ALL INFORMATION AND SITUATIONS IN THIS POST ARE PURELY HYPOTHETICAL AND FOR SPECULATION ONLY.
What do you guys think of the recently enacted Texas SB20 bill?
It seems like they are banning any fictional content, whether it is a real person or not. And its no longer about just intending to promote, but simple accessing is now banned.
So does that mean that one can be prosecuted simply for visiting sites such a gelbooru, hitomi, pixiv, etc.
And how can there be no repercussions for these sites? How can someone be prosecuted for this whenever these sites are based / have servers in the USA and are raking in millions yearly due to ad revenue, memberships, etc.
The stated goal of the law is persecuting AI generated realistic stuff but the wording is EXTREMELY broad and vague, so they could get caught but I think that prosecutions of non realistic content are gonna be more sporadic if they happen
There is precedent of similar laws being declared unconstitutional in Ashcroft vs Free Speech Coalition, and they were arguably less broad laws
On top of that, it conflicts with the generally accepted principle that mere ownership of obscenity can’t be persecuted without distribution
Likelyhood of unconstitutionality is high, BUT:
It’s gonna take time, and in the meantime who knows what’s gonna happen
The current SCOTUS has proven to be quite obtuse, such as overturning previous doctrine and allowing age verification laws for porn sites
I mean the gov. position on USA v. Arthur was that “any drawing of a adolescent girl masturbating” is federal obscenity and accessing and transmitting is prohibited. Defendants lawyer said that position would render Ashcroft pointless and make the Miller test obsolete since they are basing every material of that kind as obscenity automatically. They might not rly care enough to prosecute it aggressively, but they can still get you in a federal court anyways.
The judge disagreed with the prosecution’s position and emphasized that these determinations are case by case. They even singled out a drawing that didnt meet the Miller criteria.
It’s the same type of law as one that was already declared unconstitutional, plus it goes against established principles of US law such as mere possession of obscenity not being illegal unless there’s distribution involved
Not much margin to argue for its constitutionality when it’s this broad
With age verification laws they got away with it by degrading the degree of protection granted to the Internet, but SB20 goes beyond the internet
Yeah, but all the other “cartoon-like, colored” images went through. I listened to the court recording on YouTube and the only reason why one drawing (Count 1) was dismissed was because it was very crude (line drawing) and unlike the other ones it was only depicting a girl masturbating “without visible force”.
Now think about the majority of hentai and you get the idea.
The more I think about the obscenity laws in the USA the more I prefer other countries. You can consume fictional content in more peace in Germany since they only ban public distribution. People transmitting and receiving such content in private is not prohibited, while it is a gray area in the US with an absurd additive penalty system.
Usually I would bring up Finland as an EU example, but they have an obscenity law which can basically also be used to ban fictional content and was considered for use on CLSD.
Sure, but again, this highlighted how not all drawings are automatically obscene. Furthermore, the judge explicitly said the prosecution’s position that any drawing of a child is automatically obscene was incorrect and that it was a case by case determination.
Thomas Alan Arthur had the odds stacked against him because of the other accusations he was not charged of, plus the claims that some of the stories “could have been of real people”.
A man was arrested solely for doll ownership in Texas.
It’s not evil to think that shape cannot make a lifeless object precious. It’s not evil to think that what happens to a doll doesn’t matter. It’s not evil to think that how someone handles a doll within the confines of solitude cannot interfere with anyone’s life. The narratives used to proscribe doll ownership dismiss Occam’s razor and make warrantless assumptions.
The tragedy with these cases is that they will be used to support a continued ban on dolls. “Look all these doll owners had child porn”. It is obvious that these people are caught through the child porn as it leaves traces. Someone who has a doll and is not consuming illegal content is basically impossible to detect if they owned one before it became illegal, or it went through customs unnoticed - so the majority of doll owners being caught will have done horrible shit that make them easy to pick out. That is common sense.
I think these laws are very hard to support morally and constitutionally. From the legal standpoint, we have: Ashcroft v Free Speech Coalition, Lawrence v. Texas, Stanley v. Georgia, and the Reliable Consultants case which came from Texas as well. While a prohibition on distribution is defensible from current precedent, a prohibition on posession is very unlikely to survive constitutional scrutiny. It’s also unlikely to survive as we are not sure the laws apply the Miller test when they say “obscene child-like sex doll”. Even if they were narrowly construed to employ Miller, you cannot criminalize the private possession of obscenity.
The more states that pass these laws, the more it will suck at first, but this increases the chances of a challenge in the courts. I am cautiously optimistic.
I agree with the sentiment of the Ferber decision. The countries those reports come from count cartoons as CSAM. No data link doll ownership to increased harm or victimization. It’s a discreet hobby, so the only news seen is bad news.
Finding illegal content doesn’t make legal content illegal. Cartoons aren’t illegal. It makes sense that one who has illegal content to also have ice cream, cookies, cartoons and a doll as well.
Again, doll ownership is a discreet hobby, so the only news seen, most often, is bad news.
We don’t know that law enforcement has anything except the doll possession to work with for the San Angelo case.
If I had a magic wand, I might make it impossible for one who has illegal content to purchase a doll.