Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://theintercept.com/2024/04/25/absolute-standards-execution-drug-pentobarbital/ Absolute Standards named as company providing execution drugs.

If you're wondering if I already knew about this consultation opening, the answer is yes, but I was still processing the information around it prior to writing a post.

https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/have-your-say/statutory-review-online-safety-act-2021
It looks like they've moved another consultation up (for political reasons, it seems). This time for Australian online control. You can provide feedback there.

Some core things to consider:

One is the ratings type stuff being handled by the other consultation. Some of that crops up here too and it might be useful to refer to my other post on this: https://qoto.org/@olives/112263721995146390 I've also written a new piece on porn science here: https://qoto.org/@olives/112362450620045294 (I'd be wary of any calls to censor any sort of porn)

It mentions a "duty of care". The problem with a duty of care is that any time something goes wrong, that is an invitation for someone to attack a company, and there might not be anything a company could have reasonably done in that situation. Someone might even ask for things which aren't reasonable or particularly effective. There is also a cognitive phenomena where events in the past feel more predictable than they actually are[1].

There are comparisons to "workplace safety" but it is worth considering that matters of speech are not the same as wearing something to protect your head or feet on a construction site. At worst, a company might expend more resources to address a particular hypothetical. It is, however, not the same as someone's rights being violated.

There are words like "reasonable", frankly, someone could argue that something is "reasonable" which you find ridiculous. It is also worth considering the intent of such language, the intent is typically to push for someone to "do more", even if that "do more" might be harmful, sometimes even counter-productive[2].

Removing footage of "murders" could lead to evidence of war crimes being removed[3].

Some of the language is vague and seems to depend a lot on someone interpreting it properly. Like in the ratings consultation post, I would argue for a strong presumption against censorship for fiction in media that is for the purposes of entertainment (i.e. video games, books, and so on).

There is a certain expectation that services in other countries should be following whatever it is that officials in Australia want but that is not really how the Internet works and it could be harmful to expect that it works that way.

And yes, this one covers "age verification" for things like porn. As noted in one of my other posts, there can be privacy implications, and it could also lead to content or services becoming unavailable entirely, particularly when you consider the global nature of the Internet.

#auspol #FreeSpeech #FreeExpression #anime

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

3 https://theintercept.com/2017/11/02/war-crimes-youtube-facebook-syria-rohingya/

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/02/queensland-sex-work-decriminalised-law-passes
"Queensland parliament has passed historic legislation decriminalising sex work in the state, after decades of campaigning."
Queensland is a state in Australia, if anyone is wondering.

"The sex worker and Respect Inc state coordinator, Lulu Holiday, said it had been “stressful” and at times “traumatic” working under the state’s regulatory system, though she has avoided any criminal punishment."
#HumanRights #auspol

"The solution was similar to the spam filters"
Reporting someone to the police for suspected child porn distribution is not "similar to spam filters" and it is ridiculously bad faith to claim it is such.

"AI is Supercharging the Child Sex Abuse Crisis."

No, it is not "supercharging" anything. Not even remotely. Stop making things up.

Hey, aren't you the one from that astro turf group which wanted Apple to look through people's private messages?

It's not really surprising that a criminal might target Vastaamo (companies need to do their due diligence to make sure that everything is properly secured) but it is still pretty low and deplorable to go after a company which does psychotherapy.

On another note, someone has to be wary of levying a lot of administrative requirements like that on someone, to dial in a lot, and what not, because it can set someone up for failure and re-arrest.

This is a comparatively more serious crime, but even for a more minor one, it might crop up.

These cops couldn't even be bothered to check if he was actually the child molester they were looking for, what are the chances they're going to do their due diligence for a facial recognition hit?
QT: https://qoto.org/@olives/112373830212577893

https://reason.com/2024/05/01/california-cops-locked-an-innocent-man-in-a-sex-offender-unit-for-3-days/
"In 2021, Whittier, #California, police arrested Victor Manuel Martinez Wario on an outstanding warrant related to a 2012 child molestation conviction. The only problem? Police had arrested the wrong person. However, despite Wario frequently telling police he didn't have any warrants out for his arrest, they didn't bother to check—leaving Wario imprisoned for five days.

Now, Wario is suing, claiming that police negligence amounted to a violation of his #FourthAmendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure."
#HumanRights

Justice Alito needs to step up his First Amendment game when dealing with Fifth Circuit cases, frankly.

I haven't looked closely at this bill but the government shouldn't be passing bills impeding anyone's expression.
QT: https://mastodon.world/@Mer__edith/112372094082339395

https://techfreedom.org/loot-boxes-benefit-videogame-developers-and-players-alike-techfreedom-tells-ninth-circuit/ Since they bring up in-game purchases, here's a different view on that for variety (although, I understand these can be frustrating for gamers, as they can detract from the actual gameplay).

https://nichegamer.com/kids-online-safety-act-receives-bipartisan-support-despite-censorship-concerns/ Interesting take on KOSA.

"Typically, a certain amount of responsibility is put on individuals to behave in a manner that is reasonable to them, instead of looking for a scapegoat whenever someone behaves in a manner which could be argued to be negative. This isn't to discount external factors (i.e. socioeconomic ones) entirely but there isn't always something sensible which can be done. People live their own lives."

The wording might be a bit rough but I think it gets the point across. I might remove "a certain amount".

"to them" is there mainly because I don't want someone to come up with a ridiculous standard, then to argue that it is "reasonable".

It is honestly strange to see someone make arguments like guns don't kill people, people kill them, then to rush to absolve someone of any responsibility and to use porn as a scapegoat for their actions. Where did the personal responsibility go?

What about alcohol? Someone is expected to handle that responsibly, and they're held to account for their anti-social conduct when they do not.

Pornography is neither a weapon or an intoxicant. It is a bunch of pixels on a screen which people find entertaining and pleasurable.
QT: https://qoto.org/@olives/112362450620045294

I wanted to logically separate the post, so that the science links were more separate from the other posts, but I think that might make it harder to follow, so I tried putting them together.

Despite the scant / non-existent evidence for porn being such a bogeyman, it keeps getting cast as a scapegoat which is quite frustrating, so I am going to have to go over this... Again.

Even if online porn "might" be "problematic" to someone out there, it would not be anywhere remotely near proportionate to engage in censorship (or privacy intrusive measures, which among other things might pose a security risk), especially as it can be free expression to someone, and expression which someone might casually share as part of their more general interaction / engagement with others.

Sometimes, restrictions can lead to services becoming inaccessible entirely, rather than simply limiting them to people over a particular age.

A typical recommendation is sex education (perhaps, teach someone about respecting others boundaries?), not censorship (which is harmful in it's own ways). I don't mean criticizing someone for telling an offensive joke.

The science isn't really showing porn is this awful thing:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499.2015.1023427
https://psyarxiv.com/ehqgv/
Two studies showing porn is not associated with sexism. One carried out by German scientists, another carried out by Canadians.

https://qoto.org/@olives/110462274531891870
American scientists carried out a meta analysis of 59 studies. They found porn isn't associated with crime. A meta analysis is a study where someone studies studies.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31432547/
Nor does it necessarily seem this is the case among adolescents (the meta analysis also points to that). Here, the minors who used more porn engaged in less sexual aggression.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201601/evidence-mounts-more-porn-less-sexual-assault
https://qoto.org/@olives/110400288665794817
There are even studies (across the United States, Japan, Finland, and more) showing that porn is associated with less crime, even among criminals.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31042055/
While an older Dutch study showed there might be worse levels of "sexual satisfaction" among adolescents using porn, a Croatian lab failed to replicate that.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563222001637
This is a meta analysis on sexualization in video games. It finds that studies tend to pick cut-offs where it's difficult to distinguish signal from noise. This increases the number of false positives.

There are also results which contradict the theory of sexualization being harmful. In the end, it fails to find a link between this and sexism, and this and mental well-being.

I'm also usually sceptical of apparent links, as the "scientific pile on effect" (as one described it) drives people to go looking for "links" between porn and "something bad" however tenuous it might be, or methodologically flawed an approach it might be (and later, that something is debunked, or the "link" is a phantom due to methodological limitations).

I could add it doesn't matter if they're "child-like" or "fictional children", (this is far, far more likely to hit someone good than someone bad who don't need it, and a bad actor could still do bad things)*. This necessarily excludes involvement of abuse or invasions of privacy. If it were actual real children, I'd oppose that on ethical grounds (though, I still wouldn't want to burn down the Internet / sites, because of unwanted bad actors). This is covered above but it is also kind of common internet sense.

While I'm not making a point about anything in particular, to inoculate you against potential problematic arguments, it's worth mentioning the basic precept that correlation does not imply causation.

Let's use ice cream as an example. Everyone loves ice cream, right? Well, I like ice cream. This also happens to be used as a classic example by others for this sort of thing.

Anyway, ice cream is correlated with crime. No one would say ice cream causes people to go out and commit crimes though. Just because there is a "correlation" doesn't mean it is meaningful. And that's not the only way in which correlation might not imply causation. For instance, warm weather is a far more compelling explanation for this phenomena. That might come in useful somewhere...

Here's a couple which were added for #auspol:

https://reason.com/2015/07/23/despite-all-the-panic-millennial-teens-h/ U.S. data shows teens are having less sex with each other (in a world with more porn).

Misapprehensions about porn can be more about expressions of sexual orientations than porn. In fact, we've seen an Australian news outlet specifically singling out "anal sex" as a negative thing not that long ago, who would that disproportionately impact? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29702013/ Also, moralizing can be harmful (and ineffective).

Typically, a certain amount of responsibility is put on individuals to behave in a manner that is reasonable to them, instead of looking for a scapegoat whenever someone behaves in a manner which could be argued to be negative. This isn't to discount external factors (i.e. socioeconomic ones) entirely but there isn't always something sensible which can be done. People live their own lives.

Quite a few things which might get blamed on "the porn" are actually general mental health issues which could be dealt with more normally, and crucially, without conflating it with porn (which might even detract from dealing with someone's actual issues).

In fact, online censorship has increased in quite a few ways over the past few years and it doesn't appear to be any sort of panacea. It has, however, created a number of harms in it's own right, including even murder by practically forcing some sex workers to work with more dangerous clients. It also provides a space for abusive bigots to dwell in.

An addendum (from another post which might be useful to add useful context, we won't delve too deeply into this section):

An additional bit on why "porn censorship" (perhaps, even some themes) is bad.

Some points about censoring fictional content there (censorship is a bad idea):

It might fuel someone's persecution complex, especially in the context of *. The idea of a dangerous world where people are out to get them. Feeds anxiety, alienation. It's happened a fair bit. It doesn't seem to do anything positive.

Someone might be more inclined to see someone as an idiot or crazy (that's not wrong, lol). In any case, it poisons the well as someone is not seen to be credible or competent in these matters at all. Promoting distrust doesn't seem like a positive outcome.

It violates someone's free expression. People have these things called rights, that's important. This point comes from the original post, I'm aware I've covered this here more generally, still there may be value in reaffirming it.

Bad people don't need it. They could still do bad things. Good people are who'd suffer.

It violates the Constitution. Multiple constitutions.

Punishing someone because they resemble someone unpleasant isn't good. Also, due process still applies, in any case...

Can be a coping mechanism.