South Carolina Senator Wants To Charge Computer Purchasers $20 To Access Internet Porn

Legal Issues

from the desperately-in-need-of-a-stupidity-filter dept

Oh lord. Another porn blocking bill.

A state senator from South Carolina thinks he can save his constituents from a mostly-imaginary parade of horribles by erecting a porn paywall. Only none of this paywall money will go to porn producers or actors. Instead, it will all go to the fine state of South Carolina… you know, theoretically… if there were actually any way to effectively enforce this.

An Upstate legislator is hoping to prevent anyone who buys a computer in South Carolina from accessing pornography.

State Rep. Bill Chumley, R-Spartanburg, said the Human Trafficking Prevention Act would require manufacturers or sellers to install digital blocking capabilities on computers and other devices that access the internet to prevent the viewing of obscene content.

The bill would fine manufacturers or sellers that sell a device without a digital blocking system installed. But any manufacturer or seller that didn’t want to install the system could pay a $20 opt-out fee for each device sold.

Any buyers who want the filter lifted after purchasing a computer or device would have to pay a $20 fee, after verifying they are 18 or older.

Chumley justifies his stupid idea by saying he’s trying to make a dent in human trafficking, which is the hot new “think of the children” excuse, what with child porn having had the wheels run off it for the last four decades and terrorism all tied up securing Stingrays and MRAPs for cop shops. Here’s how the new “porn, please” monies will be distributed.

The money collected from the fines and fees would go to the S.C. Attorney General’s Office’s human trafficking task force, which works with law enforcement leaders, nonprofits and state advocates to find solutions to trafficking.

What does porn have to do with human trafficking? Only Chumley seems to know. His bill [PDF] provides more verbiage, but nothing in the way of explanation.

Whereas, the State of South Carolina has a compelling interest in protecting the public health and protecting minors from being exposed to obscenity; and

Whereas, studies have shown that pornography is a public health hazard, leading to a broad spectrum of well documented individual impacts and societal harms; and

Whereas, easily accessible pornography on products that are distributed through the Internet is impacting the demand for human trafficking and prostitution; and

Whereas, the General Assembly has a compelling interest to impose a narrowly tailored, common sense filter system that combats the growing epidemic of dissemination of pornographic images and the resulting demand for human trafficking while balancing the consumer’s fundamental right to regulate his own mental health.

Ok, then. So, porn “impacts” the demand for trafficked humans, presumably much in the way strip clubs “impact” the “demand” for rape victims. And that’s preceded by the assertion that “pornography is a public health hazard,” something backed up by “studies” (none named or footnoted, but echoing Utah’s stance), which is every bit as questionable as Chumley’s belief he can drop a $20 porn blocker into every computer sold in the state.

The bill only gets more ridiculous from there. Whatever Chumley has half-assed together here will apparently rest on the big brains of tech companies that will just have to nerd their hardest to appease the senator’s puritanical desires.

Read it and weep [into your palmed face]:

(B)    The business, manufacturer, wholesaler, or individual must:

(1)    make reasonable and ongoing efforts to ensure that the digital content blocking capability functions properly, including establishing a reporting mechanism such as a website or call center to allow for a consumer to report unblocked obscene content or report blocked content that is not obscene;

(2)    ensure that all child pornography and revenge pornography is inaccessible on the product;

(3)    prohibit the product from accessing any hub that facilitates prostitution; and

(4)    render websites that are known to facilitate any trafficking of persons, as defined in Section 16-3-2010(9), inaccessible

So… any site that also contains pornographic images like Imgur would presumably be blocked, even though it isn’t technically a porn site. And any site that might “facilitate” prostitution — which could be any site in reality, but would include everything from Backpage to Craigslist, would also be blocked.

How anyone’s going to proactively block “revenge porn” is beyond me, as no site delivering revenge porn utlizes that term and the many people fighting against it have yet to come up with a cohesive definition, much less one that could be turned into a proactive algorithmic block.

But all hope is not lost. Sites wrongly blocked by the default filter could be removed from the state’s blacklist in as little as five business days, provided two things: the site contains enough non-porn-related virtues that Chumley deems it worth saving, and that the site makes its own proactive efforts to remove “obscene” images — which, it must be noted — is not the same thing as pornography.

Not only will the state need to come up with a blacklist, but it also will have to set up a call center for people to report sites containing porn that aren’t being blocked and to whitelist sites inadvertently caught in the $20 filter.

Users who would like to see porn will at least have to turn over their IDs to computer sellers to verify that they are over the age of 18, along with a $20 bill. Device resellers who violate the law will find themselves subject to the same punishments facing South Carolinians who engage in incest, bigamy, sexual explotation of children, prostitution… um… adultery, buggery, etc. Apparently, the state’s laws were last updated before the New Testament went to press.

If the porn filter doesn’t filter enough porn (and there’s no porn filter being offered by the state — retailers are expected to solve this problem on their own), sellers could be faced with a $500 fine for each image left unblocked.

I would say this bill is on its way to being laughed out of the state Senate, but after viewing the sexual conduct laws still on the books, I’m no longer as sure. For what it’s worth, Sen. Chumley is now an internet laughingstock — something he’s fully earned by coming up with perhaps the stupidest porn filtering idea yet.

Filed Under: bill chumley, first amendment, human trafficking, human trafficking prevention act, porn, south carolina