Slashdot Mirror
Utah Governor Signs Net-Porn Bill
All Names Have Been writes "House bill 260 has been signed into law by Utah's governor. It creates a list of websites that are not 'safe for children' and forces ISPs to block these sites for those who request it.
In addition, content providers who host or create content in Utah for profit must now rate their websites or face 3rd degree felony charges.
A similar law in Pennsylvania was struck down last year." (See this earlier story, too.)
Despite the fact that both states have elected Bushes as governor, we've never done anything quite as pointless and unenforceable as trying to outlaw internet porn.
Thank you, Utah, for boldy diving head first into the shallow end of the pool to prove how stupid it is for the rest of us.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The first slashdot post said the governor was considering it. This one says he has.
Now, Dupe Nazi, how else am I supposed to know he actually signed it, unless there's a follow up article? Guess? Assume?
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union go further and warn the bill violates the US Constitution's First Amendment on free speech and the Commerce Clause. Six other states have had similar legislation ruled unconstitutional, resulting in huge legal bills for residents, Media Coalition director David Horowitz told the Salt Lake City Tribune.
You would think that they would learn not to mess with the free speech rights of adults and children here. The main objection to these kinds of bills is that the block access to sites giving medical or social information about topics like teen sexuality, pregnancy, and homosexuality. This is due to the fact that the blacklist is drawn up by a bunch of conservative idiots rather than people that know the difference between Debbie Does Dallas and Gray's Anatomy. The laws prevent teens who have a right to know this kind of information without the consent of their parents (the ACLU has defended teen medical rights before) which is stupid since most of the problems with teen sex are due to ignorance on the part of teens about sexuality. Since they are taught nothing but abstinence, those who do have sex don't use protection. And because of the lack of communication between parents and teens in this case, the teens won't tell their parents nor will they get medical help which just makes the situation worse. One of these days they'll figure out that teaching children proper morals and letting them deal with the dangers of the world regarding sex is better than just blindfolding them and threaten them with eternal damnation if they have sex before marriage.
--
Want a free iPod?
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
Texas has a ban on dildos. Can't buy then, although, here in Houston you certainly can find a lot of porn shops sans dildos. I think this is the same thing really. Banning what people do in the privacy of their own homes. It's wrong.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Ahh, there's the realization of De Toqueville's Tyranny of the Majority - a majority (Mormons in this case), running willy nilly over silly things like 'constitutional rights' that might do something dastardly like supporting unpopular minority rights.
Meh, unfettered democracy is a stupid, dumb idea and this is a perfect case study - the tyranny of the Mormons.
Hard to take that seriously, perhaps, but it is chilling...
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
Let's take a look at the bill:
So this bill is creating an OPT-IN list, preventing access to sites only to those customers who ask the ISP to do this. How is this violating free speech? If I don't want spam and decide to use a spam filter, am I violating the free speech rights of the spammers?5 mod points says that this list wont be accessible to the public, so the average person wont be able to critique the selctions, and that the ISPs will have to pay for the list for the privilege to comply with the law.
You are missing that it is not your ISP duty to censor internet for you. What if they censor too much or too little maybe? If you are worried about your children then there are programs made especially for that. Use them instead.
Or move to China maybe.
but in 5 years I am thinking that slap-the-bitch.com might be a sight I would want blocked.
Then block it. Who exactly is stopping you?
That is this thing known as "Freedom".
There are these people known variously as "cowards", "fools", "scumbags", and "fascist fuckheads", among many other terms who do not understand that to have "Freedom" takes something known as "Courage".
Which is a dwindling resource in this modern world.
Think of the children, please. Maybe some of you guys don't have to worry because you spend 4 hours-a-day actually SEARCHING for porn on the web, but please, a 5 or 6 year old girl, or even a boy?
With all due respect, why is it the state of Utah's job to parent your children? There are a plethora of ways you could filter out things you don't want your children to see and while they're not foolproof, they're likely to keep the 5 or 6 year old child innocently playing on the Internet from stumbling on something.
Now, instead of you implementing your own solution to your own specifications--and out of your own pocket--the tax payers get to do it for you. Because... why?
'As they say, you learn more about a man from his enemies than his friends.'
Unfortunately, enemies often are convinced of the truth of half truths, so they are not good sources of information.
I agree. But I think what he means is that you'll get more of the truth when talking to a former member of the LDS church than an active one. I think there are two reasons for that. Reason number one is that there are no worries. It's like a retired politician saying everything he ever wanted to, but didn't before in fear of not being re-elected. The second reason is that many opposers (certainly not all, however) typically spend a great deal of time forming opinions and even more time doing the research to back it up.
But it's always good to get as many sides as you can. I'm glad to see Mormons who are supportive of their religion throwing in their two cents.
I agree that only seeing the sites you want to see is a good thing, but why in the world involve the ISPs? This is like requiring taxi companies to refuse to take you to a list of restaurants you don't like. If you don't want to go there, don't go there!
But the point is there's no way, short of monitoring every moment of a child's internet usage (which isn't truly practical) to ensure they don't end up going there.
It's not about whether an adult wants to go there or not - it's about whether an adult has the means to ensure their children don't go there.
The law's treatment of ISPs is nothing like a taxi firm, it's like a news seller:
Hardcore porn, right now, can be sitting anywhere on a newseller's shelves - right amongst the comics. Worse, it's virtually impossible to identify which links will and won't take a kid to porn or what endless cycles of pop-ups will. That's the equivalent of hardcore porn makers wrapping their content in Yu-Gi-Oh covers to ensure it gets more impressions.
What the law is saying is: Utah magazine publishers aren't allowed to wrap an innocent looking cover around their porn mags anymore and, as Utah can't legislate against out of state magazines, they're requiring news sellers to put magazines from a given list on the top shelf.
It's not even as if it prohibits free speach. You still have the right to speak. It's just that parents are being given the right to decide they and their families don't want to listen (and still have the right to decide to listen if they want to).
I agree it's not an ideal system. I agree it's not perfect. I agree some non-porn sites will mistakenly end up on the list. I agree there are better alternatives out there (though, as many parents evidently don't know of them, "better" is obviously a relative term).
But, just because something's not ideal, it doesn't mean it should automatically be ignored if, as non-ideal, it's still better than not doing it.
What are the costs? The real, genuine costs? Minimal if anything - a piece of cheap software that blocks a supplied list really doesn't cost much at all. Give a decent programmer a few hours, they can knock it up for you. Other than that and the Utah state government's money - the other costs are arguably negligible.
What are the benefits? Maybe not as great as promised but they do exist. Block a few thousand typo domains like hotmale.com, the obvious ones kids try like playboy.com and the most prolific ad/spyware based ones and you can make a reasonable sized dent - even if you can't catch everything.
Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Yes. Does it trample any civil liberties or anything else with a hard to immediately prove but ultimately huge cost? No.
So stop whining. You see flaws in it? Write to the Utah congresscritters and senators. Suggest better solutions. They evidently see it as a problem worth addressing, they obviously see the benefits as outweighing the costs - so suggest your better solution and see if they'll act on it. Just don't bitch for the sake of bitching that people chose a non-perfect solution that they still regard as better than the costs of implementing it.
For me, "most" equals "all".
What's wrong with making fun of people believing silly sounding, probably wrong stuff?
The average layman's belief in science is indistinguishable from religious belief: in both cases the believers are listening to a handful of "prophets" making astounding claims about the nature of the universe, based on things the believers have never seen and is not in a position to test for themselves. Science-believers have simply decided, based on what they have heard, that the scientists' explanation makes more sense than the others. Religious fundamentalists have come to the opposite conclusion. Most people hover somewhere in between.
Unless you are one of the top 1% of physicists, therefore, your "rational" beliefs are essentially religious beliefs, and your statement that "all" religions are wrong becomes nonsensical.
Here's an experiment, if you don't believe me. Go out onto a street, accost an average-looking housewife, and try to tell her about Jesus. Now accost another one and try to tell her about string theory. Dollars to donuts you'll get the same reaction from both.
Why is it a religious issue to not want your children to see something like that old slashdot favorite image with "goat" in the name?
I'm sure there are plenty of athiests with children who would like to protect them from seeing a wide variety of images on the internet. Boobies? Come on. If the internet had nothing more extreme than Playboy Magazine, I seriously doubt you'd have legislation like this.
Also this does not infringe anyone's first amendment rights, because it is voluntary. If you want to continue to see everything, you do nothing. If you want to block the sites on the list, you have to request that they be blocked.
To summarize why I reject your logic:
Now, unfortunately, comes my reason why this bill won't do much good... It is amazingly easy to set up a new domain name. It is impossible for ANY group to keep an adequate list of sites to block. As soon as owners of a site find it blocked, they can spend about 15 minutes at most to get a new name that ISN'T blocked.
The best solution I ever heard was from one of the columnists in eWeek (back when it was PCWeek) circa 1996-7. Can't remember which one. His suggestion was a separate domain designator for porn. Something like .xxx
This way anyone could publish anything, but people who choose to avoid such things could simply block the .xxx domains.