Oh, if they say so then it must be the true. Politicians would never hide their true intentions to make their policies more appealing.
Comment on The age verification effect: adult site traffic plummets, VPN use soars
FishFace@lemmy.world 1 day agoThis is about the UK.
And no, it wasn’t about banning porn. You can listen to politicians and ordinary people talk about it and both are generally in favour for the same reason: making it harder for children to access porn, specifically.
mang0@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
FishFace@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If you want people to believe it’s a different motive then provide some reason to believe that? Noone has.
mang0@lemmy.zip 22 hours ago
There exists e.g. religious people who think porn is a sin. Saying you’d want to ban porn because it’s a sin would alienate potential voters. Therefore, they can simply take the “think of the children!” position which is a classic approach and that sounds much more appealing while still restricting access for everyone (who wants their identity associated with their porn history? Data leaks happen all the time).
Similarly, (depending on political climate) far right politicians can’t openly spout hate about foreigners since it would alienate some voters. Yet, time after time they’re revealed to have been doing it e.g. when they thought they were anonymous.
Of course you can’t know someone’s true intention, but assuming that people won’t lie and anything said by them is undoubtedly true unless somehow proven false is a bit naive.
FishFace@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Those people do exist, but almost none of them exist in the UK. So what reason do we have to believe that this applies to UK politicians?
Look at it this way: you yourself understand that “think of the children” is a popular (summary of a) position among the public. And you agree that “porn is a sin that must be banned” is an unpopular opinion.
So what reason do you have to think that MPs believe the unpopular opinion more than the popular one? MPs are people too. Unless you can find some mechanism by which MPs specifically are chosen for this highly unusual belief, or manipulated into believing it, this makes absolutely no sense.
Of course you can’t know someone’s true intention, but assuming that people won’t lie and anything said by them is undoubtedly true unless somehow proven false is a bit naive.
Luckily no-one here is doing that. Do you understand the difference between “nobody ever lies” and “you need a reason to think that someone is lying”?
The idea that we should discard the perfectly plausible explanation of “MPs want to introduce age limits because of the reason that they state, which is a common opinion that many people agree with” and come up with some other, secret reason that they’re lying about is conspiracy-theory thinking.
ThorrJo@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
This is about the UK.
You didn’t notice how every western ❝democracy❞ introduced ❝age verification❞ bills simultaneously
as they were losing control of the Gaza narrative?FishFace@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Take your tinfoil hat off, and say something substantive.
The MPs who voted on this made statements about their reasoning - that is substantive, but not definitive. If you doubt their statements then it’s only convincing if you can say why their statements are unrealistic in the light of other facts.
Given that there is a widespread desire to prevent children from accessing porn, their motivations seem wholly realistic. What makes it unrealistic?
vrek@programming.dev 1 day ago
It’s also about several us states. Plus why make it harder to access porn? It doesn’t harm anybody. It may make children ask some questions you don’t want to answer but overall… So??
I’m for regulating porn, actors and actresses should be paid, should be protected from sti, should not be forced or coerced. But access? Who cares?
FishFace@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The article is not about US states.
There is reasonable evidence to suggest that children viewing porn is harmful, and even though it’s clearly not a good reason - even if you believe said evidence - for something like the online safety act, people here act like you, as if there isn’t even any evidence, and as if noone actually believes it’s harmful.
CouldntCareBear@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
If you don’t think children accessing porn is problematic I think you need to give it some more thought. It most definitely normalises some extremely mysogonistic, violent/ non consensual practices.
I don’t think age verification is the answer, but let’s not pretend it’s not trying to address an actual issue.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
They’re lying to you. It’s 100% a porn ban
ThorrJo@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
It’s 100% a play to have positive ID on every single user of megacorp sites so they can be surveilled and controlled.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 17 hours ago
The best actions are the ones that fulfill more than one goal.
FishFace@lemmy.world 1 day ago
How do you know?
There’s no such big religious movement in the UK, so where would that even come from?
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
It’s international. It doesn’t need to be based in England.
FishFace@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Jeez.
Anyway, I’ll not be watching a random YouTube video but if you have a written link that explains how British MPs are influenced by this international cabal or whatever, I’ll read it.
paraphrand@lemmy.world 1 day ago
These people are in too deep.