[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Barrister]

In theory I'm not against some sort of proof of age of majority to view Internet porn. I mean, in my day, I had to be 18 just to buy Playboy, and the stuff online, I hear, is quite nasty. It's less the "moral" aspect of it, more the health and safety. Does anyone really think it's safe for a 13 year old boy, or girl, to watch what I heard is on some of those sites?

No I don't think it's healthy for a 13-year old to watch. Probably not for an 18-year old either. Potentially not for a 50-year-old either, though by then it's probably too late

But how much will digital ID verification stop kids from accessing? I suppose I could be persuaded on the effectiveness, but I'm not sure.

as effective as stopping underage drinking and smoking probably less so

So actually quite effective then?
Beware of the Nirvana Fallacy.
Obviously some kids still drink (though apparently with the current generation not so many as back in my days). But kids not being able to just walk into any shop and buy booze does introduce friction that means less kids bother and those that do end up with less.

On the other hand there's also the psychological push back factor. The whole thing of how lax drug laws tend to lead to lower drug use as its just not seen as a cool and desirable thing to do.
Certainly when I was a kid - kid I had zero interest in sex but the forbidden top shelf was still interesting as it was forbidden.

Wow - a Jos post I kind of agree with.

As I understand it, prohibition was actually pretty effective at reducing alcohol consumption.  100% effective?  Absolutely not.  But it reduced it a fair bit.

And was prohibition worth it?  That's a complicated question.  I don't know if I can answer it.  There were obviously some negative consequences to it.  But it's not as if there weren't positive effects either.

[HVC]

Prohibition was so great it gave rise to a more powerful mafia. Are we creating a porn mafia

And while alcohol consumption dropped in the first years (like to 20 to 30 percent, I think) it raised steadily after. What's more prohibition actually increased the drinking of hard liquor. So, as mentioned before when you ban things the hardcore version becomes more common in usage. Won't someone think of the poor children

[Sheilbh]

On the other hand, it played a role in the invention of cocktails. So very much swings and roundabouts I'd say.

[HVC]

The most notable of those consequences has been labeled the "Iron Law of Prohibition" by Richard Cowan.9 That law states that the more intense the law enforcement, the more potent the prohibited substance becomes. When drugs or alcoholic beverages are prohibited, they will become more potent, will have greater variability in potency, will be adulterated with unknown or dangerous substances, and will not be produced and consumed under normal market constraints. 10 The Iron Law undermines the prohibitionist case and reduces or outweighs the benefits ascribed to a decrease in consumption.

Statistics indicate that for a long time Americans spent a falling share of income on alcoholic beverages. They also purchased higher quality brands and weaker types of alcoholic beverages. Before Prohibition, Americans spent roughly equal amounts on beer and spirits.11 However, during Prohibition virtually all production, and therefore consumption, was of distilled spirits and fortified wines. Beer became relatively more expensive because of its bulk, and it might have disappeared altogether except for homemade beer and near beer, which could be converted into real beer.12

https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/alcohol-prohibition-was-failure#the-iron-law-of-prohibition

I hope you guys are happy, you're going to create super porn

[HVC]

Seriously though, look at Japan. They have stringent porn laws. Look what it's wrought. Hentai and loli (pedo) porn. 

[Josquius]

Seriously though, look at Japan. They have stringent porn laws. Look what it's wrought. Hentai and loli (pedo) porn. 

And a porn shop in basically every village.
As I've mentioned before the last town I lived in in Japan had...
0 pubs
1 karaoke place
6 eateries
2 supermarkets
1 pharmacy
5? convenience stores
and...
3 porn shops

[Josephus]

I think I shared this anecdote before.  Circa 2005, I was at a - conference for my job.  They had a guest speaker who was a FBI profiler (for real!).  He was highly sympathetic to Karla Homolka, whom he had met and interviewed.  It was a controversial view given the audience.

Was it John Douglas? I saw him once at a lecture here. Quite the guy.

[crazy canuck]

In theory I'm not against some sort of proof of age of majority to view Internet porn. I mean, in my day, I had to be 18 just to buy Playboy, and the stuff online, I hear, is quite nasty. It's less the "moral" aspect of it, more the health and safety. Does anyone really think it's safe for a 13 year old boy, or girl, to watch what I heard is on some of those sites?

No I don't think it's healthy for a 13-year old to watch. Probably not for an 18-year old either. Potentially not for a 50-year-old either, though by then it's probably too late

But how much will digital ID verification stop kids from accessing? I suppose I could be persuaded on the effectiveness, but I'm not sure.

I don't understand the argument that it will be completely ineffective stopping what has been referred to in this thread as a casual viewer. I get that a determined, technologically savvy youngster will be able to find a workaround quite easily, but why the assumption that it wouldn't prevent others?

[Jacob]

I don't understand the argument that it will be completely ineffective stopping what has been referred to in this thread as a casual viewer. I get that a determined, technologically savvy youngster will be able to find a workaround quite easily, but why the assumption that it wouldn't prevent others?

For sure.

My question is "how effective will it be?" I have no strong assumptions about the efficacy. My other questions are "what are the second order effects such an ID program, and how do they stack up against the efficacy?"

[HVC]

Seriously though, look at Japan. They have stringent porn laws. Look what it's wrought. Hentai and loli (pedo) porn. 

And a porn shop in basically every village.
As I've mentioned before the last town I lived in in Japan had...
0 pubs
1 karaoke place
6 eateries
2 supermarkets
1 pharmacy
5? convenience stores
and...
3 porn shops

That's my point. You don't fight porn by going after the "tame stuff". People want porn, people will find porn. Making mainstream stuff harder to get just breeds the access to the hardcore stuff. Be it alcohol or porn.

@CC I think putting up walls will stop some casual viewers, yes. But if the main goal is to shield children from the worse of the genera I don't think it'll be effective. Going back to the prohibition example, after it levelled off drinking was around 70% of prohibition numbers, but with hard booze. So would a 30% overall reduction in children gaining access to pornography make up for that pornography watched being more psychologically damaging? You can make mainstream sites follow the rules, Pornhub might hem and haw, but they'll do it. Will other smaller sites do it? No. And the internet is a lot easier to navigate than finding a speakeasy.

So my argument is threefold, I guess. I don't believe it'll be effective, it's a burden to others, and I believe will actually increases the consumption of the hardcore content. More effective would be parents putting up parental controls. viper showed its easy. Block the access rather than trying to block the source. If the concern is truely porn is bad for kids, rather then "porn is morally icky we should curtail it".

[Barrister]

I think I shared this anecdote before.  Circa 2005, I was at a - conference for my job.  They had a guest speaker who was a FBI profiler (for real!).  He was highly sympathetic to Karla Homolka, whom he had met and interviewed.  It was a controversial view given the audience.

Was it John Douglas? I saw him once at a lecture here. Quite the guy.

Roy Hazelwood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Hazelwood

[Jacob]

So personally, my 10-year old is pretty locked down I think; though he could probably get around the controls we have in place if he put his mind to it. Either way - a this point it's still too early for him, I think. But one day it'll change.

One of his best friends (let's call him A), however, is basically allowed to do whatever. For example A is allowed to chat with strangers on the internet via game chat. When A was visiting our house he mentioned he was "talking with his grown up friend, he's actually quite nice."

To me that's super alarming, but A's parents' approach is some sort of transparency, open communication, trust, and teaching A to make good judgements or something like that. So they know A chats with strangers.

Talking to A's parents, they mentioned that someone (IIRC it was a peer from school) had passed on a link to pornhub to their boy. A - presumably after giving the site a look - alerted his mom because he thought "this is inappropriate for me." In principle this validates the "transparency, open communication, trust, and teaching how to make good judgements" approach, I think."

... however, at some point or other A's hormone levels may be higher than they are now, he might find pornhub deeply fascinating and may decide it's no longer inappropriate for him. And the thing is, if and when that happens I'm pretty sure he'll talk to my boy about it. So whenever my boy does becomes interested, he'll have someone who'll tell him how to access porn.

Will a digital ID + age restrictions stop that? If it works, yes. But if there are work-arounds - say unlisted sites that don't require the ID, or sites that act as a VPN so you can access porn-sites as if you're not in Canada, or something else - then my expectation is that that information is going to spread pretty quickly and it'll be back to "relying on the values you've taught the kids" rather than "gate-keeping access." Because it'll only really take a few kids who are interested and have figured it out (maybe because adults help them), and they'll talk to their friends who'll talk to their friends and so on.

[garbon]

One of his best friends (let's call him A), however, is basically allowed to do whatever. For example A is allowed to chat with strangers on the internet via game chat. When A was visiting our house he mentioned he was "talking with his grown up friend, he's actually quite nice."

To me that's super alarming, but A's parents' approach is some sort of transparency, open communication, trust, and teaching A to make good judgements or something like that. So they know A chats with strangers.

I was chatting with strangers by the time I was 12 in ways my parents would have found alarming had they known. By 17 I was chatting with strangers on Languish.

[Barrister]

One of his best friends (let's call him A), however, is basically allowed to do whatever. For example A is allowed to chat with strangers on the internet via game chat. When A was visiting our house he mentioned he was "talking with his grown up friend, he's actually quite nice."

To me that's super alarming, but A's parents' approach is some sort of transparency, open communication, trust, and teaching A to make good judgements or something like that. So they know A chats with strangers.

I was chatting with strangers by the time I was 12 in ways my parents would have found alarming had they known. By 17 I was chatting with strangers on Languish.

Man, age 12-13 I think I started chatting with people on BBSes.  The internet wasn't even really a thing ordinary people could use.

[viper37]

By 17 I was chatting with strangers on Languis

That's the scariest part.