Yeah, but you can enter Walmart, you can pick up and look at the R-rated movie cases, etc.
The internet is its own beast, and it's hard to do an exact analogy. For starters, you're not buying porn, you're viewing it. There's no explicit transaction, and the government is now trying to patrol and control who can even enter the site. Which again, would be fine in theory, if I trusted the government. But they've shown time and again they want to control everything, perhaps especially the internet.
Barring someone from one site can easily snowball into the people in charge controlling access to all sites. If we set the precedent that the government can ask you for your ID to access a website, the slope isn't so much slippery, as just a cliff. It's a short step to not only all manner of thought policing, but also the end of internet anonymity.
I believe the law relates to making it available to minors for viewing, not just selling. Which is why on occasion leftist teachers get charged with showing porn to their students.
But even putting that aside for the moment, what's the R&D budget for these sites for implementing anonymous "proof of age" systems? Are they funding grad students/PhD candidates in this area? Offering grants? Are they interested in solving this problem at all, or are they simply using "it's impossible" as an excuse and counting on the government's general disinterest in this matter?
I don't like government getting involved in this either, but them getting involved is inevitable when the industry itself doesn't offer an acceptable solution on its own. Nor does it help when the industry practically brags about statistics relating to the average age of kids when they first view porn (which is well under 18).
Yeah, but you can enter Walmart, you can pick up and look at the R-rated movie cases, etc.
The internet is its own beast, and it's hard to do an exact analogy. For starters, you're not buying porn, you're viewing it. There's no explicit transaction, and the government is now trying to patrol and control who can even enter the site. Which again, would be fine in theory, if I trusted the government. But they've shown time and again they want to control everything, perhaps especially the internet.
Barring someone from one site can easily snowball into the people in charge controlling access to all sites. If we set the precedent that the government can ask you for your ID to access a website, the slope isn't so much slippery, as just a cliff. It's a short step to not only all manner of thought policing, but also the end of internet anonymity.
I believe the law relates to making it available to minors for viewing, not just selling. Which is why on occasion leftist teachers get charged with showing porn to their students.
But even putting that aside for the moment, what's the R&D budget for these sites for implementing anonymous "proof of age" systems? Are they funding grad students/PhD candidates in this area? Offering grants? Are they interested in solving this problem at all, or are they simply using "it's impossible" as an excuse and counting on the government's general disinterest in this matter?
I don't like government getting involved in this either, but them getting involved is inevitable when the industry itself doesn't offer an acceptable solution on its own. Nor does it help when the industry practically brags about statistics relating to the average age of kids when they first view porn (which is well under 18).