The Supreme Court's Ruling Practically Wipes Out Free Speech for Sex Writing Online (July 3)

[usonian]

https://ellsberg.substack.com/p/free-speech

Let me know if this has already been posted. I am flat out busy today.


Summary: The Supreme Court effectively nullified the First Amendment for any writers, like me, who include sex scenes in their writing, intended for other adults.

Their ruling green-lighted a wave of state-level laws that allow meddling parents in conservative states to team up with personal injury lawyers to sue people across state lines for untold damages (literally millions of dollars in some current cases) for a single paragraph of sexually-explicit speech on writers’ personal websites, if the parents think might harm the precious eyes and ears of their little munchkins.

In fact, under the laws that the Supreme Court just upheld, prosecutors in Tennessee and South Dakota can even reach across state lines and prosecute writers on FELONY charges for a single paragraph of sexually-explicit writing on my site that they think "harmed" kids in their states, facing up to FIFTEEN years in prison, for failing to implement ID-checks on my dinky little free WordPress site.

(It's unlikely these interstate prosecutions would happen... but just the fact that they could happen, now approved and emboldened by the Supreme Court, means we are in an entirely new and different legal universe when it comes to mature-themed writing online. The First Amendment effectively no longer applies if your speech is online, contains sex scenes, and not behind an age verification wall.)

Now, under this new ruling, Free Speech Coalition vs. Paxton, if I don't ask for and verify your ID on my personal website before sharing even one paragraph of sexually-explicit writing with you, it could lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers' bills and "damages" for the alleged "harm" it caused some kid in Texas or Tennessee whose parents didn't install the proper content filters on their kids' devices.

And since obscenity seems to be in the mind of the beholder, so begins the assault on anything "disagreeable" to magats. And you know what that means.


Lots more:
https://ellsberg.substack.com/p/free-speech
Furious discussion on Hacker News:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44543865 (324 comments)


On edit, it seems to allow or demand that everyone hosting (or posting?) on the internet set up age verification, and this is a monstrously burdensome cost for small operators. IANAL, so this will take lots of analysis.

[msongs]

1. so bibles are gonna be banned or restricted then?

[Beartracks]

4. So a non-Christian could sue under these laws to get all that begatting off the internet? n/t

[DBoon]

2. This will be used to shut down LGBT online resources

Even if sex is not discussed at all, there is a lower standard of proof in civil cases and any RWNJ can file.

[Beartracks]

3. Remember when conservatives used to complain that liberals were sensitive, easily-offended snowflakes?

Turns out that, like with every other claim and complain from right-wingers, it was not really an accusation so much as a confession.

===================

[usonian]

5. EVERY accusation is a confession.

Law of inhuman nature.