Current Events > Bill would require internet users to pay $20 to remove porn filter

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2017/04/porn_filter_bill_set_for_publi.html

A public hearing is scheduled for Wednesday on a bill that would require sellers of computers, cell phones and other devices that provide Internet access to have a filter to block pornography.

Consumers who wanted to deactivate the filter would have to make a written request to the seller and pay a $20 fee that would go to the state to benefit crime victims and human trafficking victims.

The bill is by Rep. Jack Williams, R-Vestavia Hills, who has sponsored previous legislation to strengthen laws against human trafficking.

Under Williams' bill, devices would have filters that block child pornography, obscene material, sexual cyber-harassment and promotions of prostitution.

A seller who sells a device without a filter to a minor would be guilty of a felony, while it would be a misdemeanor to sell a device without a filter to an adult.

Williams said he proposed the bill to spark debate about how to protect children from exposure to hard-core pornography.

"This gets a conversation started on how do you find an approach that protects the rights and liberties of everybody involved," Williams said.

Williams said that protecting children from pornography was simpler before the digital age.

"A 10-year-old shows up at the local porn shop and they say, 'Sorry, you can't come in,' " Williams said.

Williams said similar bills are under consideration in other states, including in South Carolina.

Randall Marshall, legal director for the ACLU of Alabama, said the bill would create a law that would be unconstitutional.

"The notion that you have to jump through some hoops as an adult to access free information on the Internet violates the First Amendment," Marshall said. "This is censorship, plain and simple."

Marshall noted that child pornography is not protected speech and that people who trade in and view it are already prosecuted on a regular basis under existing law.

It is not just Alabama, but 13 states with GOP legislators pushing for this bill.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/11/anti-porn-warrior-behind-the-porn-filter-bill-has-a-tangled-legal-history.html

Conservative lawmakers in over a dozen states are pushing a bill that would force consumers to pay a ransom to access pornography. The Human Trafficking Prevention Act, if passed, would apply a pornography filter to any device, from laptops to cellphones to routers, that connects to the internet—and would levy a $20 tax to remove it from each one. The bill mandates all manufacturers of internet-connected devices maintain separate, 24-7 call centers to make sure obscene material is appropriately labeled.

It popped up in SC back in December
http://www.goupstate.com/news/20161217/bill-seeks-to-put-porn-block-on-computers-sold-in-sc
---

stupid tax, i am against human trafficking but this isn't a good way to go about it.
---

Party of stupid non-fucking ideas
---

I hope it passes.
---

Fuck off with this bullshit.
---

We need to go find this Bill guy and give him what for!
---

This is dumb. It fines innocent people and would make no difference. There would be tutorials on how to remove it for free within seconds if it was on computers.
---

Never going to work. It's like these people don't know you can go to message boards or places like Reddit that have people willingly posting that stuff
---

Hypothetically, were this bill to pass, how long do you folks think it would take for the internet to devise a workaround? A day, a week?

Also, I wonder how they would get this onto computers; would it simply be installed on phones/prebuilt computers, or would it be loaded directly into operating system software?
---

DevsBro posted...

We need to go find this Bill guy and give him what for!

Ayyy
---

Keeping porn out of kids' hands is the responsibility of the parent. I thought the "party of personal responsibility" and "small government" would be for less government intrusion into citizens' daily lives and nanny state rules.

The human trafficking shit is just there to paint detractors of this bill as supporters of human trafficking and giving porn to children.
---

I feel like this would be easy to get around. And it's not like these Republicans would be smart enough to make it illegal to do so, since they clearly have no idea how technology in general works.
---

I think they already do this in other countries like Britain

Oh yes, because "preventing" people from access to say, drugs, has actually erased all drug addiction

Azarias posted...

Hypothetically, were this bill to pass, how long do you folks think it would take for the internet to devise a workaround? A day, a week?

Also, I wonder how they would get this onto computers; would it simply be installed on phones/prebuilt computers, or would it be loaded directly into operating system software?

There are already a half dozen solutions, from VPNs, file sharing, sites not listed .xxx, etc.
---

I'd rather pay $20 for a VPN and bypass it that way.
---

How does $20 actually deter traffickers? It seems like it would deter law-abiding people moreso.
---

lel. Give it less than 24 hours and it would be cracked anyway.
---

Much like Windows XP and 7, there's going to be a surge of sales on the last "good" PCs.

Silver Bearings posted...

It seems like it would deter law-abiding people moreso.

That's kinda the whole point, actually.
I'd check to see if Vivid or some other porn DVD publisher is in the shadows.

I agree with actively blocking child pornography if there is a realistic and practical way of doing so (there isn't), but allowing people to pay $20 to regain access reveals this bill for what it really is.
---

eston posted...

I agree with actively blocking child pornography if there is a realistic and practical way of doing so (there isn't), but allowing people to pay $20 to regain access reveals this bill for what it really is.

Remove USC 1466A, entirely.
When pedos can jerk off to cartoons (or sculptures or paintings, whatever), it lessens the demand for actual CP with actual children, and may even make what's left easier to find and prosecute when the remaining marketplace is essentially forced to consolidate.

i change my mind, they can add the Tax but i get to choose where the charity it goes to.

it's going to go to the ASPCA.
---

getting to be more and more like the uk

god save the queen and her nanny state
---

AlephZero posted...

getting to be more and more like the uk

god save the queen and her nanny state

And it's Republicans pushing us there.

Imagine a world in politics where rhetoric was consistent with actions.
---

Antifar posted...

Williams said he proposed the bill to spark debate about how to protect children from exposure to hard-core pornography.

"This gets a conversation started on how do you find an approach that protects the rights and liberties of everybody involved," Williams said.

Asherlee10 posted...

This will not pass.

However, sometimes these absurd bills are not meant to pass, but to generate awareness.

key points
---

lol voting republican
---

What kinda crap is this
---

NeuralLaxative posted...

lol voting republican

So long as starve-the-beast is glued to moral busybodies, yeah.

Or, you guys could actually start taking the Libertarian party seriously.

Questionmarktarius posted...

So long as starve-the-beast is glued to moral busybodies, yeah.

Or, you guys could actually start taking the Libertarian party seriously.

And then the Democrats win every election....
You know what please for them.
---

Btw i think libertarianism isn't terrible. But modern day Republican bullshit is actually evil.
---

foreveraIone posted...

And then the Democrats win every election....

Yeah . . . no. People only seem to want to vote Dem for reactionary reasons. The second they make any gain, they put the GOP back in power to piss it away.
---

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Yeah . . . no. People only seem to want to vote Dem for reactionary reasons. The second they make any gain, they put the GOP back in power to piss it away.

That's in the old 2 party system. If the Libertarian party gained real steam, it would just divide the votes.
---

Southernfatman posted...

Keeping porn out of kids' hands is the responsibility of the parent.

Agree wholeheartedly, but it's not like they have a very good success rate. Sins of the fathers, etc.
---

This Bill is giving me flashbacks to a Scrubs joke.
---

HainoRocks posted...

Southernfatman posted...

Keeping porn out of kids' hands is the responsibility of the parent.

Agree wholeheartedly, but it's not like they have a very good success rate. Sins of the fathers, etc.

Has there ever been a child actually traumatized by porn, without being an active participant?
Small children won't know what they're looking at, and the children who do are smart enough to figure out proxies these days.

Questionmarktarius posted...

HainoRocks posted...

Southernfatman posted...

Keeping porn out of kids' hands is the responsibility of the parent.

Agree wholeheartedly, but it's not like they have a very good success rate. Sins of the fathers, etc.

Has there ever been a child actually traumatized by porn, without being an active participant?
Small children won't know what they're looking at, and the children who do are smart enough to figure out proxies these days.

Children with access to porn tend to have a much higher rate of teen pregnancy. But let's face it they're going to get it anyway.
---

Meh, I'm all for it. Removing degeneracy one step at a time. There should be an equivalent, and expensive tax for filmmakers adding graphic sex scenes in their films, like what's in Game of Thrones and other shit like that. I'd ban it altogether but a high enough tax that discourages it is fine too.
---

ChromaticAngel posted...

Children with access to porn tend to have a much higher rate of teen pregnancy.

Is there actual peer-reviewed studies for that?
Seems intuitive that the opposite would be true.

alexg1989 posted...

Meh, I'm all for it. Removing degeneracy one step at a time. There should be an equivalent, and expensive tax for filmmakers adding graphic sex scenes in their films, like what's in Game of Thrones and other shit like that. I'd ban it altogether but a high enough tax that discourages it is fine too.

lmao
---

With each passing day, I regret registering as libertarian a bit less.
---

Lonestar2000 posted...

alexg1989 posted...

Meh, I'm all for it. Removing degeneracy one step at a time. There should be an equivalent, and expensive tax for filmmakers adding graphic sex scenes in their films, like what's in Game of Thrones and other shit like that. I'd ban it altogether but a high enough tax that discourages it is fine too.

lmao

---

Antifar posted...

Williams said he proposed the bill to spark debate about how to protect children from exposure to hard-core pornography.

There are better, easier ways to do this that don't make people think you're a fucking idiot.
---

alexg1989 posted...

Meh, I'm all for it. Removing degeneracy one step at a time. There should be an equivalent, and expensive tax for filmmakers adding graphic sex scenes in their films, like what's in Game of Thrones and other shit like that. I'd ban it altogether but a high enough tax that discourages it is fine too.

We've found the Moral Guardian, everybody.

I consider this to be treasonous
---

Wow the censorship in america is insane
---

alexg1989 posted...

Lonestar2000 posted...

alexg1989 posted...

Meh, I'm all for it. Removing degeneracy one step at a time. There should be an equivalent, and expensive tax for filmmakers adding graphic sex scenes in their films, like what's in Game of Thrones and other shit like that. I'd ban it altogether but a high enough tax that discourages it is fine too.

lmao

So violence is okay but not sexuality? Also, replace Hillary with America and that gif would be accurate.
---

All that's going to come of this is fucktons of lawsuits, and a cottage industry of filter removal.
Absolute worst-case scenario is that Linux finally gains some traction with the general public.