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.
No it can’t. Data can be de-anonymized.
Of course. Any and all data, stored anywhere, either physically or digitally, can and will be accessed by third parties and bad actors. This is the harsh reality.
However, it doesn’t stop us from collecting various information about our nations, including personal data. It also doesn’t stop us from creating more and more digital national services. Are they perfectly secure? No, not even close. But the need for them and their benefits [usually] greatly outweigh the risks. Perhaps an online ID verification system is one such case.
It is possible to make it so that only the government has access to the ID itself, which it already does, obviously. If no other parties can access it, there seems to be minimal risk.
Losing the ability to anonymously criticize the government, the rich, and those in power is a non starter.
Worse, even if it somehow came to fruition it won’t solve the problem of kids getting access to porn. You’ll sooner get pornographic zines and sneakernet. This is a parenting failure, not an auth failure.
The goal here isn’t to protect kids, its to silence dissent.