Eight US states are attempting to ban pornography on modern smartphones. Florida, South Carolina, Maryland, Tennessee, Iowa, Idaho, Texas and Montana are all looking to bar adult content access to their citizens.
Via NBC, these states are following the state of Utah in its attempts to ban access to pornographic content. These states are attempting to force phone manufacturers to censor explicit content by default.
If the bills are passed, manufacturers selling phones in those states would have to enable filters on their devices. The only way to bypass these would be with passcodes that would lift the censorship for a time.
The eight states’ pornography ban has been pitched as a child safety campaign. Under this ban, any adult who supplies a child with a passcode would be held criminally liable, unless they’re a parent.
Utah’s push against pornography may be posed as a push towards child safety, but the state has still failed to regulate one of the biggest safety issues towards children: fully automatic firearms. In Utah, over 400 people have been killed by firearms in 2023 alone, and fully automatic weapons are still available for purchase.
In fact, firearms have become the leading cause of deaths for children in the United States over the past decade. Not only are 19,000 children killed every year with firearms, but over 3 million are exposed to some form of gun violence.
Pornography can have negative effects on the minds of some people, especially those who were exposed too early. However, when American states are continue to see children dying in school and on the streets due to firearms, nothing is happening to stop it.
Yes, pornography is an issue for some, but how many people a year die due to pornography? Only one thing will happen if an anti-porn ban goes through: VPN sales will absolutely go through the roof.