Always funny to see the senile politicians blaming porn as the biggest threats to children and not their collapsing economies.
I'm sure when those kids grow up and work long hours for the rest of their lives (if they can find a job at all!) just to be able to afford rent they'll at least be grateful they weren't able to access porn in their teenage years.
While the failing economies definitely is orders of magnitudes more important, the problem of hyper stimulants is definitely worth giving some attention.
The effects of porn, SoMe, ultra processed foods, etc. Likely also affect the real economies in ways wondo not yet fully grasp.
> the problem of hyper stimulants is definitely worth giving some attention
True, so we should start by not having every single computing device/service crave for attention, and not surrender our society's social fabric to Meta. Enforcing the GDPR would fix it overnight by making it not profitable, but instead we're relaxing it and doubling down.
Tbf, it's an establish pattern in Germany at this point. I mean you can't even sell games with explicit content in Germany, categorically... Though it's only selectively enforced. So you can still buy games like Baldurs gate or GTA, but some need to censor things etc.
But they don't fix multiple problems all at once. Most of the time they don't even fix one at a time. And often, as I think is the case here, they pretend they are fixing a problem when really they are doing something else. In this case its the usual 'save the children' wrapping on more rigid control and surveillance of peoples use of computers and the internet.
> But they don't fix multiple problems all at once.
No, they do, they do it the whole time. Those might not the problems you care about, and not all attempts might be successful, but each new or changed law/regulation is fixing something. And there are many new of them over the year.
Each new law/regulation is indeed intended to fix something, the problem is what? I'd love to have the optimism that its the problems that population are experiencing, but in most cases its the problems that the rich and powerful are experiencing. Like 'the internet is allowing people too much power to communicate with each other without state intervention', so they fix it with laws to remove that power. Or 'I am very extremely wealthy, but I want to be in more wealthy, and other people to be poorer so my great wealth has more relative power', so they pass laws to cut social programs to fund high income tax cuts. And so on,..
You seem to have a concerningly narrow view on society and it's processes, to the point where it might be harmful. Maybe start fixing this first, before you complain about something you might not understand well enough?
I could say this exact comment back to you with implication that your view is naively optimistic, whereas at me its implication is I'm defeatistly pessimistic. Maybe the answer is that society needs both of us playing these parts.
society does not want to tackle any problems - especially when it comes to kids. you need continued social discourse to win elections so no one is actually interested in solving anything
Mass surveillance is far more damaging. Also there are several porn block solutions on offer for parents to install on their children's devices. There is absolutely zero need for the government to be regulating mass surveillance on everyone to block porn for children. We are replacing the damage caused by porn on a small handful of people who are predisposed to get addicted and got exposed to it at a young age due to bad parenting, with damaging all of society with mass surveillance, which is not even guaranteed to stop kids from seeing porn.
Multiple studies have shown that porn, in and of itself, is not damaging. The phenomenon of "porn addiction" appears to come entirely from people who think they shouldn't be looking at porn for various (mostly religious) reasons still looking at it, and feeling shame.
Probably not dangerous for adults. But if you combine high-speed internet, unlimited mobile data - it's basically a debilitating affair for kids aged 8-18.
The BBC did a documentary about the knowledge of porn among kids, and how 16-year-olds go to the doctor's office saying they don't have erections...
Maybe it's similar to the handling of home office. A person at home isn't spending 30 bucks for lunch in the city. The kids have to stop gooning and go back to lurking around in shopping malls
Don't worry, you will spend all your time working a dead-end job to afford rent (so some retiree can enjoy his life) and taxes (so politicians keep getting paid to propose such stupid bills) so there won't be any time to watch porn anyway.
> It's one of many problems which is taking care of
I hear about digital freedoms (for porn restrictions, chat message monitoring, etc) being attacked on a weekly basis, often with "think of the children" as a justification.
I don't hear about the fact that Western economies being property-based Ponzi schemes on their last legs being discussed very often, if at all. Instead everyone is trying to extract even more out of it by screwing over the next generations, the very children they are supposed to be thinking of.
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to. It's not what HN is for and it destroys what it is for. We have to ban accounts that keep commenting like this. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future.
> Manufacturers of operating systems, tech associations, and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) sharply criticize the draft law. They consider the filtering requirement, in particular, to be technically and practically unfeasible, as well as legally questionable.
* you add an HTTP header saying "I am a kid"
* porn web servers read and handle this headers
* if they don't (easy to test), they get fined
It is easy to implement, easy to monitor, and will probably just work if the government do the effort to monitor and enforce it. If not, it will just be an other DNT header
You add draconian client-side enforcement via parent controls. You can even mandate that stores ask for whom the device will be and provision it accordingly with the flag being automatically removed in the future when the person is of age.
Might be somehow related-ish; in Poland by rmf24.pl outlet:
> On Friday, the Sejm (lower house) passed an amendment to the bill on the provision of electronic services, which allows for the blocking of illegal content on the internet. The new regulations anticipate that the president of UKE (Office of Electronic Communications) and KRRiT (National Broadcasting Council ) will be able to decide on the removal of content concerning 27 prohibited acts, mainly specified in the Penal Code. Prohibited acts include criminal threats, incitement to suicide, glorification of paedophilia, promotion of totalitarianism, incitement to hatred and content that infringes copyright.
> Under the bill, the author of the disputed content will receive a notification from the internet service provider about the initiation of the procedure and will have two days to present their position. The decision of the UKE and KRRiT to remove the content will not be subject to appeal, but the author will be able to lodge an objection with a common court.
> 237 MPs voted in favour of the bill, 200 were against, and five abstained. The bill will now be debated in the Senate.
This happens four days after Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski said that "Poland strongly opposes the introduction of mandatory scanning of private messages in instant messaging services.".
---
I don't want to wear a tinfoil hat but considering that chat control is unlikely to work at EU level, local "solutions" like above in Germany and Poland may give legal way to include scanning instant messengers in the future.
> I don't want to wear a tinfoil hat but considering that chat control is unlikely to work at EU level, local "solutions" like above in Germany and Poland may give legal way to include scanning instant messengers in the future.
That's because lawmakers think it has no impact on them. In Czech Republic a transparency law has been passed many years ago. This law effectively said that cities needs to disclose suppliers and agreements for services they are purchasing, like trash collection. Sounds pretty innocent.
It has turned out that politicians did not think that through because people found a lot of cities are buying services from companies which are owned by politicians who are also part of city council. Whoops, massive conflict of interests. So then politicians were clamping the law down until this got hidden under wraps again. All these Chat Controls, porn filters are going to have exactly same effect.
Do they? You mention something that affects politicians negatively much more than affect civilians. Chat control will be negative for _all_ of us, mainly of innocents, while bad actors will switch to other means of communication that evades the law.
Every time when I see how these censorship laws are pushed, I cannot understand how it is possible that anyone of those who vote for them can believe that such laws can achieve their stated goal of "protecting the innocent children".
Actually I cannot believe that the voters, or at least most of them, are so stupid that they no longer remember what they were doing as children, so I can only assume that the real purpose of the laws is not the claimed purpose, but something much more sinister.
I am male, so I do not know about what young girls think, so perhaps they are innocent and they might be protected by censorship, but I am certain that the "innocence" of young boys cannot be protected by such laws, even if they were technically successful.
I have grown in a country occupied by communists, like Poland. There existed absolutely no pornography whatsoever. There were no erotic movies, no erotic books, no erotic magazines.
So one might have believed that the "innocence" of young children was "protected", but such a belief was terribly wrong.
Due to the lack of any other kind of entertainment, a favorite pass-time was telling jokes, many of which had a strong pornographic content. I have no idea which were the sources of the jokes, but there existed a huge number of them. Starting from the age of 10 years, it was very frequent among boys to tell such jokes or listen to them.
The content of the jokes included pretty much everything that can be seen in a pornographic movie today and any young "innocent" boy was very familiar with such content, even if most did not understand the meaning of many parts of the content, for lack of explanatory images.
Of course, no boy would admit in the presence of adults of being aware of such things, but I would have expected that someone being now adult would remember his lack of "innocence" when young and would understand how futile is to expect that "innocence" can be "protected" by technical censorship, when the only means that could ensure "innocence" would be to be locked permanently in a prison cell, to avoid contact with any other humans.
> Actually I cannot believe that the voters, or at least most of them, are so stupid
Yes, they are. If you are an educated, intelligent person, most likely you live in a bubble of similar individuals. Step outside of the bubble and you'll quickly realize that most people are actually profoundly retarded.
This is a valid concern. But I think we should reject this law on the basis that it should be a recommendation rather than a mandate, without rejecting its premise entirely, because it actually has some merit.
Filtering on client-side is a good idea and lets parents parent without affecting anyone else, provided the filters work completely offline. And we should make sure governments and parents know this so they don't try to push any more Internet-wide censorship laws.
And instead of mandating it, it should work like movie ratings: OSes that implement parental control features get a "PG-capable" label, then make it illegal for minors to use a non-PG-capable OS. This should not affect adults, and parents can choose to not use it because it's a feature you have to manually turn on.
Not sure it is. It will require a lot of locked down control, and may make open source OSes effectively illegal. Even on Windows it will require only being able to install software from the MS store AND MS only allowing software that complies with this law to be installed by German users.
Seems really the only way forward is having your normal fast internet/live/banking/gov crap where you play a happy citizen role. And outside of that a mesh network where you really live. Sure not for most, but for me, yep.
> The core of the JMStV amendment, which has been debated for years and to which the state premiers agreed almost a year ago: End devices that are typically also used by minors should be able to be switched to a child or youth mode by parents with filters at the operating system level at the push of a button.
⇒ This will require OSes to have a filter, but it doesn’t require it to be switched on, not even for children using computers. Whether to switch it on will be a parent’s choice.
Risk, of course, is that this will be sloppy slope. Parents who don’t switch it on for their kids may get seen as not caring enough for their children, effectively forcing parents to switch the filter on.
Mind you this is the country with a state-administered church tax system. Of course they will be all against porn, something something protestant work ethics.
Quite the opposite. From the description in the article it will make Linux illegal unless distros and app stores comply with German law. It may ban installation of software from outside locked down app stores.
Something like kiosk mode does not cover it. It will have to be locked down to the point of uselessness. From the article:
"Only apps that have an approved youth protection program or a comparable suitable tool themselves will be accessible regardless of the pre-set age group."
I read the article. I just don’t share the criticism.
“Only apps from safe places can be installed.”
Yeah, d’oh. Otherwise, massive loophole.
Yes, it’s a Nintendo-ify button for a PC. It’s opt in. And very convenient for parents.
And if my kid wants to install something, it can come and ask me. Like I had to go and ask my dad before installing sth (before I got my own Linux machine with 14).
Linux might receive this too. Remember, Valve is using Linux for their Steam Deck/Machine/Flare, and they are selling well enough, that the law might apply to them at least.
As an American I will happily help my EU colleagues ignore this absurd law by any means necessary, even if it requires sending SD cards affixed to letters through the mail or embedding them in 3D printed trinkets. Or, more likely, simply emailing gzipped installers or providing convenient download links that circumvent whatever firewall is eventually set up (assuming this law sticks around, but it won’t).
Unrelated, but shows the "slow collapse" of Europe (where I live in).
We all know what a big issue Climate Change (and specially warming in Europe) is. So most European politicians go on and on about environment and all that.
Well, yesterday, I went to play football at night and finished at around 10PM. I was planning on taking the metro, as any normal European citizen.
Much was my surprise when I compared the time and cost to a Car Sharing app (Free2move).
The metro in my city is €3,80 and Google Maps estimated a metro travel time of 30 minutes.
I ended up paying €3,64 for the Car and made it home in 19 minutes. Worst part, the car was not even electric.
It makes absolutely no freaking sense.
So yeah, European politicians are just scammers. They're doing their own businesses while claiming to protect the population.
With all respect, the car sharing you used is likely VC subsidized while the metro runs on much lower subsidies.
That said, public city transport should likely just be free. (not so much regional or national transport as the extreme congestion from the Deutschland ticket has shown)
It always puzzles me, why the porn? How about seeing war in action? Murders? How about fostering the gambling addiction via freemium games? Why seeing pussies, dicks and tits is more of a threat than anything else? This porn fixation is ridiculous.
Excessive Violence without proper context and explanation is also forbidden. And Porn is usually several lacking context and explanation, being just poor fiction. But the thing is, most people understand the regulation of violence, so you won't hear many complaints about those.
Whenever a new attempt at limiting exposure to what is obviously harmful content (e.g. explicitly violent content, and anything to do with minors), I always see the same patterns of argument against the attempt:
(1) It's the parent's fault.
(2) Freedom! No government censorship!
(3) This is technically impossible to control (the fix is worse than the problem.)
While each point can be argued, I think the debate needs to be framed a different way. We are facing a dosage and availability problem, just as in comparing, in order of harmfulness: coffee, alcohol, and heroin.
We know what happens when a harmful substance suddenly becomes widely available. Do people say "hey I drank some beer when I was a kid so all drugs are fine, including opioids, in unlimited amounts"? And, "if your kids gets addicted to opioids, it's the parent's fault for not keeping it away from them" (when your trusted doctor prescribed them first?) Or, "people are free to do what they want, and it is technically impossible to control the supply of opioids anyway, so why bother"?
The unfiltered internet is FLOODED with violent, disturbing pornographic images that literally NO ONE should ever see. It's not some sort of law of nature that this content exists - humans made it and put it there, and the wide availability and potency of this content is the problem. It isn't seeing someone's naked behind in a context-appropriate scene in a movie (that's closer to coffee in the above example.)
As it turns out, I think this law is a good step, but far from complete or perfect (or even good.). Requiring each individual to personally set up 100% effective filters is an impossible burden. For sure, when I had young kids a decade ago, I tried, and I also talked to my kids about it. But how about also that drug dealer isn't allowed to sneakily approach my kids with free samples? And I can reasonably expect that my kids aren't forced to walk through the floor of a casino, with all the flashing lights and prostitutes, on their way to school? Since most school work requires the internet these days, that's what it feels like as a parent.
I have two adult kids, one doing well (despite visiting some questionable sites as a youth, I found out later), and one struggling, in part from the crap that is found on the internet. I know many of my peers with young adult children are telling the same story - at least one of their kids is way off the rails with a serious real-life problem, usually fueled by the internet casino in some way (and before you tell me we were all bad parents, these are now adults in their 20's and 30's, who mostly seemed normal and well-prepared after high school.)
Now, I am not completely blaming the internet, an excellent tool that has improved many things in my lifetime, for these outcomes. But let's not kid ourselves - there is a huge distinction between, say, Google Maps, and animal torture videos.
This is a hard problem, with lots of nuance and gray areas. It's the entire reason that laws and courts exist - sometimes you really do just need to sit down with a group of people and come to some sort of solution, however imperfect, and iterate to make it better.
Because clearly something has to happen - the opioids coming through the municipal internet pipes aren't going to be completely remediated with a personal water filter. This law provides for free water filters, but ones that won't work everywhere without prohibition-like enforcement (e.g. open source, DIY distributions of Linux.) It's part of the solution, far from perfect, and far from complete. But we are done doing nothing.
I'm not really afraid of porn. That can be handled by talking with the kid. What I'm afraid of is the kid watching one of those awful NSFL videos. It'll eventually happen, but the later, the better.
I’m gonna go on a limb here and say that I like this draft.
It’s an opt-in measure for parents with a one-click solution. Think ad blocker but for adult content.
Parents have to actively enable it. It’s on the device itself, not in the internet backbone. No censorship happening; government doesn’t even know whether parents use it.
Step 1. Force companies to develop the censorship/surveillant technology by passing a law to make it available. Claim its to 'save the children' and/or 'fight terrorism', whichever threat is currently the most scary.
Step 2. Make the use of the technology optional, and fairly non-intrusive to ease acceptance and normalization.
Step 3. Make the technology mandatory for certain groups/areas like all schools or certain businesses. Or for people who work for them. Also incremental changes are applied which makes the system a bit more restrictive, and bit more surveillant.
Step 4. Make the technology mandatory for everyone (except politicians and certain private persons like CEOs of big corps)
Step 5. Continue incremental changes until the system completely transfers all real power and control of the system from the individual to the corporation/state.
Sure you can. You can pass laws that require companies respect a 'do not track' setting in browsers and don't collect data or make you jump through 'accept cookies' hoops. You can make right to repair laws. You can pass laws that require interoperability like making phones use a standard cable (they did this and I think its great). You can pass laws making companies like MS at least make available a no-tracking, no subscription, no ads, no telemetry, no bloatware, no AI, no bullshit version of windows OS for regular individuals at reasonable cost. They can do stuff that like that.
Yeah, this is the right direction for moderation features in general assuming it's implemented offline on-device and works without contacting a remote server. It eliminates excuses to implement age verification online.
And it's correct in principle: each parent should be able to decide what their child sees, but not what anyone else's child sees. Parenting a child is the responsibility of that child's parents, but it is not the responsibility of governments or other people.
Though I do have some gripes with it being a mandate rather than a recommendation, it is a much better proposal than age verification or censoring the entire Internet.
We have mandates for all kinds of things, like movie ratings etc. I think it’s appropriate here. It just makes it easy.
I don’t understand the pushback from tech companies either; all OSes already have a kiosk mode (incl the major Linux DEs). Should be very low effort to implement.
The concern is that OSes which don't implement the feature will be outlawed.
Movie ratings don't outlaw movies and actually provides a good framework: instead of mandating that OSes implement this, publish a client-side filter spec that OS devs can choose to implement. And if they implement it, their OS gets a label like "PG-capable". Then make it illegal for minors to possess a non-PG-capable device.
>The aim is to protect young people on the internet from age-inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, hate speech, incitement, and misinformation.
Who decides what hate speech is? Incitment? what the actual fuck. Linux is the way until they come for that as well.
Until Linux is going to be forced into the same regulation. And then until new laws criminalize attempts to bypass the "porn filter" no matter what you use.
As much as I hate where this might lead, I can't help but amuse myself over a scene like this: You walk up to a bearded fellow in a dark alley and quietly whisper "Stallman..." only for him to quietly respond "... was right.". He then opens his coat for you to choose the install USB of your favorite distro (Arch of course!). He dutifully hands you the stick and a printed copy of the GPLv5 for you to hide in your coat as you walk past the telescreens back to your home.
But where’s the problem? This is opt in. KDE already has a kiosk mode for kids. Add a content filter aka adblocker for porn, done.
I don’t understand the outrage here. Many parents who are technically illiterate would like to be able to leave their 10yo alone with a computer without having to worry.
Rn the only option for that is nintendo/playstation/xbox. Smartphones aren’t.
to be fair I didn't read the details of that law. it's just that its Marschrichtung is pretty clear. total surveillance for flimsy reasons because porn etc. eventually it will be mandatory for everybody. that's what it is about.
> The aim is to protect young people on the internet from age-inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, hate speech, incitement, and misinformation.
Hmmm, I doubt they really care about pornography and more about censoring certain stuff that politicians do not like. But what do I know, I'm probably just a conspiracy theorist.
Well considering you can go to prison in Germany for posting a meme on social media, that ship has already sailed. This has been a thing for a while. The only difference with this is this gives some parents control over what they allow their children to see on their computers
I think they should criminialize porn instead and leave the machines alone. Since that industry (conspiracy theories aside) value money above all else, massive fine and taxes on the owners of porn production is the way to go imo.
I mean, porn completely ruined my teenage years and it took me 8 years to get rid of my addiction. It warps your expectations of real-life relationships, it ruins marriages, it ruins both women and men, it's garbage poison and should be outlawed. So I would be in favor of such laws, but then again, I also know, it's not really about porn and more about the whole "we can't let the youth become radicalized by this Internet thing" stuff and just more censorship.
That part also caused my tin foil hat to heat up. At least they get the credit of including it directly instead of adding it in a later revision that gets even less news coverage. It is hard not to grow cynical when you see this.
I am also worried about another detail:
> The states also want to prevent the circumvention of blocking orders by erotic portals ... using so-called mirror domains – i.e., the distribution of identical content under a minimally changed web address. For a page to be treated as a mirror page and quickly blocked without a new procedure, it must essentially have the same content as the already blocked original.
Note the part "quickly blocked without a new procedure" so there is a way to block sites with even less process and oversight. That just invites overblocking without accountability.
"oh no, parents aren't using these tools we're forcing companies to implement, we gotta intervene to protect the precious children so we'll assume you're a children everywhere until we can link back your real identity somehow"
*This does not seem like a censorship measure.* It seems like it requires OSs to give parents an easy way to filter porn.
I struggle with porn addiction. When I really fall back into it I act out 5-10 times a day. I can’t stop even if I want to. It distracts from work and from my real life relationships and girlfriend.
Everyone on HN loves to rag on social media because it’s so toxic. What about porn? If social media makes it easy to compare my “boring” life with “beautiful” influencer lives, why wouldn’t porn make my normal girlfriend and normal sex seem boring. Part of that is how young I found porn when my brain was still developing and forming how it processed sex and relationships. Porn makes me feel so depressed.
I am sure other people handle porn and social media better than me. And that’s ok, I respect that. *But even if you think porn is ok as an adult, can’t you see why adults should be able to have more control over what their kids see.* Yes if they are motivated kids will find it - I learned a lot of the engineering skills I have now getting around my parents blocker. *Not every kid is that good and this might help many.* If it’s not required to be on in the OS, what’s the harm?
P.S. if you struggle with something similar to me, look up SA, SAA, or SLAA.
Porn can be harmful, and it is an industry that dos a lot of damage to those working in it too.
There are better ways of doing this. For example require ISP provided routers to have built in parental controls or that people have the option of filtered connections, and ensure parents are offered child safe filtered SIMs at the same price as normal ones. It would not even require changing the devices.
Network level is more effective in blocking porn, but Kids often join unfiltered WiFi networks. Also I think network management is a bit more complicated for the average person than OS settings. I think both are useful
The issue here is not having an easy way to block porn, the issue is enforcing it. And easy ways to block apps and websites already exist. One I can recommend is called Freedom.
Okay. I hear your struggles and want to ask: would you rather give others the tools to block your porn, or would you rather have easier access to help?
You need both in the world. Blockers are almost useless for adults with an addiction who can easily just buy a new device or figure out a way around.
Kids can’t really join addiction recovery groups, at least not in the same way adults can because it takes a full understanding of the impacts of porn addiction on life and a desire to stop. I can only speak for myself but even with parents who tried to communicate this, I didn’t have that level of maturity then.
Blockers at least can stop them from accidentally finding it, or generic curiosity. At least until the parents decide they are mature enough to handle the unfiltered internet
Reads like paid copypasta. In the unlikely case you're sincere, have you tried testosterone blockers medication? I checked out SLAA (SA and SAA yielded no results) and while learning to control yourself is nice, why should you have those urges in the first place if they are making your life miserable. I find most porn kind of boring and even icky. I would never get tired of seeing pretty women (especially naked), but porn itself is kind of meh.
I want a "one button solution" to keep the boomers and the elderly from getting their brains fried by facebook and voting for authoritarian parties that want to implement such antiliberal mechanisms
early cremation, not like they're any kind of useful nowadays. "but you'll be in their place someday", yes i'm sure of it, being poisoned physically and mentally by every single thing existing i'm pretty confident i'll live till 50.
I find it interesting how these kinds of measures are incredibly unpopular on HN and other online platforms. But if there was some regulation about social media algorithms, short form content, age restriction for social media and other mandated restrictions on social media companies, people are a lot more open.
Why is any restriction on adult content so fiercely defended? I can post that Mark Zuckerberg should be arrested and tried at the Hague and receive a somewhat warm reception on this platform. But there are these giant faceless corporations pushing unrestricted, often depraved content to minors and people stand up for them. And this content often includes anonymous uploaded content with underage girls. It's like the meme "leave those billionaires alone!"
I'm sure this will get downvoted, but help me understand what the visceral reaction is. I've heard people argue that this kind of adult content isn't harmful, but it seems obvious that it is, especially to children. At least more than short form content like TikTok. What would you rather your 12 year old spend hours watching? The adult industry has always been a few steps ahead of popular media in terms of virality, addiction and kitsch. They're shaping the online generation, and not in a good way.
Social media algorithm are being used to push agenda from other countries, see the Cambridge analytica case, or push extremist content to youngsters since it generates much more engagement.
Porn doesn't do this. It may have other issues, but it doesn't aim at maximing engagement with infinite scrolls and similar tactics. Let alone the content, who would watch porn for 12hrs/day? We already have the possibility to do that, and if somebody doesn't have mental issues, I'm of the opinion (s)he's not going to do that
It's the classic "think about the children" argument used to push through plethora of other shit. See UK.
I have very low trust in government (mine or other). We had these restrictions before. My country has been there, done that, for 41 years, not keen on repeat.
And unlike corporations (for all their problems and there are many), you can't avoid that.
Social media regulation isn't particularly popular here on HN, though it is certainly in other areas. You also won't find many people defending CSAM here as you imply.
You also have to assume that people are not taking the purpose of these new measures at face value, but assume that there are other underlying motives and that the measures are broader than just simple pornography. And I don't think that assumption is unjustified.
The ID-based measures like in the UK are a gigantic privacy nightmare as well.
These measures are also not specific to kids, in the end they essentially always affect the access to this kind of content by adults as well. And some people think that is none of the government's business.
An additional factor is that these measures are technically infeasibly without drastic measures. So they're either easy to circumvent, or would give the government enormous power and access over all kinds of communication.
I generally agree that social media regulation is the medium where political censorship is being pushed. I disagree that measures regulating Meta or TikTok are not popular on this platform.
This is a regulation that, at least in theory, would give parents more control over what their children consume. If you think about it on a family unit, this is pro consumer. You don't have to use it.
But in general I just don't think we need freedom max absolutely everything. I think its destructive to society (as is social media but this is much worse). Naive purely economic measures like GDP and consumption miss out on the things that actually matter, like kids being the first generation in history to have unlimited unrestricted access to extreme content in their pocket.
> But if there was some regulation about social media algorithms, short form content, age restriction for social media and other mandated restrictions on social media companies, people are a lot more open.
FWIW I am opposed to all such restrictions, although the restrictions on media companies (versus OS restrictions, chat control, etc) are slightly less bad because they don’t broadly constrain individual freedom in the same way.
My visceral reaction is to the slippery slope, and the fact that our government is not to be trusted.
I'm honestly not against blocking social media for children. It's just sad that we got to this point. In an ideal world, parents would be the gatekeepers and the reason for not allowing their kids to use TikTok would be that it's simply not good for them. But I'm not happy with the solution, which means that you need a way to prove your age and/or identity to all these sites. Mkey. I guess. For social media that's one thing, but you already see that they're very keen on applying that same thing for porn now? Why? That gives my government highly fucking sensitive information about me. I seriously detest that thought, so I'd rather just not give any government the tools to interfere and/or closely watch what I do.
> Why is any restriction on adult content so fiercely defended?
If you mean “why do people protest age verification” then the answer is that the only effective way to do age verification is by mandating login with government verified ID, which destroys anonymity. People aren’t upset about kids not seeing pron, they’re upset about the entire rest of the internet being subject to surveillance.
Always funny to see the senile politicians blaming porn as the biggest threats to children and not their collapsing economies.
I'm sure when those kids grow up and work long hours for the rest of their lives (if they can find a job at all!) just to be able to afford rent they'll at least be grateful they weren't able to access porn in their teenage years.
While the failing economies definitely is orders of magnitudes more important, the problem of hyper stimulants is definitely worth giving some attention.
The effects of porn, SoMe, ultra processed foods, etc. Likely also affect the real economies in ways wondo not yet fully grasp.
> the problem of hyper stimulants is definitely worth giving some attention
True, so we should start by not having every single computing device/service crave for attention, and not surrender our society's social fabric to Meta. Enforcing the GDPR would fix it overnight by making it not profitable, but instead we're relaxing it and doubling down.
And blaming porn of all things..
Tbf, it's an establish pattern in Germany at this point. I mean you can't even sell games with explicit content in Germany, categorically... Though it's only selectively enforced. So you can still buy games like Baldurs gate or GTA, but some need to censor things etc.
Porn is damaging at multiple levels, specially for young adults to say nothing of "children".
+Should be clear is that exposing children to porn or normalizing porn in no way promotes "healthy economies" either.
BBC Channel 4 did some documentary about porn and damage it does to young ones.
sure but so is social media and ultra processed food. Both with much greater impact, why not start there?
because porn is primarily a moral problem, the others are only mental and health problems. surely moral problems are way more serious, right?
Because no porn lobby?
Imagine society is able to tackle multiple problems all at once.. Seems like fiction for some..
But they don't fix multiple problems all at once. Most of the time they don't even fix one at a time. And often, as I think is the case here, they pretend they are fixing a problem when really they are doing something else. In this case its the usual 'save the children' wrapping on more rigid control and surveillance of peoples use of computers and the internet.
> But they don't fix multiple problems all at once.
No, they do, they do it the whole time. Those might not the problems you care about, and not all attempts might be successful, but each new or changed law/regulation is fixing something. And there are many new of them over the year.
Each new law/regulation is indeed intended to fix something, the problem is what? I'd love to have the optimism that its the problems that population are experiencing, but in most cases its the problems that the rich and powerful are experiencing. Like 'the internet is allowing people too much power to communicate with each other without state intervention', so they fix it with laws to remove that power. Or 'I am very extremely wealthy, but I want to be in more wealthy, and other people to be poorer so my great wealth has more relative power', so they pass laws to cut social programs to fund high income tax cuts. And so on,..
You seem to have a concerningly narrow view on society and it's processes, to the point where it might be harmful. Maybe start fixing this first, before you complain about something you might not understand well enough?
I could say this exact comment back to you with implication that your view is naively optimistic, whereas at me its implication is I'm defeatistly pessimistic. Maybe the answer is that society needs both of us playing these parts.
society does not want to tackle any problems - especially when it comes to kids. you need continued social discourse to win elections so no one is actually interested in solving anything
Mass surveillance is far more damaging. Also there are several porn block solutions on offer for parents to install on their children's devices. There is absolutely zero need for the government to be regulating mass surveillance on everyone to block porn for children. We are replacing the damage caused by porn on a small handful of people who are predisposed to get addicted and got exposed to it at a young age due to bad parenting, with damaging all of society with mass surveillance, which is not even guaranteed to stop kids from seeing porn.
[Citation needed]
Multiple studies have shown that porn, in and of itself, is not damaging. The phenomenon of "porn addiction" appears to come entirely from people who think they shouldn't be looking at porn for various (mostly religious) reasons still looking at it, and feeling shame.
Probably not dangerous for adults. But if you combine high-speed internet, unlimited mobile data - it's basically a debilitating affair for kids aged 8-18.
The BBC did a documentary about the knowledge of porn among kids, and how 16-year-olds go to the doctor's office saying they don't have erections...
Can you also provide a citation?
Wouldn't the more reasonable argument be "The economy is failing. Keep the kids gooning to distract them"
Let the kids think they're getting away with something. It's actually in 1984, literally teens thinking they're rebelling by getting access to porn.
Maybe it's similar to the handling of home office. A person at home isn't spending 30 bucks for lunch in the city. The kids have to stop gooning and go back to lurking around in shopping malls
Teach your kids to code, build electronics or tune engines, and they won’t have time for porn.
Don't worry, you will spend all your time working a dead-end job to afford rent (so some retiree can enjoy his life) and taxes (so politicians keep getting paid to propose such stupid bills) so there won't be any time to watch porn anyway.
Who said it's the biggest threat? It's one of many problems which is taking care of. This reads like really poor whataboutism..
> It's one of many problems which is taking care of
I hear about digital freedoms (for porn restrictions, chat message monitoring, etc) being attacked on a weekly basis, often with "think of the children" as a justification.
I don't hear about the fact that Western economies being property-based Ponzi schemes on their last legs being discussed very often, if at all. Instead everyone is trying to extract even more out of it by screwing over the next generations, the very children they are supposed to be thinking of.
So you only hear what you want to hear. Noted.
I hate these kinds of bills too, but it's a logical fallacy to address only the single biggest problem (assuming you agree on what it is).
True. The problem is there are no further bills. All other problems aren’t addressed…
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[flagged]
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to. It's not what HN is for and it destroys what it is for. We have to ban accounts that keep commenting like this. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I really thought that this website was beyond perosnal attacks.
> Manufacturers of operating systems, tech associations, and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) sharply criticize the draft law. They consider the filtering requirement, in particular, to be technically and practically unfeasible, as well as legally questionable.
* you add an HTTP header saying "I am a kid" * porn web servers read and handle this headers * if they don't (easy to test), they get fined
It is easy to implement, easy to monitor, and will probably just work if the government do the effort to monitor and enforce it. If not, it will just be an other DNT header
What stops a kid from saying "I am an adult" via this header without some draconian client-side enforcement?
You add draconian client-side enforcement via parent controls. You can even mandate that stores ask for whom the device will be and provision it accordingly with the flag being automatically removed in the future when the person is of age.
Might be somehow related-ish; in Poland by rmf24.pl outlet:
> On Friday, the Sejm (lower house) passed an amendment to the bill on the provision of electronic services, which allows for the blocking of illegal content on the internet. The new regulations anticipate that the president of UKE (Office of Electronic Communications) and KRRiT (National Broadcasting Council ) will be able to decide on the removal of content concerning 27 prohibited acts, mainly specified in the Penal Code. Prohibited acts include criminal threats, incitement to suicide, glorification of paedophilia, promotion of totalitarianism, incitement to hatred and content that infringes copyright.
> Under the bill, the author of the disputed content will receive a notification from the internet service provider about the initiation of the procedure and will have two days to present their position. The decision of the UKE and KRRiT to remove the content will not be subject to appeal, but the author will be able to lodge an objection with a common court.
> 237 MPs voted in favour of the bill, 200 were against, and five abstained. The bill will now be debated in the Senate.
This happens four days after Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski said that "Poland strongly opposes the introduction of mandatory scanning of private messages in instant messaging services.".
---
I don't want to wear a tinfoil hat but considering that chat control is unlikely to work at EU level, local "solutions" like above in Germany and Poland may give legal way to include scanning instant messengers in the future.
> I don't want to wear a tinfoil hat but considering that chat control is unlikely to work at EU level, local "solutions" like above in Germany and Poland may give legal way to include scanning instant messengers in the future.
That's because lawmakers think it has no impact on them. In Czech Republic a transparency law has been passed many years ago. This law effectively said that cities needs to disclose suppliers and agreements for services they are purchasing, like trash collection. Sounds pretty innocent.
It has turned out that politicians did not think that through because people found a lot of cities are buying services from companies which are owned by politicians who are also part of city council. Whoops, massive conflict of interests. So then politicians were clamping the law down until this got hidden under wraps again. All these Chat Controls, porn filters are going to have exactly same effect.
Do they? You mention something that affects politicians negatively much more than affect civilians. Chat control will be negative for _all_ of us, mainly of innocents, while bad actors will switch to other means of communication that evades the law.
They already do this with social media regulations. This is the venue, not these adult content filters.
The UK already arrests 33 people PER DAY for social media posts and that was in 2023.
If we're going to throw people in jail for posting political memes anyway, at least parents will have some control over what their children consume.
https://www.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1mut3gv/12k_arrests...
Every time when I see how these censorship laws are pushed, I cannot understand how it is possible that anyone of those who vote for them can believe that such laws can achieve their stated goal of "protecting the innocent children".
Actually I cannot believe that the voters, or at least most of them, are so stupid that they no longer remember what they were doing as children, so I can only assume that the real purpose of the laws is not the claimed purpose, but something much more sinister.
I am male, so I do not know about what young girls think, so perhaps they are innocent and they might be protected by censorship, but I am certain that the "innocence" of young boys cannot be protected by such laws, even if they were technically successful.
I have grown in a country occupied by communists, like Poland. There existed absolutely no pornography whatsoever. There were no erotic movies, no erotic books, no erotic magazines.
So one might have believed that the "innocence" of young children was "protected", but such a belief was terribly wrong.
Due to the lack of any other kind of entertainment, a favorite pass-time was telling jokes, many of which had a strong pornographic content. I have no idea which were the sources of the jokes, but there existed a huge number of them. Starting from the age of 10 years, it was very frequent among boys to tell such jokes or listen to them.
The content of the jokes included pretty much everything that can be seen in a pornographic movie today and any young "innocent" boy was very familiar with such content, even if most did not understand the meaning of many parts of the content, for lack of explanatory images.
Of course, no boy would admit in the presence of adults of being aware of such things, but I would have expected that someone being now adult would remember his lack of "innocence" when young and would understand how futile is to expect that "innocence" can be "protected" by technical censorship, when the only means that could ensure "innocence" would be to be locked permanently in a prison cell, to avoid contact with any other humans.
I saw someone on this site yesterday directly and enthusiastically express support for mass dragnet government surveillance systems.
We need to bring back institutionalization so people like that have somewhere their antisocial tendencies can be contained.
> Actually I cannot believe that the voters, or at least most of them, are so stupid
The majority of USAians voted for Trump. It would be the height of hubris to think of our average voter as noticeably smarter than one from the USA.
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> Actually I cannot believe that the voters, or at least most of them, are so stupid
Yes, they are. If you are an educated, intelligent person, most likely you live in a bubble of similar individuals. Step outside of the bubble and you'll quickly realize that most people are actually profoundly retarded.
tinfoil hat doesn't help against hearing microwave transmitted voices
Isn't this about web hosting? That ship sailed long ago.
Totally unrelated movie tip:
The lives of others (Das Leben der Anderen) has 8.4 on IMDB.
It is a very good movie. And of course another 'nie wieder' in the list of things which will repeat over and over.
underrated comment
It's actually better to do this on the device.
If you can give children something that is basically whilelisted access then it reduces the need to try to filter the open web.
it being mandated however is an absolute assault on freedom. will linux become outlawed over this?
This is a valid concern. But I think we should reject this law on the basis that it should be a recommendation rather than a mandate, without rejecting its premise entirely, because it actually has some merit.
Filtering on client-side is a good idea and lets parents parent without affecting anyone else, provided the filters work completely offline. And we should make sure governments and parents know this so they don't try to push any more Internet-wide censorship laws.
And instead of mandating it, it should work like movie ratings: OSes that implement parental control features get a "PG-capable" label, then make it illegal for minors to use a non-PG-capable OS. This should not affect adults, and parents can choose to not use it because it's a feature you have to manually turn on.
It’s just saying “include the equivalent of an adblocker” and allow parents to enable it.
Frankly seems easier to solve to me than adblocking, and that’s already a solved problem.
Yes. This is a bad law, but somehow still a better one than the UK got...
Not sure it is. It will require a lot of locked down control, and may make open source OSes effectively illegal. Even on Windows it will require only being able to install software from the MS store AND MS only allowing software that complies with this law to be installed by German users.
how did we get here?
I don't understand how this is supposed to be water tight without client-side scanning etc.
Seems really the only way forward is having your normal fast internet/live/banking/gov crap where you play a happy citizen role. And outside of that a mesh network where you really live. Sure not for most, but for me, yep.
> The core of the JMStV amendment, which has been debated for years and to which the state premiers agreed almost a year ago: End devices that are typically also used by minors should be able to be switched to a child or youth mode by parents with filters at the operating system level at the push of a button.
⇒ This will require OSes to have a filter, but it doesn’t require it to be switched on, not even for children using computers. Whether to switch it on will be a parent’s choice.
Risk, of course, is that this will be sloppy slope. Parents who don’t switch it on for their kids may get seen as not caring enough for their children, effectively forcing parents to switch the filter on.
Mind you this is the country with a state-administered church tax system. Of course they will be all against porn, something something protestant work ethics.
One way to bring in the year of the Linux desktop
Quite the opposite. From the description in the article it will make Linux illegal unless distros and app stores comply with German law. It may ban installation of software from outside locked down app stores.
DEs like KDE already have a kiosk mode. Just add an adblocker to it, for content that’s not child friendly. Done.
Zero risk to Linux here.
Read the comments from FSFE - they do not think its simple at all: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Microsoft-Google-Co-Countries-g...
Something like kiosk mode does not cover it. It will have to be locked down to the point of uselessness. From the article:
"Only apps that have an approved youth protection program or a comparable suitable tool themselves will be accessible regardless of the pre-set age group."
I read the article. I just don’t share the criticism.
“Only apps from safe places can be installed.”
Yeah, d’oh. Otherwise, massive loophole.
Yes, it’s a Nintendo-ify button for a PC. It’s opt in. And very convenient for parents.
And if my kid wants to install something, it can come and ask me. Like I had to go and ask my dad before installing sth (before I got my own Linux machine with 14).
Linux might receive this too. Remember, Valve is using Linux for their Steam Deck/Machine/Flare, and they are selling well enough, that the law might apply to them at least.
Why do you think these laws don’t apply to Linux?
How would you implement this on something like Arch Linux where you basically build your whole OS from scratch?
Doesn't matter. If you can't find a way to do so, then it becomes illegal to distribute or use Arch Linux.
As an American I will happily help my EU colleagues ignore this absurd law by any means necessary, even if it requires sending SD cards affixed to letters through the mail or embedding them in 3D printed trinkets. Or, more likely, simply emailing gzipped installers or providing convenient download links that circumvent whatever firewall is eventually set up (assuming this law sticks around, but it won’t).
Or use the censorship resistant protocol known as BitTorrent.
Downloading Linux ISOs just became illegal for real this time.
Literally no one is going to get arrested for installing Arch Linux.
... because they won't be able to, because the project will have been shut down.
Unrelated, but shows the "slow collapse" of Europe (where I live in).
We all know what a big issue Climate Change (and specially warming in Europe) is. So most European politicians go on and on about environment and all that.
Well, yesterday, I went to play football at night and finished at around 10PM. I was planning on taking the metro, as any normal European citizen.
Much was my surprise when I compared the time and cost to a Car Sharing app (Free2move).
The metro in my city is €3,80 and Google Maps estimated a metro travel time of 30 minutes.
I ended up paying €3,64 for the Car and made it home in 19 minutes. Worst part, the car was not even electric.
It makes absolutely no freaking sense.
So yeah, European politicians are just scammers. They're doing their own businesses while claiming to protect the population.
With all respect, the car sharing you used is likely VC subsidized while the metro runs on much lower subsidies.
That said, public city transport should likely just be free. (not so much regional or national transport as the extreme congestion from the Deutschland ticket has shown)
Ride sharing has not been VC subsidized for many years.
Is that the metro price of a single ticket or proportional for a 10 trip card or similar?
PER ticket. Extremely expensive for the average salary. Theres a reduced fare that is 2.8 for students and elder citizens
It always puzzles me, why the porn? How about seeing war in action? Murders? How about fostering the gambling addiction via freemium games? Why seeing pussies, dicks and tits is more of a threat than anything else? This porn fixation is ridiculous.
Excessive Violence without proper context and explanation is also forbidden. And Porn is usually several lacking context and explanation, being just poor fiction. But the thing is, most people understand the regulation of violence, so you won't hear many complaints about those.
Whenever a new attempt at limiting exposure to what is obviously harmful content (e.g. explicitly violent content, and anything to do with minors), I always see the same patterns of argument against the attempt:
(1) It's the parent's fault.
(2) Freedom! No government censorship!
(3) This is technically impossible to control (the fix is worse than the problem.)
While each point can be argued, I think the debate needs to be framed a different way. We are facing a dosage and availability problem, just as in comparing, in order of harmfulness: coffee, alcohol, and heroin.
We know what happens when a harmful substance suddenly becomes widely available. Do people say "hey I drank some beer when I was a kid so all drugs are fine, including opioids, in unlimited amounts"? And, "if your kids gets addicted to opioids, it's the parent's fault for not keeping it away from them" (when your trusted doctor prescribed them first?) Or, "people are free to do what they want, and it is technically impossible to control the supply of opioids anyway, so why bother"?
The unfiltered internet is FLOODED with violent, disturbing pornographic images that literally NO ONE should ever see. It's not some sort of law of nature that this content exists - humans made it and put it there, and the wide availability and potency of this content is the problem. It isn't seeing someone's naked behind in a context-appropriate scene in a movie (that's closer to coffee in the above example.)
As it turns out, I think this law is a good step, but far from complete or perfect (or even good.). Requiring each individual to personally set up 100% effective filters is an impossible burden. For sure, when I had young kids a decade ago, I tried, and I also talked to my kids about it. But how about also that drug dealer isn't allowed to sneakily approach my kids with free samples? And I can reasonably expect that my kids aren't forced to walk through the floor of a casino, with all the flashing lights and prostitutes, on their way to school? Since most school work requires the internet these days, that's what it feels like as a parent.
I have two adult kids, one doing well (despite visiting some questionable sites as a youth, I found out later), and one struggling, in part from the crap that is found on the internet. I know many of my peers with young adult children are telling the same story - at least one of their kids is way off the rails with a serious real-life problem, usually fueled by the internet casino in some way (and before you tell me we were all bad parents, these are now adults in their 20's and 30's, who mostly seemed normal and well-prepared after high school.)
Now, I am not completely blaming the internet, an excellent tool that has improved many things in my lifetime, for these outcomes. But let's not kid ourselves - there is a huge distinction between, say, Google Maps, and animal torture videos.
This is a hard problem, with lots of nuance and gray areas. It's the entire reason that laws and courts exist - sometimes you really do just need to sit down with a group of people and come to some sort of solution, however imperfect, and iterate to make it better.
Because clearly something has to happen - the opioids coming through the municipal internet pipes aren't going to be completely remediated with a personal water filter. This law provides for free water filters, but ones that won't work everywhere without prohibition-like enforcement (e.g. open source, DIY distributions of Linux.) It's part of the solution, far from perfect, and far from complete. But we are done doing nothing.
I'm not really afraid of porn. That can be handled by talking with the kid. What I'm afraid of is the kid watching one of those awful NSFL videos. It'll eventually happen, but the later, the better.
> What I'm afraid of is the kid watching one of those awful NSFL videos.
I'm 40 and what are you talking about? I've... seen stuff on the internet, but I think nothing my 15 year old self couldn't handle.
I’m gonna go on a limb here and say that I like this draft.
It’s an opt-in measure for parents with a one-click solution. Think ad blocker but for adult content.
Parents have to actively enable it. It’s on the device itself, not in the internet backbone. No censorship happening; government doesn’t even know whether parents use it.
It’s a good solution.
Step 1. Force companies to develop the censorship/surveillant technology by passing a law to make it available. Claim its to 'save the children' and/or 'fight terrorism', whichever threat is currently the most scary.
Step 2. Make the use of the technology optional, and fairly non-intrusive to ease acceptance and normalization.
Step 3. Make the technology mandatory for certain groups/areas like all schools or certain businesses. Or for people who work for them. Also incremental changes are applied which makes the system a bit more restrictive, and bit more surveillant.
Step 4. Make the technology mandatory for everyone (except politicians and certain private persons like CEOs of big corps)
Step 5. Continue incremental changes until the system completely transfers all real power and control of the system from the individual to the corporation/state.
With that way of arguing you can’t have any laws or regulation at all.
Sure you can. You can pass laws that require companies respect a 'do not track' setting in browsers and don't collect data or make you jump through 'accept cookies' hoops. You can make right to repair laws. You can pass laws that require interoperability like making phones use a standard cable (they did this and I think its great). You can pass laws making companies like MS at least make available a no-tracking, no subscription, no ads, no telemetry, no bloatware, no AI, no bullshit version of windows OS for regular individuals at reasonable cost. They can do stuff that like that.
Yeah, this is the right direction for moderation features in general assuming it's implemented offline on-device and works without contacting a remote server. It eliminates excuses to implement age verification online.
And it's correct in principle: each parent should be able to decide what their child sees, but not what anyone else's child sees. Parenting a child is the responsibility of that child's parents, but it is not the responsibility of governments or other people.
Though I do have some gripes with it being a mandate rather than a recommendation, it is a much better proposal than age verification or censoring the entire Internet.
We have mandates for all kinds of things, like movie ratings etc. I think it’s appropriate here. It just makes it easy.
I don’t understand the pushback from tech companies either; all OSes already have a kiosk mode (incl the major Linux DEs). Should be very low effort to implement.
The concern is that OSes which don't implement the feature will be outlawed.
Movie ratings don't outlaw movies and actually provides a good framework: instead of mandating that OSes implement this, publish a client-side filter spec that OS devs can choose to implement. And if they implement it, their OS gets a label like "PG-capable". Then make it illegal for minors to possess a non-PG-capable device.
>The aim is to protect young people on the internet from age-inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, hate speech, incitement, and misinformation.
Who decides what hate speech is? Incitment? what the actual fuck. Linux is the way until they come for that as well.
Germany is becoming more and more like North Korea.
while I certainly do oppose many of the cuts of our civil liberties, I think that statement is quite an exaggeration...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index
There are surprisingly popular and frequently visited countries at the bottom of the ranking.
Have any Linux distro maintainers spoken about this law? Does it affect Linux distros at all?
Old German perverts fixated on porn. Youngsters have their brains melted with tiktok, instagram and other short videos.
The upside: this will be the year of Linux on the desktop!
Until Linux is going to be forced into the same regulation. And then until new laws criminalize attempts to bypass the "porn filter" no matter what you use.
As much as I hate where this might lead, I can't help but amuse myself over a scene like this: You walk up to a bearded fellow in a dark alley and quietly whisper "Stallman..." only for him to quietly respond "... was right.". He then opens his coat for you to choose the install USB of your favorite distro (Arch of course!). He dutifully hands you the stick and a printed copy of the GPLv5 for you to hide in your coat as you walk past the telescreens back to your home.
But where’s the problem? This is opt in. KDE already has a kiosk mode for kids. Add a content filter aka adblocker for porn, done.
I don’t understand the outrage here. Many parents who are technically illiterate would like to be able to leave their 10yo alone with a computer without having to worry.
Rn the only option for that is nintendo/playstation/xbox. Smartphones aren’t.
Do you maintain any software? I have a few features I need you to add. No, you don't get any choice. Where's the problem?
to be fair I didn't read the details of that law. it's just that its Marschrichtung is pretty clear. total surveillance for flimsy reasons because porn etc. eventually it will be mandatory for everybody. that's what it is about.
> The aim is to protect young people on the internet from age-inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, hate speech, incitement, and misinformation.
Hmmm, I doubt they really care about pornography and more about censoring certain stuff that politicians do not like. But what do I know, I'm probably just a conspiracy theorist.
Well considering you can go to prison in Germany for posting a meme on social media, that ship has already sailed. This has been a thing for a while. The only difference with this is this gives some parents control over what they allow their children to see on their computers
https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2025/04/11/german-court-p...
I think they should criminialize porn instead and leave the machines alone. Since that industry (conspiracy theories aside) value money above all else, massive fine and taxes on the owners of porn production is the way to go imo.
I mean, porn completely ruined my teenage years and it took me 8 years to get rid of my addiction. It warps your expectations of real-life relationships, it ruins marriages, it ruins both women and men, it's garbage poison and should be outlawed. So I would be in favor of such laws, but then again, I also know, it's not really about porn and more about the whole "we can't let the youth become radicalized by this Internet thing" stuff and just more censorship.
That part also caused my tin foil hat to heat up. At least they get the credit of including it directly instead of adding it in a later revision that gets even less news coverage. It is hard not to grow cynical when you see this.
I am also worried about another detail:
> The states also want to prevent the circumvention of blocking orders by erotic portals ... using so-called mirror domains – i.e., the distribution of identical content under a minimally changed web address. For a page to be treated as a mirror page and quickly blocked without a new procedure, it must essentially have the same content as the already blocked original.
Note the part "quickly blocked without a new procedure" so there is a way to block sites with even less process and oversight. That just invites overblocking without accountability.
Except protection = control.
Welcome to parenthood.
"oh no, parents aren't using these tools we're forcing companies to implement, we gotta intervene to protect the precious children so we'll assume you're a children everywhere until we can link back your real identity somehow"
*This does not seem like a censorship measure.* It seems like it requires OSs to give parents an easy way to filter porn.
I struggle with porn addiction. When I really fall back into it I act out 5-10 times a day. I can’t stop even if I want to. It distracts from work and from my real life relationships and girlfriend.
Everyone on HN loves to rag on social media because it’s so toxic. What about porn? If social media makes it easy to compare my “boring” life with “beautiful” influencer lives, why wouldn’t porn make my normal girlfriend and normal sex seem boring. Part of that is how young I found porn when my brain was still developing and forming how it processed sex and relationships. Porn makes me feel so depressed.
I am sure other people handle porn and social media better than me. And that’s ok, I respect that. *But even if you think porn is ok as an adult, can’t you see why adults should be able to have more control over what their kids see.* Yes if they are motivated kids will find it - I learned a lot of the engineering skills I have now getting around my parents blocker. *Not every kid is that good and this might help many.* If it’s not required to be on in the OS, what’s the harm?
P.S. if you struggle with something similar to me, look up SA, SAA, or SLAA.
Porn can be harmful, and it is an industry that dos a lot of damage to those working in it too.
There are better ways of doing this. For example require ISP provided routers to have built in parental controls or that people have the option of filtered connections, and ensure parents are offered child safe filtered SIMs at the same price as normal ones. It would not even require changing the devices.
Network level is more effective in blocking porn, but Kids often join unfiltered WiFi networks. Also I think network management is a bit more complicated for the average person than OS settings. I think both are useful
The issue here is not having an easy way to block porn, the issue is enforcing it. And easy ways to block apps and websites already exist. One I can recommend is called Freedom.
https://freedom.to/
(I expected it to be harder to find with that generic name)
edit: I like Leechblock for Firefox
Okay. I hear your struggles and want to ask: would you rather give others the tools to block your porn, or would you rather have easier access to help?
You need both in the world. Blockers are almost useless for adults with an addiction who can easily just buy a new device or figure out a way around.
Kids can’t really join addiction recovery groups, at least not in the same way adults can because it takes a full understanding of the impacts of porn addiction on life and a desire to stop. I can only speak for myself but even with parents who tried to communicate this, I didn’t have that level of maturity then.
Blockers at least can stop them from accidentally finding it, or generic curiosity. At least until the parents decide they are mature enough to handle the unfiltered internet
Reads like paid copypasta. In the unlikely case you're sincere, have you tried testosterone blockers medication? I checked out SLAA (SA and SAA yielded no results) and while learning to control yourself is nice, why should you have those urges in the first place if they are making your life miserable. I find most porn kind of boring and even icky. I would never get tired of seeing pretty women (especially naked), but porn itself is kind of meh.
This feels like a betrayal from Germany.
I want a "one button solution" to keep the boomers and the elderly from getting their brains fried by facebook and voting for authoritarian parties that want to implement such antiliberal mechanisms
early cremation, not like they're any kind of useful nowadays. "but you'll be in their place someday", yes i'm sure of it, being poisoned physically and mentally by every single thing existing i'm pretty confident i'll live till 50.
I find it interesting how these kinds of measures are incredibly unpopular on HN and other online platforms. But if there was some regulation about social media algorithms, short form content, age restriction for social media and other mandated restrictions on social media companies, people are a lot more open.
Why is any restriction on adult content so fiercely defended? I can post that Mark Zuckerberg should be arrested and tried at the Hague and receive a somewhat warm reception on this platform. But there are these giant faceless corporations pushing unrestricted, often depraved content to minors and people stand up for them. And this content often includes anonymous uploaded content with underage girls. It's like the meme "leave those billionaires alone!"
I'm sure this will get downvoted, but help me understand what the visceral reaction is. I've heard people argue that this kind of adult content isn't harmful, but it seems obvious that it is, especially to children. At least more than short form content like TikTok. What would you rather your 12 year old spend hours watching? The adult industry has always been a few steps ahead of popular media in terms of virality, addiction and kitsch. They're shaping the online generation, and not in a good way.
Social media algorithm are being used to push agenda from other countries, see the Cambridge analytica case, or push extremist content to youngsters since it generates much more engagement.
Porn doesn't do this. It may have other issues, but it doesn't aim at maximing engagement with infinite scrolls and similar tactics. Let alone the content, who would watch porn for 12hrs/day? We already have the possibility to do that, and if somebody doesn't have mental issues, I'm of the opinion (s)he's not going to do that
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It's the classic "think about the children" argument used to push through plethora of other shit. See UK.
I have very low trust in government (mine or other). We had these restrictions before. My country has been there, done that, for 41 years, not keen on repeat.
And unlike corporations (for all their problems and there are many), you can't avoid that.
Social media regulation isn't particularly popular here on HN, though it is certainly in other areas. You also won't find many people defending CSAM here as you imply.
You also have to assume that people are not taking the purpose of these new measures at face value, but assume that there are other underlying motives and that the measures are broader than just simple pornography. And I don't think that assumption is unjustified.
The ID-based measures like in the UK are a gigantic privacy nightmare as well.
These measures are also not specific to kids, in the end they essentially always affect the access to this kind of content by adults as well. And some people think that is none of the government's business.
An additional factor is that these measures are technically infeasibly without drastic measures. So they're either easy to circumvent, or would give the government enormous power and access over all kinds of communication.
I generally agree that social media regulation is the medium where political censorship is being pushed. I disagree that measures regulating Meta or TikTok are not popular on this platform.
This is a regulation that, at least in theory, would give parents more control over what their children consume. If you think about it on a family unit, this is pro consumer. You don't have to use it.
But in general I just don't think we need freedom max absolutely everything. I think its destructive to society (as is social media but this is much worse). Naive purely economic measures like GDP and consumption miss out on the things that actually matter, like kids being the first generation in history to have unlimited unrestricted access to extreme content in their pocket.
> But if there was some regulation about social media algorithms, short form content, age restriction for social media and other mandated restrictions on social media companies, people are a lot more open.
FWIW I am opposed to all such restrictions, although the restrictions on media companies (versus OS restrictions, chat control, etc) are slightly less bad because they don’t broadly constrain individual freedom in the same way.
My visceral reaction is to the slippery slope, and the fact that our government is not to be trusted.
I'm honestly not against blocking social media for children. It's just sad that we got to this point. In an ideal world, parents would be the gatekeepers and the reason for not allowing their kids to use TikTok would be that it's simply not good for them. But I'm not happy with the solution, which means that you need a way to prove your age and/or identity to all these sites. Mkey. I guess. For social media that's one thing, but you already see that they're very keen on applying that same thing for porn now? Why? That gives my government highly fucking sensitive information about me. I seriously detest that thought, so I'd rather just not give any government the tools to interfere and/or closely watch what I do.
> Why is any restriction on adult content so fiercely defended?
If you mean “why do people protest age verification” then the answer is that the only effective way to do age verification is by mandating login with government verified ID, which destroys anonymity. People aren’t upset about kids not seeing pron, they’re upset about the entire rest of the internet being subject to surveillance.
Consenting adults should have full bodily autonomy and they should be allowed to film, share, and sell if they choose.
Parents can put filters on their kids' internet accessible devices and everyone should be happy.
State parliaments pass controversial Youth Media Protection Act amendment. Parents can now "secure" devices for children with one click.
Finally, the hard power switch makes a come back??!
Breakers also make a nice klick. Or is it more of a thock?
is this Lawful Interception?
It makes more sense to first ban violence in movies and games.
Can we please not ban either and just put the people who can't differentiate GTA from IRL in asylums?
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