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Massachusetts Bids To Restrict Internet Indecency
Remember the Communications Decency Act? Enacted 1996, found unconstitutional 1997. Or its successor attempt to reduce discourse on the Internet to what is suitable for 8-year-olds, the Child Online Protection Act? Invalidated 2003. Seven state laws attempting to restrict Internet content on grounds of decency have been struck down. Despite all this, Massachusetts has now added a couple of paragraphs to its (traditionally bricks-and-mortar) indecency law that applies a "harmful to minors" test to Internet content. The ACLU of Massachusetts and others have brought suit to block the law, which went into effect on July 11. Coincidentally, today a US appeals court tossed out the FCC's indecency policy.
The FCC decision is much more far reaching and frankly will hopefully restore some sense to TV and radio.
That won't happen. The networks are still going to censor themselves. They just won't have to pay multi-million dollar fines to the government if something slips through.
If the Obama administration is smart it will not even try to appeal this.
I'm not defending this but look at it this way - if he doesn't appeal it will likely be used against him during the next elections. The issues are deeper than this.
It is called Flash games, they rather enjoy them. They also like playing on the Wii and playing Eve Online. They just haven't shown interest in the majority of the internet yet. I am not expecting that to last long, but by then I expect they will also be mature enough to handle what is out there.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Isn't that the simpler solution? Just cut off all Internet access in Boston, and let anyone who doesn't want that bullshit move elsewhere. Pretty soon nobody will be left there, and the problem will be solved.
Same here. First porn I saw I found surfing around on our "big dish" satellite (satellite F4, channel 18 - twas the Spice Channel). My parents had a hacked box that got every channel so the porn came in along with everything else.
I didn't find it disgusting. Mostly just interesting. I'd played "show me yours and I'll show you mine" with a few neighborhood girls before, but we were all between 4 and 10 doing that. First time I flipped to that channel and saw how different an adult woman looked, it definitely sparked my curiosity. Particularly given that this was the early 90's and the whole "shaving" revolution hadn't taken place yet, so things looked VERY different down there than what I'd seen before.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
As a native, let me say that "massachusetts liberal" is just a polite euphemism for "nanny-state prude". Don't forget our Puritan roots.
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Plus, they need a pre-election distraction to get people's minds off the deficit spending and tax raising going on in the halls of power in Boston. Because some of those dictators-for-life might get voted out if any focus falls on the real issues
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
"Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool." --Mark Twain
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga