Generally I don't respond to comments on hn, but I've created this account solely to respond to this.
The availability of hardcore porn to young adults is a genuine problem, there's isp level filtering but it doesn't work, part of the problem is image search, which embeds content into the page which means that it doesn't get picked up by the ISP's filter.
I think the situation could be greatly improved by not embedding explicit content into image searches and instead fetch explicit content from a separate cache which could be easily blocked by ISP level filtering. I'm no expert though, I suspect there's a performance penalty if you stop embedding the content, but maybe that would be a reasonable sacrifice.
As for protecting kids, I think we can agree that now that every kid has a smartphone with unfettered web access it's certainly more difficult to protect them from porn than it is to protect them from, say, alcohol where you generally need to prove your age etc.
I am by no means saying that state imposed filtering is an appropriate solution, but I'm not entirely certain what other effective solutions are available - it's a genuine problem.
> The availability of hardcore porn to young adults is a genuine problem
It is? Teens are going to be interested in sex - porn is probably the safest way for them to explore that. Yes, clearly porn is a fantasy and has issues to do with expectation, but the answer to that is to educate them more, not try to keep them ignorant.
This kind of thing is a lazy and stupid attempt to do something no one will go against, because if you say anything about it, you can be smeared for being pro-porn and anti-child, regardless of the truth.
Respect your point but... Alcohol is a physical item, pornography is just data. We're going all out to make data freer because of all the benefits that brings. Are kids going to see information you didn't want them to? Hell yeah.
It goes way beyond porn though, if we allow gov to block anything it doesn't like then we're on a road to a bleak future (hint: we are already).
IMHO it's far, far better for families to actually deal with this new reality by being honest and educating their children. Honestly, I try not to really worry too much.
They both provide stimulus, I don't think the physicality of the stimulus is important?
But I agree with you on education, and maybe I now have to concede my original point, since you're right to say that if children received better education there would potentially be less of a problem...
Do you seriously think that this law is going to be used to force Google to do age verification for users before turning off "safe search"?
I can generally see why people would want to filter away adult content from accidental viewing by children. What I think is completely doomed is attempting to keep it away from children that are actively searching for it. It'll just start circulating on USB sticks.
Don't worry, they are already working on a law to make it illegal to use non-government sanctioned USB sticks with built in remote access and bio-metric access control so the government can monitor everything that is put on it and by who.
The availability of hardcore porn to young adults is a genuine problem, there's isp level filtering but it doesn't work, part of the problem is image search, which embeds content into the page which means that it doesn't get picked up by the ISP's filter.
I think the situation could be greatly improved by not embedding explicit content into image searches and instead fetch explicit content from a separate cache which could be easily blocked by ISP level filtering. I'm no expert though, I suspect there's a performance penalty if you stop embedding the content, but maybe that would be a reasonable sacrifice.
As for protecting kids, I think we can agree that now that every kid has a smartphone with unfettered web access it's certainly more difficult to protect them from porn than it is to protect them from, say, alcohol where you generally need to prove your age etc.
I am by no means saying that state imposed filtering is an appropriate solution, but I'm not entirely certain what other effective solutions are available - it's a genuine problem.