Internet Porn Censorship

Ofcom commissioned research has identified (but not named) 2 adult video sharing sharing platforms that are based in the UK. It will be interesting to see how age verification requirements will effect these UK services trying to compete with the rest of world with no such requirements (for the moment).

Ofcom writes:

We are seeking evidence and information related to the new requirements that will apply to video-sharing platforms.

Video-sharing platforms (VSPs) are a type of online video service where users can upload and share videos. VSPs allow users to engage with a wide range of content and social features and are particularly popular among young people. 90% of adults and 98% of children aged 8-15 who use the internet have used a VSP in the past year.

Ofcom will be given new powers this autumn to regulate UK-established VSPs. This will include a duty to ensure that VSPs have in place appropriate measures to protect young people from potentially harmful content and all users from illegal content and incitement to hatred and violence. Services will also need to ensure standards around advertising are met.

This call for evidence sets out the background and legislative context to forthcoming VSP regulation in the UK and an overview of the VSP regulatory framework. It also sets out Ofcom's approach to VSP regulation based around some core principles: protection and assurance; freedom of expression; adaptability; transparency; enforcement; independence; and proportionality.

German authorities have been stepping up their efforts to fine in-country sex workers for posting sexually explicit content on open online platforms like Twitter, forcing them to take down posts on the U.S.-based -- and Free Speech-protected -- sites.

Jessica Klein of Daily Dot explained that the Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media makes it illegal to distribute pornography to which minors have access.

Government censors from a confusing patchwork of censorship bodies in state and local governments have been using that legislation to target sex workers who post sexual content on open platforms like Twitter without an age-verification firewall.

The Daily Dot interviewed Bodil Diederichsen, who works with the Medienanstalt Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein (MA HSH), a regional media censor. Diederichsen was unusually candid about the official efforts to censor sex workers, and said that her unit mainly work off tips, getting notifications from the public about possibly offending content, which also includes hate speech and other violations, before researching it themselves. Ultimately, the German censors target the posters themselves, with threats of hefty fines. Presumably this avchieves more than try to get Twitter to do the censorship.

German law allows the posting on explicit content to what they call a closed user group (i.e., behind some kind of age-verification wall). But in the case of Twitter, the process is at the discretion of these local censorship bodies, like MA HSH.

Pornography and Sexual Aggression: Can Meta-Analysis Find a Link?

• Christopher J. Ferguson, Department of Psychology, Stetson University
• Richard D. Hartley, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, University of Texas at San Antonio

Abstract

Whether pornography contributes to sexual aggression in real life has been the subject of dozens of studies over multiple decades. Nevertheless, scholars have not come to a consensus about whether effects are real.

The current meta-analysis examined experimental, correlational, and population studies of the pornography/sexual aggression link dating back from the 1970s to the current time.

Methodological weaknesses were very common in this field of research. Nonetheless, evidence did not suggest that nonviolent pornography was associated with sexual aggression. Evidence was particularly weak for longitudinal studies, suggesting an absence of long-term effects. Violent pornography was weakly correlated with sexual aggression, although the current evidence was unable to distinguish between a selection effect as compared to a socialization effect.

Studies that employed more best practices tended to provide less evidence for relationships whereas studies with citation bias, an indication of researcher expectancy effects, tended to have higher effect sizes. Population studies suggested that increased availability of pornography is associated with reduced sexual aggression at the population level.

Porn superstar Mia Khalifa has changed her mind about wanting to be a porn star and is campaigning to get her videos taken down seemingly claiming some sort of retrospective withdrawal of consent. Of course all the videos were properly licensed for distribution and the licence holders are not keen on losing a significant revenue stream.

Porn company BangBros are most effected and so are contesting claims that Khalifa had only a short 11 film porn career. Now BangBros have responded with a list of 28 films that feature Khalifa.

Khalifa porn collector's may be interested in knowing the films required for the complete collecton. Based on BangBros' list, Khalifa made seven videos for Scoreland, two for John Stone XXX, one for TR Productions and 18 for Bangbros for a total of 28 videos. The total count has 17 more videos than what Khalifa claimed.

Khalifa also said she only made $12,000 from her short stint. However, in BangBros' responded that the company paid her $178,000. The adult site also debunked her claim that she was only a part of the porn industry for three months because she allegedly started in mid-2014 and only left in July 2017.