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Comment by vivekd | Hacker News Reader

It's not censorship because people still have access to it. The supreme court has already held it's okay to put small reasonable restrictions on certain types of speech so long as you don't forbid it altogether. Putting a small fee on obscenity to prevent access by minors and fund human trafficking is well within the bounds of the first amendment.

Free speech is not some pure beautiful ideal concept. It exists solely as a creation of the constitution as interpreted by the Supreme court. And there is strong precedent from the Supreme court that these types of restrictions are perfectly compatible with the first amendment.

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Explain to me how your view that porn is obscene (morally? religiously?) necessitates a government-mandated censorship that can be removed with a $20 bribe. You have absolutely no business telling adults what content is unwholesome and what is not, as long as that content does not break the law. Framing this as an effort to stop the funding of human trafficking seems ridiculous to me given the context of what this law will actually do in effect.

The supreme court has found that the legislature can make laws regarding morality and in fact that one of their jobs was to legislate towards public morality. You're debating based on what your ideals of government should be instead of what government is.

I don't disagree that this law could be passed. I'm asking, in regards to this specific bill, why you feel that porn being an "obscene" activity means that it should be blocked by a state-controlled censorship paywall.

I think you are just rephrasing "20 dollar fee to prevent minors and fund human trafficking" into "state controlled paywall." This is no different from the British TV tax, it's a small restriction on speech that will have benefits of preventing minors from accessing porn and help fund human trafficking prevention efforts.

Isn't that appropriate? Shouldn't discussion of potential legislation include discussing what the people want, and their ideals?

I'm guessing you are a lawyer? You sure are arguing like one. The rest of us are sharing how we feel about this, not arguing its legality.

I'm not the one who brought up the first amendment or free speech or legislating morality issues, I'm just responding to legal based arguments of others with legal based responses. My feelings on the subject and why it's good were clearly outlined in my first post without consideration of it's legality.

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