[dotnet00]

Dedicated sites have the issue of being targeted from all sides, right wing hates them for porn, left wing hates them for not being able to filter out exploitation, revenge porn etc and then they also have to fight payment processors who, for some ridiculous reason, are still allowed to screw with any business with zero accountability.

I think all those factors combine to make them have to be kind of politically neutral.

[seadan83]

I think you might be drawing a false equivalence. Left wing solutions to things like porn, gambling, drugs, sex work, abortion - is to regulate them so that they are "safe" (harm-reduced) & then find ways to reduce those activities in first place & provide support for people to get out of those activities. Left wing considers these as social problems - not legal.

In contrast, right wing views these as problems to be solved also with the legal system. Ban entirely and enforce with police and criminal sentences. Thus the "hates" I don't think is quite equal between the two.

I will concede for sure though that if you go far enough left the degree of 'hate' levels out between right & left, but the number of people on the two sides is different.

The "silent majority" part of the right wing, the old Reagan coalition for a long time was a pretty sizable part of the Republican party. Meanwhile, the twitter left progressive wing of the Democratic party is not as large compared to the republican religious-conservative right.

If we think to the OG far-left hatred of porn - that was there before revenge-porn etc were even concerns. Those OG left-wing concerns that did want to ban porn - were concerned about how porn disempowers women, can glorify violence, further genders inequality, etc..

As a general left/right difference, the approach is not equal. In the cases where the approach is to ban entirely - there are just different numbers of people in the far left "porn should be banned" camp compared to the "porn is sin" camp.

[dotnet00]

I'm mainly going off of the story of how IIRC a couple of years ago, PH was forced to wipe most of their site due to left-wing activists pressuring payment processors into threatening to block PH's basic means of doing business if they didn't meet the somewhat absurd demand of filtering out all harmful/unethical material.

Sure, they technically didn't use the legal system, they just used the technicality that payment processors hold the same power over internet-dependent companies as a government.

[lancesells]

Looks like a NY Times article detailed they were hosting awful stuff. They then implemented a verification system. Not sure about the activists.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55304115

[seadan83]

Citations for which left wing activists?

In contrast, I would consider Charlie Kirk as a right-wing activist (hopefully this will work as a good example). If there were an action taken by him and similarly small group of activists, perhaps with backing from their organization - I would be very hesitant to extrapolate that action as broadly representative of "the right."

Which is to say, left wing or right wing activists might not be representative of the broader views, and also those broader views might not be consistent (not everyone on the right/left agree on everything)

[freedomben]

Where do you see the group of people who are libertarian on the issue? In other words, people who think that the premise that drugs are immoral is flawed, and they should be regulated for safety, but society does not need to discourage their use and certainly does not need to ban them.

I see those people as on the moderately far left, at least in the United States. There are plenty of people on the moderately far left who are not libertarian in the vast majority of positions, but who would agree in the case of drugs.

[seadan83]

> Where do you see the group of people who are libertarian on the issue?

The libertarian party platform states: "we favor the repeal of all laws creating “crimes” without victims, such as gambling, the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes" [1]

Which I interpret as full legalization of all drugs. It is interesting that this is essentially an extreme left point of view on the topic. I really think libertarian philosophy is just kinda fascinating. I'm now curious though on where libertarians stand on tort laws.

[1] https://www.lp.org/platform/