Utah Governor Signs Legislation Requiring Porn Filters On Cellphones, Tablets (thehill.com) 221
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill on Tuesday requiring all cellphones and tablets sold in the state to automatically block pornography. In order for it to take effect though, at least five other states have to pass the measure. The Hill reports: The bill, H.B. 72, is aimed at establishing filter requirements and enforcement for tablets and smartphones activated in the state on or after Jan. 1 of the year the measure takes effect, according to its text. Manufacturers that don't abide by the law could face fines of $10 for each violation with a cap of $500. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Susan Pulishper (R), said she was "grateful" that Cox signed the bill, which she said was aimed at keeping porn away from children, the AP notes. She also noted that parents could take the filters off.
Jason Groth, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, told the news service that the measure was "another example of the Legislature dodging the constitutional impacts of the legislation they pass." He further said the bill's constitutionality will likely be argued in court.
Jason Groth, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, told the news service that the measure was "another example of the Legislature dodging the constitutional impacts of the legislation they pass." He further said the bill's constitutionality will likely be argued in court.
$500 (Score:5, Interesting)
"Manufacturers that don't abide by the law could face fines of $10 for each violation with a cap of $500."
Am I reading this right...? They can just pay a $500 "I don't give a fuck about the law" fee. Cheaper than a single lawyer?
Blatantly Unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
There should be prison time for legislators who write, sponsor, and sign laws found to be Unconstitutional.
Little else seems to bother them.
Re:Blatantly Unconstitutional (Score:4, Funny)
Alternatively, Aztec rituals. "Have you consulted your priest on the manner in which you would like to be sacrificed?"
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I can't imagine this would hold up to constitutional scrutiny.
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What challenges? It is quite clever, anyone who would have standing can pay $500 and not bother an amount so low it would never be worth fighting 'court challenges.' This is extortion.
Re:Blatantly Unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blatantly Unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always felt that I want our legislators to treat the Constitution as a poorly marked minefield.
Indeed. It's no small thing to make a law, and there's no good reason to go making as many of them as possible all the time. It should be a rare thing, refactoring should be 98% of a legislator's work; if it should even be seen as a career rather than a civic duty.
I'm thoroughly convinced at this point that treating being a politician as a temporary, random civic duty akin to jury duty would yield superior results with less corruption and outright bribery.
This last part is exactly why we will never see it happen. The system is already rigged for easy bribery. We've already agreed on what our "civil servants" are, now our corporate masters are merely haggling over the price.
Re:Blatantly Unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
From a legislator's viewpoint, the law is irrelevant. They know it will be struck down in short order. All they care about is letting the people know where they stand so that a particular section of the electorate will re-elect them. That this segment is the freedom-hating crowd is an irrelevant detail, as any vote is a good vote.
Re:Blatantly Unconstitutional (Score:4, Insightful)
And if it is struck down, they can always just pass the same law again with slightly different wording. Repeat until it lands before a more sympathetic judge.
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You know the old quote "Politicians are like diapers, they should be changed frequently and for the same reasons."
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That isn't the worst idea I've heard. I'd settle for single term limits on congress critters as a start. I think federal employees should have staggered contracts as well and be shifted around to other positions.
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I think federal employees should have staggered contracts as well and be shifted around to other positions.
this seems like it would let employees create problem and then leave to another position so that they aren't responsible for cleaning it up.
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this seems like it would let employees create problem and then leave to another position so that they aren't responsible for cleaning it up.
That was, in fact, Frank Herbert's actual suggestion [wikipedia.org].
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Sure... but it is how the entire technology industry works now. The idea is to prevent you from having time to coordinate messing things up in a serious way that can't be undone by the next group that comes along or that would let you bypass scrutiny of others who are checking your performance and can remove/report you.
There is no perfect solution which both empowers people to accomplish something meaningful and eliminates the risk of them doing the wrong meaningful thing.
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I'd settle for single term limits on congress critters as a start. I think federal employees should have staggered contracts as well and be shifted around to other positions
This just ensures that no one in government develops skills and experience on the job, shifting power to unaccountable privately employed lobbyists and special interest groups that let people stay around forever as long as they're good.
Sounds worse to me.
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I'd just be happy if these conservative legislators actually realized what rights WERE instead of always accusing liberal legislators of being the only ones who want to violate rights.
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INTENTIONAL effort to accumulate power beyond the constitution or undermine the balance of powers and rights reserved by the people, the sovereign, is the highest treason. A crime against the constitutional government is one thing but we are talking about betrayal of those who empower that government.
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Yep, and this is why people who seek out power are automatically suspect.
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Be sure to leave off anything about "knowingly" performing such things in the law, as they can just claim that a legislator's job requirements do not require actually knowing what's in the constitution or legal codes.
Re:Blatantly Unconstitutional (Score:4, Interesting)
How is it blatantly unconstitutional. Its not restricting anyone speech. If I understand the law correctly a manufacturer is free to market a device where the owner of the device is able to configure the filterer or disable it. How is this ANY different than requiring a "v-chip" in television sets?
I mean basically a manufacture could meet this requirement by offering a VPN and licensing a copy of websense. That does not seem like a big hurtle or ask considering we are already talking about devices that have to comply with a pile of FCC and other consumer safety rules. This isnt going to 'lock out hobbyists' or anything or the sort.
Re:Blatantly Unconstitutional (Score:4, Informative)
The content that the filter is required to block is very often not going to be tagged in the way that TV transmissions (which are very finite in number) are. Human beings have a hard time making these decisions; they're entirely out of the realm of what computers can do.
Those irrelevant implementation details. What matters is:
Does this restrict anyone from publishing anything on the internet, porn or otherwise - nope, is a client side control.
Does this prevent anyone who is over the age of majority from doing whatever they want with their personal device - nope they can turn the filter off.
literally all this law does is require devices activated be shipped with a content filter tool; and yes enabled by default if my reading is correct. However unless its not your device and not under your administrative control - I can see that happening if its a company phone etc, or your a child and mommy or daddy say 'no' the filter can be turned off.
Also most of the posters here seem to assume the implementation will be nothing more than a keyword filer or URL list. I don't know that might be enough to comply and if it is probably all the manufacturers will do. However I know at least websense has had a content filter for uncatagorized material that does image analysis and will recognize 'nudity' and have had it for a least a decade.
When I last tried it out it was indeed a bit to sensitive. Blocked all the websites for summer camps our employees sent their kids to because many had photos of boys in bathing suits playing by the lake etc. Again though that's a personal decision, some people might find that offense and actually want it blocked. Some adults might not mind a filter that errs on the side of to aggressive so they could actually click a link behind a URL shortener on say slashdot and not fear a goat.cx (yes there are better ways to ssolve the problem just an example).
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Make them write out the entire constitution by hand. On the second offense they have to recite it verbatim including punctuation.
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No argument there. 100% agree with you.
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There is a $10 fine per violation, with a cap of $500.
I'm no lawyer, but that sounds like Apple could just pay $500 and not have to deal with it. And that $500 is probably less than an hour of a lawyer time to write a letter to tell them to fuck themselves.
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important links inside (Score:2)
In other news - Myanmar Citizens Find Ways Around Crackdown on Internet [slashdot.org]
apple store now 21 and up only (Score:2)
apple store now 21 and up only
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Yeah, this is Utah basically extorting money out of tech companies. Absolutely nobody is going to spend a single minute implementing this, since the cost of doing so would vastly outweigh the cap on the fine. Just having separate product SKUs for the State of Utah costs more than $500.
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Given the cost of compliance, I expect most will just set the $500 aside to pay the fine if/when the state comes to collect it, then they'll add a $0.10 line item to each phone and call it a state tax.
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The $500 cap is per plaintiff, not per manufacturer.
So they will actually have to add a $500 line item to each phone.
Re:$500 (Score:5, Informative)
If you check the text of the law itself [utah.gov], 78B-6-2206 spells it out a bit more clearly.
More or less, this law allows for civil suits to be brought against manufacturers, with the $500 cap being on a per-plaintiff basis. So, if your little Johnny really loves viewing smut on a device that was manufactured in 2022 or later, was activated in Utah, and didn't come with a "harmful to minors" filter activated by default, you may be entitled to as much as $500 (+ filing and attorney's fees, apparently) if you can demonstrate through a preponderance of evidence that little Johnny viewed said smut on at least 50 separate instances. Your neighbor would be able to get $500 as well if they could prove that the same had happened with little Billy, and so on.
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Which, again, just tips the scales in favor of having company lawyers sue for injunctive relief or an outright negation of the law on constitutional grounds. Or telling Utah to fuck off and buy their phones and tablets in any of the 5 neighboring states. It's only 90 miles from Salt Lake City to Evanston, Wyoming...
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Oh, completely agree. I was just answering the one, very narrow point being raised. The whole thing needs to be struck down.
But, to address one other point, it's actually for phones activated in Utah, not just phones sold in Utah, which makes it even more unconscionable, since it means that even if they wanted to, manufacturers wouldn't have any way to leave.
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The only way to know that is to spy on him and do nothing, 49 times. This is like those parents who film their toddler eating dog turds. Since this law gives adults the power to scream "I'm a victim", (instead of being responsible for what they and little Johnny did), I think it's more about saying "I'm doing something" than about thinking "of the children". So much for that 'Individual Responsibility" that certain politicans like to demand.
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That's because it is nothing but an extortion bill. Also there is the little part about it being unconstitutional.
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The most obvious solution for Apple is to pass that cost to the consumer in states where such filters are required.
If nobody buys the device in that state, then Apple isn't liable anymore.
Problem solved
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Sounds to me like the State of Utah wants people to drive to Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, or Idaho to buy phones and tablets.
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Or Arizona. Derp.
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Mormons who want plausible deniability for having a device capable of watching porn without explicitly enabling that ability.
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I recall reading some where that the biggest selling Idaho lottery retailer is located in a tiny town on the Idaho-Utah boarder.
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Uncle Sam does parenting. (Score:2)
For when the government plays the role of parent.
Re:Uncle Sam does parenting. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is percieved as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.
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For the closest quote I could find, he did say:
“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future. ” Along with, ”All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people. ”
"It must proclaim the truth that the child is the most valuable possession a people can have."
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After some searching, it turns out that that quote is mostly made up. Apparently it's from a fictitious letter created in 2004, or something of that sort.
@see https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/... [wikiquote.org]
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This is Utah, owned by the Church of Latter Day Saints in Waiting.
Well isn't this just... (Score:2)
Courts overturn stupid law (Score:2)
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bye bye cell phone stores in UT (Score:2)
Expect all cell phone stores in UT to close. Everyone will be buying their phones online and having them shipped in.
Church people (Score:2)
Church people know better than you and need laws to prove it. And they say 'forget the constitution because we are righteous'. I won't ever live in Utah anyway.
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I dunno, they're going back centuries so housing prices might be surprisingly affordable.
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Then buy and be a landlord. I mean skid row is surprisingly affordable too. Who would you like to have as neighbors?
Personally, I'd rather live on skid row than around a bunch of uptight church people.
"She also noted that parents could..." (Score:5, Interesting)
She also noted that parents could take the filters off.
No, no, they really can't. You see, here's how the real world works.
Nanny-state technology requirements that are opt-out are inherently flawed from a sociological perspective and in some cases, from a legal perspective. The only acceptable form for any filter system is opt-in. Period.
And even then, making it too easy to opt in can cause significant harm because it leads to expectations by the puritanical minority that everyone will surely do so, and if they don't, then something is wrong with them.
You missed the most obvious use case (Score:2)
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When the fuck are you writing this as if you are worried about puritans (LOL) lurking behind every corner? Did this post travel through a wormhole from 1953?
Hmm. Maybe it did. Maybe the slashdot server is stuck in a time vortex. That could explain all of the duplicate stories.
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"You realize this is hyper conservative Utah, so not nanny state." Errrr. . .I give up, why are not Conservative states nanny states. They seem to act like your mother, eyes narrowed disapprovingly, and ready to bring down the Wrath of Her G-d on your worthless soul . . . and give you a good whack for good measure.
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"You realize this is hyper conservative Utah, so not nanny state." Errrr. . .I give up, why are not Conservative states nanny states. They seem to act like your mother, eyes narrowed disapprovingly, and ready to bring down the Wrath of Her G-d on your worthless soul . . . and give you a good whack for good measure.
The term is generally used as liberal overreach, with things like safety laws, and food labelling requirements, as well as other safety related laws
From the Wikipedia article on the Nanny State:
In 1980, Lord Balfour of Inchrye strongly opposed the introduction of seatbelt legislation, saying it was "yet another state narrowing of individual freedom and individual responsibility". He worried that future intrusions of the "nanny state" would include restrictions on cigarettes, alcohol, and mandatory life
Re:"She also noted that parents could..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Both sides are prone to authoritarian nanny-state behavior. The Democrats want to control what happens in video games, on TV, and on the Internet. The Republicans want to control what happens in your bedroom. Thus, naturally, both want to control porn.
Legal Intent is important (Score:2)
You miss the point because you provide evidence against yourself when you explicitly remove the safety guards EVEN if they are completely ineffective. So now you are putting yourself on record as disabling protection for your child or your own "tastes" and just be glad they don't have specific filters .... like why did you turn off the child sex filter?? who would even do that?? Who's going to believe you disabled that simply because the filters are bad?
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Nonsense, you miss the point. Can just leave the safety guards on and access porn by trivially simple means. Quit making mountains out of sand grains.
Nanny-state Doublethink (Score:2, Insightful)
How's that the Republican party sells itself as the party of small government and personal responsibility?
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Don't forget individual liberties. See: bitching about wearing masks.
I guess it's the party of making government small enough to fit in the bedroom, personal responsibility unless it would require being responsible for behavior we don't like, and individual liberties unless it runs afoul of hypocritical "values voters".
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Nah, this is States Rights. You have the right to surrender your rights to the State, and by the way, don't pay attention to the all the guns we give the citizens to settle their arguments with. Don't offend any of them or your lose your right to life. Now praise G-d and Pass the Ammunition.
Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
https://www.newscientist.com/a... [newscientist.com] Let's face it, they are only moral in public.
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And the license/clickthru/whatever says, "You agree that you will not activate this phone within the State of Utah.
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And the license/clickthru/whatever says, "You agree that you will not activate this phone within the State of Utah.
Excellent addition!
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You might want to settle that self-righteous priapism. All that study says is who is willing to PAY for it.
As conservatives tend more capitalist, it makes sense that they understand that you pay for things you use.
ANOTHER study, looking at porn VIEWS is a little more illustrative and less about "showing them dirty conservatives up"
https://www.star-telegram.com/... [star-telegram.com]
Americans who visited Pornhub URLs spent an average of 10 minutes, 33 seconds on the site. Texans were just about av
Have we learned nothing from Blue Laws? (Score:5, Insightful)
CT has (had?) strict laws about when liquor stores have to close in the evening and on weekends. Laws that are much more restrictive than in MA. End result was that every town along the southern border of MA was chock full of liquor stores to cater to those in CT who wanted a refill, but couldn't go to a CT business to buy what they wanted.
If this stands (which it likely won't), I expect all cell phones to be purchased out of state. Utah is on the smaller side, and as long as none of their neighbors get similarly puritanical, there'd be little need to make changes to the phones to accommodate when moving the transaction over the state line would suffice. Either in-person stores out of state, or online purchases from out-of-state legal entities that then ship them to customers in the mail.
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I too expect it won't stand, but it's worth noting that the law, as written, specifies that it applies to phones activated in the state, not just to phones sold in the state, which would seemingly address what you expect to happen. Even so, I'm not sure how they expect it to work. If I buy a phone from a local manufacturer in India or China who has no presence in the US, then come back to the US before activating it, are they seriously suggesting the manufacturer is in some way liable? And if a manufacturer
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I visited Sweden once, and few into Denmark and took the ferry across. The ferry was completely packed and everyone had hand trolleys full of boxes of alcohol. It was midsummer, and taxes on alcohol were less in Denmark than in Sweden so it's where you went for discount booze.
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Expletive Utah... (Score:3)
..Define ... (Score:2)
The moment it blocks something that is not Porn it's unconstitutional - note : it will
The moment it fails to block porn it get the fine - note : it will
All mobile phone vendors pay the $500 fine and ignore it ...
Not that I think this law is good legislation by a (Score:2)
I don't know of a better solution than using censorship sparingly. It's easy to support speech you agree with. It's the minority (in the numerical sense) speech that needs protection. For example, I may think antivax and homeopathy ca
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Stop being daft. People have been trying to outlaw smut since long before the discovery of microscopic pathogens let alone vaccines.
Aren't There Enough Filters? (Score:2)
10 people were slaughtered in Colorado yesterday (Score:2)
...and it's so heartwarming to hear that Utah is protecting us from that dangerous porn.
Re: 10 people were slaughtered in Colorado yesterd (Score:2)
no guns too? (Score:3)
OK, so porn get's taken away, but can we still relieve frustrations with a military style assault rifle?
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OK, so porn get's taken away, but can we still relieve frustrations with a military style assault rifle?
Sure. Just use plenty of lube.
A distraction (Score:5, Insightful)
Cut out the middle man (Score:2)
What is porn? (Score:2)
I'm curious how "porn" is identified. Who decides what's porn and what isn't?
And, perhaps more importantly, if they use a blacklist of all of the porn sites, how can I get a copy of this list? Purely for research purposes, of course.
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Pretty easily, actually: The law just references Utah's existing criminal code on the matter. Which is vague of course, as all are, but it means the existing body of court precedent can be drawn upon to resolve the vagueness.
good for business in CO & WY (Score:2)
Twitter (Score:3)
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Pornhub that could market a filter that is only effective against their competitor's websites.
not hotdog, I mean FakeBlock! (Score:2)
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Queue
Cue. Moron.
Porn is Good (Score:5, Informative)
You can find studies to support whatever agenda you want. Plenty of studies find porn is good
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
the claims of "addiction" are nonsense
https://link.springer.com/arti... [springer.com]
and porn can be a part of a healthy sex life
https://www.ohsu.edu/womens-he... [ohsu.edu]
So fuck off, puritan. Meaning, have some great sex. Or, watch a movie of people fucking. All good.
Re:Porn is Good (Score:4, Insightful)
If it took decades of watching before the desensitization kicked in, perhaps there is another explanation: You just got old.
I used to do erotic RP a *lot* online back when I was in my early twenties. I was good at it, too, and I had the endurance needed for the long-running scenes that could take many hours. Then I got older, the last of the teenage hormonal surge passed, and I lost both the ability and most of the urge.