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from the a-marriage-is-formed-between-one-man-and-one-electronic-computing-device dept.
More than a dozen state legislatures are considering a bill called the "Human Trafficking Prevention Act," which has nothing to do with human trafficking and all to do with one man's crusade against pornography at the expense of free speech.
At its heart, the model bill would require device manufacturers to pre-install "obscenity" filters on devices like cell phones, tablets, and computers. Consumers would be forced to pony up $20 per device in order to surf the Internet without state censorship. The legislation is not only technologically unworkable, it violates the First Amendment and significantly burdens consumers and businesses.
Perhaps more shocking is the bill's provenance. The driving force behind the legislation is a man named Mark Sevier, who has been using the alias "Chris Severe" to contact legislators. According to the Daily Beast, Sevier is a disbarred attorney who has sued major tech companies, blaming them for his pornography addiction, and sued states for the right to marry his laptop. Reporters Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny uncovered a lengthy legal history for Sevier, including an open arrest warrant and stalking convictions, as well as evidence that Sevier misrepresented his own experience working with anti-trafficking non-profits.
The bill has been introduced in some form [in] Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming (list here). We recommend that any legislator who has to consider this bill read the Daily Beast's investigation.
[...] It’s unfortunate that the Human Trafficking Prevention Act has gained traction in so many states, but we're pleased to see that some, such as Wyoming and North Dakota, have already rejected it. Legislators should do the right thing: uphold the Constitution, protect consumers, and not use the problem of human trafficking as an excuse to promote this individual’s agenda against pornography.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/states-introduce-dubious-legislation-ransom-internet
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:01PM (14 children)
Pornography is not speech.
Well, then what is? If you carve out an exception for pornography and all the other acts of speech that someone doesn't like, then what's left? There has to be a limit to it or the people in control will keep cutting away till there's nothing left except the freedom to parrot the official line.
The point of freedom of speech is not to merely allow things that everyone likes. It's to allow any sort of communication and performance art to exist, no matter how unpleasant it happens to be to you.
than anti-assault laws hamper your ability to express your anger by punching someone.
Which let us note, do hamper your "ability" quite a bit.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by wisnoskij on Wednesday April 26 2017, @03:27PM (9 children)
Pornography is not and should never be protected by free speech laws because no one ever tried to express themselves through pornography. That is not why pornography is made. A video can be speech, that video can even include nudity and sex, but pornography is a sub type of video that is never speech.
We have serious activists trying to outlaw actual speech, actual talking, outlaw people stating their philosophy, ideas, or opinions. The West is rampant with illegal thoughts and illegal opinions [ifcdn.com]. In that light, it does not seem like defining a profit making enterprise that has nothing to do with expressing oneself as not speech as a controversial statement.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @03:33PM (1 child)
no one ever tried to express themselves through pornography.
Lolwut?
That's like saying no one has ever tried to express themselves through dance.
Just because fucking is fun to watch doesn't make it non-expressive.
Maybe its not some grand philosophical treatise. But it is at least as expressive as small-talk and anyone who tried to outlaw small-talk would be quickly laughed out of the state-house.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:29PM
Dang, Son! You should have posted this under a Nick, rather than as AC. I'm sure this will be one of the quotes of the decade!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @04:01PM
So we should burn all romance novels then?
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday April 26 2017, @04:27PM (1 child)
Hate speech is not an opinion if you don't actually believe what you say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @07:10PM
On the other hand, if you don't believe what you say, you should probably keep your trap shut.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:03PM (1 child)
> because no one ever tried to express themselves through pornography
There are so many counter-examples to that statement, which are now major attractions in museums all over the world, that I don't even know where I would start a list.
You may need a book or a class in History of Art and Censorship...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @10:48AM
It's Eurocentric of me, but I'd start my list with those paintings of horny animals in the Lascaux caves. Disgusting!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:51PM
Too bad the Supreme Court was unable to properly define pornography without referring to the subjective mental state of the viewer and producer.
Because of that, allowing the censorship of pornography opens the door to all manner of censorship.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:55PM
Pornography is not and should never be protected by free speech laws because no one ever tried to express themselves through pornography.
[...]
A video can be speech, that video can even include nudity and sex, but pornography is a sub type of video that is never speech.
Sounds to me like pornography doesn't exist then since I don't buy that there exists deliberately constructed video, including blank and static-filled video, that doesn't express anything.
We have serious activists trying to outlaw actual speech, actual talking, outlaw people stating their philosophy, ideas, or opinions. The West is rampant with illegal thoughts and illegal opinions. In that light, it does not seem like defining a profit making enterprise that has nothing to do with expressing oneself as not speech as a controversial statement.
Except of course, that profit-making enterprise is traditionally one of the first illegal thoughts and opinions. Everyone with a little Hitler in them wants to control porn for some reason.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday April 26 2017, @07:02PM (3 children)
How is pornography communication or performance art?
What is "Back door man 5" communicating? What sort of beauty or emotional power does it display?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 27 2017, @12:28AM
It is performance art because the girls are acting: fake enjoyment when being treated in painful ways in front of a bunch of strangers.
Emotional power: Well, isn't that a powerful statement on human desperation and power of the almighty dollar, to take significant risks and face future ostracism (e.g. exclusion from many professions), for the sake of a pizza delivery guy who wanted just the tip?
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday April 27 2017, @01:36AM
How is pornography communication or performance art?
That should be obvious from the definition of communication and of performance art. Just saying. But let's look at these things. It communicates a tale and has genre specific elements (kink traditions, if you will). Thus, you can write down aspects of the porn that are unique to it, even if it comes to a paragraph or so. Any viewer can afterward come up with such a description of the video. That's a similar length to a telegram or tweet, both which are protected speech for most of the democratic world already. That these aspects are communicated in a lengthy video than in a short burst is irrelevant. That makes it communication no matter how simple or how dirty the tale is.
And a fair bit of porn does explicitly communicate political messages, particularly advocating free speech. That makes it protected speech right there.
And I'll note from earlier in the thread, expression (as used by sjames) is even looser a term than communication. One doesn't even need to communicate a thing. It is merely the exercise of speech with no consideration given to the content of the speech (which makes sjames's subsequent claim that pornography can't express anything to be ludicrous). If I'm yelling incoherently for grubby money, that's still expression.
Further, there is a legal point to freedom of expression which I didn't cover before. If I have a machine with an emergency cutoff switch, how do I know the switch works, if I never test it? Things like porn serve as tests of our freedom of speech.
Second, it's performance and it's art. Performance is subjective to the viewer and as a result anything getting on video is performance - even if it weren't originally intended as such or heavily modified (such as mixing in mundane sounds in music). If I watch a parent because they're having an entertaining problem with their child, they're unintentionally performing for me. So I conclude that everything in porn is performance, no matter how unwilling, unintended, or vile. It can be for various reasons illegal (due to coercion of participants or using their likeness in a porn video without their permission), but it's still performance.
And while art is a hard to nail down term, one can see that porn videos, for example, follow the same creative process as due sophisticate films which are considered works of art and is subject to the same legal structure (copyrights and trademarks - this is quite relevant because it means the law already treats porn as it would any other work of art). And no threshold of quality exists for art. We already have that "Piss Christ" is just as much a work of art as the Mona Lisa, even though I'm not paying money to see the former.
And from a legal perspective, we really haven't been served well by arbitrarily deciding what quality of art is art. For example, US TV has deliberately tried for many decades to get as much stuff past the censors as it could - interracial kisses, side boobs, naughty words, whatever. While that's entertaining, it does indicate that the viewers of these relatively daring programs weren't in agreement on the thresholds for censorship else they wouldn't have watched them.
And most such art is intended to trigger emotions in the viewer, both pleasant and not. Of course, porn triggers lust and similar emotions. That's its whole point.
Or perhaps we should use peoples' interest in the material? Porn has a lot of interest from its viewers and readers, otherwise it wouldn't exist. It's a huge industry.
I can go on some. There are other definitions of art and such ("It's art if I like it"), but the point remains. Porn is art. Porn is performance. Porn is communication. It has all the characteristics of speech that we would protect under free speech laws.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @04:57AM
Since you're the one trying to ban it, the onus is on you to explain how it is not communication or performance art.