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from the The-best-laid-schemes-o'-mice-an'-men-[an'-Congress]-Gang-aft-agley dept.
In Passing SESTA/FOSTA, Lawmakers Failed to Separate Their Good Intentions from Bad Law
The U.S. Senate just voted 97-2 to pass the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA, H.R. 1865), a bill that silences online speech by forcing Internet platforms to censor their users. As lobbyists and members of Congress applaud themselves for enacting a law tackling the problem of trafficking, let's be clear: Congress just made trafficking victims less safe, not more.
The version of FOSTA that just passed the Senate combined an earlier version of FOSTA (what we call FOSTA 2.0) with the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA, S. 1693). The history of SESTA/FOSTA—a bad bill that turned into a worse bill and then was rushed through votes in both houses of Congress—is a story about Congress' failure to see that its good intentions can result in bad law. It's a story of Congress' failure to listen to the constituents who'd be most affected by the laws it passed. It's also the story of some players in the tech sector choosing to settle for compromises and half-wins that will put ordinary people in danger.
[...] Throughout the SESTA/FOSTA debate, the bills' proponents provided little to no evidence that increased platform liability would do anything to reduce trafficking. On the other hand, the bills' opponents have presented a great deal of evidence that shutting down platforms where sexual services are advertised exposes trafficking victims to more danger.
Freedom Network USA—the largest national network of organizations working to reduce trafficking in their communities—spoke out early to express grave concerns [.pdf] that removing sexual ads from the Internet would also remove the best chance trafficking victims had of being found and helped by organizations like theirs as well as law enforcement agencies.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @11:41PM
Morals are relative. Sorry. Unless you can provide scientific evidence for the existence of absolute morality, you will not sway me. I'm not referring to cultural relativism, either, but the fact that morals are nothing more than subjective opinions, no matter how much some wish it were not so.
This does not mean you cannot say 'In my opinion, your actions are morally wrong.' That is just an opinion. You can be a hardcore libertarian while also realizing that there is no evidence for the existence of absolute morality, because being a libertarian or not depends on your beliefs regarding liberty and not whether you believe in absolute morality. Likewise, you can conduct a genocide while maintaining that morality is absolute; you merely have to say that what you're doing is morally righteous, which many such people do. The reality is that merely claiming that morality is absolute does not stop atrocities from occurring, because even if that were true, there is no known way of proving which morals are correct and which aren't. So, this idea that a belief in absolute morality will somehow solve our problems is demonstrably wrong. Not to mention that the supposed consequences of moral relativism have nothing to do with whether or not morality is absolute.
So what you're doing here is a distraction. Go ahead and argue in favor of liberty; chances are, I will personally agree with you. Asserting that morality is not relative is just a waste of time.
That other person is also wrong. What is and is not a "vice" is 100% subjective, and as such, is decided by individuals. A group of people who agree with one another may form, but that does not mean that the group is somehow more correct than a single individual with an opinion.