A bill in Congress could temporarily require the removal of all existing porn online, reports Reason Magazine. Eventually, porn would go back online, with the biggest porn purveyors posting it first, because the bill imposes regulatory burdens on porn providers, which the biggest ones would find cheapest to comply with on a per-user basis, and on a per-performer basis. Right now, porn is so abundant on the internet that it is basically free. Websites that display porn make their money mostly by showing advertising to visitors, rather than charging users for access.
But if the bill, known as the PROTECT Act, passes, porn providers may seek to recoup costs by embedding more advertising in porn videos, and in some cases, charging for access.
Other web sites that are not what most people view as pornographic also may be impacted by the legislation, because of the legislation’s broad definition of porn.
Foreign porn web sites may simply ignore the legislation, which could shift traffic from U.S. porn web sites to foreign porn websites.
The bill requires documentation that porn images are consensual, and defines consent narrowly:
The bill defines “coerced consent” to include consent obtained by leveraging “economic circumstances”—which sure sounds like a good starting point for declaring all sex work “coercive” and all consent to it invalid. (Under that definition, in fact, most jobs could be considered nonconsensual.)….
under the PROTECT Act, platforms that failed to take down existing porn (defined broadly to include “any intimate visual depiction” or any “visual depiction of actual or feigned sexually explicit activity”) would open themselves up to major fines and lawsuits.
In order to stay on the right side of PROTECT Act requirements, tech companies would have to collect statements of consent from anyone depicted in intimate or sexually explicit content. These statements would have to be submitted on yet-to-be-developed forms created or approved by the U.S. Attorney General.
And the law would “apply to any pornographic image uploaded to a covered platform before, on, or after that effective date” (emphasis mine).
Since no existing image has been accompanied by forms that don’t yet exist, every existing pornographic image (or image that could potentially be classified as “intimate”) would be a liability for tech companies…..Targeting companies that serve as conduits for any sort of intimate imagery, the PROTECT Act would subject them to so much bureaucracy and liability that they may reasonably decide to ban any imagery with racy undertones or too much flesh showing….
Under the PROTECT Act, all sorts of sex workers—people who appear in professional porn videos produced by others, people who create and post their own content, pinup models, strippers and escorts who post sexy images online to advertise offline services, etc.—would have to turn over proof of their real identities to any platform where they posted content. Sex workers and amateur porn producers would have their real identities tied to any online account where they post….
it doesn’t stop at sex workers (these things never do) or amateur porn producers. The PROTECT Act’s broad definition of porn could encompass boudoir photos, partial nudity in an artwork or performance, perhaps even someone wearing a revealing bathing suit in a vacation pic.
To show just how ridiculous this could get, consider that the bill defines pornography to include any images where a person is identifiable and “the naked genitals, anus, pubic area, or post-pubescent female nipple of the individual depicted are visible.”
If your friend’s nipple is visible through her t-shirt in a group shot, you may have to get a consent form from her before posting it and to show your driver’s license and hers when you do. Or just be prepared to be banned from posting that picture entirely, if the platform decides it’s too risky to allow any nipples at all.
