On Sept. 11, Michigan representatives proposed an internet content ban bill unlike any of the others we've seen: This particularly far-reaching legislation would ban not only many types of online content, but also the ability to legally use any VPN.
The bill, called the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act and advanced by six Republican representatives, would ban a wide variety of adult content online, ranging from ASMR and adult manga to AI content and any depiction of transgender people. It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.
Main issue I have with this article, and a lot of articles on this topic, is it doesn't address the issue of youth access to porn. I think any semi-intelligent person knows this is a parenting issue, but unfortunately that cat's out of the bag, thanks to the right. "Proliferation of porn" is the '90s crime scare (that never really died) all over again. If a politician or industry expert is speaking against bills like this, their talking points have to include:
- Privacy-respecting alternatives that promise parents that their precious babies won't be able to access that horrible dangerous porn! (I don't argue that porn can't be dangerous, but this is yet another disingenuous right-wing culture (holy) war)
- Addressing that vagueness in the bill sets up the government as morality police (it's right there in the title of the bill, FFS), and NOBODY in a "free" country should ever want that.
- Stop saying it can be bypassed with technology. The VPN ban in this bill is a reaction to talking points like that.
- Recognize and call out that this has nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with a religious minority imposing its will on the rest of the country (plenty of recent examples to pull from here).
Unfortunately this is becoming enough of "A Thing" that the left is going to have to, once again, be seen doing "something" about it. So they have to thread a needle of "protecting kids," while respecting the privacy of their parents who want their kids protected and want to look at porn, and protecting businesses that require secure communications.
Even parents who are actively trying to prevent their children from viewing porn might find it a challenge, given the sheer amount of porn on the internet and the proliferation of Internet connected devices.
But what about the kids whose parents don't take steps to prevent their kids from accessing porn? Do the rest of us just say, "well kid, if your parents don't care then neither do I. Watch all the porn you want."? Or do the rest of us have a responsibility to try and protect those kids, even if their own parents won't?
I actually work in education and this is genuinely a problem. There are children in elementary with unfettered access to the internet, and they are the kids with the most behavioral issues. These kids then grow into adults with issues and it genuinely does have a negative effect on our society. I do NOT want VPNs banned, because that is an obvious play at stopping adults watching whatever they want. What I do want is some way to stem the tide of hardcore porn being watched by young kids, which is currently the case. “Parents need to parent.” Yeah, good fucking luck with that. I’d encourage anyone reading this to reach out to your local educator and ask if too much internet access is fucking up these kids. I’m guessing I already know their answer.
You are seeing symptoms and assuming they are the cause. Porn doesn't cause behaviour issues; the inattentive parenting that allowed the access does. These kids with behaviour issues existed long before internet porn became widespread.
Im sorry, but are you a psychologist or other mental health professional that works with kids? The typical behavioral issues remain, with new ones now being correlated with unsupervised access to the internet. So let’s just do nothing to try and help our educators and society at large.