[voidnullnil]

>[porn companies] need regulation

No, nothing needs regulation. Stop making the internet fucking worse. Can we go back to 2000 now (not that it was good then either since the internet was fundamentally broken already)? This is like the bat shit insane morons who think having a popup about cookies on every page is solving the """privacy""" issue.

Literally every single political issue on HN is bogus. Take the ad blocking issue for instance, nothing that has ads actually matters. Your "solutions" like Brave are pure garbage.

The "privacy" issue doesn't exist because if we were using sane tech instead of webshit, there wouldn't be any tracking since it wouldn't be conceptually possible. Why the hell can tech even track you in the first place for reading static documents? This is a poor analog that cannot even compete with paper newspapers (which are also much more legible because they are not on LCDs).

Net neutrality doesn't matter because nobody can ELI5 why I should care about it. Since the internet is all garbage, it shouldn't be an issue that it's expensive. Just don't use it. Make a free replacement. Cuban citizens have already done it.

Now let me try and list CURRENT_YEAR.addictions:

- Games

- Working out

- Porn

- Social media

- TV (youtube or whatever you use now)

- HN (muh dunning kruger syndrome, imposter, et al)

- Eating

- Lotto tickets

- Stock market

- Programming

- Working

- Drugs

- Things that are sort of drugs but not

- Any substance what so ever

- Benchmarking

- Politics

- Literally any hobby

Oh look guys, HN needs to be regulated because I can come up with a person who has problems because of it.

Guys we need to regulate fat and high calorie food. Oh wait it grows on trees.

People who see a problem and immediately go "we need regulation to solve this" (and even proceed to come up with some ad-hoc hypothesis of how it solves the problem after it's proven that it doesn't solve it in a substantial way) are morons. There is actually something wrong with their brain. They hold back progress. Every new law is a potential stumbling block for progress and thus why new legislation should be avoided at all costs. See MECHANISM NOT POLICY article on wikipedia to see how people already knew about this 70 years ago in tech.

[atonalfreerider]

> nothing needs regulation

This is a hyperbolic statement. Even if you are just talking about internet regulation.

Let's imagine for a moment that someone invented a hypnosis algorithm and hosted it on a website. Anyone going to this website went into spasms and died in front of their screen. Would we seek protection for our children and for the general public from such a website from internet browser companies, ISPs and the government? Yes we would. This is an extreme example but it illustrates a point. You can say the same thing about websites that prey on children, or the elderly.

I'm not advocating for the banning of pornography altogether. I am making the simple proposition that it be better regulated. People who distribute porn know full well that their content is seen by minors. Having a child check a box that says that they are over 18 is not good enough. If I hadn't seen porn as a minor, I might have had a better chance of avoiding the extremely negative impacts that it can carry with it. Don't believe me? Visit a support page like r/NoFap and read the hundreds of thousands of stories there.

I'm not going to touch any of the other subjects you raised because I'm not arguing for any of the things you listed.

[atonalfreerider]

And just like that: Lawmakers Ask Zuckerberg to Drop 'Instagram for Kids' After Report Says App Made Kids Suicidal

https://gizmodo.com/lawmakers-ask-zuckerberg-to-drop-instagr...

[voidnullnil]

>people are killing themselves because of instagram

Literally every social issue on the web for the last 20 years follows this one simple formula:

> X causes Y. Yes it sounds stupid, but read this long winded reasoning or spend the next 70 hours of your life going down my trail of studies to back this up

And nobody actually invests their lives in rebuking them, and they get bored and stop talking about it 5 years later.

[lizkm]

Pornography does not cause you to go into spasms and die though. You being unable to control yourself does not justify undue restrictions on other people. The internet should not be ceded to nanny staters and morality police.

[atonalfreerider]

> Pornography does not cause you to go into spasms and die though.

I didn't say it did.

> You being unable to control yourself does not justify undue restrictions on other people.

I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about minors. Protecting children from products that require an adult brain to ascertain harm is a positive function of government.

> The internet should not be ceded to nanny staters and morality police.

This is not about morality. Please don't read intentions where there are none.

[voidnullnil]

Please tell us a concrete plan on how to "protect children" (a moral appeal) from porn. Name one set of rules that would satisfy your legal appetite.

[atonalfreerider]

I don't know why you keep insisting that this is a moral appeal. This is public health.

1 - mandate disclaimers in front of all videos describing the possible negative effects of porn (there are concrete, well-studied effects). cigarettes and tobacco have the same mandates and they do have an overall positive effect on educating the public

2 - hold video hosting sites liable if content is shown to minors. there is a reason why a bar can get closed down or a gas station attendee can lose his or her job if alcohol and tobacco is served to minors. the same rules need to apply for sexually explicit material that is turbocharged to reach children

[voidnullnil]

> 1 - mandate disclaimers in front of all videos describing the possible negative effects of porn

Why would you think this will work? My parents, school, etc already gave you a million false warnings about porn and yet I looked at it. Did that even work for smoking? I think smoking only stopped once vape replaced it. Now I have to skip the intro logo as well as some stupid disclaimer, and producers have to waste more of their time on legal checkboxes, great.

> 2 - hold video hosting sites liable if content is shown to minors.

That's not a concrete plan. Do we need photo ID here? Some experimental crypto to disclose your government certified age to the website so it can decide not to kick you off? What about a forum where anyone can post any image? Does the forum have to be legally liable to block minors if it has no rule against porn?

The internet worked perfect in 2000. I got my porn when I was 13 and had no problem. There was not a single complaint aside from corporate scum trying to enforce DMCA crap (the multi billion dollar company was complaining, nobody else). Only when all you American idiots came in 2010 from faceberg all these pretend social problems started existing. The internet is literally just data transmission and this act could not be more harmless if you wanted it to be. Quite literally, the internet is the most harmless technology in existence. It cannot give you any disease, etc. It costs nothing, etc. What we are seeing here is the American art of being a professional victim. One should start by observing that almost every single complaint about the internet starts with "I read some text and now I am offended".

I envision the internet as community run, and free. The current internet is all obsolete garbage. The problem is, on this new internet we wont actually be able to make it because everything will be illegal by then. It will be illegal to run point to point to your neighbour because of some stupid porno law that has absolutely nothing to do with your application.