Anything that children have access on for pornography would be blocked
December 22, 2016 2:28 PM   Subscribe

Bill seeks to put porn block on computers sold in SC: The bill would fine manufacturers or sellers that sell a device without a digital blocking system installed. But any manufacturer or seller that didn't want to install the system could pay a $20 opt-out fee for each device sold. Any buyers who want the filter lifted after purchasing a computer or device would have to pay a $20 fee, after verifying they are 18 or older.

The text of the “Human Trafficking Prevention Act” makes it clear that what’s being filtered is not “pornography,” which has no legal definition, but “obscenity” by South Carolina’s standards, which are pretty much the same as the Miller test: sexual content that (1) is offensive by community standards; (2) appeals to prurient interests, and (3) has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value (a.k.a. “the SLAPS test”).

Gizmodo asked some questions:
What kind of porn filter do they imagine would need to be installed? Would it be installed at the point of sale or at the factory? And most importantly, how is this not an infringement on some pretty basic First Amendment rights?
Chumley's team said he was out of office, plz call Burns; Burns didn't return the call. They obviously have no idea how the internet works, how computers work, nor even how porn works.

What Chumley hasn’t noticed: All that “porn” that kids have access to now is not obscene by legal standards. Obscenity is already illegal in most states, and it’s not protected by the first amendment – websites making money on “porn” aren’t legally obscene and therefore wouldn’t be affected by this law.… which can be bypassed by a $20 fee from the manufacturer, and a probably-additional $20 fee by the consumer. This isn’t an attempt to stop porn; it’s an attempt to add a $20 tax on all internet-capable devices sold in the state.

Actual likely result if it passes? Apple & Best Buy move out of South Carolina; if they try to claim it affects mail order, companies stop shipping tech products to the state.

Don’t worry too much, though; it’s got a safety measure for false positives: “If the digital blocking capability blocks content that is not obscene and the block is reported to a call center or reporting website, the content must be unblocked within a reasonable time but in no event later than five business days after the block is reported.”
posted by ErisLordFreedom (1 comment total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: I think maybe let's skip a post about a dumb state bill unless and until there's something more to it than essentially "a dumb state bill exists"; we'd have a ton of these posts otherwise. -- cortex



 
Looking forward to lots more of this sort of Small Government.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:41 PM on December 22, 2016


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