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GOP Dreams of Porn Crackdown
Loves 'Internet Freedom,' Unless There Are Boobies

With the GOP convention this week the party is squaring away and solidifying much of their platform, and hopes to include some "Internet freedom" language aimed primarily at avoiding network neutrality regulations. Techdirt notes that rather hypocritically, at the same time the GOP is professing to love "Internet freedom," they're pushing a part of their platform that will include a significant crackdown on Internet porn, with the party insisting current legal porn distribution is "a violation of current federal (obscenity) law."

The porn platform wording expansion, which is driven in no small part by the Family Research Council and a group called Morality in Media, also calls for mandatory porn filters, something Romney is on record supporting in the past:
quote:
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The broader regulation, submitted by Family Research Council president and Louisiana RNC delegate Tony Perkins, also echoes GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's position on the issue during his previous campaign for the White House. "I wanna make sure that every new computer sold in this country after I'm president has installed on it a filter to block all pornography and that parents can click that filter to make sure their kids don't see that kinda stuff coming in on their computer."
Morality in Media seems particularly thrilled in their press release about the changes to the GOP platform's official wording, calling porn an "untreated pandemic of harm" that causes "porn-induced sexual dysfunction" and an automatic desire to consume child pornography:
quote:
America is suffering an untreated pandemic of harm from pornography, which touches nearly every family in America. Research shows that children and adults are developing life-long addictions to pornography; there is a very substantial increase in demand for child pornography because many adult-porn users are finding that they are no longer excited by adult images; on average four out of five 16 year-olds now regularly access pornography online; 56% of divorces cite Internet pornography as a major factor in the breakup of the marriage; girls consuming pornography are several times more likely to engage in group sex than those who do not; significant and growing numbers of men in their twenties are developing "porn-induced sexual dysfunction."
As Masnick at Techdirt notes, the upcoming Democratic party convention will suffer from plenty of Internet policy hypocrisy of its own, like professing to love Internet freedom even more -- then signing off on every idiotic Internet bill their friends in Hollywood and the recording industry can dream up.

Most recommended from 112 comments


Rekrul
join:2007-04-21
Milford, CT

2 recommendations

Rekrul

Member

...

I long for the day when we can do away with the whole idea of "onscenity". This "I'll know it when I see it" crap is for the birds. I think major parts of religion are obscene. Does that mean I can have it banned?