Here is the full text of the legislation.
https://www.sasse.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/54e9d1de-7b2f-4bba-a6cf-79081e0c9ff0/oll20b20.pdf

This is from the guy, Sasse, who forced PornHub to delete 10 million out of 13 million videos. https://i.imgur.com/3msooBg.png Here, it says that people will be required to verify their age to upload anything, and https://i.imgur.com/AvSYC2p.png here, it clearly states that any computer-generated image (perhaps including 2D digital art), "visual depiction" or "picture" is included under what the legislation covers. If e621 is hosted in the US, I consider this to be a serious threat to its ability to operate as it currently does. Even if not, it's a threat to any US-hosted booru-style site. I suggest that anyone who is similarly concerned about it contacts their congressmen/congresswomen and tells them to oppose it, just as people successfully did with SOPA/PIPA (which they're also trying to do again with different legislation, but that's another topic).

This looks like a decent idea, but executed poorly. What's up with that Prohibitions on Downloads section?
Also, it looks like its going to require sites to maintain 24-hour hotlines and remove posts within a 2 hour notice.

What an absolute trainwreck of a legislation.
Requiring any user who uploads smut to verify their identity? That does not sound like a massive privacy issue, not at all.

This is why pornhub lost 10 million videos. In preparation for this.

This bill is a nightmare is unenforceable and likely is a distraction bill designed to take attention away from the new DMCA changes bill.

Common to ram bullshit like this hot garbage last second through congress before changeovers to push some sort of false virtue signaling moral agenda.

The bill will either be defeated or repealed for sheer unenforceability.

Its poorly written nonsense.

e621 ought to have a backup plan to host the site in Sweden, Iceland, Ukraine, or some other place instead of Arizona, U.S. The plan should be kept at the ready even if SISEA disappears.

lance_armstrong said:
e621 ought to have a backup plan to host the site in Sweden, Iceland, Ukraine, or some other place instead of Arizona, U.S. The plan should be kept at the ready even if SISEA disappears.

If anything, it would force more people into utilizing hidden services via Tor or similar projects.

Pornhub deleted it because they had illegal content. E621, being drawn, doesn't (in the US). It's vague when it will apply that "computer generated" clause but I think it will refer to drawings of irl people. It depends on how it's enforced..

nekozuki said:
Pornhub deleted it because they had illegal content.

This. Take a moment to read the New York Times exposé at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html to understand why Pornhub needed to make changes and remove videos. This isn't about senatorial puritanism; it's about consent and rape and the destruction of young people's lives.

Most legislation can be written better, but something does need to be changed. If you're at all interested in freedom of sexual expression, you should support the changes being made at Pornhub.

Edit five hours later: By the way, if you think legislators write laws poorly, there's a cure for that -- VOTE!

I'm hoping the "computer generated" is applying more to stuff like deepfake porn than somebody drawing some furry titties.

faucet said:
I'm hoping the "computer generated" is applying more to stuff like deepfake porn than somebody drawing some furry titties.

But did the pixels consent?

Even worse may be that the CASE Act and various other bits of copyright legislation just got rammed through under peoples' noses as part of the must-pass government spending bill, which also included the coronavirus relief funds.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/21/atrocious-congress-crams-language-criminalize-online-streaming-meme-sharing-5500
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/case-act-hidden-coronavirus-relief-bill-just-beginning-next-copyright-battle

With even more restrictions and criminalization on the way:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/disastrous-copyright-proposal-goes-straight-our-naughty-list

watsit said:
...

Could you imagine outlawing riders? Could you imagine if everything within a bill had to be relevant to some central topic?
The fact that there are people out there trying to profit off of a pandemic by slipping anti-average-citizen legislation into a relief bill, is just disgusting.
Eat the rich.

ccoyote said:
This. Take a moment to read the New York Times exposé at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html to understand why Pornhub needed to make changes and remove videos. This isn't about senatorial puritanism; it's about consent and rape and the destruction of young people's lives.

Most legislation can be written better, but something does need to be changed. If you're at all interested in freedom of sexual expression, you should support the changes being made at Pornhub.

Edit five hours later: By the way, if you think legislators write laws poorly, there's a cure for that -- VOTE!

I already saw the opinion column that apparently sparked it all. It's full of weaselly language, emotional appeals, moralizes about "rape", "misogyny", "asphyxiation", and "racist" content (read: rape fantasy, BDSM, interracial) along with CP, calls to limit section 230 and get payment processors to act as the content cop, etc. It's a hit piece designed to make PornHub look worse than it is. Someone should check Nicholas Kristof's search history.

I would be surprised if the ensuing evisceration of PornHub actually helps law enforcement and victims in the long run. It has the immediate effect of driving traffic to many other sites, some of which will care a lot less about verification and U.S. laws.

The PornHub situation didn't require SISEA, just putting pressure on the payment processors to cut off the flow of funds to PornHub. SISEA would be an even bigger pain in the ass. We also got this shit snuck into the coronavirus relief bill. Trump is threatening a veto of that bill, but not because of the felony streaming part, so it will probably worm its way back in. And as Watsit notes, the same Senator is looking at DMCA reform to make it more draconian.

Nobody should own information in the way people do today.

Copyright should last at most 30 years, but I wonder what society would be like if we paid people primarily to participate in the act of creating art and researching, rather than paying them for mere access to it. If rather than paying for access to the code of a video game or a ticket to view a movie, you paid money towards an artist or studio to create that video game or movie. Materials and labor are scarce and limited while information costs essentially nothing to replicate, yet we seem to pay more for the latter.

I understand that tickets and licenses go towards paying off production costs, but again, I wonder how the world would be different if we paid people to create something then allowed that creation to be public domain albeit with due credit, rather than have people create something, have complete ownership of it, then go around trying to sell access to it.

notuncommon said:
I understand that tickets and licenses go towards paying off production costs, but again, I wonder how the world would be different if we paid people to create something then allowed that creation to be public domain albeit with due credit, rather than have people create something, have complete ownership of it, then go around trying to sell access to it.

Sound more like a kind of voluntary tax. Anything that's made is automatically available to the public, but whatever funds people decide to put into it will determine how much money they have to make it, affecting its overall quality. I don't think that would be a good system. Personally, I like to see what I'm getting before I put money toward it, since I don't really have a lot of money to spend on recreational material.

Significantly shortening copyright terms would be a better idea, IMO, especially since one of the biggest reasons people use to justify DRM despite knowing it's going to be hacked/leaked anyway is that the majority of profits come in the initial release period, and it quickly drops off. Copyright is supposed to be an incentive for creators to create more, so that the works they produce can be added to and enrich culture and society. If 30 years of near-exclusive control of that work hasn't been enough to incentivize creating more, I don't think more time will help much. Besides which, even when things enter the public domain, they can still be sold; you're just now competing in an open market and have to offer something better than competitors. Offer additional products or services that come with copies bought through you, offer variations (which themselves get copyright protection on any creative new elements; the original Hunchback of Notre-Dame story is in the public domain I believe, but Disney's specific version made in 1996 still has protection with its additions and changes, for example).

watsit said:
...

I suppose it does have similarities to voluntary taxation. The whole dichotomy between each system reminds me a bit of the way Patreon works. No matter what, there's going to be trust involved. Either the creator gives you the product and you approve of it and pay them afterwards, or you pay them to make something you like and they give you the product. The former scenario requires the creator trusts you to like it and pay them, the latter requires you to trust the creator to make something you like. Each has its pros and cons.

I'd argue that not even the system we use today is like either of these. If a director creates a movie, you have to pay them first, before you can even judge if you like it or not. In the product->payment system, you'd at least get to view it before paying. I believe either of the two systems presented would be superior to what we presently have in this regard.

Additionally, I'd argue the payment->product system is superior due to less trust being required. Which do you trust more? Several thousand people to voluntarily pay for a product they've already received, or a single creator to make the product after being paid by several thousand people ready to boycott and turn against them if they don't?

How much money people are willing to put into something will affect its quality to a degree, but this has always been the case. In the current system, directors have to predict how much people are willing to invest in terms of tickets and such. In they payment->product system however, people pay for what they want to be made according to how much they want it, rather than paying for what someone thought they wanted, with the price being determined by their expectation of demand. If lots of people want something and/or some people want it a lot, there will be more money to improve its quality. There's no guesswork needed.

Personally, I like to see what I'm getting before I put money toward it, since I don't really have a lot of money to spend on recreational material.

In reference to what I said earlier, you don't really get to see what you're getting in the present system, you have to pay first.
You don't know what The Matrix 4 is going to be like before you pay, you have to predict its quality based off of the director's previous work, but presently, you have to pay just to view that previous work.
Prior work still exists as a tool for judgment in the payment->product system. In fact, you can still view it even if you weren't one of the original backers.

notuncommon said:
Stuff

I ship this idea but I believe the problem lies in that, sadly humanity has not the collective same opinion. Using cracked or pirated things is for many "normal" people just normal. Many producers put on a paywall because there is not coming back enough, if the product itself is free and so on. It might be a subjective opinion but I don't believe the reason is because people have no money. They just don't want to pay if they don't have to and everybody that does is kinda an exception at the moment or at least a minority.
I'm kinda out of time at the moment so I'll end it here but I'd be happy to read and respond more.

lance_armstrong said:
I already saw the opinion column that apparently sparked it all. It's full of weaselly language, emotional appeals, moralizes about "rape", "misogyny", "asphyxiation", and "racist" content (read: rape fantasy, BDSM, interracial) along with CP, calls to limit section 230 and get payment processors to act as the content cop, etc. It's a hit piece designed to make PornHub look worse than it is. Someone should check Nicholas Kristof's search history.

I agree that a lot of pieces of the budget bill are shite and that there are logical fallacies in the article, but that doesn't change the article's facts. It also does not alter the reality that PornHub's self-imposed changes will make it harder for abusers to upload, download, and re-upload illegal content. Those changes are good. Surely you aren't defending the illegal material Pornhub decided to delete, right?

By the way, your comment about the author's search history is itself a logical fallacy, if those offend you so much.

notuncommon said:
Could you imagine outlawing riders? Could you imagine if everything within a bill had to be relevant to some central topic?
The fact that there are people out there trying to profit off of a pandemic by slipping anti-average-citizen legislation into a relief bill, is just disgusting.
Eat the rich.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

notuncommon said:
I'd argue that not even the system we use today is like either of these. If a director creates a movie, you have to pay them first, before you can even judge if you like it or not.

The way it works now is the director either makes something by paying out if their own pocket, or convinces investors that they can make something that will sell. If convinced, the investors pay the director to make the thing, then sales of that thing go back to investors. This is generally done with guaranteed capital; the director says how much they expect to need to finish the project, and they get that (unless something severe happens). If the director fails to make something that sells, the investors take the hit as they won't get their money back.

With the pay-first method, you cut out the investors. The director has to convince the consumers directly, and whereas investors should know to look into someone's ability to make good on their promises and check into market trends to decide if something will sell, consumers won't. Whatever the director manages to get is what they have, and if the result isn't good, the consumers take the loss. Or whoever isn't happy with the result loses out with no recourse, compared to now where there's generally options to return goods you're not satisfied with, or resell it, or in the worst case wait for reviews of the finished product before buying.

notuncommon said:
Additionally, I'd argue the payment->product system is superior due to less trust being required. Which do you trust more? Several thousand people to voluntarily pay for a product they've already received, or a single creator to make the product after being paid by several thousand people ready to boycott and turn against them if they don't?

There are plenty of people out there that are ready to scam others for a quick buck. Just look at Kickstarter and similar services with the scams that go on there. People who'll promise the bestest thing ever, then just take the money and run/disappear, or take the money and do a half-assed job. You absolutely need trust. If you don't have a reputation, if people can't trust the quality based on your past work, why should they give you their hard-earned money that may get them nothing back, or something they wouldn't have paid so much for?

You'd end up relying on marketing hype, who makes the most convincing pitch/promise. Hype is very powerful, and plays on human psychology. When you invest into something both financially and emotionally, you're more likely to see the result positively even if you don't really like it, because it would've been a waste of your time and money if you don't make yourself enjoy it. And if your friends are excited, you're more likely to get excited. The sunk cost fallacy, and the fear of missing out, both very real. This is essentially how it is now for the bigger studios, the ones with the most preexisting capital for marketing are the ones that dominate because they can afford the mind-share. Mediocre/okay products can get positive post-release coverage and word-of-mouth from a hyped audience, which feeds into the next mediocre/okay product's marketing cycle.

As it is, video games already work with presales, whether preorders or kickstarter. This would just be that, but they get cut off at release instead of getting any post-release sales.

notuncommon said:
How much money people are willing to put into something will affect its quality to a degree, but this has always been the case. In the current system, directors have to predict how much people are willing to invest in terms of tickets and such. In they payment->product system however, people pay for what they want to be made according to how much they want it, rather than paying for what someone thought they wanted, with the price being determined by their expectation of demand. If lots of people want something and/or some people want it a lot, there will be more money to improve its quality. There's no guesswork needed.

While money affects quality, it's far from the only factor. Getting the most expensive stuff won't help if you don't know what you're doing, and if you know what you're doing you can do a lot with very little. No matter how much money you put into something, you can't know for sure what will be produced from it. Things can happen during production that alters the end product, so the result isn't what was initially promised. Or it could be what was promised, but there were various details you didn't consider until after you saw it in the final product that makes it unenjoyable.

A bit more time now to at least collect my thoughts a bit more.
The thing is that we live in a "free" world. (Almost) no one is forced to do what they do. There are many possibilities to do things via the pay-to-create way already. It's just humans refuse to use it (that much). So is it the fault of the consumers or producers that such a system is not working though? No. Sadly humanity has an ugly side to it. It might be that the majority is "good" (while I doubt that, too) but a few bad people are enough to destroy many things for that majority.
The key word did fall already and that is trust, which is sadly like non-existing at the moment.

ccoyote said:
It also does not alter the reality that PornHub's self-imposed changes will make it harder for abusers to upload, download, and re-upload illegal content. Those changes are good. Surely you aren't defending the illegal material Pornhub decided to delete, right?

PornHub had systems in place to remove illegal material, and almost all of the material that was deleted was legal. They were also likely legally protected from the content of user uploads by Section 230 (if FOSTA overrides Section 230 in this case, watch Section 230 get "reformed" anyway). The only reason PornHub made the so-called self-imposed changes is because they were kneecapped by the financial services industry. Which was done because of the outrage started by the NYT and threats by politicians like Senator Ben Sasse since at least March 2020. The situation exposes the extraordinary power held by the banks, payment networks, and payment processors to instantly destroy any business for any reason.

Sasse couldn't resist victim blaming PornHub:

“Just the other day Pornhub was insisting that it didn’t have a problem with rape and assault videos, and that its ‘vast team of human moderators’ was magically capable of working around the clock to review the 2.8 hours of video that were uploaded to the site every minute,” Sasse said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Today, they’re doing a complete 180 by changing their policies,” Sasse added. “These new changes underscore the need for a full DOJ investigation.”

It's almost as if companies need a flow of cash to operate, and will panic and capitulate when that flow is cut off.

The legislation is the next step. It will impose additional operating costs on PornHub, which would be a burden for smaller sites, and put further restrictions on user uploads and site functionality. The result is that the sites will exit the U.S. If the countries that currently don't give a fuck all fall in line later, it will all move onto the dark web.

ccoyote said:
the author's search history is itself a logical fallacy, if those offend you so much.

Not a fallacy. I just want it to mysteriously become available.

lance_armstrong said:
They were also likely legally protected from the content of user uploads by Section 230.

You said you read the article. Did you miss the part about child porn being repeatedly uploaded to the site because users could download content and just put it back up whenever Pornhub deleted it? The changes aren't being demanded to protect Pornhub from liability; they're about removing illegal material that exploits children. I'm glad the credit card companies forced Pornhub to change, if that's what it took.

It will impose additional operating costs on PornHub, which would be a burden for smaller sites, and put further restrictions on user uploads and site functionality. The result is that the sites will exit the U.S. If the countries that currently don't give a fuck all fall in line later, it will all move onto the dark web.

I think being a burden for smaller sites is a worthwhile cost for what's being done. You're also falling into the line of argument that "they'll just go do it somewhere else, so therefore we shouldn't try to stop it."

Not a fallacy.

It is a fallacy, and specifically, it's a form of ad hominem fallacy. You're trying to discredit the person instead of their argument.

ccoyote said:
You said you read the article. Did you miss the part about child porn being repeatedly uploaded to the site because users could download content and just put it back up whenever Pornhub deleted it? The changes aren't about protecting Pornhub; they're about removing illegal material that exploits children.

PornHub is either liable for the content or it isn't. Restricting user downloads hasn't been a requirement. Now it might become one because of SISEA. Same with the reuploads.

Kristof argues that "YouTube thrives without downloads", as if millions of people aren't using YouTube downloaders for many legitimate reasons. There is nothing reasonable at all about that restriction.

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/sisea-internet-porn/

ccoyote said:
I think being a burden for smaller sites is a worthwhile cost for what's being done. You're also falling into the line of argument that "they'll just go do it somewhere else, so therefore we shouldn't try to stop it."

I don't think so. The problem might be reduced, but it isn't going away. And I will choose to err on the side of internet freedom. There is a balance that is being broken. It could very well destroy e621 and many other sites.

Kristof even brings up the same argument, because duh:

Columnists are supposed to offer answers, but I struggle with solutions. If Pornhub curated videos more rigorously, the most offensive material might just move to the dark web or to websites in less regulated countries. Yet at least they would then not be normalized on a mainstream site.

The degree of that normalization is a matter of opinion, not fact.

ccoyote said:
It is a fallacy, and specifically, it's a form of ad hominem fallacy. You're trying to discredit the person instead of their argument.

It's clear from the article that Kristof has been making some questionable searches and watching rape videos, perhaps including exploited children.

lance_armstrong said:
PornHub is either liable for the content or it isn't.

Again, this isn't about protecting Pornhub.

It's clear from the article that Kristof has been making some questionable searches and watching rape videos, perhaps including exploited children.

Jurists, journalists, and law enforcement officials all have to see horrible things as part of their jobs. It's part of performing an investigation and fixing things that are broken. Are you going to focus on that, or do you want to fix the problem that caused the investigation to be needed in the first place?

ccoyote said:
Again, this isn't about protecting Pornhub.

So your concern is about protecting children, not internet freedom. Unfortunately, 100% protection of children is impossible. Just as we can't prevent all deaths from the flu, or that other disease. I'd rather have the status quo than new and awful legislation, or even the self-imposed restrictions that wiped out legitimate activity and will be ineffective in the long run.

ccoyote said:
Jurists, journalists, and law enforcement officials all have to see horrible things as part of their jobs. It's part of performing an investigation and fixing things that are broken. Are you going to focus on that, or do you want to fix the problem that caused the investigation to be needed in the first place?

Anyone can call themselves a journalist and operate as such. Working for the NYT doesn't grant a journalist some sacred status over random bloggers. I guess there is some legal protection somewhere for jurists and law enforcement officials, but journalists? Kristof must be enjoying some other kind of protection.

lance_armstrong said:
So your concern is about protecting children, not internet freedom. Unfortunately, 100% protection of children is impossible.... I'd rather have the status quo....

Then we fundamentally disagree with one another on this topic. You're making perfection the enemy of good, saying we shouldn't even try if we can't have everything exactly right. It takes time to get things perfect, but you never get there if you don't start.

Anyone can call themselves a journalist and operate as such. Working for the NYT doesn't grant a journalist some sacred status over random bloggers. I guess there is some legal protection somewhere for jurists and law enforcement officials, but journalists? Kristof must be enjoying some other kind of protection.

Your argument is fundamentally incorrect. Journalism has standards, and this author has met them. Once again, you're choosing to attack the message bearer because you don't like what they have to say, or the consequences it might have. I will not continue to reward you by further pursuing this part of the discussion. Stick to the argument itself, not the person who's made it.

It meets the standards for being an emotionally manipulative opinion piece with, as you said, logical fallacies. The NYT can publish just about whatever it wants. There are no enforceable standards.

There is always the point of actio-reactio. I'm not on one side or the other but restrictions have always a bad side to it. For example that the child porn uploading people will just do it somewhere else does mean you'll loose track of them. There are people and groups which get tolerated for exactly that reason. Also just forbidding something is not a solution.
On a personal level I can just say that what pornhub or the ones behind that action did is reduce my favorites to 3 vids.
This all sounds like I'm against what it was or what it was for but that's not the case. In the same way though I'm not sure if it was a good decision either.

Frightening is though how much influence just a few people can have.

ccoyote said:
You're making perfection the enemy of good, saying we shouldn't even try if we can't have everything exactly right. It takes time to get things perfect, but you never get there if you don't start.

This is the same argument that is used to justify continuing the war on drugs after 50 years, or trying to teach abstinence-only sex education. There are some fights you can't win and just aren't worth it.

fenrick said:
This is the same argument that is used to justify continuing the war on drugs after 50 years, or trying to teach abstinence-only sex education. There are some fights you can't win and just aren't worth it.

I'm not sure if I understand the position you're taking, so please forgive me if I'm mistaking your meaning. There's a difference between the examples you've given and trying to stop child exploitation. In the war on drugs and abstinence-only sex education, the fight themselves are misguided and do far more damage than either drugs or sexuality. Neither of those battles needs to be fought. Sexual abuse, on the other hand, must be combatted.

Am I wrong in thinking e6 should have a banner up for people to start contacting their senators to stop this bill? It might be better to do it now than to wait and have senators already have their minds made up to "Stop Sexual Exploitation" without understanding the consequences it would have on the internet.

Nothing major, just a new News update on what SISEA is and how to stop it from killing the site.

ccoyote said:
This. Take a moment to read the New York Times exposé at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html to understand why Pornhub needed to make changes and remove videos. This isn't about senatorial puritanism; it's about consent and rape and the destruction of young people's lives.

Most legislation can be written better, but something does need to be changed. If you're at all interested in freedom of sexual expression, you should support the changes being made at Pornhub.

Edit five hours later: By the way, if you think legislators write laws poorly, there's a cure for that -- VOTE!

Quoting this because it makes the context easier to highlight. Do you think pornhub deleted only illegal videos with their purge? What they did was more equivalent to nuke just about everything, including accounts and videos of verified 3D artists who most certainly have no uploads that are either showing revenge porn, rape, or underage models due to being animated.
Which is also the problem most people have with this. Pretty much nobody is against pornhub working together with law enforcement to stop the spread of child porn, actual rape, or revenge porn, but this impacted far, far more than just that.

They could have unlisted things and then forced re-verification on people, and it would have probably been less of an outrage to others. It's good on them trying to do the right thing, it's bad a ton of innocent people lost their ability to sell their own legal porn there.

Strict copyright laws and market constraints under the guise of a 'public safety act'. It contradicts fair use and 3D artist will have to walk on broken glass and eggshells, just to go public with their work. The outcome will result in many NSFW artist running private only.

There's little to no protest and people are also downplaying the issue across social media.
So, this is apparently what people want. More safety. Less privacy. More risk. Less content. Go figure.

notmenotyou said:
Do you think pornhub deleted only illegal videos with their purge? What they did was more equivalent to nuke just about everything...

Of course I don't think that. I'd have been shocked if that much of the content on the site was illegal. I agree that the way they went about it was like using a butcher's knife for brain surgery. I also agree that the U.S. Congress is terrible at writing laws and that this will have to be shaken out in the courts before it's made right.

What I don't agree with are the arguments that were raised earlier in this conversation that I've already addressed.

sleepy_peasant said:
So, this is apparently what people want. More safety. Less privacy. More risk. Less content. Go figure.

More safety for exploited children? Emphatically yes! As a privacy advocate, though, I don't see how this is a privacy issue. Are you saying people should be allowed to anonymously upload unregulated porn, even if it means not addressing CP?

ccoyote said:
As a privacy advocate, though, I don't see how this is a privacy issue. Are you saying people should be allowed to anonymously upload unregulated porn, even if it means not addressing CP?

No one has suggested being able to anonymously upload anything without regulation. PornHub absolutely should keep an eye on what's uploaded by having a robust reporting feature, doing their own checks of uploaded content, and work with law enforcement over suspected users. However, I don't want the world to know the kinks I'm into, which is what would happen if places required ID and account verification to be able to upload anything. Many artists keep their SFW and NSFW content under separate names, many writers use different pen names for different kinds of content, and even directors use different names for different types of films, so that their audiences for particular types of things don't get a negative impression of them over the other things they like to do separately. "For the children" is used way too often as justification, where the added restrictions on personal autonomy and privacy far outweigh any theoretical benefit against exploitation. Especially when it risks lumping fantasy depictions together with and treating it as the real thing, as often happens.

ccoyote said:
More safety for exploited children, emphatically yes. As a privacy advocate, though, I don't see how this is a privacy issue. Are you saying people should be allowed to anonymously upload unregulated porn, even if it means not addressing CP?

This is the type of framing that prevents any discussion from going forward. I've seen your responses to previous post. You've automatically implicated that any individual that argues with the proposed bill to be complicit with the summary of what it's ostensibly acting against, and twisting that into an argument to completely ignore the grievances people have.

If you're inclined to think that the 'good intentions' of the bill completely outweigh the negatives that it'll cause in the long-run, then allow people to argue their opinion on the consequences it'll have on platforms like this and many others without being dismissed entirety on fallacious political justifications.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3jFqhjaGh30

With that out of the way, this... really just seems like something that should be treated similar to handling copyrighted content under DMCA safe harbour rules. A host should not be held liable for something they have no real way of preventing, so long as they take reasonable steps once they are made aware of it's existence to remove the offending content and forward information to appropriate legal bodies.
Unless you're going to say that the fact that something can be used in a malicious way, or has been, in spite of the vast majority of content uploaders not doing so, inherently makes it not worth having. Under this logic, all sites that permit user-created or edited content or comments should require these restrictions, not just porn sites, as pretty much any site that permits file hosting or even something as mundane as messaging or commenting can be used in these ways.

sleepy_peasant said:
Strict copyright laws and market constraints under the guise of a 'public safety act'. It contradicts fair use and 3D artist will have to walk on broken glass and eggshells, just to go public with their work. The outcome will result in many NSFW artist running private only.

There's little to no protest and people are also downplaying the issue across social media.
So, this is apparently what people want. More safety. Less privacy. More risk. Less content. Go figure.

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

Of course this is what people want. Fascism cannot survive on oppression from the elite alone. It needs dedicated support, ironically, from the people.

I'm pretty pessimistic that SISEA can be stopped. No politician wants to have "opposed bill trying to stop the spread of CP" on their record, right?

And if SISEA is enacted, I'm confident Twitter will totally nuke porn cuz there's no way the cost of SISEA's hoops is greater than the revenue generated from porn. I think e621 might be spared … hopefully. I mean, I don't even understand how consent would work with furry drawings. Like, would I need Shigeru Miyamoto to sign a permission slip if I want to post my drawing of Bowser's dick??

The issue with this and all "think of the children" bills in congress. And arguments using it in general. Is that they are by their very nature not designed to protect children but instead using that to prevent argument or reasonable discussion of a topic.

Its the oldschool way of saying "you mad" and expecting the argument be over.

This has nothing to do with CP or trafficking. Porn and sexual liberation is at an all time high and were at the point where people recognize sex work to be an Ok if not good job.

That is /terrifying/ to the primarily 50+ year old demographic who runs most of the US.

Bc sex is "bad and evil".

Think of the Children arguments have been their go to for years.

It got trotted out when discussing homosexual relationships. The narrative was so strong that "all gay people are child rapists" is STILL prevalent.

It got trotted out when trans people asked to use the bathroom that aligns their gender because "they sill molest kids" no really.

This argument is as old anx tired and ridiculous as it gets and its sickening that people still fall for it because its an emotional fear based appeal. Not an actual concern.

As NMNY said it would have been within interest to actually do the work but pornhub also just had their main funding services pulled.

Several other services and sites also lost access to epoch payment service meaning they also lost significant money.

Companies are pulling out of porn as a business at a rapid pace to serve the interests of a few scared old men.

It has NOTHING to do with kids.

demesejha said:
It has NOTHING to do with kids.

That's a pretty presumptuous theory. They could have ulterior motives, or they could just be concerned about the children and not understand or care about the consequences of the proposal for everyone else.

We should be freaking out a little and archiving all the art we can, right? I’m getting strong Tumblrpocalypse vibes.

Sites like Twitter will almost certainly blanket nuke all their NSFW content to ensure compliance. Hell that could happen at any time, even if it hasn’t passed yet. A lot of that work isn’t mirrored anywhere.

tnshe said:
We should be freaking out a little and archiving all the art we can, right? I’m getting strong Tumblrpocalypse vibes.

Sites like Twitter will almost certainly blanket nuke all their NSFW content to ensure compliance. Hell that could happen at any time, even if it hasn’t passed yet. A lot of that work isn’t mirrored anywhere.

If you have the time, go for it.

If it gets passed but before the bill goes into effect, ramp up all efforts to light speed. Buy yourself a nice 10 TB hard drive if you can afford it.

spacemustard said:
Here is the full text of the legislation.
https://www.sasse.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/54e9d1de-7b2f-4bba-a6cf-79081e0c9ff0/oll20b20.pdf

This is from the guy, Sasse, who forced PornHub to delete 10 million out of 13 million videos. https://i.imgur.com/3msooBg.png Here, it says that people will be required to verify their age to upload anything, and https://i.imgur.com/AvSYC2p.png here, it clearly states that any computer-generated image (perhaps including 2D digital art), "visual depiction" or "picture" is included under what the legislation covers. If e621 is hosted in the US, I consider this to be a serious threat to its ability to operate as it currently does. Even if not, it's a threat to any US-hosted booru-style site. I suggest that anyone who is similarly concerned about it contacts their congressmen/congresswomen and tells them to oppose it, just as people successfully did with SOPA/PIPA (which they're also trying to do again with different legislation, but that's another topic).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IxQwKcwA1mD0zSdkRRxhC_-cqcLt0yjHfZhB5l0dVLw/edit i dont live in america but heres a googledoc that you can help combat SISEA

Doubt anything will come out of it. Getting rid of porn will break the economy even more, and thus hurt the rich too
Congress passing a bill that hurts the people? Maybe
Congress passing a bill that hurts the rich and the people? Absolutely not. This reeks of fear mongering, like the Net Neutrality thing from 2016. Nothing came out of it, we'll be fine

I think E621 will be save, as the bill seems to only apply to real life persons displayed in porn content. The whole "computer generated" or "digital created" part could be aimed at 2D/3D content modeled after people like an actress (Emma Watson in "Harry Potter" R34 content). Characters like Bowser, Sonic or Disney ones fall under copyright and trademarks. That they want to prohibit downloads is an issue though, as it counts for sites with porn content in general.

The most bothering part is the required identification process for uploaders and the validation of "covered site" users. Protection of the own privacy is protection against repression - I'm not an US citizien, so I don't know if there is a law that prevents discrimnation based on (legal) sexual preference over there. Imagine to apply for a job and the HR department finds an account on Gaydudes.whatever during their online search.

If we take it a step further it could be the gateway to laws that require real life ID on all websites. With arguments like "see how effective this is, let's do it everywhere". So not only would somebody find the porn account of John Doe with a Google search but also political views, medical information and other preferences. And that's only from a hiring process POV. That would prevent "as wrong considerated" opinions being spoken out on the internet overall to avoid such trouble. In short censorship

My 2¢

booky-chan said:
the Net Neutrality thing from 2016. Nothing came out of it, we'll be fine

False. My isp will throttle everything except YouTube and Netflix to pretend they have unlimited data. My past isp's have throttled adult content and other shit they don't like.

booky-chan said:
Congress passing a bill that hurts the rich and the people? Absolutely not.

There is no billionaire porno ceo. Porn is like, what, $10 Billion a year? Apple made $54 Billion this year, five times that. That is just ONE tech company. Porn has negligible effect on the rich, which by the way, 90% are senior citizen white men. A demographic who are usually allergic to pornography.

booky-chan said:
This reeks of fear mongering, like the Net Neutrality thing from 2016. Nothing came out of it, we'll be fine

leon_neon said:
False. My isp will throttle everything except YouTube and Netflix to pretend they have unlimited data. My past isp's have throttled adult content and other shit they don't like.

My country's internet is infamously slow as molasses and and they're still bundled with only a limited amount of free data. My country's internet providers also had banned some porn sites, yet some had been left out.

booky-chan said:
Congress passing a bill that hurts the rich and the people? Absolutely not.

leon_neon said:
Porn has negligible effect on the rich, which by the way, 90% are senior citizen white men. A demographic who are usually allergic to pornography.

I feel like they like their porn in print form. Dunno. I'm just pulling this notion out of my behind.
----
Dunno. The bill is poorly executed in my opinion. Once Biden comes in office, this bill would be reexamined...

More then likely, this bill will get the axe by SCOTUS if people take action and do anything near abuse, as in, if it gets used by a company against sites that host content they consider theirs, such as FA or DA with pokemon content. Basically it's poor wording dooms it, since you can't enforce a bill with vague standards, been proven with other copyright bills in the past that tried the same thing, since people drawing a stylized version of a character aren't on model. As for artists requesting take downs, only the worst assholes would try and get a fine stuck to a site if the 2 hour window wasn't met to be put on a DNP list, and if they did it could be seen as attempting to sink a site as revenge. Plus, considering most companies don't want a legal battle with say, 5k artists over "who has copyright" to this item, bad PR, nobody will buy anything from you if you're willing to rob them to get it back and make a second profit.

TL:DR - Too vague to really enforce without courts getting spooked at the idea of being overturned. No company with a brain will try and use this because of backlash concerns if it goes public. Artist who are assholes would get blacklisted by sites and lose their revenue stream.

alexyorim said:
Dunno. The bill is poorly executed in my opinion. Once Biden comes in office, this bill would be reexamined...

It would be naive to expect any standing US president to to anything that would be disadvantageous to the corporate class if the past 30 years is anything to go by, especially one that will likely spend most of their time asleep when not being given orders by their corporate donors once they get in and leave their VP to do most of the work.

leon_neon said:
False. My isp will throttle everything except YouTube and Netflix to pretend they have unlimited data. My past isp's have throttled adult content and other shit they don't like.

There is no billionaire porno ceo. Porn is like, what, $10 Billion a year? Apple made $54 Billion this year, five times that. That is just ONE tech company. Porn has negligible effect on the rich, which by the way, 90% are senior citizen white men. A demographic who are usually allergic to pornography.

Do you have proof of said "throttling" because it could just be bad internet. Also porn is still a big industry and would hurt the economy, plus not all rich people are billionares

waskom_frost said:
More then likely, this bill will get the axe by SCOTUS if people take action and do anything near abuse, as in, if it gets used by a company against sites that host content they consider theirs, such as FA or DA with pokemon content. Basically it's poor wording dooms it, since you can't enforce a bill with vague standards, been proven with other copyright bills in the past that tried the same thing, since people drawing a stylized version of a character aren't on model. As for artists requesting take downs, only the worst assholes would try and get a fine stuck to a site if the 2 hour window wasn't met to be put on a DNP list, and if they did it could be seen as attempting to sink a site as revenge. Plus, considering most companies don't want a legal battle with say, 5k artists over "who has copyright" to this item, bad PR, nobody will buy anything from you if you're willing to rob them to get it back and make a second profit.

TL:DR - Too vague to really enforce without courts getting spooked at the idea of being overturned. No company with a brain will try and use this because of backlash concerns if it goes public. Artist who are assholes would get blacklisted by sites and lose their revenue stream.

Exactly, it would ruin the economy and thus result in backlash

booky-chan said:
Do you have proof of said "throttling" because it could just be bad internet. Also porn is still a big industry and would hurt the economy, plus not all rich people are billionares

Exactly, it would ruin the economy and thus result in backlash

Beyond ruining the economy, it would make companies fear artists getting them fined repeatedly. Think about if a company screws up, uses a newsletter to give info to their buyer base, and has ONE piece of art that an artist made, but didn't give them the ability to use. That company then gets screwed. Won't happen, least not in this version, but honestly a revised version of this bill with some act to prevent stolen content would be amazing. Would help artists a lot if once their stuff is stolen and used without consent it gets the jackass company that did it railed. Think of the... I think ford event that used art from, iirc Firewatch, and claimed it was just "random found art from google" when it was a high res version from the site the game had up.

waskom_frost said:
Beyond ruining the economy, it would make companies fear artists getting them fined repeatedly. Think about if a company screws up, uses a newsletter to give info to their buyer base, and has ONE piece of art that an artist made, but didn't give them the ability to use. That company then gets screwed. Won't happen, least not in this version, but honestly a revised version of this bill with some act to prevent stolen content would be amazing. Would help artists a lot if once their stuff is stolen and used without consent it gets the jackass company that did it railed. Think of the... I think ford event that used art from, iirc Firewatch, and claimed it was just "random found art from google" when it was a high res version from the site the game had up.

See, it does more harm then good. Even on the rich's side. If anything this will be barely enforced if it gets enacted at all.

booky-chan said:
Do you have proof of said "throttling" because it could just be bad internet. Also porn is still a big industry and would hurt the economy, plus not all rich people are billionares

Exactly, it would ruin the economy and thus result in backlash

Who knows, maybe the not so far-fetched goal is to ruin any economies that allow independent businesses to thrive...

supracat said:
Who knows, maybe the not so far-fetched goal is to ruin any economies that allow independent businesses to thrive...

Shouldn't the goal then be to put both types of businesses on equal footing

So, what's the update on this? I heard it was scrapped or something?...

alexyorim said:
So, what's the update on this? I heard it was scrapped or something?...

It failed with no vote.
It was tossed out because it was garbage.

It still succeeded in its purpose which was to frighten. Which the last 10 bills have also been.

This is a mess.

demesejha said:
It failed with no vote.
It was tossed out because it was garbage.

It still succeeded in its purpose which was to frighten. Which the last 10 bills have also been.

This is a mess.

So... we're safe?

booky-chan said:
So... we're safe?

until the next bill

booky-chan said:
So... we're safe?

Don't panic, a huge amount of censorship is on the way. They won't keep you waiting for too long.

The only question I have about the bill (or any that come after), is how are they going to apply this to artwork? Are they going to treat characters in art as people? Are they going to verify if the character is over 18? What stops artists from just claiming the characters are over 18? Are they going to verify if the artist is over 18? The artist isn't being exploited, as they voluntarily made a fictional character and are not physically engaging in sexual activity. I just don't understand why they put "computer generated image", unless they mean deepfake or something.

The bill was drafted by two men. One an out of touch idiot who can get paid off really easily and the other an old guy who probably still has a flip phone and uses windows XP.

Like.

The bill has content in it that makes no sense outside of "porn bad kill it" and as I mentioned above the "think of the children" argument its built on, as it always is, is fake and meaningless and just thrown in for emotional appeal.

They do this every single fucking time.

So that is to say. Art didnt cross their mind at all and if it did its also computer generated. You got to remember a vast majority of people think photoshop is a one click button and art programs do the art for you.

demesejha said:
The bill was drafted by two men. One an out of touch idiot who can get paid off really easily and the other an old guy who probably still has a flip phone and uses windows XP.

Like.

The bill has content in it that makes no sense outside of "porn bad kill it" and as I mentioned above the "think of the children" argument its built on, as it always is, is fake and meaningless and just thrown in for emotional appeal.

They do this every single fucking time.

So that is to say. Art didnt cross their mind at all and if it did its also computer generated. You got to remember a vast majority of people think photoshop is a one click button and art programs do the art for you.

Given the shitshow this was I think we'll be safe for a good while

booky-chan said:
Given the shitshow this was I think we'll be safe for a good while

I give it 5 months tops

The entire point of the no-downloads rule (even though you need to DL it to play...) is to make it easier to clamp down on the entire video streaming business. These people aren't above outright lying, either. I find it disingenious to think that even 5% of the deleted content was 'illegal', or hell, even 1%. The fact that they're still around and not in prison is pretty much proof they weren't 'that' kind of operation.

There's some new rules that OCC wants to apply to stop the modern version of redlining, where companies like Chase or MC/Visa get threatened into complying with busy body 'hahping' people that want to control everything and everybody. Legal businesses suddenly having problems taking credit cards? If you think it's just porn companies dealing with this, I have a bridge I'll sell ya.

Journalism standard: Don't upset the advertisers, do what Murdoch and whatever other owners say. Don't mention stories that would make those 2 look bad. You don't have to lie, if you don't speak the unwelcome truth. And god, yes, Lance Armstrong, the NYT is infamous for outright misleading stories or emotional manipulation.

God, the conformist is strong in that one user. It's scary to see someone buy some of the stuff that people have been selling them. Don't ever think it was about whatever hook was used. It's a pretext to empower already powerful people even more to do awful things. Even better when it actively harms the very thing it's promised to help.

"This is the type of framing..." Yeah, exactly, the term you're looking for is 'bad faith' arguing. "fallacious political justifications" That's pretty much all that exists. :P

I'd go further and say they're actually thinking of ways to oppress the children. They're thinking of the children they're going to mindrape with inanities and incarcerate for profit for decades. These laws actively harm the children even when still children, though. Imaging growing up in some place where you have to ask permission to do anything at all, then getting in real world and... Yeah.

alphamule said:
The entire point of the no-downloads rule (even though you need to DL it to play...) is to make it easier to clamp down on the entire video streaming business. These people aren't above outright lying, either. I find it disingenious to think that even 5% of the deleted content was 'illegal', or hell, even 1%. The fact that they're still around and not in prison is pretty much proof they weren't 'that' kind of operation.

Calling prohibiting downloads "insanely reasonable" is particularly egregious. I guess that's why they got some random porn star to say it.

They can never close the analog hole but scrambling of the data sent to the browser and requirement of DRM like Widevine can make it more difficult to redistribute.

lance_armstrong said:
Calling prohibiting downloads "insanely reasonable" is particularly egregious. I guess that's why they got some random porn star to say it.

They can never close the analog hole but scrambling of the data sent to the browser and requirement of DRM like Widevine can make it more difficult to redistribute.

And thus far easier to stall attempts to create mirrors, yeah. That's what I was thinking of. Wasn't sure if I was clear.

so freedom wins again :-)

demesejha said:
I give it 5 months tops

Maybe less if the process turns into a SHTF moment.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

I don't know if this bill was shredded by the Capitol storming, but if not, I guess these out-of-touch lawmakers would really reexamine the repercussions of this bill. Or not. Or maybe... *shrugs*

We have to cross the bridge to get there.

alexyorim said:
I don't know if this bill was shredded by the Capitol storming, but if not, I guess these out-of-touch lawmakers would really reexamine the repercussions of this bill. Or not. Or maybe... *shrugs*

We have to cross the bridge to get there.

Idk why this is still being discussed but no.

The bill died before that happened. Even if the attack was planned it had nothing to do with this bill dying. The bill was intentionally vague and had nobody who would back it up.

any particular reason why this is still being discussed?

booky-chan said:
any particular reason why this is still being discussed?

Well, aside what the Demesejha has explained, I got nothing to say.

Since this bill was scrapped, and nothing shall be said anymore until some lawmaker and/or careless Karens wants a new bill against porn corrupting their unsupervised children, I guess this thread shall be locked to prevent anti-necrobumping.