Actually I think this is really good that we see more regulation around access to pornography, because many damaging aspects of it have been raised more in public awareness and these companies have made a lot of money off of addicting populations from a young age with harmful content without paying for the consequences. Social media companies should be included also, considering how many children and teens are on social media platforms looking for sexual activity with adults.
Citation needed for literally everything you said.
What constitutes "damage"? What if we pretend that the sky-wizard delusion didn't care that children were aware of nipples - would it still count as damage? What populations are 'addicted'? What constitutes 'addicted' (and harmful content? and consequences?)
This whole thing reads like something gpt would spit out at the prompt: Write an extremely vague and histrionic blurb about {INDUSTRY} that can be used to trigger moral panic. Oh and throw in a bit about social media too.
Maybe you don’t know but many children, teens and adults are meeting up physically and having virtual sexual interactions and also pornography is a major way these start, not to mention the amount of teen and child pornography online that is proclaimed “over 18” because the uploader lied about their age. I already wrote in another comment about my own experience as a survivor of online sexual abuse from adults and porn addiction as a minor. Data on finding out how many
It is a real problem, and we are being harmed. Obviously in many places sending explicit pictures as a minor is a crime, and finding adult study participants willing to talk about their sexual interactions with children is tricky, but you can find a lot online about negative consequences of general sexting among minors.
By the way, you can word your comments in a far less offensive and respectful manner. You should engage with the content instead of make mockery of users, per the guidelines of this site.
> Social media companies should be included also, considering how many children and teens are on social media platforms looking for sexual activity with adults.
No considering.
"Social media companies should be included also."
Period. Because in their current form and business model they're harmful to pre-adults.
On the latest Jonathan Haidt discussion here a parent posted a lengthy rebuttal about someone pointing out the various resources found on YT. Their a-yo and b-yo sons only watch utter trash, Mr. Beast, videogames, 10 minute ads, all that stuff, and they watch it for hours on end. What a terrible platform. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. I only do wonder who has custody of their kids, who handed them the iPads, who gives them internet access, and who watches them watch trash all day, day in and day out?
people will still be making porn for free if commercial activity is banned. always have been. It's likely that people watch more porn-hours on twitter than on PH. Social media competition treadmill otoh is unhealthy AF
I can anecdotally tell you growing up as a child and then teen with internet access with little regulation led me (was a minor back then) to having virtual sexual interactions with adults and other minors. I’m sure pictures are stored in a server somewhere still. Lots of emotional damage and shame and regret from those interactions and how much time I wasted and feeling used by adults. And there were a lot of minors my age addicted and having sexual interactions with adults online, and even more nowadays. It took a long time for me to find support and slowly leave my addictions and obsessions, felt imprisoned by my own desires. Luckily, having good friends and company around me and telling some close friends about my struggles and finding support groups online helped me get better. Also found much comfort in religion and spiritual guidance.
Listen, I know my original comment was short, just basically yelling "prove it". The reason is that while I don't doubt your anecdote is true that's not sufficient when making laws that restrict freedoms. You should also know this, thinking that something should be regulated for everyone because of your own personal experience is wrong and scares me that you do that.
The thing is, there are many other children and teens who went through similar experiences like me. And I don’t think any child or teen should be subjected to that level of internet wilderness, not at least until they’ve gotten more sense in their head. Are you willing to support a status quo where some children and teens continue to face these issues?
I don’t see it as a freedom issue, I felt less free being manipulated by adults. I feel more free having more control over what I choose to do with my time instead of coercion via hormones.
Anyways the question is, do we really want to hurt children and teens for the sake of some adults not having to upload their IDs? I understand there are many privacy issues with this, but I’m not sure you’d understand my viewpoint unless you realize the scale of minor sexual activity with adults occurring online.
Absolutely agree about this. the ways in which this industry tries to catch your eyes and tries to grab your attention is both outrageous and evil. yes, every advertising network tries to do that, but there is no advertisement that leads to more harm than this one, and the more frequently they can be stopped, The healthier society will be.
The issue is porn is a natural addiction. Young people, especially young men will always be horny and seek out porn. The only deterrents to it are religious and cultural shaming. Is the solution to regulate porn with "education" so people know what healthy use is or not? Because while it seems reasonable to provide guidelines, 99% of people will ignore them.
Sometimes what seems natural is because the water was poisoned for so long. Yes, it is natural to have sexual desire, but is unfettered spread of porn with a few taps easily accessible at any age really something we should accept? And young men need a lot of support, in my anecdotal experience it is too easy for so many to fall down negative paths with little support network to prevent it.
Now with AI it is even more dangerous, we have deepfakes (see recent Canada news on deepfakes of children), and the spread of more isolation and addiction with the internet “drugs” compared to genuine in person interactions with friends and family.
Technology like smartphones helped us in many ways but also they became a new way to suffer and amplified some existing problems. Shouldn’t we regulate the worst of it?
I found more dangerous than porn is the ability to communicate with random adults online as a child, with often sexual endings. I remember growing up as a teen, there were sites like Omegle and then chat apps like kik and Snapchat and then Reddit, all these places had avenues for teens and children to communicate and swap pictures with adults, etc. with little to no regulation or consequences for these companies.
I feel like use of porn is a symptom of isolation and lack of education/support structures. Fix those and people will be less vulnerable and addicted.
The problem is loneliness is stigmatized and porn creates a "safe haven" where people don't have to confront the challenging dullness and angst of their life. Kurt Vonnegut once said: "What do my science fiction stories have in common with pornography? Fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world, I’m told."
What is the solution, to just do what Utah and sexually repressed countries do, "Sorry no porn for you, it's in your best interest, I'm sure you will stop wanting it if we arbitrarily restrict it". It's not a solution and makes people go further "down the rabbit hole" to scratch that itch.
Regulations should be reserved for the worst problems. Porn consumption should be looked at, but not sure why we can not just empower parents to do their jobs, just like we empower them to control what movies they let their children watch on TV?
You see with drug abuse that regulations do little to solve the actual problems.
Juul was pretty swiftly dealt with once their effects on children was noticed. Also, for parents the modern world is very difficult, there are so many influences and pressure on your children and they occupy an increasingly smaller role in influencing children these days. There needs to be society and government policy level regulations to help, individual parents enacting harsh rules will not end well in a society where advertisers are very advanced.
