Olives @olives@qoto.org

"The sex doll falls under privacy."

The "sex doll" falls under "freedom of expression" as, well, you know, sculptures and such do. And I suppose someone could argue that prohibitions there would be an intrusion on private life and such.

Here's an incomplete draft for my experimental porn post:

I have seen a number of misguided opinions about online porn, sometimes focusing on content, sometimes in pursuit of technologies like age verification, and sometimes suggesting that some new technology should be presumed to be bad. I address these in the following post.

Quite a few arguments hinge on the possibility content "might" be "problematic". Even if these points did have merit, and as I will go into, it is a lot more dubious than someone might make out, it's curious how we wouldn't apply such lines of reasoning to literally anything else. We don't opine on the harms of riding bicycles. While we recognize alcohol can be harmful, we don't look to instate a prohibition on it. We don't theorize about how reading a murder mystery novel might lead someone to go out and commit murder.

Sometimes, someone vaguely points to the "morality" of it. What is moral though? If there is a violent murder or torture scene in a film, is this immoral? That doesn't get censored. Why is that somehow more moral than a scene of someone having sex? Or even a scene with more taboo themes? Unless, someone has a moral belief system which already presupposes something to be bad, that doesn't make sense at all.

As for why it is treated like this, that is likely because it isn't real. If someone went around murdering and torturing people, that would be shocking and appalling, as it should be. When it's simply a work of fiction though, it is hardly notable, a form of entertainment. Even real scenes of murder might be useful in documenting war crimes (Asher-Schapiro, 2017). So, how is this any different?

There are number of pieces of science which call online porn being spooky into question. To name a few:

A Canadian study showed more gender egalitarian attitudes among users of porn (Kohut et al., 2015). A German study failed to find a link between porn use and sexism or "social dominance orientation" (Von Andrian-Werburg et al., 2023).

A 2020 U.S. study analysed 59 studies and failed to find a link between porn and sex crimes (Carr, 2020)(Ferguson & Hartley, 2020). As pointed out by (Olives, 2023), the study found things like telltale signs of p hacking and citation bias. It also found a publication bias which led to studies which didn't find effects being less likely to be represented, and tried to control for variables which might make it appear as if there might be a "link" when one isn't present. More on this later.

Dawson et al. (2019) fails to find a link between porn use and sexual aggression among adolescents which suggests that sexual aggression might not necessarily be an outcome of porn use among adolescents. This might further call into question whether disproportionate interventions are warranted here.

A Croatian study fails to replicate an older Dutch study which showed lower levels of "sexual satisfaction" among adolescents who use porn (Milas et al., 2019). This was found while looking into another study, I figured it would be a waste not to mention it.

As Castleman (2016) points out, there are a number of studies covering a number of countries which even show lower rates of crime (for instance, rape and child sexual abuse) with higher levels of porn use, such as one covering Japan (Diamond & Uchiyama, 1999). Another one is the Czech Republic (and apparently Finland) (Diamond et al., 2010). This even includes forms of porn involving taboos. Castleman (2016) also points to Denmark, China, and the United States. This contradicts the idea that porn use drives such crimes.

A 2022 U.S. study looked into studies regarding whether sexualization in video games caused harm to players and found it was not associated with negative outcomes (Ferguson et al., 2022).

Efrati (2018) shows that moralizing about sex can make it worse.

Brown (2015) is different from these kinds of studies (it's a news article) but it helps to add context. According to the CDC, there were actually fewer teenagers in the United States who had had sex in 2013 than in 1989. Those who did were more likely to have used some sort of contraception.

Now, for more discussion than details of particular studies.

When thinking about results, it is useful to consider things like the "scientific pile-on effect" (Ferguson, 2013)(Ferguson, 2020) which drive people to go looking for "links" between something like porn and something bad, no matter how weak or tenuous it might be. Factoring this in, you can eliminate a lot of false positives which otherwise don't have value in the real world.

We should also remember that correlation does not imply causation. One classic example of this which is taught in statistics and science is the "ice cream effect" where crime appears to rise with the number of ice cream sales (Peters, 2013). One compelling alternate theory which is pitched is that both ice cream sales, and crime, are associated with warmer weather. Peters also points out that simply because someone is out in hot weather doesn't mean that the hot weather will magically make them go and commit a crime.

When it comes to news media, it is important to remember a few things. The number of crimes or "risk" of such is known to not be associated with their occurrence in the news. The media is known to have a bias towards negativity and shock (Thompson, 2023)(Perlmutter, 2019). There is also what we'd call "sensationalism" and "man bites dog" type articles which focus on unusual events precisely because they are unusual.

Quite a few things which might get blamed on "the porn" are actually general mental health issues which could be dealt with more normally (Tuckman, 2017), and crucially, without conflating it with porn (which might even detract from dealing with someone's actual issues) (Ley, 2023a). Things which someone dislikes about their sexuality (including homosexuality) might also be blamed on "the porn" (Ley, 2023b).

Asher-Schapiro, A. (2017). YouTube and Facebook are removing evidence of atrocities, jeopardizing cases against war criminals. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2017/11/02/war-crimes-youtube-facebook-syria-rohingya/

Kohut, T., Baer, J. L., & Watts, B. (2015). Is Pornography Really about “Making Hate to Women”? Pornography Users Hold More Gender Egalitarian Attitudes Than Nonusers in a Representative American Sample. The Journal of Sex Research, 53(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2015.1023427

Von Andrian-Werburg, M. T. P., Siegers, P., & Breuer, J. (2023). A Re-evaluation of Online Pornography Use in Germany: A Combination of Web Tracking and Survey Data Analysis. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 52(8), 3491–3503. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02666-8

Carr, S. (2020). Study: Pornography does not cause violent sex crimes. https://www.utsa.edu/today/2020/08/story/pornography-sex-crimes-study.html (press release for the study to add more context)

Ferguson, C. J., & Hartley, R. D. (2020). Pornography and sexual aggression: Can Meta-Analysis find a link? Trauma, Violence & Abuse, 23(1), 278–287. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838020942754

Olives (2023). https://qoto.org/@olives/110462274531891870

Dawson, K., Tafro, A., & Štulhofer, A. (2019). Adolescent sexual aggressiveness and pornography use: A longitudinal assessment. Aggressive Behavior, 45(6), 587–597. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21854

Milas, G., Wright, P., & Štulhofer, A. (2019). Longitudinal assessment of the association between pornography use and sexual satisfaction in adolescence. The Journal of Sex Research, 57(1), 16–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2019.1607817

Castleman, M. (2016). Evidence Mounts: More Porn, Less Sexual Assault. All About Sex. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/all-about-sex/201601/evidence-mounts-more-porn-less-sexual-assault

Diamond, M., & Uchiyama, A. (1999). Pornography, rape, and sex crimes in Japan. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 22(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0160-2527(98)00035-1

Diamond, M., Jozifkova, E., & Weiss, P. (2010). Pornography and sex crimes in the Czech Republic. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40(5), 1037–1043. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-010-9696-y

Ferguson, C. J., Sauer, J. D., Drummond, A., Kneer, J., & Lowe-Calverley, E. (2022). Does sexualization in video games cause harm in players? A meta-analytic examination. Computers in Human Behavior, 135, 107341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107341

Efrati, Y. (2018). God, I can’t stop thinking about sex! The rebound effect in unsuccessful suppression of sexual thoughts among religious adolescents. The Journal of Sex Research, 56(2), 146–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2018.1461796

Brown, E. N. (2015). Despite all the panic, millennial teens have much less sex than their elders did. Reason. https://reason.com/2015/07/23/despite-all-the-panic-millennial-teens-h/ (the layout of one of the sites appears to have changed after 2018)

Ferguson, C. J. (2013). Soda and the scientific Pile-On Effect. TIME. https://ideas.time.com/2013/08/28/soda-and-the-scientific-pile-on-effect/

Ferguson, C. J. (2020). “13 Reasons Why” and Teen Suicide. Checkpoints. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/checkpoints/202007/13-reasons-why-and-teen-suicide

Peters, J. (2013). When ice cream sales rise, so do homicides. coincidence, or will your next cone murder you? Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/07/warm-weather-homicide-rates-when-ice-cream-sales-rise-homicides-rise-coincidence.html

Thompson, D. (2023). The Internet Loves Bad News. And That's Bad. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/03/negativity-bias-online-news-consumption/673499/

Perlmutter, A. (2019). How Negative News Distorts Our Thinking. The Modern Brain. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-modern-brain/201909/how-negative-news-distorts-our-thinking

Tuckman, A. (2017). Porn Isn’t the Problem. Sex Matters. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/sex-matters/201710/porn-isn-t-the-problem

Ley, D. J. (2023a). Why Narcissists Are More Likely to Identify as Porn Addicts. Women Who Stray. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/women-who-stray/202309/why-narcissists-are-more-likely-to-identify-as-porn-addicts

Ley, D. J. (2023b). Homophobia and Religiosity Drive Struggles with Porn. Women Who Stray. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/women-who-stray/202307/homophobia-and-religiosity-drive-struggles-with-porn

Sometimes, I find lots of good articles *except the one I'm looking for*.

Refinding an article I read a year ago can be a pain.

https://reason.com/2024/06/07/louisianas-new-25-foot-legal-forcefield-for-police-threatens-accountability-and-civil-liberties/
"#Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry last week signed a law that criminalizes approaching police officers within 25 feet, provided that the officer tells any would-be approachers to stand back, effectively creating a legal force field that law enforcement can activate at their discretion."
#FirstAmendment

It's nice to see more privacy based critiques of "#AI" (to be accurate, artificial "intelligence") over the past few days rather than a few invoking QAnon type reasoning or arguments along the lines of the thought police (putting a big emphasis on people creating content which might be offensive to someone).

There are quite a few privacy questions here. Now, while there are certain controversies around things like the "right to be forgotten", which is likened to censorship, or "privacy" proposals which compel platforms to collect, say, face scans, this one seems to be a fairly straightforward application of privacy.

For instance, the Norwegian DPA doesn't think Facebook is following the GDPR in using data from their platform. The Italian one wasn't happy that "Open" AI used information from chat sessions with the bot for training it and ended up adding a setting to allow users to manage that (although, it seems they might still surveil users?). Now, there's a scandal with Microsoft, and even, yes, Adobe.

Apparently, Microsoft changed their minds and won't have "Recall" on by default now.

Still working on the experimental porn post (this particular section has been there for a while now), though on and off.

"Quite a few arguments hinge on the possibility content "might" be "problematic". Even if these points did have merit, and as I will go into, it is a lot more dubious than someone might make out, it's curious how we wouldn't apply such lines of reasoning to literally anything else. We don't opine on the harms of riding bicycles. While we recognize alcohol can be harmful, we don't look to instate a prohibition on it. We don't theorize about how reading a murder mystery novel might lead someone to go out and commit murder."

https://www.article19.org/resources/slovakia-cease-attacks-on-journalists-satirists-growing-tensions/
"We, the undersigned organisations, extend our solidarity to independent media and the satirical site Zomri in #Slovakia, which are facing an increasing crackdown in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico. We urge government representatives and politicians to cease these attacks and instead rise to the challenge of calming societal tensions. Freedom of expression, including the freedom to joke, is the bedrock of a democratic society. A free society can thrive only through free expression and the exchange of ideas, even ideas that shock, offend, or disturb some people in the population."
#FreeSpeech

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/eu-council-presidents-last-ditch-effort-mass-scanning-must-be-rejected
"As the current leadership of the EU Council enters its final weeks, it is debating a dangerous proposal that could lead to scanning the private files of billions of people.

EFF strongly opposes this proposal, put forward by the Belgian Presidency at the EU Council, which is part of the EU’s executive branch. Together with European Digital Rights (EDRi) and other groups that defend encryption, we have sent an open letter to the EU Council explaining the dangers of the proposal. The letter asks Ministers in the Council of the EU to reject all proposals that are inconsistent with end-to-end encryption, including surveillance technologies like client-side scanning."
#privacy #chatcontrol

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/security-surveillance-and-government-overreach-united-states-set-path-canada
"The Canadian House of Commons is currently considering Bill C-26, which would make sweeping amendments to the country’s Telecommunications Act that would expand its Minister of Industry’s power over telecommunication service providers."

"That could include ordering telecommunications companies to install backdoors inside encrypted elements in #Canada’s networks."
#privacy

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/06/google-to-start-permanently-deleting-users-location-history
"#Google will delete everything it knows about users’ previously visited locations, the company has said, a year after it committed to reducing the amount of personal data it stores about users.

The company’s “timeline” feature – previously known as Location History – will still work for those who choose to use it, letting them scroll back through potentially decades of travel history to check where they were at a specific time.

But all the data required to make the feature work will be saved locally, to their own phones or tablets, with none of it being stored on the company’s servers."

"The company is also reducing the default amount of time that location history is stored for. Now, it will begin to delete past locations after just three months, down from a previous default of a year and a half."
#privacy

https://reason.com/2024/06/03/colorado-hasnt-even-approved-ranked-choice-voting-yet-and-already-lawmakers-are-trying-to-delay-it/ What do you think?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/child-sex-abusers-could-face-surgical-castration-under-louisiana-bill-2024-06-04/
This is a very evil idea and very Nazi, and you have to look at it in the context of them also pushing a law to torture people to death with nitrogen. Also, is someone going to be willing to report one of their relatives, if someone is going to torture or kill them? You don't have to like these people, I certainly don't, but there are some things which are just plain dark and evil.

For recidivism, something which doesn't violate human rights or the Eighth Amendment might involve making sure that the prisons don't have decaying archaic infrastructure leading to things like lead entering the water. As we know, lead can lead to neurological damage (and it is said even crime).

Also, this is no substitute for access to abortion. And I'd be wary of justifying the "lesser evil". #HumanRights

https://reason.com/2024/06/04/federal-supervised-release-is-a-wasteful-mess-a-bipartisan-bill-in-congress-is-trying-to-fix-that/
"When it was created in 1984, federal supervised release was supposed to be used sparingly to keep tabs on offenders who were public safety concerns or needed extra support to transition back into society. However, it's become used by default, and both criminal justice advocates and federal probation officers say it's clogging the system with thousands of people, like Brown, who have demonstrated that they probably don't need to be in it anymore. And it's sending many others back to prison for minor rule violations that might not warrant such a harsh response.

This growing consensus has led to the Safer Supervision Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Chris Coons (D–Del.) and John Cornyn (T–Texas). Reps. Wesley Hunt (R–Texas) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D–Texas) have introduced a companion bill in the House. The legislation would streamline the federal supervised release system to give people like Brown a clear off-ramp to earn their way out."
#HumanRights

Also, while crime is mentioned, the cruel and unusual punishments suggest that vengeance and making people suffer is a more likely motivation.

https://nichegamer.com/photoshop-terms-of-service-grants-adobe-access-to-user-projects-for-content-moderation/
"Photoshop’s newest terms of service has users agree to allow Adobe access to their active projects for the purposes of “content moderation” and other various reasons.

This has caused concern among professionals, as it means Adobe would have access to projects under NDA such as logos for unannounced games or other media projects."
From a privacy perspective, it is very concerning. There are also potential implications for freedom of expression in there.

https://reason.com/2024/06/06/states-turn-their-backs-on-criminal-justice-reform/ It is concerning.