[blackcatsec]

I mean there are an increasing number of states that are requiring age gating for pornography access for sites like PornHub. It's only a matter of time before that age gating expands to non-pornographic entities, which is the ultimate goal of the plan.

[CamperBob2]

Unfortunately you're probably not wrong, but the fact remains, none of this is happening at a national level. Yet.

[laughing_man]

Not since the Biden administration, anyway. During covid they made sure social media site black-holed information they didn't want people to see.

[CamperBob2]

Another lie. The government has the same right to politely request sites to remove disinformation as you and I do. No one "made sure" of any such thing.

[AnthonyMouse]

Eh. Asking sites to remove information while concurrently litigating against them is very "nice site you have there, shame if something were to happen to it."

The real issue here is that accusations of hypocrisy are misdirection. Two wrongs don't make a right and it's not a competition to see which government can screw people worse.

If your murder rate is up 300% and your defense is "well what about the murder rate in <other country>", the most conspicuous thing about that response is that it contains zero absolution from your murder rate being up 300%. The same is true of the censorship rate.

[laughing_man]

That's kind of a juvenile view of how power works.

[bdangubic]

but is prevalent in the America... that is what our society is going down the path it is going...

[CamperBob2]

Da, tovarisch.

[hdgvhicv]

Just like someone walking into a bank with a shotgun can politely ask for money?

[CamperBob2]

A nation whose public health agencies don't fight the deliberate spread of disinformation is a very sick nation, or soon will be.

[laughing_man]

The problem is any mechanism you put into place to fight "disinformation" will be used to suppress information the government doesn't like.

Covid is a great example, since most of the disinformation was coming from public health authorities, and people who were skeptical about vaccine safety and effectiveness were ruthlessly suppressed online. People who turned out to be right.

[bdangubic]

shit is and has been happening at the national level for a while. gave you an example you can take for a spin (would not advise you do though)

[CamperBob2]

If you're not in the US, you probably don't understand how our system of federalism works. We have 50 different states, some of which are basically run by the Christian equivalent of the Taliban or the Shiite mullahs of Iran. These state governments often come up with goofy, performative laws such as age verification that are normally set aside by higher courts as First Amendment violations.

I say "normally" because the same religious factions are rapidly expanding their dominance over those very courts. Absolutely no historical freedoms can be taken for granted in the US right now. Nevertheless, the fact is, there is no national Internet censorship regime including age verification. No such laws are currently under consideration at the national level.

(Yes, you can be prosecuted for downloading or distributing child pornography, but that is not an Internet-specific issue, and there is no other country I'm aware of where such laws are not also on the books.)

Edit: if you are willing to move the goalposts that far, there is probably no way to convince you that the facts are as stated. Nevertheless... those are the facts. For further reading, look up the term "prior restraint." That's what's actually different in the US versus other countries that use technical means to enforce legal restrictions on Internet speech.

[zdragnar]

What are you smoking? Access to porn has been legally restricted in every state to 18+ for decades. Adding the Internet only made things easier because nobody enforced it the same way they were already enforcing brick and mortar stores that had the exact same materials.

Likewise, there are plenty of rules and regulations around adult content on broadcast airwaves managed by the FCC.

Challenging adult content as "free speech" has happened and already settled precedent at the Supreme Court.

Yes, individual states are still trying to figure out how to actually best enforce the laws on the books at the Internet level, but there's no pretending that it is just a few states that actually have those laws.

[mystraline]

I AM in the USA. And yes, we are heavily censored, but not simply in content. Its a financial censorship, or cut off from banking, or payment processing. And being the "Home of the (everything costs so damned much) Free", starves all initiatives that threaten companies or government.

Wikileaks is one such. Operation chokepoint, another. OFAC sanctions. Holder v Humanitarian Law Project. Knight First Amendment Institute.

But thats the point - USA speech says you can say "Hitler did nothing wrong" and its legal. But you infringe on Powers that Be, and money is involved, your speech via money will quickly be eliminated.

[bdangubic]

It is hard to discuss these things with people that post such comments as the one you replying to... off the deep ledge where there is no coming back from

[CamperBob2]

(Shrug) If you're not already posting from some Eastern European or Russian hellhole, you need to spend some time in places such as those to gain some perspective.

Or, in general, any other country that people die trying to get out of, as opposed to trying to get into.