Comment by wizzwizz4

7 days ago

There's a difference between "good" and "not harmful". I would not encourage children to watch porn (if it came up in conversation, I'd dissuade them or change the subject); however, it's a fact that they do – to the point my peers did not believe me when I told them I didn't. There is such a thing as harm reduction, and there's a point past which "teaching children that their feelings are not harmful nor wrong" is more important than the veneer of propriety.

But, noted. That's excellent feedback.

To steal your wording from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44728577: if some children are going to seek out porn no matter what we do, better for the first thing they find not to be "content that demeans women and distorts their worldview on sex and relationships". If the Online Safety Act effectively prevented children from being exposed to that, then I would be ambivalent about it – but the law clearly won't achieve any of its stated goals. (I suspect bad porn is clearly-defined enough to prohibit directly, with cigarette-style prohibitions on making attractive to children sufficient for the respectful stuff, but I expect many people to call any ban "draconian".)