from Hacker News

Utah bill would require activated porn filter software on new phones, tablets

by lunchbreak on 3/5/21, 9:51 PM with 178 comments

by rootusrootus on 3/5/21, 10:02 PM
I thought Utah was a GOP state? What happened to 'small government'? This seems like shoving gov't down your throat.
by octopoc on 3/5/21, 10:24 PM
> “One of the most difficult challenges I work with are the effects from pornography,” Gibson said. “Average age of first exposure, which is often accidental, is 10 to 11 years old. Anything we can do to help prevent that puts us in a proactive rather than a defensive position.
I'm sure many of us can confirm exposure at such a young age. My friends and I were all exposed around that age. I hate the fact that I was exposed before I had the capacity to understand what it meant.
This is absolutely a battle worth fighting. 10 year old children should not be exposed to anything so addictive. In my experience it all too often results in lifelong addiction that leads to broken marriages.
Many of us think this type of action by the government violates people's rights. But when a right enables suffering and wrongdoing on a large scale, it's time to rethink that right. Rights should serve humanity, not the other way around.
For example state's rights became a shield for slavery. The Civil War violated state's rights and ended thereby slavery. I think this is how it should work.
by drusepth on 3/5/21, 10:16 PM
Utah is a Mormon state: statewide, Mormons account for nearly 62% of Utah's 3.1 million residents [1] and 91 of the 104 state legislators are Mormon [2].
The LDS teachings are against pornography (comparing it to the plague in the very first line of [3]), and a survey of 192 male Mormon college students aged 18-27 showed 100% of them considered viewing pornography "unacceptable". [4]
That Utah would pass anti-pornography bills isn't surprising, IMO.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-utah-salt-lak...
[2] https://apnews.com/article/286983987f484cb182fba9334c52a617
[3] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/prophets-and-apostles/un...
[4] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232507019_I_Believe...
by gkfasdfasdf on 3/5/21, 10:07 PM
I understand the HN crowd may take issue with this, but the ease at which a child can stumble onto pornography or adult content is really scary. Even with google safe search, etc enabled. Growing up watching television in the US, you couldn't see topless women on public broadcast TV, let alone hardcore pornography.
by Buttons840 on 3/5/21, 10:09 PM
> “Because (children) are not developmentally ready to handle [porn], it leads to the problems of depression, anxiety and all the problems that go with that including and up to its most extreme form, suicide ideation and attempts,” Gibson said.
Is this true? I have a young child and have a hard time imagining she would view porn as anything other than strange or bad being done by other people. I don't think she would take it personally, and of course, I'm not going to test it out. TV regularly depicts violent murders of innocent people, yet I don't hear claims of that leading to suicide.
by cletus on 3/5/21, 10:01 PM
I’ll take pointless virtue signaling to moral voters for $100, Alex.
by smoldesu on 3/5/21, 10:13 PM
>“One of the most difficult challenges I work with are the effects from pornography,” Gibson said. “Average age of first exposure, which is often accidental, is 10 to 11 years old. Anything we can do to help prevent that puts us in a proactive rather than a defensive position.
If the most difficult part of your job is teaching kids about sex, you're doing your job wrong.
by dessant on 3/5/21, 10:01 PM
I'd rather have a preactivated and effective US news filter on my phone.
by throwaway803453 on 3/5/21, 10:12 PM
When I think of my 5 year old nephew and all the threats our world faces, it all seems small compared to the threat he poses to himself. And of those threats smartphone porn-addiction seems the worst. It's like giving every child a pot vape pen or alcohol flask and then wishing them "good luck".
Seriously how do parents manage this and is there any young reader that cares to comment on how it affected them? If my high school had a dropbox filled with nudes and buddies sharing links there is no chance I would be able to concentrate. At least a filter on my phone would raise the barrier between study time and porn browsing. Not saying this law is the answer but it appears to address a real problem.
by Threeve303 on 3/5/21, 10:09 PM
Is there a legal precedent already where a state forced a private company to include specific software on a device?
The Microsoft breakup in the late 90s might be one example but even that was not about setting specific kinds of software as the default, just letting users choose the default.
Looking down the line at state or federal mandates for this kind of stuff, it's easy to see it venture into backdoor encryption territory. If they can mandate porn filters for safety reasons then why not expand that concept to encryption?
by psychometry on 3/5/21, 10:10 PM
I know Salt Lake City has been trying to make itself into a destination for tech companies recently. Wonder how this fits into that plan?
by anm89 on 3/5/21, 9:59 PM
Does Utah actually have that much market power? Could manufacturers just stop selling to Utah?
by easton on 3/5/21, 10:06 PM
> require location tracking for any device activated in Utah
So if I was driving through Utah and my phone was wiped, the manufacturer would have to push a porn filter down for it to be legal?
by lunchbreak on 3/5/21, 10:07 PM
This has passed the Utah house as well - and now it waiting for the governor to sign it into law [1].
[1] https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/03/05/porn-blockin...
by crazypython on 3/5/21, 11:16 PM
You know what, I like this, as long as the filter can be fully disabled, legally. Not sure why "always on" tracking is needed, it can be local-first. A dynamic, content-based (filter video tags, image tags, not by DNS) porn or suggestive content filter would be handy.
People are saying you could just turn it off. I don't see that as the point. I would keep it on, because I want less porn. The same reason I want the government to nudge me to use a seatbelt, because as an irrational human, I can be too short-sighted to look over my long-term interests. The same applies to porn: Porn can harm me in the long-term by rewiring my brain in a bad way, but gives me short-term ecstasy.
It's a preactivated, effective filter for erotic content. It helps people who want to avoid porn avoid it.
I see it not as "government restricts porn" but "government nudges people to avoid porn, provides switch to turn off."
by Isinlor on 3/6/21, 1:34 AM
IMO the exact opposite is needed i.e. normalization of sexuality.
Parents should not be afraid to talk to their children about sex and how sex relates to pornography.
The best safeguard against dangers is education of children. And this is only possible in a culture where adults are not afraid to mention the word "sex".
Children can and sooner or later will have to be their own filters of the world.
Otherwise you are creating a bubble that will pop at some point and your kid will be without tools to handle it, and without someone to ask for advice.
A kid or a teenager will know that sex is a taboo that you do not mention with adults.
The same applies to alcohol, cigarettes, eating habits, body image etc. It needs to be talked about.
by xtiansimon on 3/6/21, 1:13 PM
Haha. I read this and laughed thinking Utah just announced limiting technology to flip phones and Palm Pilots.
Seriously, what is the manufacturer’s willingness to accept the costs of this legislation? Making one product for Utah and another for the rest of the nation?
Though, it is interesting to imagine a new middleman industry to take the manufactured products and modifying them for resale in the local market. With a little sticker a la Intel inside...
by bozzcl on 3/5/21, 11:58 PM
I'm asking this completely seriously: where's the proof that pornography is harmful? People in the top comments keep saying without backing it up at all, and the claims they do sound kind of outlandish to me.
I'm gonna do some research on my own after I'm done with work, but if that point is being pushed so much it needs proof.
by tonymet on 3/6/21, 1:31 AM
I'm not for censorship, but we do need privately run, aggressive porn controls. It's an addictive substance. And like drugs, the supply side is even more insidious.
The tech industry should work harder to provide market-driven porn controls so gov't doesn't have to heavy-hand censorship.
Social media are the largest distributors of porn and offer free marketing to porn sites (e.g. freebies for onlyfans). Open the "explore / trending" page and in 2 clicks you will be on a porn site – massive free porn traffic (worth billions).
Considering only the demand side is selfish and short-sighted. There's way more harm on the supply side, even among what we like to sugar coat as "voluntary" creators.
How should we feel about a world where porn is the best opportunity for 18-25 y/o women? Every time you check out porn , you are enabling that world.
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by netik on 3/5/21, 10:12 PM
Unconstitutional from day one, if it remotely passes, will be a short ACLU fight.
by nexthash on 3/5/21, 10:33 PM
Doesn't this kind of law violate the Constitution in some way? This seems more like censorship hidden behind "think of the children".
by fshbbdssbbgdd on 3/5/21, 10:10 PM
Let’s compare these sets of people:
1. who reacts most strongly to this story about deplatforming porn
2. who reacts most strongly to stories about deplatforming hate speech and incitement
And try to figure out if the two groups have different principles about free expression, or perhaps the principles are irrelevant and only function as justifications when convenient for some kind of tribalism.
by munk-a on 3/5/21, 10:25 PM
I sincerely hope this results in Utah becoming an absolute technological backwater due to device manufacturers being slow to equip new technology for these new requirements.
by jackjeff on 3/5/21, 10:13 PM
Why not require ISPs to do this instead?
by luxuryballs on 3/5/21, 10:06 PM
I mean if it at all stops some kid from getting human trafficked or from getting a porn addiction at 12 then I can’t say that it’s one of the worst laws ever.
States should be free to make these kinds of laws IMO, but not the federal government. There are plenty of states for all types of cultures to thrive without fighting. We should leave more things for the States/People to handle, 10th Amendment!
by mandragon on 3/5/21, 10:02 PM
Sounds fine; it's their culture and prerogative. Probably a benefit to deter such consumption for as many youth and young adults as possible, given the negative impact on mental health.