Sex writing being infringed?

[iwatchus]

My SO passed me this. @SimonDoom is this article correct or is this fearmongering?

@Five_Inch_Heels does this count as a fun thread or is this still drek?

 

[SimonDoom]

My SO passed me this. @SimonDoom is this article correct or is this fearmongering?

@Five_Inch_Heels does this count as a fun thread or is this still drek?

Just my opinion. Forecasts about the future are always sketchy. I don't know what's going to happen any more than anyone else does.

In this case, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the US Supreme Court upheld a Texas law that requires websites that offer "pornography" to require age verification measures to make sure underage people aren't accessing the material. Quite a few other states in the US have these laws as well. This law had been challenged on the ground that it violated the First Amendment. The majority on the Supreme Court held it did not. The majority held that measures taken to regulate access of material that was "obscene to minors" were subject to "intermediate scrutiny," which is a much less rigorous level of scrutiny than the "strict scrutiny" to which most content-based regulations of speech are subject.

As someone who is very, very pro-speech, I think it's a problematic opinion, and I think it disturbingly walks back from some of the robustly free-speech cases that were issued around the turn of the millennium concerning speech on the Internet. But I don't interpret it as the sky is falling. It COULD be a disturbing harbinger of opinions to come in the future, and it might embolden politicians to take more and more steps to regulate sexual entertainment online. But we'll have to wait and see.

It doesn't change the definition of obscenity. I'm doubtful about whether, under existing law, anything that Literotica allows would be deemed to be "obscene" under the law, or even "obscene to minors." Literotica prohibits bestiality, pedophilia, "real" rape, and snuff. These are the subjects that I think the court would most likely find to constitute "obscenity." Also, I'm not aware, SO FAR, of any efforts to regulate erotic stories, as opposed to erotic images, online. I suspect Literotica's recent decision to delete all nude images is a proactive effort to further insulate it from this sort of scrutiny or regulation.

I live in a state that does not have an age verification law like this, and I think it's unlikely that it will pass such a law any time soon. I'm not seeing any change in my online experience as a result of these laws. But I've been wrong before.

I think we have to wait and see. It's unlikely, but not impossible, that some zealous anti-sex state authorities may try to apply laws like this one to erotic stories. Right now, it doesn't seem to be an issue.

There DOES seem to be a fairly broad-based effort internationally to regulate sexual content. Recently, I was in a European country that imposes an age verification requirement to view certain kinds of content. I was surprised. Also, Sweden recently passed a law that treats the offering of sexually explicit visual content pursuant to messaging as being akin to illegal prostitution. That dramatically impacts Swedish content creators on platforms like OnlyFans.

So, it's concerning. But anybody who knows history knows that freedom of speech has ALWAYS been beset on all sides, so it's not cause for panic.

 

[iwatchus]

Thanks for the clear response. I should have thought about the obscenity difference. I agree that almost everything if not all stories are clear by miller

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I would offer the opinion this movement may have had something to do with Lit’s ban on nudity, but it would just be speculation.

 

[MrPixel]

My expectation is that some entrepreneur is going to come along and offer a verification service independent of publishing sites where you login to the service, and the service posts a token that the publishing site accesses. That way the publishing site doesn't have to risk maintaining a database, but has a reasonable verification.

I think this has been tried in the past, but somehow it didn't stick because there was no incentive to do so. The day appears to be coming where something like it would be of value, separating the personal ID from the desired "adult" content.

I would offer the opinion this movement may have had something to do with Lit’s ban on nudity, but it would just be speculation.

I was thinking this as well.

 

[PersonalFavors]

Just my opinion. Forecasts about the future are always sketchy. I don't know what's going to happen any more than anyone else does.

In this case, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the US Supreme Court upheld a Texas law that requires websites that offer "pornography" to require age verification measures to make sure underage people aren't accessing the material. Quite a few other states in the US have these laws as well. This law had been challenged on the ground that it violated the First Amendment. The majority on the Supreme Court held it did not. The majority held that measures taken to regulate access of material that was "obscene to minors" were subject to "intermediate scrutiny," which is a much less rigorous level of scrutiny than the "strict scrutiny" to which most content-based regulations of speech are subject.

As someone who is very, very pro-speech, I think it's a problematic opinion, and I think it disturbingly walks back from some of the robustly free-speech cases that were issued around the turn of the millennium concerning speech on the Internet. But I don't interpret it as the sky is falling. It COULD be a disturbing harbinger of opinions to come in the future, and it might embolden politicians to take more and more steps to regulate sexual entertainment online. But we'll have to wait and see.

It doesn't change the definition of obscenity. I'm doubtful about whether, under existing law, anything that Literotica allows would be deemed to be "obscene" under the law, or even "obscene to minors." Literotica prohibits bestiality, pedophilia, "real" rape, and snuff. These are the subjects that I think the court would most likely find to constitute "obscenity." Also, I'm not aware, SO FAR, of any efforts to regulate erotic stories, as opposed to erotic images, online. I suspect Literotica's recent decision to delete all nude images is a proactive effort to further insulate it from this sort of scrutiny or regulation.

I live in a state that does not have an age verification law like this, and I think it's unlikely that it will pass such a law any time soon. I'm not seeing any change in my online experience as a result of these laws. But I've been wrong before.

I think we have to wait and see. It's unlikely, but not impossible, that some zealous anti-sex state authorities may try to apply laws like this one to erotic stories. Right now, it doesn't seem to be an issue.

There DOES seem to be a fairly broad-based effort internationally to regulate sexual content. Recently, I was in a European country that imposes an age verification requirement to view certain kinds of content. I was surprised. Also, Sweden recently passed a law that treats the offering of sexually explicit visual content pursuant to messaging as being akin to illegal prostitution. That dramatically impacts Swedish content creators on platforms like OnlyFans.

So, it's concerning. But anybody who knows history knows that freedom of speech has ALWAYS been beset on all sides, so it's not cause for panic.

Living in a state that does require age verification, privacy needs to be brought into the conversation and specially any laws prohibiting such viewing.
The verification is third party and a different verification on each site. Each of the verifyers, if that is a word, have a list of disclaimers. Each one includes they are required to release the data collected to any state or other jurisdiction that requests it. The data required includes a valid photo ID age address and more. Not only is a user providing PII to an unknown entity, they are potentially adding their name to a list. Multiple times if they visit multiple sites.
Part of my point is the age verification itself is not safe.
The age verification is a method to bankrupt sites that have enjoyable material.
Free Speech Coalition can only not afford to fight this. The ones signing it into law are elected and know full well they would be shamed if they did not vote for the ridiculous law.
In my opinion the law, this verification does not protect children at all.

 

[PersonalFavors]

My expectation is that some entrepreneur is going to come along and offer a verification service independent of publishing sites where you login to the service, and the service posts a token that the publishing site accesses. That way the publishing site doesn't have to risk maintaining a database, but has a reasonable verification.

I think this has been tried in the past, but somehow it didn't stick because there was no incentive to do so. The day appears to be coming where something like it would be of value, separating the personal ID from the desired "adult" content.



I was thinking this as well.

In the early days of high speed internet age verification was used as a ploy to get you to reveal your credit card information. "Nothing will be charged to your card" and "only used for age verification purposes". Didn't work.
Age verification as is or even with a clearing house suggested, this does not give parents the option to allow children to look. My dad's magazines were not behind lock and key. My mom's vibrator was in the drawer next to her bed.....
I may be defending freedom in the name of my childhood memories. Nothing bad happened to me. And I enjoyed what I saw. I may not have known what I was looking at or what to do with it but I was very interested. I was masturbating before I saw the porn anyway. Is it bad that I may have gotten better at it after seeing something to think about while doing it?

 

[ElectricBlue]

I would offer the opinion this movement may have had something to do with Lit’s ban on nudity, but it would just be speculation.

That's not speculation.

The site has (privately) advised artists with illustrated content - like me, which is why I know this - that the archiving of such material from public sight is directly attributable to such laws arriving on the statutes, as a pro-active bulwark. Note well, the word used by the site is "archived", not "deleted", nor "censored", but action taken to remove content from the public eye.

I suspect the reason why the site has taken such content down, but hasn't offered a definitive policy announcement, is to do with legal advice they will most likely, have sought. Some legal subtlety, I'm sure.

It's definitely a "watch this space" in many countries.

 

[Britva415]

Doesn't add up.

Archiving, like was done with the imagery, isn't a step which can be done to the stories. And if they were going to "play ball" with any of the age verification regs, that would cover the imagery too, not just the stories.

So, treating the imagery and the text differently doesn't add up when the laws cover both text and images.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Oh man, I am just imagining the amount of stuff they'd had to do with music considering how many lyrics are explicit. Not exactly an American example, but Te Quiero Puta and Pussy, both by Rammstein come to mind.

Do these puritans ever think? I mean they obviously don't, but that would just mean the whole website of Chase Atlantic would require an ID check for Americans considering that all of their songs are about sex and drugs, and some even have both together..

I don't even want to bring my sex journal to this conversation. By the logic of these puritans who want to outsource the job of raising their stupid kids to the government, just that journal alone makes me an outlaw, and now I feel even cooler about it.

I'm not even thinking about erotic fiction, but rather just the things that go off outside of that realm, and the many other things they'll start having troubles with later on.

Wait, isn't this the same country that a hundred years ago thought it would be such a good idea to ban alcohol, and they ended up supersizing their ration of crime instead?

 

[Bamagan]

Wait, isn't this the same country that a hundred years ago thought it would be such a good idea to ban alcohol, and they ended up supersizing their ration of crime instead?

Yes, but when you're sufficiently cynical and acknowledge how easy it is for criminals to get elected and set policy, the rise of organized and corporatized crime is a feature, not a bug.

And for the record, I'm specifically referring to America's Prohibition Era and adjacent time periods. Although one can draw parallels between nearly any points in history.

 

[MrPixel]

Do these puritans ever think?

No they don't. If they're successful at driving all adult content underground, then we have the 1950s all over again, where truly degenerate forms of pornography flourished in the back alleys and speakeasies.

OTOH, there are so, so many ways to bypass this sort of Draconian bullshit. For instance, servers in the Cayman Islands (or other dens of iniquity) and VPN or VPN-like services such as Tor. Easy peasy. Countries like China can censor the Internet with things like mandatory BIOS hacks, but that sort of skulduggery is unlikely to gain traction in Western nations.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

There DOES seem to be a fairly broad-based effort internationally to regulate sexual content.

An international effort to regulate sexual content, but at the same time, deregulating banks at every turn, even if the crash didn't happen that long ago. I am yet to see any worldwide "crash" caused by sexual content.
It's a sign of the times.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Living in a state that does require age verification, privacy needs to be brought into the conversation and specially any laws prohibiting such viewing.
The verification is third party and a different verification on each site. Each of the verifyers, if that is a word, have a list of disclaimers. Each one includes they are required to release the data collected to any state or other jurisdiction that requests it. The data required includes a valid photo ID age address and more. Not only is a user providing PII to an unknown entity, they are potentially adding their name to a list. Multiple times if they visit multiple sites.
Part of my point is the age verification itself is not safe.
The age verification is a method to bankrupt sites that have enjoyable material.
Free Speech Coalition can only not afford to fight this. The ones signing it into law are elected and know full well they would be shamed if they did not vote for the ridiculous law.
In my opinion the law, this verification does not protect children at all.

I also live in a state that requires age verification, and while it is a pain, using a VPN negates the need to verify your age as long as you are able to pick an IP location that isn't also based in a state requiring verification. About half the states currently have age verification laws to access adult websites.

Dark blue states have enacted age verification laws. Light blue states have age verification laws in the works.

In the meantime, I just select an IP location in Australia and go from there.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Doesn't add up.

Archiving, like was done with the imagery, isn't a step which can be done to the stories. And if they were going to "play ball" with any of the age verification regs, that would cover the imagery too, not just the stories.

So, treating the imagery and the text differently doesn't add up when the laws cover both text and images.

The hysterical focus, from the hypocrites outside the tent, is visual content.

In any event, I expect the site has sought legal advice, which would influence what they are doing.

 

[ElectricBlue]

In the meantime, I just select an IP location in Australia and go from there.

That might change. Australia is enabling legislation prohibiting those under sixteen from accessing social media sites. How the law proposes to do that, I don't know.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

The hysterical focus, from the hypocrites outside the tent, is visual content.

In any event, I expect the site has sought legal advice, which would influence what they are doing.

According to this:

"Most age verification bills follow a template laid out by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) and the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) in 2022:"

• They require companies who publish a “substantial” amount of adult content — usually 1/3 or more of their total production — to check the age of every person accessing their website.
• They create a way for parents to sue pornography companies if their kids access content they shouldn’t.

There is typically no language in most of these laws that speaks only to images.

 

[ElectricBlue]

According to this:

"Most age verification bills follow a template laid out by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) and the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) in 2022:"

• They require companies who publish a “substantial” amount of adult content — usually 1/3 or more of their total production — to check the age of every person accessing their website.
• They create a way for parents to sue pornography companies if their kids access content they shouldn’t.

There is typically no language in most of these laws that speaks only to images.

If you're citing American law, that's irrelevant to Australia law. All I can say is, age verification requirements are on their way in Australia for social media sites. Where Literotica sits in that definition, I have no idea.

 

[AG31]

My SO passed me this. @SimonDoom is this article correct or is this fearmongering?

@Five_Inch_Heels does this count as a fun thread or is this still drek?

Wo! That's sobering.

 

[AG31]

I certainly don't want to have to sign up at some clearing house that has to give states access if they ask. But I gotta say that I'm sympathetic to the concerns of parents' and teachers' concern about young teens getting their early understanding of sexuality from a plethora of BDSM images available on line. This is not the same as finding a pack of playing cards with such pictures and sharing it with your friends. Or sneaking looks at Dad's porn magazines. Those were more clearly out of the norm.

Dunno what the answer is.

 

[PersonalFavors]

Oh man, I am just imagining the amount of stuff they'd had to do with music considering how many lyrics are explicit. Not exactly an American example, but Te Quiero Puta and Pussy, both by Rammstein come to mind.

Do these puritans ever think? I mean they obviously don't, but that would just mean the whole website of Chase Atlantic would require an ID check for Americans considering that all of their songs are about sex and drugs, and some even have both together..

I don't even want to bring my sex journal to this conversation. By the logic of these puritans who want to outsource the job of raising their stupid kids to the government, just that journal alone makes me an outlaw, and now I feel even cooler about it.

I'm not even thinking about erotic fiction, but rather just the things that go off outside of that realm, and the many other things they'll start having troubles with later on.

Wait, isn't this the same country that a hundred years ago thought it would be such a good idea to ban alcohol, and they ended up supersizing their ration of crime instead?

Lyrics?!? How will they censor the nightly news? Television commercials?
This verification aspect is like a land grab.

 

[PersonalFavors]

I also live in a state that requires age verification, and while it is a pain, using a VPN negates the need to verify your age as long as you are able to pick an IP location that isn't also based in a state requiring verification. About half the states currently have age verification laws to access adult websites.
View attachment 2553482
Dark blue states have enacted age verification laws. Light blue states have age verification laws in the works.

In the meantime, I just select an IP location in Australia and go from there.

VPN is a workaround. A temporary solution. Very inconvenient. Unless you only use your computer or phone for porn and do not care if your location is pertinent on the apps you choose to allow location information on.
Costly VPN access is available that can be configured to specific browsers or browser pages. However, while researching I could not find a VPN that had a setting that allowed to not use VPN at all and only on the one or two webpages you want the VPN applied to. The settings also needed to be configured per use. So never close your webpages? Never reboot? Turn the VPN on for the whole device, browse porn and then turn the VPN off when you want to do something else?
VPN will not work forever. For now it is pretty inconvenient.
I do use VPN when I am in Mexico or Canada. But only so I can be American and stream like I am at home while enjoying the weather at one of my other locations.

 

[alohadave]

Another aspect to this is non-governmental groups that don't invoke laws, but put pressure on sites and hosts to take down things they don't like.

SOL went through this recently with a German group the threatened their host with bad publicity if SOL didn't change their content policies. They were booted from two different hosts in short order.

No governments were involved, and they had broken no laws. When companies face public embarrassment and hits to their profits, they'll fold fast. Not many companies want to be the face of defending porn.

 

[PersonalFavors]

According to this:

"Most age verification bills follow a template laid out by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) and the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) in 2022:"

• They require companies who publish a “substantial” amount of adult content — usually 1/3 or more of their total production — to check the age of every person accessing their website.
• They create a way for parents to sue pornography companies if their kids access content they shouldn’t.

There is typically no language in most of these laws that speaks only to images.

Very interesting. I wondered how this came about. Leave it to attorneys to find a way to profit from something they have nothing to do with.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

VPN is a workaround. A temporary solution. Very inconvenient. Unless you only use your computer or phone for porn and do not care if your location is pertinent on the apps you choose to allow location information on.
Costly VPN access is available that can be configured to specific browsers or browser pages. However, while researching I could not find a VPN that had a setting that allowed to not use VPN at all and only on the one or two webpages you want the VPN applied to. The settings also needed to be configured per use. So never close your webpages? Never reboot? Turn the VPN on for the whole device, browse porn and then turn the VPN off when you want to do something else?
VPN will not work forever. For now it is pretty inconvenient.
I do use VPN when I am in Mexico or Canada. But only so I can be American and stream like I am at home while enjoying the weather at one of my other locations.

No question that VPN is a workaround, but it is a solution for right now.

I use PrivadoVPN, which is free with my yearly subscription to Easynews. Where this discussion is concerned, I simply launch it when I need to access an age restricted site and close it when I am done. No changes required for each use.

It can impact network throughput, but I don't typically have it open that long since my visits to these sites are research related. I gather the information I am seeking and leave.