[dkarl]

I don't think we should expect a policy to serve the stated purpose when the people driving it have entirely different reasons for pushing it.

For example, when states strengthen regulations on abortion clinics with the stated goal of improving patient safety, but the driving forces behind the legislation are anti-abortion groups who know that rural abortion providers will have to close, creating large unserved areas... will those laws help or hurt the safety of women who want abortions?

Likewise, we should be wary of consent verification laws that are pushed by groups whose supporters are opposed to legal pornography.

In both cases the goal is not to protect women. The goal is to take something morally wrong and make it seedy, underground, and dangerous, like morally wrong things are supposed to be.

[nl]

In the case of identity verification:

The Craigslist shutdown seemed mostly driven by anti-sex work motivations

The Pornhub identity verification changes were driven by women who had been tricked into having their videos appeared and sued Pornhub over their inability to get them taken down: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pornhub-lawsuit-nonconsensual-v...

So yes - motivation is important. The identity verification requirements for performers on porn sites are at least partially driven by actual victim complaints.

So it is at least partially to protect women.

[zdragnar]

"but the driving forces behind the legislation are anti-abortion groups"

This is the definition of an ad hominem, which is what the whole separation of church and state discussion is, since neither church nor state are involved here.

We arent discussing regulations, we are discussing payment processors choosing to not do business with video hosts who cannot prove legal consent was obtained from all involved.

If you ran a business, would you want to make money off of rape and child pornography? The payment processors chose "no", and that is their right.

[dkarl]

Ad hominem is an appropriate form of reasoning in this case, although in context you might pronounce it "cui bono." It's reasonable to expect that when a group pushes a policy, the details of the policy will be engineered to serve their goals, and the policy will be tweaked over time to serve their goals better. Corporations want to make them happy so they can do business in peace. What will make them happy? Will it make them happy if most porn is created by workers who enjoy robust assurances that their autonomy, consent, and medical safety will be respected? Or would they regard that as a nightmare of legitimized industrial-scale psychological harm to women?

In porn as in abortion, prohibitionists are numerous and committed enough to be a force to reckoned with, but they strategically justify their work using reasons that the rest of society finds persuasive. Anti-abortionists believe that abortion is inherently wrong, but they talk about women's safety while they shut down clinics.

The difference is, the groups who care about the safety of women will look at the details and say, the effect of this supposed "reproductive safety" bill is that thousands of women will lose access to legal abortion. Even if it targets shortcomings at poorly staffed, decrepit facilities, they won't support it if it actually makes women less safe. Overall, will shutting down OnlyFans payments make things better or worse for the women on it? People who aren't asking that question don't actually care.

[zdragnar]

It is still the inverse of an appeal to authority. Both "Agree about X because Y agreed" and "Disagree about X because Y agreed" are faulty logic.

Replacing skepticism and critical analysis isn't doing anyone any favors, and it doesn't make the matter at hand an issue of church or state.