great-great-...-great-grandparents, and all their ancestors.
Besides that, almost all children worked in animal husbandry, helping quite directly several species of domesticated animals to mate, from goats and sheep to cattle and horses. What they saw when doing that was no different from what they saw their parents and grandparents doing at night.
That's how humanity lived for most of the last 12,000 years. And, somehow, those 600+ generations of children neither had any trouble "being ready" for any of that, nor came out of it mentally broken in any way whatsoever.
So, from where, exactly, came this weird myth so many conservatives hold that present-day children are in some way different from the children of old, and cannot deal with direct knowledge of sexual acts? What is the origin of this nonsense?
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Re:They already have that info (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you have some proper data for that? You see, my society spent the time from 14th to 19th century as part of the Ottoman empire. We know great many details about these times since the empire kept excellent archives. Particularly as you come close to the 18th and 19th centuries.
Farmers and artificers, all of them.
And no, they did not live in the same room. Absolutely not. Space was premium, no doubt, but couples got their own rooms. Yes, your point about the animals is quite correct. Even during my childhood, spending summer vacations on the grandparents farm you see everything....
Nobody had sex in front of the kids, though! At least not in my society in the last several hundred years... Maybe the Brits are particularly perverted in this sense, but I assure you this was not an universal behavior.
Moreover, learning about mating, pregnancy and birth by watching the animals or hearing the noises from the other other rooms does not teach you about human sexual pathology. It is one thing to teach, say a boy, about biology and another to teach him that if he enjoys reading books he is a girl and needs to sterilize himself....
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Do you have some proper data for that?
This Reddit question [reddit.com] has three answers with links and references. I'll copy and paste a 19th-century quote provided by the second answer. Reading and clicking the different links is very informative:
"Modesty must be an unknown virtue, decency an unimaginable thing, where, in one small chamber, with the beds lying as thickly as they can be packed, father, mother, young men, lads, grown and growing up girls --- two and sometimes three generations --- are herded promiscuously; where every operation of the toi
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It is one thing to teach, say a boy, about biology and another to teach him that if he enjoys reading books he is a girl and needs to sterilize himself....
What are you talking about? And why did you bring it up?
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"So, how do I avoid answering the actual argument while feinting moral superiority? Hmm... ahh, I know!", and starts typing: "In case you hadn't noticed it's no longer..."
Re:They already have that info (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you really think parents were sharing intimate moments in-front of everyone?
Of course they were. There was no concept of this moment being "intimate", to the point guests watching a couple have their first sexual intercourse was part of the wedding [wikipedia.org]. And see also this reply of mine [slashdot.org] to another commenter.
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"Kids are just not ready for some adult stuff until older. And that's the real fight here, some people think it should be OK to expose truly under-age kids to any degree of sexually related material."
Since the 60s a huge chunk of us, as children, got our experience to porno via magazines, usually under parents beds or in their drawers.
How many of us turned out fucked up? I'll wait while you make the count.
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How many of us turned out fucked up? I'll wait while you make the count.
quite a fucking few LOL
i dont think this argument holds as much weight as you think it does haha
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Tell me you had no childhood without telling me you had no childhood.
Especially the way you type, you're probably one of the ones that didn't find daddy's stash under the bed as a child nor learned more complex words from said magazines.
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oh no, i better go reevaluate my life because i have a different opinion. go fuck yourself khyber, dumbass.
The way to make porn more dangerous (Score:3)
So I am not going to address the privacy concerns, those are pretty evident. My issue is that it doesn't even do what it claims to do, which is protect kids. So let's say all the legitimate porn sites follow this law, what is a kid looking for porn to do? They look at the less legitimate sites. The sites that are more likely to leak and/or sell their data and password. The sites that are more likely to have malware. So the kid still see porn, but is less safe while doing it.
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What makes a porn site legitimate?
he sites that are more likely to leak and/or sell their data and password.
It's like you've only just now gotten on the internet for the first time. Do you think that sharing your data with 'legitimate' porn sites means you'll be protected from that stuff discreetly?
The sites that are more likely to have malware.
Because nobody has ever gotten malware from a "legitimate" porn site.
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What makes a porn site legitimate?
I am no expert on this but, I assume that "legitimate" sites are ones that have permission to display the content they are hosting. Those tend to be the bigger-name establishments (but there have been well-known exceptions) as opposed to fly-by-night places that know they will get DMCA takedown notices but then they just start again with a new domain. Since they aren't paying for the content, they don't need much revenue to make a profit. Of course maybe the OP means something else. But there's a clear
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Man, I'd completely forgotten about those assholes, but that's the exact kind of scenario I was thinking of.
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Not really.a sensible argument. Sites like Pornhub are far from "safe", and kids aren't necessarily going to turn to Tor or something to get at snuff porn or whatever. They'll just lie about their age and/or use password aggregators as they did in the past to get on paid porn sites, which overall will have more tame content than the freaky amateur stuff on Pornhub.
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How many times are people going to try to push this argument. By this logic we should not restrict anything that might be harmful.
Cigarettes are obviously bad for kids but if you don't let them walk in to the C-store to get a pack what is the child smoker going to do? They look for some less legitimate source. Those darts are more likely to be laced with whatever or have harder drugs in them!
Yes it should stupid because it is stupid. Its likely saying we should legalize cocaine because it would take the mo
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So, uh...er......can you list out some of those sites?
You know...just as examples?
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I think that the stereotyping Americans as prudes is just a holdover from 100 years ago or so and that was really just a holdover from Victorian attitudes. Now, there are large numbers of Americans who act like prudes in public because they think it's expected from them while acting much more openly in private, especially when their privates are involved.
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So you think if a kid goes to google and searches "free porn" they are not going to find it after this law goes into affect? They will get results and after the top results don't work because of this law, they will end up on page 5 of the results, which will lead to incredibly sketchy sites. They will end up signing up for web forums that don't follow this law (either because they just don't care or they are not based in the US), where their password may be harvested and they files that are uploaded may con
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Its likely saying we should legalize cocaine because it would take the money out of drug crime. Sure it would probably make life safer for a small minority of coke heads but keeping contraban status probably keeps the vast vast majority of the public from every trying a highly addictive and dangerous substance.
I think you hit the nail on the head here - IMO, that is a very similar situation. But I _WOULD_ argue in favor of legalizing most illicit drugs. I won't go into those arguments - they're well known. One major difference though - age verification is established and straight forward for in person purchases, and those drug sales would still have age restrictions.
IMO, age restrictions on the web simply don't have any good solution at this time. Requiring every site to implement the restrictions is, IMO, passin
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The real issue is that there's no way to know if someone is actually in Texas and websites outside of the US aren't going to care either way just like a US website that only does business in the US isn't going to care about European GDPR requirements. Even if a person is physically in Texas, their VPN end point may not
I suspect this law isn't really about porn (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about restricting access to webpages with "adult content", which includes, for example... information about abortion, information about LGBTQ issues, and probably some other stuff I haven't thought of. These are the kinds of webpages that typically get flagged by "adult content" filters. They'll be difficult to access for minors, and they'll leave an electronic trail if accessed by an adult. Potentially quite useful for Texas DAs, if they decide to start arresting people who leave the state to get an abortion.
Re:I suspect this law isn't really about porn (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about control. People are looking at porn in the privacy of their homes and that makes Jesus weep. They're already working on censoring the internet because people might google abortion. https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com]
From the Help! social media is censoring us! crowd.
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Americans love to take freedom away from each other. They also like to go on about how free America is and how great that is, not even realizing the hypocrisy. Each person has some justification in their mind as to why the thing they want to deny to others (or force on others) is a special case that makes it ok.
Conservatives are not the only guilty party. Of course, they are guilty, and are keen to legislate their view of morality on to everyone else. But liberals do the same, wanting to deny citizens t
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Sadly, the insanity is on all (both?) sides now.
Fittingly, we will all suffer the consequences of our failed, onetime marvelous, democracy.
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Ironically I doubt Jesus would have had an issue with porn, going by the description of him and his antics in the Bible.
It ends Internet anonymity (Score:2)
Now if they want to destroy a political opponent it's as easy as getting that data leaked. This massively increases their ability to track dissidents too.
It's classic "think of the children" stuff where essential liberty is given up for a false sense of security. It'
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Your issue is only a problem if that state is authenticating the person and keeping the records. I very much doubt that if this wer
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Your post is further idiotic because Texas has none of your information. The porn website does though, and once again it's a matter of how much you trust them with that.
I never said "Texas has your information", I said "you've left an electronic trail"-- which, as you yourself acknowledge, is in the hands of a company that you may or may not trust. If they receive a subpoena for that information from the DA, what do you suppose they'll do? Call up their legal team and fight to quash the subpoena? Or just quietly hand over the information?
(Also, as I've pointed out elsewhere, there is nothing in the language of HB 1181 to stop the website owners from outright *selling* y
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Re:Unhinged Conspiracy Alert (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope those are not covered.
It's not a "conspiracy theory" to suggest that the Texas legislature might wish to restrict online access to information about abortion, when they have introduced a separate bill to do exactly that. See ArchieBunker's post, above.
Also, read the text of HB 1181. It's available online. It specifically forbids "descriptions" or "depictions" of genitalia or the female breast-- something you might find on an informational website on abortion or breast cancer, or on the website for an OB/GYN clinic. Would a court buy the legal argument that such websites are "obscene"? No, probably not, but a law doesn't have to hold up in court to have a dampening effect. If I were running such a website, the compliance department would probably tell me to include age verification, just to avoid any risk of legal exposure.
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Something Something (Score:3)
Small government.
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Are you on board with a small government?
>No, not at all
So shut the fuck up about it.
Re:Something Something (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you on board with a small government?
>No, not at all
So shut the fuck up about it.
I don't claim to be for small government and personal responsibility while at the same time creating laws that contradict my claims.
The internet is the ultimate in freedom (Score:2)
Found a moral loophole (Score:5, Insightful)
Just say something is "to protect children" and you can ban anything
Re:Found a moral loophole (Score:5, Insightful)
Just say something is "to protect children" and you can ban anything
You forgot the loophole to that moral loophole: You can ban anything to protect the children as long as it isn't assault weapons.
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Just say something is "to protect children" and you can ban anything
You forgot the loophole to that moral loophole: You can ban anything to protect the children as long as it isn't assault weapons.
Children need access to assault weapons to protect them from the predators! It's like you've neve spoken to a Republican.
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Children can't purchase assault weapons.
The Republican Supreme Court is a joke. Not funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Republican Supreme Court is a joke that isn't funny.
They call themselves "originalists" and the only thing they have a nexus to an origin is that they were all hatched the same.
Neither the elimination of Roe, the continued attack on people's rights, states' rights, etc. nor anything else speak to anything "originalist."
The founding fathers would be turning in their graves, and THIS republican supreme court would dig them up and put stakes in them so "them's quit turning."
We have the most corrupt self-dealing judge, and a bunch of other pieces of crap. This is our lauded supreme court.
The Republican Supreme Court, a result of the Republican Party, is no joke. It's not funny. It's what will destroy our democracy.
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While that party's double-think is easy to spot, the Democrat Party is no better.
2023 was the year of "everything's politicized" and it's true. It's rampant in the US because everyone from the dog-catcher to president must bend to the vox populi. But a cultural shift over the last decade have changed the political consequences. There are a couple of reasons: Old whipping boys such as communism, blacks, illegal immigrants, violent crime, drug-use and welfare mothers don't hold the voter's attention as m
Please READ the Constitution (Score:2)
"Neither the elimination of Roe, the continued attack on people's rights, states' rights, etc. nor anything else speak to anything "originalist."" - RARELY has something this ignorant been so publicly posted on Slashdot... I see why you posted as an anon coward. Even the justices who wrote the Roe v Wade decision KNEW it was not in the Constitution; they tried to justify their ruling by claiming abortion was somehow covered by the "penumbras and emanations" of the rights in the Constitution. That was THEIR
Electronic parallel to real life (Score:2)
An adult store is going to check IDs before allowing access. A nightclub or bar is going to check your ID before serving. An adult entertainment venue is *definitely* going to check your ID before letting you enter. In the modern day, some of those ID checks will involve basic electronic validation (eg, bar code scanning) to ensure that this is a valid ID, which opens the possibility up of automated data collection and privacy issues.
The electronic world can and should develop a parallel for this, because t
just ask for your SSN as part of the ID check! (Score:2)
just ask for your SSN as part of the ID check!
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The "real world" places may check your ID but do not record it (and they won't usually check IDs at all if the customer is obviously an adult). There may be a tech solution to prevent recording the ID, but that assumes these laws are being passed in good faith (or will always be used in a good-faith manner). The problem is that that once this infrastructure is in place, it can be used to restrict all sorts of sites that the government simply doesn't like.
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I don't know about your passport card, but mine has a scannable barcode.
Now how a bar or liquor store would validate a passport card number, drivers license number, etc. I don't know. I could easily generate the Code 3 of 9 string that agrees with whatever fake info I put on the front.
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Scanning is not common where I live. I am rarely carded, and when I am it is a quick glance. To the extent it happens, it's at the discretion of the establishment.
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The law in question (HB 1181) contains precisely zero language about what the porn company is supposed to *do* with the age-verification info once they've collected it. There's certainly nothing in there about deleting it. As far as I can tell, they can hire a Goodyear blimp and display the information at the Super Bowl, and it's perfectly legal. I don't know, I'm not a lawyer.
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Kinda.
For an adult bookstore or bar, it is a physical location where the proprietors are under obligation to control the activities going on their property.
It's kinda presumed the owner of an electronic device is also under obligation to control the goings own for their property. The particulars of some "parallel" makes no difference- you are asking for third parties to control what happens on your device, without any arrangement to do so.
Think carefully about this.
The end of online anonymity, in all sites (Score:2)
This shows a shocking lack of understanding how digital authentication works.
This is the end of internet anonymity. Not just in porn, but in the entire internet, forever. Here's why.
When you verify identity at a night club, it's done once and they don't record you name or anything about you. It is anonymous.
When you verify identity online, because you aren't there in person, that system logs the access to your name, address, SSN, every other shred of information that exists about you.
Including your IP ad
Now do TikTok (Score:2)
30% of Children Ages 5-7 Are on TikTok [honest-broker.com]
Playboy (Score:1)
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IT's not remotely the same thing. Online authentication and authorization follow your every transaction, your every anonymous /. post, everything you do. Such authentication tied to your IP address and full name, address, birthdate, SSN, and every other detail about you, your political preferences too.
It means the end of ALL online anonymity. And you fools are willing to do it so some teenagers won't be exposed to some horrible, horrible nudity.
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I literally explained how it's different.
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It's quite different. Showing your ID to a store clerk is a lot different than doing the nearly impossible task of verifying your identification online. Not only is there no practical way to actually implement this for sites, many (most?) people don't want to give their ID to ANY site on the internet, much less a sketchy porn one.
What it leads to is having some sort of 3rd party verification system where a person could verify their age to a website, but now that means that verification system (which would
Political suicide (Score:2)
The age verification pages should provide a list of politicians who made this possible so Texans know who to thank.
Does not mean what most probably think (Score:2)
The Supreme Court only takes a very limited number of cases per year and the justices spend a lot of time on each, since what they rule will be the basis for numerous rulings on many future cases for years (often decades) to come. As a result, the court often leaves rulings of the lower courts in place (even when the majority of justices might want to rule on the issue) until [1] a case comes along that narrowly defines the issue unclouded by other matters, so the ruling will be clear, or [2] multiple lower
Fun facts about porn in TX from a native Texan (Score:2)
Born and raised so of course the first porn I saw was in TX. First it was a Playboy a friend had. Then I got my own issue of Playboy - just one. They were hard to get for youngsters but obviously not impossible. I quickly learned that convenience store clerks didn't care as much as the people working B. Dalton or Waldenbooks.
I saw my first porn movie when I was in high school too - Betamax! Borrowed it from a friend. His parents' tape maybe? I don't know.
Some years later I saw protesters in front of 7-11 b
Does this age verification actually work? (Score:2)
Where I live, online identity checks are a joke. You need to provide somebody's ID, but they don't actually check it is you.
In the old days, when say opening a bank account, you would show a difficult-to-forge document with photograph, or signature, and somebody would check you matched.
But now, online, I just give my drivers license number, or national healthcare number, and nobody verifies that they belong to me. Too hard.
How does Texas work? I'm guessing their is no electronic cryptograph
Ah, dear Slashdot ... (Score:2)
The American wrong-wing (Score:2)
Right: pr0n is HORRIBLE, and needs to be banned.
Guns? Nobody gonna take away our freedumbs.
Isn't it ironic (Score:2)
That the party that wants to restrict access to pron on the internet is quite happy endorsing a presidential candidate^w^wdictator who had an affair with a porn star (while his 3rd wife was pregnant) and committed fraud to cover that up.