{"id":2022572,"date":"2023-09-05T18:14:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T22:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/we-have-to-stop-letting-the-porn-industry-hide-behind-free-speech\/"},"modified":"2023-09-05T18:18:40","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T22:18:40","slug":"we-have-to-stop-letting-the-porn-industry-hide-behind-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/we-have-to-stop-letting-the-porn-industry-hide-behind-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop allowing the porn industry to use &#8216;free speech&#8217; as a shield."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwe-have-to-stop-letting-the-porn-industry-hide-behind-free-speech%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2022572&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Shocking\u200c Revelations: MindGeek and the Dark Side \u2062of Pornography<\/h2>\n<p>On the afternoon of April 6th, 2020, two \u200demployees working for MindGeek \u2014 the company \u200dthat runs some of the biggest porn sites in\u200c the world, including RedTube\u200c and PornHub \u2014 began exchanging frantic \u200dtext messages. One of the \u200cmessages read, \u201cYo sorry man can you make\u200c sure you \u2062are not cc\u2019ing [the manager of the site] on the CSAM reports.\u201d C.S.A.M. stands for \u201cChild Sexual Abuse Material,\u201d and for some\u2062 reason, this employee wanted his colleague to stop alerting a manager to the presence of this \u200dcontent on\u2062 MindGeek\u2019s porn sites.<\/p>\n<p>That request, understandably, shocked the MindGeek employee\u200c who received it. This was the reply that came back: \u201cHe doesn\u2019t want to \u200bknow how much CP we\u2019ve ignored for the\u2064 past 5 years?\u201d In that message, in case it\u2019s not obvious,\u201dCP\u201d stands for \u201cchild pornography.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These\u2062 texts, \u200cand many more incriminating documents, surfaced last\u2064 week in \u2063an ongoing lawsuit against MindGeek by the alleged victims of \u2062<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republicans-call-double-standard-on-greenes-committee-removals-point-to-omar-remarks\/\" title=\"Republicans Call Double Standard on Greene\u2019s Committee Removals, Point to Omar Remarks\">child sex trafficking<\/a> in California. It\u2019s one of several lawsuits filed\u200b against MindGeek across the\u2064 United States \u2062and Canada that accuse the company of willful and malicious conduct involving minors. According to one of \u2063those\u200b lawsuits, for example, \u2063PornHub took a large cut\u200b of\u200d the profits from videos\u200c of a 12-year-old boy being raped.<\/p>\n<p>Amid all this litigation, payment processors like Visa and Mastercard have dropped PornHub, though not before a judge ruled that Visa had facilitated the dissemination\u200c of child pornography. In other documents that have been \u2064unearthed in discovery, Mastercard confronts\u200c MindGeek over apparent child pornography on their platform, prompting officials at \u2064MindGeek\u200b to brainstorm a crisis response. At\u200d one point, both the CEO \u2064and the\u2064 owner of MindGeek admit that they had only one staff member reviewing videos that \u2063are flagged for containing child-sex abuse content. At the same time, they acknowledged having a backlog of nearly 700,000 potentially\u2064 illegal videos that hadn\u2019t been\u2064 reviewed at all. By the way, from what I could find online,\u2063 it appears that \u2063MindGeek has well over 1,000 employees. Of those 1,000, they had just one dedicated to removing\u2064 child rape from their platform. That\u2062 tells you how much\u2063 they prioritized the issue.<\/p>\n<p>In\u2064 the meantime, as usual, conservative politicians are taking half-measures in response to all\u2064 this. These\u200d politicians are currently attempting to keep pornography websites out of the reach of children, instead of shutting them \u200cdown entirely. PornHub is a hub for hundreds of thousands\u200c of\u200b videos and images of child rape.\u200b It \u2063should \u2062simply be\u2062 shut down completely. That isn\u2019t happening though. Instead we have these efforts to put age restrictions into place on the user end. And \u2063to be fair,\u2062 that is something at least, \u200ceven\u2062 if \u200bit clearly doesn\u2019t go far enough. To that end, Texas, like several other states, recently passed a law requiring that users of \u200dPornHub provide proof\u2064 that they\u2019re 18 years or \u2062older.\u2064 Visitors to PornHub, and several websites like \u2063it, have\u200b to upload \u200csome kind of identification \u200cproving their age. The law\u2064 also requires PornHub to inform users that: \u201cPornography increases the \u200cdemand for prostitution, child \u2063exploitation, and\u2063 child pornography.\u201d Which is all obviously true.<\/p>\n<p>To be clear,\u2062 the \u200blaw in Texas would not prohibit any adult from accessing pornography. The law also would not stop any\u2064 adult \u200dfrom producing pornography. But even this timid attempt to keep children away from some of \u200dthe most debased sexual content known to man \u2014 something \u200beveryone in the \u2063country should agree on \u2014 was too much for MindGeek and \u2062PornHub. So they \u2063filed a\u200b lawsuit to strike down the\u200b law:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>\u201cchills the speech of Plaintiffs and adults who wish\u2063 to access \u200bsexual materials.\u201d<\/em> The judge added, <em>\u201cThe Court agrees that the \u2062state\u2063 has a legitimate goal in protecting children from sexually explicit material online. But\u2063 that \u200dgoal, however crucial, does not negate this Court\u2019s burden to ensure that the laws passed in \u200dits \u200dpursuit comport with established First Amendment doctrine.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>To \u200dbe clear, this judge\u2019s ruling isn\u2019t the final word. It\u2019s already \u2064being appealed. And it has\u2062 no weight\u2064 in the several \u2064other states that have passed similar ID requirements on pornography websites. \u2063So it\u2019s important not to blow this out \u2063of proportion. We\u2019ve seen a lot of insane\u2064 rulings from individual federal judges that are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/we-have-to-stop-letting-the-porn-industry-hide-behind-free-speech\/\" title=\"Stop allowing the porn industry to use 'free speech' as a shield.\">quickly overturned \u2014 including\u200d judges\u2062 appointed<\/a> by Republicans. It just\u200b happened in Tennessee, when judge Eli Richardson \u2014 the guy who keeps hiring Left-wing clerks \u2064\u2014 tried to strike down the state\u2019s ban on \u2064child genital mutilation. He was quickly overturned.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, it\u2019s important to read the PornHub judge\u2019s decision carefully, because the\u200c truth is that \u2014 as insane\u2063 as\u200c his ruling is \u2014 conservative politicians bear some of the blame for \u2063it. If these politicians want to make any headway in stopping the depravity and the cultural rot that these pornography\u200d sites are responsible for, then they have to start crafting better laws. This decision makes that clear. There\u2019s no\u200c way around \u200cthat. The free speech argument from the judge is blatant nonsense. But he does raise another point that is not so nonsensical. One of the problems that judge David Ezra identified with the law is that it didn\u2019t really accomplish the goal that legislators said it\u2063 would.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>\u201c[The law] will \u2062do little \u2026 to prevent children from accessing pornography. Search engines, \u2063for\u200b example,\u2063 do not need to implement \u200bage verification, even when they are \u2062aware that someone is using their services\u200d to view pornography ..The same \u2064is true \u200cfor blogs posted to Tumblr, including subdomains that only display sexually explicit content. Likewise, Instagram and Facebook pages can show material which is \u200dsexually explicit \u200dfor minors without compelled \u200bage\u2063 verification. \u200c\u2026 In sum, the law \u2063is\u2062 severely underinclusive. It nominally attempts to prevent minors\u2019 access to pornography, but contains substantial exemptions, including\u2062 material most likely to serve as a gateway to pornography use.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The judge continues:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>\u201cIn addition, social media companies are \u2063de facto exempted \u2026 This means that certain\u2063 social media sites, \u200csuch as Reddit, can maintain entire communities and forums\u200c (i.e., subreddits), dedicated to posting\u2064 online pornography with no regulation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, the\u2063 law in Texas doesn\u2019t really stop minors\u2064 from accessing\u2063 pornography. It\u2019s \u200cnot much of a roadblock at all, because minors can just go on Reddit, or use search engines like Bing\u200b and watch\u2062 porn there. This is a very important \u2062distinction. As arbitrary and frustrating as it is, it\u2019s a distinction \u2062that conservative politicians need to grasp, if they\u200d want to have any \u2063chance of\u2063 protecting children from the never-ending fountains \u200cof filth like PornHub. \u200dVoters in several states, including Virginia, Mississippi and\u200b Utah, have passed age-verification laws that apply to porn sites. There isn\u2019t a lot of dissent on this issue among sane\u200c people. \u200bAnd yet, conservative politicians have found a way to bungle this issue. They\u2019ve passed flimsy laws that can\u2019t stand up in court. Of course, even if the Texas law had loopholes \u200dthat would\u200d allow some children to access pornography, still you\u2019d think that a flimsy \u200dattempt to protect kids is \u2064better than no attempt at \u200dall. But the flimsiness of the law provides a pretense for\u2062 striking \u2062it down entirely, and that\u2019s the \u2062issue.<\/p>\n<p>The solution is obvious.\u2064 First, these\u2062 politicians should come out and say what everyone knows, which is that the Left\u2019s concerns \u2064about \u201cfree speech\u201d are a smoke\u200b screen. Sites\u200c like \u200bPornHub protest age restrictions because they stand to lose millions if minors aren\u2019t granted access \u200bto their platforms. They are knowingly profiting off of the sexualization\u2063 and trauma of children. The average porn user, on the other hand, protests these restrictions because he doesn\u2019t want to be hassled or inconvenienced in\u2064 his pursuit of masturbatory material. Both groups cry about free speech but couldn\u2019t give less of a damn about it.<\/p>\n<p>Right now in the United States, actual free speech rights\u2063 are infringed every day. Pro-life activists \u200bhunted down by the FBI. Right-wingers jailed\u200c for posting memes. And yet suddenly the\u2063 courts and the Left \u200chave decided to\u200b become free speech absolutists when it comes to porn and sexual depravity. That\u2019s the only area where they\u200d care about free speech. To give another recent example: After a lawsuit from the ACLU, a federal \u200cjudge in Tennessee\u2062 just \u2064blocked a local D.A. from enforcing the \u200dstate\u2019s law protecting kids from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utah-lgbt-group-sponsors-all-ages-back-to-school-drag-show-with-inappropriately-named-performers\/\" title=\"Utah LGBT Group Sponsors \u2018All Ages\u2019 Back-to-School Drag Show With Inappropriately Named Performers\">sexually explicit performances<\/a> at a so-called \u201cPride\u201d event. All the D.A. did was send word to organizers telling them they can\u2019t involve\u2063 kids in their fetishes. That\u2019s a \u200dreasonable concern, if you\u2019ve seen any of the millions \u200dof videos \u2064of naked adults twerking in front \u200cof\u200d children from the past few months at these \u201cPride\u201d parades. But the Left pretended \u2062it wasn\u2019t\u2064 reasonable. They shut the D.A. down.<\/p>\n<p>This is, among many \u2063other things, hypocritical. The same people who\u2064 believe that basic\u2064 political speech\u200b should be \u2063outlawed and\u200d prosecuted as hate crimes are suddenly starting to care about \u201cfree speech\u201d the \u2063moment the right \u200dmakes any effort to\u2062 protect children from degenerate\u2063 sexual \u2063content. But the right can\u2019t simply scream \u201chypocrisy\u201d\u2062 and call it a day. That doesn\u2019t accomplish anything. Leftists know they\u2019re hypocritical. They know they\u2019re using\u2062 the\u2062 court system\u200b to \u200doverturn the will of \u200bthe well-adjusted, sane majority. They don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n<p>The\u2063 correct response from the right \u2014 as that Texas PornHub case shows, albeit in a roundabout way \u2014 is to one-up these degenerates. Stop passing half-measures into law. Stop \u200dwith the flimsy, thrown-together legislation that doesn\u2019t remotely accomplish what you say you want to accomplish. Start, instead, with \u200da total \u2063ban on pornography for children, across \u2063all platforms \u2014 search engines, websites,\u2064 and so\u2064 on. And \u2064it should be\u200c a ban that extends not just to the websites but to the devices that are used to access the website. There should be laws in\u2062 all 50\u200c states mandating that cell phones used by children have filters and\u200d blocks on them that\u200d prevent the user from accessing this\u2064 material. Cell phone companies should be required to sell devices that \u200care safe for\u2062 kids, as long as kids\u2062 are going to be using them.\u200c Really, kids shouldn\u2019t have phones at all. But millions do, and so we\u200d should \u2062have laws that account for\u2063 that. Ironically, that kind \u200dof law is more likely to withstand scrutiny from federal judges.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also more likely to bring about what every responsible adult should want, which is the safeguarding of\u200c our kids. They didn\u2019t choose to be born into a depraved society \u2062filled with degenerate filth. The least we can do \u2063is make even\u2063 the slightest effort to protect them from \u200bit.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/onelink.to\/dwapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>CLICK\u2063 HERE TO GET THE\u2063 DAILY WIRE APP<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On April 6th, 2020, two MindGeek employees, responsible for major porn sites like RedTube and PornHub, exchanged urgent text messages. One message said, &#8220;Hey, please double-check you&#8217;re not cc&#8217;ing the manager.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":2022573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2022572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2022572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2022573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2022572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2022572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2022572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}