“I Found Pornhub Anyway”

Decency, ,

I was ten years old when I watched porn for the first time. I found myself on Pornhub, which I stumbled across by accident and returned to out of curiosity. The website has no age verification, no ID requirement, not even a prompt asking me if I was over 18. The site is easy to find, impossible to avoid, and has become a frequent rite of passage for kids my age. . . . Today I’m 16, and my peers are suffering from an addiction to what many call “the new drug.” Porn is the disastrous replacement for intimacy among my sexless, anxiety-ridden generation.

Homeschooler Isabel Hogben from Redwood City, California, recently wrote those words as part of an eye-opening essay at The Free Press.

Hogben argues that pornography is not free speech and it is not content. It’s a dangerous substance, and it must be controlled like one.

Among other things, Hogben describes how extreme today’s pornography is compared to porn produced in years past. 

She also notes that porn consumption harms adolescent brains that are still developing, and she highlights research that shows pornography’s effects on the brain are identical to drug addiction.

“It’s as much a dangerous substance as illicit drugs,” she writes.

Hogben’s essay — which you can read here — underscores why it is so important that the Arkansas Legislature passed restrictions on pornographic websites this year.

Act 612 of 2023 by Sen. Tyler Dees (R – Siloam Springs) and Rep. Mindy McAlindon (R – Centerton) requires pornographic websites to use age verification to ensure their users are 18 or older.

The law, which took effect on August 1, prompted PornHub to disable access to its website from Arkansas.

Technology has given children unprecedented access to pornography, and Family Council is deeply grateful to Sen. Tyler Dees and Rep. Mindy McAlindon for sponsoring Act 612 and to the members of the Arkansas General Assembly for overwhelmingly supporting the passage of this good law.

Act 612 of 2023 may be one of the best laws that the Arkansas Legislature enacted this year, because it’s going to help protect children in the state from harmful content online. That’s something to celebrate.

You Can Read Isabel Hogben’s Entire Essay Here.

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Guest Column: Marijuana and Teen Suicide

Marijuana

By John Stonestreet

A feature of life in Colorado is the prevalence of pot. There are dispensaries on virtually every corner, and everywhere I travel I hear a pot joke. Something else my adopted state is becoming known for is the harmful aftereffects of legalized marijuana. According to state statistics, the drug was found in the system of some 42% of teen suicides, a rate nearly twice as much as with alcohol and four times of any other substances.  

Of course, correlation doesn’t mean causation, but it can mean connection. If nearly half of stroke victims were taking the same medicine, would we wonder if there was a link? Why the reluctance to connect the dots here?  

Marijuana might not cause suicide, but numbers don’t lie. It encourages or exacerbates problems that lead down that deadly road, especially for a group at high risk. The link is there for those willing to see it. Since suicide rates have risen every year that it has been legal, we’re far past giving the benefit of the doubt.

Copyright 2023 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

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Federal Judge Blocks State of Arkansas’ Parental Consent Requirements for Social Media

Social Media, Technology, , , ,

On Thursday a federal judge in Fayetteville blocked the State of Arkansas from requiring social media companies to obtain parental consent before letting children use their products.

In April the Arkansas Legislature passed the Social Media Safety Act — a good law by Sen. Tyler Dees (R – Siloam Springs) and Rep. Jon Eubanks (R – Paris) requiring major social media companies to ensure minors don’t access social media platforms without parental consent. A social media company that violated the law could be held liable.

In response, tech giants — such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok — as well as the ACLU have asked the federal courts to strike down the Social Media Safety Act as unconstitutional.

On Thursday U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks in Fayetteville blocked the state from enforcing this good law.

Among other things, Judge Brooks’ ruling claims that Arkansas’ Social Safety Act is unconstitutionally broad and vague, and that most social media content is not “damaging, harmful, or obscene as to minors.”

Social media platforms are a product created and managed by social media companies — and more and more evidence shows that social media is harmful to children.

In May the U.S. Surgeon General released a health advisory highlighting the dangers of social media use by children and calling on lawmakers to take action.

The advisory noted that, “Social media may perpetuate body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, social comparison, and low self-esteem, especially among adolescent girls,” and it encouraged policymakers to take steps to strengthen social media safety standards and limit social media access in ways that make it safer for children and better protect children’s privacy.

Right now, the State of Arkansas is suing Chinese company ByteDance — the parent company of TikTok — for allegedly violating Arkansas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

The State of Arkansas has alleged that that the social media giant failed to fully disclose that TikTok is subject to Chinese law — including “laws that mandate secret cooperation with intelligence activities of the People’s Republic of China” — and that that TikTok “routinely exposes Arkansas consumers’ data, without their knowledge, to access and exploitation by the Chinese Government and Communist Party.”

If that’s true, then that means TikTok might not be respecting the privacy of the millions of teenagers who use TikTok. That’s a serious problem.

The adults who operate these social media platforms should not be able to register children as users and let children post photos and videos on their platforms without parental consent. 

Arkansas’ Social Safety Act is a good law that respects parental rights and protects children online. We believe higher courts will recognize that and uphold this law as constitutional.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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