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Supreme Court's ruling practically wipes out free speech for sex writing online

(ellsberg.substack.com)
693 points macawfish | 1 comments | 12 Jul 25 18:14 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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_bent ◴[12 Jul 25 19:50 UTC] No.44544610[source]▶
We've had kids accessing an Internet without any working age barriers for over 30 years now.

There have been problems, be that grooming, Facebook parties and maybe addiction to TikTok.

But being able to access adult content be that sexual or violent in nature doesn't really seem to have had much negative consequences.

Sure I wouldn't want my 10 year old to see 2 girls 1 cup - but I reckon it wouldn't be the end of the world if he did.

It's good that we have content recommendations. But we shouldn't try to actually enforce them.

Again: with all the options kids have had for accessing porn online in the last couple of decades, if it was actually THAT bad, we'd be having an epidemic. Yet we don't. The kids are alright

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mdavid626 ◴[13 Jul 25 11:17 UTC] No.44549444[source]▶
So, you're saying that children/adults nowadays are not negatively affected by early sexual exposure?

These are some of the negative effects, what early sexual exposure can cause:

- unrealistic or harmful beliefs about sex, intimacy, and gender roles

- sex disconnected from intimacy, respect, consent

- anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, body image issues

- broken families (one parent missing), divorce

- problems with emotional regulation, impulse control

- attention control problems, aggression, withdrawal

I say, all of these are on the rise and are a big problem.

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Aachen ◴[13 Jul 25 14:15 UTC] No.44550614[source]▶
Wait until you hear what issues the ubiquitous dihydrogen monoxide can cause! https://web.archive.org/web/19961031232918/http://media.circ...

These points would greatly benefit from being put into perspective

You can't seriously think a significant percentage of people are emotionally unstable because they looked up porn of their own will at an age of their own choosing, even if I trust that it can be listed as a contributing factor for some infinitesimal fraction of those with that issue

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mdavid626 ◴[13 Jul 25 14:29 UTC] No.44550689{3}[source]▶
You can’t be serious thinking it has NO bad effect on people, especially children.

Would you let your own children watch porn?

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1. Aachen ◴[14 Jul 25 02:01 UTC] No.44555748{4}[source]▶
I assume I would if I had them. Similar to keeping offline and online bullying in check (no matter if they're the victim or perpetrator), until a certain point I guess I'd keep an eye on what they're up to (less and less as they age, assuming it goes well). If I see sites super unsuitable to their development stage (e.g. afaik girls mature slightly earlier so I may stop monitoring their media consumption sooner, I'd do my research if I were a parent) then sure we can have an uncomfortable talk and see what action I need to take. But if they're a horny 13-year-old, heck no I'm not looking into their pornhub pageloads, they have their privacy too. I'd be super weirded out if my parents had done that until I was 14 or whatever the legal consent age is where you are! Would/do you do that to your kids?!

Anyway, I guess the more relevant question is whether I think it has no effect whatsoever. Nah, of course it does, potentially some good and also potentially some bad effects. I just thought many of the points on your list had a negligible risk level (where risk=chance*impact), since it's e.g. not like most people who've grown up with the internet freely now are aggressives without impulse control

I'm not an expert on the topic and I'm happy to look at studies that update my worldview. Yet it's evidently not the case that anyone born between ~1990 and ~2000 (widespread internet and thus porn but not yet social media) has the issues you've mentioned. Maybe elevated levels, and maybe some research can disentangle the various environmental effects to point to porn as a partial culprit, but clearly it's not a majority of the population and, among those who are affected, it seems unlikely that porn is a typical significant contributor