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As if the Catholic Church's extensive history of child sex abuse gives it any right to lecture others about their sexual morality
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| 25th May 2023
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| See article from xbiz.com
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Pope Francis I has condemned all pornography as the crudest commercialization of love during a meeting with students and bishops responsible for Catholic schools. The Catholic Review described Scholas Occurrentes as a global education initiative which
connects underdeveloped schools to those with more resources. Francis fielded questions from students and one elderly person connected by video calls from Colombia, Mexico, Spain and the United States, Catholic Review reported. Following up on a
statement where he appeared to support some form of sexual education in schools, Francis lamented that young people are learning about sexuality from pornography: Pornography is the crudest commercialization of love.
How often, for lack of sexual education, do they end up with the commercialization of love. Love is not to be commercialized.
Pope Francis has previously expressed his opinions about pornography, including his belief that it is
addictive like drugs and alcohol, and leaves those who use it diminished as humans. Perhaps he should be getting the Catholic Church's house in moral order before presuming to lecture to the rest of us. |
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Pornhub fights back against internet porn censorship in Utah
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 | 14th May 2023
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| See article from news.bloomberglaw.com
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Pornhub is fight back against Utah's new law requiring visitors to porn websites to verify their age by dangerously identifying themselves before being able to watch adult content.. Pornhub began totally blocking Utah-based internet connections' from
access to its content when the law took effect May 3. The site redirects visitors to a video message of adult film actress Cherie DeVille explaining that the company disabled access over concerns that the law is not the most effective solution for
protecting our users and in fact will put children, and your privacy, at risk. The Free Speech Coalition, a group representing the adult entertainment industry, also sued to block the law's enforcement that same day, making a similar argument about
the trade-off regarding safety, privacy, and adults' freedom to browse the web as they wish. The group has also vowed to sue over unsafe age-verification measures set to take effect soon in other states. |
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Macron introduces a bill to side step the courts so as to block porn websites more quickly
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 | 9th May 2023
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| See article from xbiz.com
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Exasperated by slow legal progress in porn censorship, Emmanuel Macron's government has confirmed that it will attempt to bypass the courts to force the porn websites comply with a controversial, vaguely worded 2020 age verification law. Macron's
government is clearly frustrated with the legal challenge mounted by lawyers for Pornhub, Tukif, xHamster, XVideos and Xnxx. The lawyers presented requests to nullify the proceedings and order a stay of the proposed block. The tribunal then gave itself
until July 7 to make a decision. The French Minister Delegate for Digital Jean-Noël Barrot announced the government's intention to empower ARCOM to order, without needing to go through the courts, the blocking and delisting of adult sites that do not
prevent minors from accessing their content. Le Monde reports that the extra-judicial gambit will be part of a new bill intended to secure and regulate the digital space. Barrot intends to present the bill to the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, and
expects it to be examined in the Senate over the summer and by the National Assembly by the start of the school year. The bill will also empower government regulator ARCOM to stop the dissemination on the internet of media banned in the European
Union. |
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New EU internet censorship laws look likely block or restrict Google Search from linking to adult websites
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 | 28th April 2023
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| See article from xbiz.com
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The European Commission has officially identified 19 major platforms and search engines to be targeted for compliance under its new internet censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA). Under the new rules, Very Large providers will be
required to assess and mitigate the risk of 'misuse' of their services and the measures taken must be proportionate to that risk and subject to robust conditions and safeguards. The EU Commission officially designated 17 Very Large Online
Platforms (VLOPs) and two Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs), each of which, according to the EC, reaches at least 45 million monthly active users. The VLOPs are: Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Booking.com, Facebook, Google
Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube and German retailer Zalando. The two VLOSEs are Bing and Google Search. Following their designation, an EC statement explained,
these companies will now have to comply, within four months, with the full set of new censorship rules under the DSA. Under the subheading Strong protection of minors, the EC listed the following directives:
- Platforms will have to redesign their systems to ensure a high level of privacy, security, and safety of minors;
- Targeted advertising based on profiling towards children is no longer permitted;
- Special risk assessments including for
negative effects on mental health will have to be provided to the Commission four months after designation and made public at the latest a year later;
- Platforms will have to redesign their services, including their interfaces, recommender
systems, terms and conditions, to mitigate these risks.
According to industry attorney Corey Silverstein of Silverstein Legal, the impact of the new designations and consequent obligations could be substantial because many of the platforms that have been designated as VLOPs and VLOSEs are frequently utilized
by the adult entertainment industry. Assuming these platforms decide to comply with the DSA, Silverstein told XBIZ, there may be major changes coming to what these platforms allow on their services within the EU. This could end up leading to
major content moderation and outright blocking of adult content in the EU, including the blocking of websites that display adult entertainment from being listed in search results. It is also noted that as the larger adult platforms continue to grow,
some may pass the EC's benchmark of having 45 million monthly active users, and therefore face the potential for future designation under the DSA, which could have even more direct impact on their users and creators. |
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French internet censor makes next move to block porn websites including Pornhub
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 | 12th April 2023
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| See
translated press release from arcom.fr
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Arcom is the French internet censor who is tasked with the censorship of porn websites. It has published a press release explaining its latest steps to block a group of prominent porn websites: In accordance with article
23 of the law of July 30, 2020, Arcom gave formal notice on April 6, 2023 to Technius Ltd (eg XHamster.com) and Techpump Solutions SL (eg Porn300.com) to prevent access by minors to respectively one and two pornographic sites that they publish.
In addition, due to the failure of MG Freesites (eg pornhub.com) to comply with the formal notices issued on April 7, 2022, the president of the Paris court was petitioned to order the main ISPs to prevent access to two sites
published by this company. Protecting young audiences from inappropriate content in the digital sphere is a priority for Arcom, within the framework set by the legislator.
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Australian government releases report proposing a couple of modest improvements to very restrictive porn censorship laws
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 | 2nd April 2023
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| Thanks to refused-classification.com See
article from sydneycriminallawyers.com.au See
report [pdf] from infrastructure.gov.au |
The Australian government has recently released a report into Australia's national classification regulation, which is likely to have a significant impact on the laws regarding pornography across the nation. Currently Australia does allow for the
classification of hardcore porn as X18+ for video and Category 2 Restricted for magazines. However its has more restrictions in play than most of the free world. One particular restriction that was discussed in the report is that fetish material is
banned outright and that dramatic violence is also banned outright even if it is nothing to do with the sex content. (Eg a pirate film with sword fights above deck and totally separate sexual exploits below deck). Even if a pornographic
publication or film is able to get classified in Australia, there are significant restrictions on where that media can be sold or exhibited. Category 1 (softcore) and Category 2 (hardcore) restricted publications are able to be sold in all States
and Territories except for Queensland, but must only be sold in age-restricted sections of premises, in packaging which conceals their content. X 18+ classified films can only be sold or exhibited in the ACT or the Northern Territory. It is
therefore a criminal offence to sell or exhibit X 18+ films throughout most of Australia. The recently released report into national classification regulation suggests a number of key reforms when
it comes to pornography. This includes:
- The removal of prohibitions on "fetishes" in Category 2 (restricted) publications and X 18+ films as long as they are not illegal .
- The removal of prohibitions on violence in sexually explicit films, if the violence is not related
to sexual activity.
- Limits the need to classify sexually explicit films to films which are professionally produced, directed at an Australian audience and distributed for commercial purposes. This means that many "amateur" forms of
pornography no longer need to be classified.
Any such reform to Australia's classification guidelines will require cooperation and agreement from each State and Territory and is likely to be a gradual process. |
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Anti-porn campaigner and president of the BBFC calls (disgracefully in a paywalled article) for further censorship of porn
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25th March 2023
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| From the Telegraph |
Natasha Kaplinsky, anti-porn campaigner and president of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), said in an exclusive paywalled article for the Sunday Telegraph, said that the Government needed not only to introduce tough age verification to
protect children but also to take action to restrict young adults from accessing the welter of illegal violent and abusive porn available online. Kaplinsky, who is also president of the UK's biggest children's charity Barnardo's, is calling for
amendments to the Online Safety Bill, currently before the House of Lords, that would bring the legislative treatment of porn on the internet in line with the restrictions that the BBFC polices in the offline world. Kaplinsky cited a recent
parliamentary report which revealed illegal porn was readily accessible online including depictions of rape, incest and sexual violence. She said: This was because the offline regulation of legitimate porn overseen by
the BBFC was not mirrored online and the Government's Bill as written did not plug this loophole. This meant content that would be illegal to distribute offline will continue to be legally available online,
She claimed that this
attempt at further internet censorship was not an attempt at censorship: To be clear: this is not about limiting the freedom of adults to access legal pornographic material. This is about the
regulation of appalling content that eroticises rape and the violent abuse of women, or which promotes an interest in abusive relationships. There is a big difference. It is only logical that where content is unacceptable offline, we as a society should
say it is unacceptable online too.
Presumably her reference to promoting an interest in abusive relationships is a reference to the plethora of 'step family' porn, but it must be noted that the BBFC has passed such material
R18, eg see That's Right, She's My Step Sister...so What from bbfc.co.uk Attempts to extend the
censorship of porn online are expected next month when it comes before the Lords. |
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