Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard opening arguments in a case that may well determine the future of pornography in the United States. The Free Speech Coalition, which Free Press reporter River Page describes as “a sort of NRA for pornographers,” has sued the Texas attorney general over the state’s age verification law, which requires sites with explicit content to ensure users are over 18. River argues that though the rationale behind such laws makes sense, they are pointless. You can’t verify someone’s age on the internet without invading their privacy to an extent that is unacceptable to most Americans. All in all, as the headline to River’s piece has it: “Porn Is Inevitable.”
The piece sparked much debate among our readers, so we’re publishing not one but two responses. The first is from new father Harrison Runnels, from Omaha, Nebraska:
We make trade-offs between safety and privacy all the time. In order to buy alcohol, you have to take a picture of yourself, submit personal details to the government, and put it on a card that you carry with you every day. We also require this for gambling (in person and online), opening a bank account, going to strip clubs, smoking, driving, going to war, investing in the stock market, and signing contracts.
Meanwhile, to gain entry into the adult sexual world, all you have to do is tap a checkbox saying “I’m over 18.” Imagine if all a 12-year-old had to do to get booze is walk into a liquor store and say he’s 24. We’ve generally accepted that children shouldn’t be allowed in strip clubs and we have created the infrastructure and incentives to make that difficult for them. Why do we treat the internet differently?
As a new father, I don’t want my son to grow up in a world where giving him access to the internet means potentially exposing him to hardcore pornography and sexual interactions with strangers. The question these laws are trying to answer is: How can we fix that? They may miss the mark, but I appreciate that they are trying. Does it matter that age verification laws will not be 100 percent effective? Teenagers buy fake IDs, but we still have underage drinking laws. If the regulation isn’t working, we shouldn’t just give up. Our kids deserve better than that.
Here, high school teacher Micah Weiss, from New Hampshire, responds to River’s conclusion that “the institution most capable of stopping children from viewing pornography is the family: If you don’t want your kid watching porn, don’t give them unlimited access to the internet”: