> If society agrees that young people below a certain age should not have access to pornography then it is reasonable, even necessary, to try to implement ways to enforce that restriction online.
I think you're skipping a step here. It was reasonable when everyone involved was in the same jurisdiction and bound by the same laws.
Now that's just fundamentally not true. The question is, is this feasible today? If it is not feasible, I have a hard time calling it reasonable.
I am not skipping a step. On the contrary I start from the start: Society does not want that young people access pornography.
This is the starting point and everyone seems to ignore it and to immediately jump to strawman arguments about the feasibility of absolute enforceability.
If the starting point holds, then it is reasonable to try to enforce that restriction.
Only then does the issue of the feasibility become relevant.
Enforcement is always a balance between cost and benefit and is never 100% effective for anything. This is not an argument.
It is feasible to implement effective measures to enforce age restrictions online. The degree of effectiveness depends on how far we're willing to go. I think at the moment the aim is to discourage a significant enough portion of the people, knowing full well that the most motivated will find a way around it.
> is the starting point and everyone seems to ignore it and to immediately jump to strawman arguments about the feasibility of absolute enforceability.
That does seem like the natural progression (save for the strawman part).
Have desire to do something -> evaluate feasibility -> if it's feasible do it.
Perhaps that's not as standard of a flow as I originally thought. That would actually explain a number of laws on the books now that I think about it.
The 'argument' seems to be that there is not point enforcing the law because it is not feasible to enforce it absolutely.
This logic is obviously fallacious as is reducing enforcement to absolute enforcement.
I also find it disappointing that I was flagged for pointing this out. Strawman arguments are very common. Sometimes they are not used consciously but it is useful to call a cat a cat.
> The 'argument' seems to be that there is not point enforcing the law because it is not feasible to enforce it absolutely.
My argument was more that it is stupid and undermines the credibility of the government to pass laws that it cannot enforce. It's that they were passed in the first place that bothers me personally. I'm not holding anything against someone whose job it it to enforce the law having to enforce a stupid law.
We already saw this with the pirate bay, you can't block information. In fact, the harder you try, the funnier it is for people to find ways around it.
I think you're skipping a step here. It was reasonable when everyone involved was in the same jurisdiction and bound by the same laws.
Now that's just fundamentally not true. The question is, is this feasible today? If it is not feasible, I have a hard time calling it reasonable.