How exactly will this change the situation of porn being a few clicks away regardless of age? Kid searches for "porn" on Google and clicks through the links until they find a non-compliant website. Pornhub is owned by a Canadian company, btw.

The UK abandoned their effort to do this precisely because of how pointless it is.

You may be overestimating the reach of these small states when it comes to online content. These laws don't make porn any less available, it just changes who gets the traffic. And as others have noted, the operators who come out ahead are inherently the ones least aligned with the culture and values being asserted.

What the laws are really for is making voters in these states feel like their legislators are doing something, because proposing and voting on token nonsense like this is easy and negotiating effective change on meaningful policy is hard.

Striving to protect children isn't nonsense, even if the effort fails to accomplish its intended outcome. We need politicians who are more concerned with the rising generations, not less.

That applies to the voters, not the legislators. The legislators been around the block, they have lawyers, they have mentors, they have consultants, they have lobbyists. With the exception of the few loons who inevitably get voted in here and there, the careerists know exactly how something like this plays out.

Voters are presumably striving to protect children and want their legislators to do something. These legislators are in no position to do anything. But they can play pretend and only make the problem a little worse as they do. In politics, that's a win.

But it's not a "concern for rising generations".

> These legislators are in no position to do anything.

You're going to need to explain this more. All efforts start small. With support they grow and can accomplish things.

> But it's not a "concern for rising generations".

If "it" is referring to porn, then yes it is. Perhaps not in your view, or your social circles.

>which is good

citation needed? why should a teenager not see pictures of a naked person? keep in mind that teenagers in africa are fighting and dying in wars.

I do not understand the bearing of African turf wars on the topic at hand. This would in effect be a justification to never do anything about anything because there are “worse” problems in the world.

Should we just show hardcore porn everywhere? In schools? On the kiosks at McDonalds?

I mean, probably not, but like, the world doesn't care what we think we should show.

Should we dismantle people's bodies and show it to those people's children? Should we show children their own detached arms while trapping them in a burning house with a company of their mom who is missing lower part of a body and crawling around screaming from pain while her intestines are falling out? And a mangled head of their dead cousin who's been decapitated by a sharp sheet of metal launched at him as the GRAD hit the building? Did I mention it's fucking dark and no you can't call 911. That kind of shit is happening right this second I lived in Donetsk until 2004 and the stories that I see from there are fucking brutal. Why don't you go focus on that?

I mean yeah I'm not saying we should show porn to kids. Why are you even thinking about that? What part of not wanting my fetishes end up on easily hackable government databases and known to the world is even remotely correlated to showing hardcore porn everywhere? I'm not an exhibitionist, man. I'm a prude actually. I'm easily embarrassed by my girlfriend bringing up anything about our sexual life in public. When we go to sexshop and she discusses our fetishes with employee I leave the store and puke from stress and anxiety. The thought of the entire world having access to my sexual identity is horrifying. What about people who are LGBT who's family will disown or kill them?

I probably shouldn't have gotten this heated and I honestly don't think you actually mean evil. Just think about broader implications, please.

I'm not for the ID thing, I think it's stupid. But I reject the notion that porn is automatically therefore something good to expose children to.

Maybe, especially if it helped break the destructive shame-driven attitude the US has towards sexuality.

I think a reasonable moderate start would be removing any restrictions on depictions of mere nudity. My city is already ahead of the game by legalizing public nudity (it is not necessary to wear clothing in public spaces - quite popular for sunbathing at city parks in the summer).

Yes, I think that might be a good idea.

It would normalize sex and make the idea of being ashamed of how we look naked outdated.

At a minimum this seems like something that would result in some interesting science papers.

I would argue it's even less clicks to see violent, disturbing content on YouTube, and we don't require ID checking for that.

In the US, at least, parents seem much more upset about a child seeing a bare female presenting breast than someone being stabbed/shot/killed in a movie.

Movies are rated to try to target the appropriate audience. Do you have a study to corroborate your statement or you're just parroting a popular "gotcha"?