Monday, March 30, 2020
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Our media is on the brink of mass failure
By some industry estimates, many of our major media outlets will fail within weeks. Starved of advertising revenues for years, the COVID-19 pandemic will deliver the final blow, especially for newspapers. And with the government now preparing to spend unprecedented amounts of money, we should be concerned that there will be no journalists left to keep watch.
This is a six-alarm fire. If Ottawa does not treat this as an emergency and act accordingly, Canadians will be left with few sources of reliable information about how to protect ourselves and our families from COVID-19.
Yesterday, we got a taste of what lies ahead.
In Quebec, the newspaper chain formerly known as Groupe Capitale MĂ©dias announced that 40 per cent of its 350 employees will be laid-off, and that print editions of five daily newspapers will be limited to Saturdays only, effective immediately.
In Atlantic Canada, the SaltWire Network of five daily and 20 weekly newspapers announced significant cuts to production and laid off 40 per cent of its workforce.
Even before the COVID-19 crisis struck, private media outlets were so beleaguered that they required special tax assistance just to stay afloat. Despite this support, Postmedia and Torstar, Canada’s largest producers of daily newspapers, are in dire financial straits. As of Thursday, you could buy all Torstar stock for just $21 million. As the economic downturn intensifies and businesses of all sizes suffer horrendous financial consequences, the few advertising dollars that remain are drying up overnight.
For its part, the CBC is so underfinanced that it cancelled all local TV news broadcasts last week. In a video town hall with CBC employees, Barb Williams, executive vice-president of English services, said the move was necessary to keep the network from “fading to black.”
Ottawa must understand that we are staring down the end of Canadian private media as we know it. With few exceptions, we’re talking about the extinction of the entire Canadian media industry. No democracy can survive without a functioning press.
Nobody wants journalists to become dependent on the government they’re meant to scrutinize. But the federal government can help by properly funding the CBC. And the CBC can help by collaborating with private outlets rather than competing with them.
Ottawa needs to start by doubling the budget of the CBC, to finance a major expansion of its national, regional, and local news capacity with a mandate to freely share its news content with any media outlet that wants to use it. To maintain CBC’s vital independence, the government must also give the CBC board of directors the exclusive authority to hire and fire the corporation’s president, currently a prime ministerial prerogative.
Amid the carnage, some media companies are doing quite well. Trouble is, they don’t employ a single journalist. They publish journalism produced by others without paying for it. And they face none of the financial and legal consequences of publishing false, harmful, or illegal content. To top it off, they don’t pay a dime in corporate taxes on more than $8 billion of profits they extracted from Canada last year.
Of course, I am talking about Facebook, Google, Netflix and other online media giants.
According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Canadian business spent $8.5 billion on digital advertising in 2019, with 87 per cent, or $7.4 billion flowing to foreign internet platforms — mostly Facebook and Google. Netflix made $1.6 billion more, according to the Yale Commission report. Because they have so few Canadian employees, almost all of this is profit.
Canadians who are fighting for their livelihoods and to preserve their businesses, large and small, are right to be furious at Ottawa for allowing these companies to profit so handsomely while the rest of us paid our taxes and now find ourselves struggling to survive.
It is long past time that Ottawa taxes these companies just like any other corporation operating here. Applying the federal corporate income tax of 15 per cent to foreign online ad sales would yield $1.1 billion. That money would be enough to double the Parliamentary appropriation to CBC.
If Ottawa does not act now, it will be too late for our media. CBC may be the only source of reliable Canadian journalism left standing, while Canadians are swamped with misinformation and illegal content from the likes of Facebook.
This was written in the Toronto Star. Daniel Bernhard is the executive director of FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting.
Please share this.
This is a six-alarm fire. If Ottawa does not treat this as an emergency and act accordingly, Canadians will be left with few sources of reliable information about how to protect ourselves and our families from COVID-19.
Yesterday, we got a taste of what lies ahead.
In Quebec, the newspaper chain formerly known as Groupe Capitale MĂ©dias announced that 40 per cent of its 350 employees will be laid-off, and that print editions of five daily newspapers will be limited to Saturdays only, effective immediately.
In Atlantic Canada, the SaltWire Network of five daily and 20 weekly newspapers announced significant cuts to production and laid off 40 per cent of its workforce.
Even before the COVID-19 crisis struck, private media outlets were so beleaguered that they required special tax assistance just to stay afloat. Despite this support, Postmedia and Torstar, Canada’s largest producers of daily newspapers, are in dire financial straits. As of Thursday, you could buy all Torstar stock for just $21 million. As the economic downturn intensifies and businesses of all sizes suffer horrendous financial consequences, the few advertising dollars that remain are drying up overnight.
For its part, the CBC is so underfinanced that it cancelled all local TV news broadcasts last week. In a video town hall with CBC employees, Barb Williams, executive vice-president of English services, said the move was necessary to keep the network from “fading to black.”
Ottawa must understand that we are staring down the end of Canadian private media as we know it. With few exceptions, we’re talking about the extinction of the entire Canadian media industry. No democracy can survive without a functioning press.
Nobody wants journalists to become dependent on the government they’re meant to scrutinize. But the federal government can help by properly funding the CBC. And the CBC can help by collaborating with private outlets rather than competing with them.
Ottawa needs to start by doubling the budget of the CBC, to finance a major expansion of its national, regional, and local news capacity with a mandate to freely share its news content with any media outlet that wants to use it. To maintain CBC’s vital independence, the government must also give the CBC board of directors the exclusive authority to hire and fire the corporation’s president, currently a prime ministerial prerogative.
Amid the carnage, some media companies are doing quite well. Trouble is, they don’t employ a single journalist. They publish journalism produced by others without paying for it. And they face none of the financial and legal consequences of publishing false, harmful, or illegal content. To top it off, they don’t pay a dime in corporate taxes on more than $8 billion of profits they extracted from Canada last year.
Of course, I am talking about Facebook, Google, Netflix and other online media giants.
According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Canadian business spent $8.5 billion on digital advertising in 2019, with 87 per cent, or $7.4 billion flowing to foreign internet platforms — mostly Facebook and Google. Netflix made $1.6 billion more, according to the Yale Commission report. Because they have so few Canadian employees, almost all of this is profit.
Canadians who are fighting for their livelihoods and to preserve their businesses, large and small, are right to be furious at Ottawa for allowing these companies to profit so handsomely while the rest of us paid our taxes and now find ourselves struggling to survive.
It is long past time that Ottawa taxes these companies just like any other corporation operating here. Applying the federal corporate income tax of 15 per cent to foreign online ad sales would yield $1.1 billion. That money would be enough to double the Parliamentary appropriation to CBC.
If Ottawa does not act now, it will be too late for our media. CBC may be the only source of reliable Canadian journalism left standing, while Canadians are swamped with misinformation and illegal content from the likes of Facebook.
This was written in the Toronto Star. Daniel Bernhard is the executive director of FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting.
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Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Trudeau Joins the International Coup? Canadians Lose
The worldwide plot of the left to effectively overthrow Democracy is alive and well in Canada as well. The emergency bill introduced by Trudeau would grant cabinet sweeping powers to tax and spend without parliamentary approval through the end of 2021. In other words, Trudeau is using this manufactured crisis to eliminate democracy in Canada altogether.
Prime Minister Trudeau addressed Canadians on the Coronavirus manufactured panic on March 23, 2020. Trudeau’s government is planning to grant itself wide-reaching new powers to tax and spend without parliamentary approval. Thirty-two MPs, divided proportionally based on party standing, will be in Ottawa to debate the bill being tabled on today. Like the Democrats in the United States, Trudeau is seeking powers that go well beyond any measure for a short-term crisis which is probably why they have fake research claiming this will last for 18 months when no such virus has done that. Once the powers are seized, the provisions will give a minority government the power to act unilaterally for 21 months. This is clearly a political coup taking place in Canada as well with the shrinking leftist side making a desperate attempt to overrule any democratic process.
The bill will allow Trudeau to impose anything with respect to taxation. Everywhere we look, the left is rising and seeking undemocratic powers in many places throughout the West.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/trudeau-joins-the-international-coup/
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Monday, March 23, 2020
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Sunday, March 15, 2020
China official says US military may have brought COVID-19 to Wuhan China
The two biggest threats to the US are China (from an economic standpoint) and Iran (from a military standpoint).
These two countries have been hit the hardest.
China’s economy will require a significant bailout to survive, and Iran’s nuclear ambitions have likely been put on ice.
I could also tell you that COVID-19
was created based off a science fiction novel written by Dean Koontz in
1981 titled, "The Eyes of Darkness." Just go to page 333:
|
|
|
Heck, there are even rumours that COVID-19 was caused by the democrats to dethrone President Trump.
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Friday, March 13, 2020
Dario Nardella Mayor Of Florence Encouraged Italians To "Hug A Chinese" Before Pandemic Hit
The Mayor of Florence is facing fresh criticism after he encouraged Italians to “Hug a Chinese” as a stand against racism before Italy was later forced to quarantine its entire country because of the coronavirus.
The story is yet another illustration of how political correctness can actually sometimes be dangerous if not fatal.
Italy is now under a complete lockdown after the country was ravaged by coronavirus. Current figures show over 12,000 recorded infections with 827 deaths.
Many observers have criticized Italy’s left-wing government for not taking tougher measures earlier, but their reaction was significantly less embarrassing than how Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella responded to the outbreak.
Back in February, as the first cases of coronavirus were being recorded in Italy, Nardella launched an anti-racism hashtag campaign which translates as “hug a Chinese.”
“Half-empty Chinese restaurants, suspicious looks when you meet a Chinese on the street – maybe born and raised in Italy – psychosis when the bus neighbor sneezes, this is the effect of Coronavirus on the Italian population,” reported Newsly.it.
A video shows a Chinese man wearing a blindfold and a face mask in Florence asking for hugs. Numerous people embrace the man while some physically remove his blindfold and mask.
The Mayor even released a Twitter video of himself hugging an awkward-looking Chinese person to promote the campaign, which was launched to “stem the hatred” and “express solidarity with the Chinese community.”
Suffice to say Nardella is a member of the left-wing Democratic Party in Italy.
One wonders if he sees the empty streets in Florence and ponders whether his absurd campaign contributed to the current state of Italy.
Please share this.
The story is yet another illustration of how political correctness can actually sometimes be dangerous if not fatal.
Italy is now under a complete lockdown after the country was ravaged by coronavirus. Current figures show over 12,000 recorded infections with 827 deaths.
Many observers have criticized Italy’s left-wing government for not taking tougher measures earlier, but their reaction was significantly less embarrassing than how Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella responded to the outbreak.
Back in February, as the first cases of coronavirus were being recorded in Italy, Nardella launched an anti-racism hashtag campaign which translates as “hug a Chinese.”
“Half-empty Chinese restaurants, suspicious looks when you meet a Chinese on the street – maybe born and raised in Italy – psychosis when the bus neighbor sneezes, this is the effect of Coronavirus on the Italian population,” reported Newsly.it.
A video shows a Chinese man wearing a blindfold and a face mask in Florence asking for hugs. Numerous people embrace the man while some physically remove his blindfold and mask.
The Mayor even released a Twitter video of himself hugging an awkward-looking Chinese person to promote the campaign, which was launched to “stem the hatred” and “express solidarity with the Chinese community.”
#coronavirus:
seguiamo le indicazioni delle autoritĂ sanitarie e usiamo cautela, ma
nessun terrorismo psicologico e soprattutto basta con i soliti sciacalli
che non vedevano l’ora di usare questa scusa per odiare e insultare.
Uniti in questa battaglia comune! #AbbracciaUnCinese
pic.twitter.com/pUdqEl0piW
—
Dario Nardella (@DarioNardella) February
1, 2020
Suffice to say Nardella is a member of the left-wing Democratic Party in Italy.
One wonders if he sees the empty streets in Florence and ponders whether his absurd campaign contributed to the current state of Italy.
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Thursday, March 12, 2020
Parents Jailed, and the Bible Banned in Canada?
I’ve already told you about Senate Bill S-202, the “conversion
therapy ban”. This outrageous proposal from a Liberal-appointed
Senator criminalizes helping homosexuals and transgenders –
even those who want help to change and who are desperate for
healing.
It’s hard to believe the government would actually restrict the
very personal decisions and choices of individuals
struggling with their sexuality and gender identity. But that is
exactly what Bill S-202 is all about.
Now, to make matters even worse, Justice Minister David Lametti
has introduced his own “conversion therapy ban” in the House of
Commons – Bill
C-8. This new Bill – which is even more
dangerous than S-202 – was brought forward on Monday, March 9th.
Bill C-8 represents an unprecedented assault by the
Trudeau Liberals on our civil rights, personal freedoms, and religious
liberties in this country.
Let me give you some real-life examples of what will likely
happen if Bill C-8 passes into law:
If you’re a doctor or counsellor, you will no longer be
permitted to publicly offer help and healing to struggling homosexuals
and transgenders. If you do, it will be considered “advertising
conversion therapy”, and you will face up to two years in jail.
[Section 320.104]. If you privately offer help, but accept a fee for
your help, you will face up to two years in jail for receiving a
“material benefit from conversion therapy”. [Section
320.105].
If you’re a parent with a gender-confused child, you will
not be permitted to help that child conform to his/her biological
gender. If you seek outside help, or if you counsel that child
yourself to find peace with his/her bodily reality, you will be guilty
of “causing [a] child to undergo conversion therapy”, and you will go
to jail for up to five years. You can do nothing but offer
affirmation, artificial hormones, and/or mutilating sex-change
surgeries to your child. [Section 320.103(1)].
If you’re a pastor or church leader who publicly proclaims
the power of Christ to transform homosexuals and transgenders, you may
be arrested for “advertising conversion therapy”. [Section 320.104].
If an ex-gay or ex-trans is converted at your church and drops some
money in the offering plate, you could be arrested for receiving an
indirect “material benefit for conversion therapy”. [Section
320.105].
Of course, it’s ridiculous. Of course, it’s totalitarian.
But it’s happening.
The Liberal government, at the behest of the LGBT lobby, is
moving to politicize people’s healthcare and counselling choices. They
are pushing to eradicate the Christian view of sexuality and gender
from the public square. They are working to suppress and deny the
testimony of countless ex-gays and ex-trans who expose the lies of the
LGBT narrative.
Just take a look at the testimonies that we are compiling
at Campaign Life Coalition from various Canadian ex-gays and ex-trans.
The government wants to silence these voices!
In fact, the Trudeau government’s Bill C-8 represents an even
greater danger than anything I have mentioned so far in this email.
Bill C-8 opens the door to a whole new level of censorship and
thought-control. It may even lead to censoring – and banning
– the Bible itself!
Does it sound unbelievable? Let me explain...
Bill C-8 not only prescribes jail-time for anyone who
“advertises an offer to provide conversion therapy,” it gives the
government the power to order the “seizure” and/or
“deletion” of all material deemed an “advertisement
for conversion therapy”. [Sections 164.1(1) & (5)]. This includes
“any material — including a photographic, film, video, audio or other
recording, made by any means, a visual representation or any written
material — that is used to advertise an offer to provide conversion
therapy.” [Section 164(8)].
The problem with this concept is it could include
virtually any material whatsoever critical of homosexuality
or transgenderism, that is released into the public
square.
There are many books, magazine articles, brochures, tracts,
podcasts, YouTube videos, web pages, and other resources that offer to
help homosexuals and transgenders overcome their unwanted feelings and
desires. In fact, the Bible itself offers that homosexuals can be
“washed”, “sanctified”, and “justified” by faith in Christ (1
Corinthians 6:9). All of these materials, if available in an open and
public medium, may be construed as “advertising conversion therapy”,
and they may be seized and/or destroyed.
This is a very real possibility.
I doubt they’d try it right away, but maybe down the road, once
the anti-Christian prejudice engendered in this law spreads throughout
society, and it becomes accepted wisdom that Christian
teaching equals hatred.
Justice Minister Lametti has strategically placed the matter of
“an advertisement for conversion therapy” in the same section of the
Criminal Code that outlaws child pornography and
advertising for sexual services. By doing this, he is
paving the way for a judge to treat any books, magazines, or web
resources that promote the traditional view of sexuality and gender as
equivalent to child porn in terms of their alleged
“harm” to children.
Imagine that. A book on sexuality or gender from Dr. James
Dobson or Dr. Ann Gillies or Dr. Joseph Nicolosi could be considered
just as dangerous as “child porn” by any judge. Perhaps even the Bible
itself (or portions of it) could be construed as being as equally
destructive as pornography.
Justice Minister Lametti has also placed the bulk of his
“conversion therapy ban” under the “Hate Propaganda” section of the
Criminal Code. This particular section outlines offences which
advocate and promote “genocide”. It would seem, by this move, that
the Liberal government wants to associate the traditional,
Christian view of sexuality and gender with racial hatred and
genocide. This is absolutely disgraceful – and truly
bigoted.
The pieces are fitting together... The Liberal government,
under the influence and direction of the LGBT lobby, is working to
censor and eradicate all opposing viewpoints and perspectives.
They want to ban dissent. It sounds more like
Communist China than the “True North strong and
free”!
And it doesn’t matter how many casualties there might be. The
Liberals don’t seem to care at all about the kids who will be pushed
into harmful “transitioning” drugs and surgeries. They don’t seem to
care at all about those adults in the LGBT lifestyle who want help to
escape. They don’t seem to care at all about the doctors and
counsellors who will be forced to close or restrict their services.
They don’t seem to care at all about the Christians who will be
silenced and ghettoized. They don’t seem to care at all about
our freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of
thought.
This is why it is absolutely
URGENT for us to work to stop Bill C-8 before it goes
any further. This totalitarian, neo-Marxist “conversion
therapy ban” must be blocked. And, Lord willing, with your
help, we can do it!
Anthony: Please join me in sending an
Action
Alert Email to our local MPs today.
It’s quick and easy. Simply click
here to go to our Action
Alert Email tool, fill in your name and address, and we will send
a pre-scripted message to your local Member of Parliament. You can
even add your own personalized message, if you like!
It will take just a couple minutes, but it could
make an enormous impact. If MPs from every party – from all across
this country – begin receiving thousands of emails from their
constituents opposing the “conversion therapy ban”, they are going to
think twice. We may even see some “champions” emboldened to step up
and speak out against the ban in the House of Commons.
So please join me in taking action today to
stop Bill C-8. Send an Action
Alert Email right now.
“Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep
silent.” (Acts 18:9).
Thank you, and may God keep our land "glorious and
free"!
Yours for Life, Family, and Faith,
P.S. Our Action Alert Email tool is available here: https://www.votervoice.net/CALIFE/campaigns/72441/respond
P.P.S. For an online version of this email that you can easily
print and share, click here: https://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/clc-blog/id/104/title/will-they-ban-the-bible-next-
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Sunday, March 1, 2020
Pornhub Verified Child Sex Trafficking.
This is not a site deserving of Section 230 protections.
Pornhub must held accountable for hosting and verifying a 15-year-old victim of sex trafficking as an over-18 content producer. The most visited pornographic website in the world hosted numerous videos that detailed the rape and sexual abuse of an underage girl.
Porn websites have long enjoyed the same kinds of protections that platforms like Twitter and Facebook have that have allowed them to jettison responsibility over the content that their contributors upload.
The videos were found on a number of platforms, including Periscope, Modelhub, Snapchat, but Pornhub was the only one to provide a verification checkmark to the victim, which gave any unsuspecting viewers the impression that she was a consenting performer over the age of 18. In 2019, the mother of the victim was alerted to the videos a year after reporting her missing in South Florida.
Charged with trafficking and rape of a minor, 30-year-old Christopher Johnson, allegedly kidnapped the victim from a convenience store and forced her to have sex with him at his apartment. Speaking to police detectives, the victim said that she was even forced to have an abortion during the duration of her time in captivity. According to the Sun-Sentinel, police discovered paperwork from an abortion clinic to back up her allegations.
Of course, platforms should not be liable for the actions of rogue operators—Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and even alternative social media sites like Gab and Minds, wouldn’t be able to exist if the courts shut them down the instant a bad actor uploaded a piece of illegal content onto the website. That said, it is the responsibility of social media platforms to moderate user-made content to the best of their ability, and they’re legally bound to do so. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was designed to encourage platforms to remove objectionable content, promising that they wouldn’t be held liable if they screwed up in the process.
Pornhub, however, has clearly made no such good faith effort.
Porn websites have long enjoyed the same kinds of protections that platforms like Twitter and Facebook have that have allowed them to jettison responsibility over the content that their contributors upload. This has allowed them to scale rapidly, both in terms of distribution and profit.
It’s high time, however, that we start to distinguish the kinds of content that platforms upload, and find legal avenues to hold Pornhub accountable.
MONETIZING SEXUAL ASSAULT
A quick search on the platform for “GirlsDoPorn” yields over 400 results with potentially illegal footage of women who were sexually exploited by the owner of GirlsDoPorn, Michael Pratt. Pratt and his associates are currently facing a federal indictment over the production of child pornography and trafficking of a minor. He has since fled the United States and is the subject of a federal warrant.
“I sent Pornhub begging emails. I pleaded with them. I wrote, ‘Please, I’m a minor, this was assault, please take it down.'” She received no reply, and the videos remained live.
GirlsDoPorn originally presented itself as a legal enterprise with consensually procured content, so Pornhub and other platforms can’t be blamed for hosting these videos in the first place. But the problem is Pornhub hasn’t removed the content. It may have banned GirlsDoPorn’s original channel, but re-uploads of the illicit material remains online and continue to be uploaded.
The platform, which makes millions of dollars in daily traffic, has a “verified user” system like the checkmarks used on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to determine if someone is who they say they are. But, as detailed by Laila Mickelwait for the Washington Examiner, the site’s verification system is rudimentary.
On mainstream platforms, users requesting to be verified need to submit proper legal documentation to prove their identity. This isn’t the case with Pornhub. “It took me under 10 minutes,” Mickelwait writes, “to create a user account and upload blank test content to the site, which went live instantly. I could have then gone on to become Pornhub-verified, and all I would need to do is send a photo of myself holding a paper with my username. That’s it.”
According to Mickelwait, it wasn’t difficult for the 15-year-old’s alleged rapist to upload videos of the rapes and quickly monetize them without ever running afoul of the site’s negligent moderators.
In a similar case, reported earlier this month, a 14-year-old girl named Rose was violently raped at knifepoint for twelve hours. The BBC reports that the footage ended up on Pornhub, and it took the victim’s mother months of pleading to convince Pornhub to remove the graphic rape, which was distributed over several videos.
“The titles of the videos were ‘teen crying and getting slapped around’, ‘teen getting destroyed’, ‘passed out teen.’ One had over 400,000 views,” the victim recounted. “The worst videos were the ones where I was passed out. Seeing myself being attacked where I wasn’t even conscious was the worst.”
Pornhub relies on user reports to handle illegal material, but no one would ever suspect that a verified account to be anything but above board. Furthermore, even when the material is reported—as was the case with the videos of Rose—the platform can take months to remove the footage, if it even bothers to do so.
Rose said she emailed Pornhub several times over a period of six months in 2009 to ask for the videos to be taken down. “I sent Pornhub begging emails. I pleaded with them. I wrote, ‘Please, I’m a minor, this was assault, please take it down.'” She received no reply, and the videos remained live.
Just like in the case of the victim from South Florida, and the countless women involved in the GirlsDoPorn case, Rose’s case is not extraordinary. Given Pornhub’s careless moderation policies, and how easy it is to even monetize rape, it wouldn’t be too much of a shock to know that more of this goes on that anyone realizes or wants to think about.
QUALITATIVELY DIFFERENT CONTENT
Running a porn site has very few legal risks at the moment, even when its users upload illegal material. According to the Pornhub itself, the site saw 42 billion visits in 2019, 39 billion searches performed site-wide, with an average of 115 million visits per day, and 6.83 million new videos uploaded.
Yes, it will severely curtail their business, but that’s simply outweighed by the consequences. They’re already making hand over fist. They can afford to moderate what goes on their site and take responsibility for the content they post.
Porn websites must be subject to content audits or shut down if they fail to meet new legal standards. They should not be afforded the same Section 230 CDA protections that platforms like Twitter or Facebook are–the content they traffic is qualitatively different. (Query, too, whether Twitter and Facebook continue to deserve those protections). Porn sites need to vet everything that gets uploaded. Yes, it will severely curtail their business, but that’s simply outweighed by the consequences. They’re already making hand over fist. They can afford to moderate what goes on their site and take responsibility for the content they post.
20 years ago, when the internet was new and needed delicate handling, Section 230 was a useful tool to incentivize growth and investment. It made sense. Today, these platforms have swallowed up entire economies; it no longer makes sense to treat their business model with such caution. The kinds of content these sites facilitate—pro-eating disorder posts, content about self-harm and suicide, and of course, fake news and political disinformation—are having devastating effects on society. Going after porn sites is the best way to start that conversation: giving them broad liability protections has clear consequences that most people can agree are intolerable.
There is no moral ambiguity here. Sites like Pornhub need to verify the age and identity of every model who is posted on the site, and to stop publishing anonymous content from producers.
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