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a day ago
- Politics
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FTC Pivots From Competition to Children
A Federal Trade Commission (FTC) summit last week on protecting children online previewed an odd pivot. Apparently, the agency wants to be a sort of family values advocacy group. "This government-sponsored event was not a good-faith conversation about child safety—it was a strategy session for censorship," said the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), a trade group for the adult industry. What stands out most to me about last Wednesday's event—called "The Attention Economy: How Big Tech Firms Exploit Children and Hurt Families"—is the glimpse it provided into how the FTC's anti-tech strategy is evolving and the way Republicans seem intent on turning a bipartisan project like online child protection into a purely conservative one. Attacking tech platforms has become a core part of the FTC's mission over the past decade. During Donald Trump's first term as president, these attacks tended to invoke free speech concerns. Whether the weapon of choice was antitrust law or changes to Section 230, the justification back then usually had something to do with the ways tech platforms were moderating content and the idea that this moderation was politically biased against conservatives. Under President Joe Biden, the FTC continued to wield antitrust law against tech companies, but now the justification was that the companies were just too big. Democrats invoked "fairness" and the idea that they were restoring competition by knocking these big businesses down a peg. The way the FTC attacks tech companies has become a window into the larger preoccupations and priorities of different political cohorts. And these days, it's going all in on being a conservative morality machine—in the name of protecting the children, of course. Replace references to social media platforms and app stores with cable TV and video games—or rock music and comic books—and this workshop would have been right at home in any of the last few decades of last century. Even the old right-wing culture war stalwart Morality in Media was there, though the group now calls itself the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE). In fact, most of the panelists came from conservative groups. In addition to the representative from NCOSE, there were folks from the Heritage Foundation, the American Principles Project, the Family Policy Alliance, the Ethics & Public Policy Center, the Family First Technology Institute for the Institute for Family Studies, and Hillsdale College. The speakers also included several Republican politicians and some Republican FTC commissioners. The event barely pretended to be anything other than a right-wing values summit, with panelists laying out their vision for how the FTC and Congress can work together to put conservative values into law. "For years, protecting kids online has been touted as one of the only issues Republicans and Democrats could agree on," notes Lauren Feiner at The Verge. But the FTC's recent event "previewed how that conversation may take a different tone under President Donald Trump's second term—one where anti-porn rules, conservative family values, and a push for parents' rights take center stage." "We have a God-given right and duty to question whether" social and technological change must be looked at with resignation and indifference, said FTC Chair Andrew N. Ferguson in his prepared keynote remarks. Ferguson said that the FTC's job is to protect vulnerable consumers and that this includes children. Protecting kids online will inevitably involve everyone giving up more personal information, he suggested: "We must go beyond the current legal regime, which conditions unfettered access to online services on nothing more than an unverified, self-reported birthdate." Going beyond self-reported age assurances means app stores, social media companies, adult websites, and all sorts of other web platforms checking government-issued IDs, using biometric data, or otherwise engaging in privacy-invading actions. That obviously will affect not just minors but almost everyone who uses the internet, requiring adults as well as kids to give up more personal information. It's a funny agenda item for an agency ostensibly concerned with consumer privacy. Panelists at the FTC conference seemed especially concerned with checking IDs for consumers of online pornography. "The topics of age verification and pornography came up many times over the course of the event," reports the FSC. "Throughout the event, FTC leadership and their allies made plain their intentions to spread unconstitutional age-verification policies nationwide and attack the adult industry's very right to exist." But panelists expressed support for a wide range of federal legislation aimed at age-gating and censoring the internet, including: The , which would require online platforms to "prevent and mitigate" all sorts of online "harms" to minors, from eating disorders to depression to risky spending. The Shielding Children's Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net Act (SCREEN) Act (H.R. 1623 and S. 737), which would create a federal age-verification mandate for platforms that host content deemed "harmful to minors" (a category that includes all porn platforms but could also ensnare a good deal beyond that). The App Store Accountability Act, which would require app stores to verify user ages and restrict downloads for minors who didn't have parental consent. "While framed as a child protection measure, the bill would force app stores to collect sensitive personal data like government IDs or biometric scans from potentially hundreds of millions of users, posing serious risks to privacy, threatening free expression, and replicating the same constitutional flaws that have plagued previous online age-verification laws," write Marc Scribner and Nicole Shekhovtsova, two policy analysts at Reason Foundation (the nonprofit that publishes this website). The CASE IT Act (HR 573), a bill last introduced in 2023 that would take away Section 230 protections for porn websites that don't verify ages. "There are ways to encode certain values into technological design," Michael Toscano of the Institute for Family Studies said on one panel."We have a responsibility as a political, social, and economic matter to ensure that technology is ordered towards human flourishing and the common good." But Americans have many different ideas about what constitutes human flourishing and the common good. And policies mandating that tech companies take the "common good" into account are inevitably going to reflect the version of the common good envisioned by those in power at the time. The idea of human flourishing and common good envisioned by those in favor at the FTC right now seems to recognize few rights and little agency for anyone under the age of 18. In his keynote, Ferguson envisioned a world where the government gives parents total control and surveillance over their children's online activities. "Parents should be able to see what messages their children are sending or receiving on a particular service," he said. "And most importantly, parents should be able to erase any trace left by their children on these platforms, at all levels of granularity, from individual messages to entire accounts." The idea of human flourishing and common good envisioned by those in favor at the FTC right now also leaves little room for adults' sexual freedom. "From bizarre, unscientific claims about porn addiction to denials that the First Amendment protects sexual content, many of the speakers used the spotlight to slander and malign the adult industry," noted the FSC. "The FTC also made it clear that they plan to test the limits of their authority, including by expanding their use of Section 5 of FTC Act (which prohibits 'unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce') to go after targets they disfavor." The idea of human flourishing and common good envisioned by those in favor at the FTC right now doesn't seem too keen on free markets either. FTC Commissioner Mark Meador went on an extended rant comparing tech companies to tobacco companies and calling individual choice a smokescreen for "ever-greater corporate power." The FTC's current anti-tech agenda is explicitly rooted in socially conservative moral values and explicitly hostile to free speech and free markets. It might have a different flavor than the Biden FTC agenda, but it won't be any better for business freedom or for individuals' civil liberties. During closing statements last week in the case against former leaders of the orgasmic meditation company OneTaste, the government showed the jury pictures of the alleged victims—including a picture of a woman named Madelyn Carl. One government attorney mentioned Carl more than two dozen times in her closing. But Carl had not testified as a government witness, and was in fact in the courtroom that day to support defendants Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz. "I do not see myself as a victim of OneTaste, or Nicole Daedone, or Rachel Cherwitz," said Carl in an emailed statement. "Both of those women have helped me in immeasurable ways, and I would be devastated if they got convicted." "My story is my story," she continued. "Obviously it did not fit the government's narrative, so they did not call me as a witness. I joined the OneTaste community by choice, and I remained in the community until I decided it was time for me to move on." The FBI did interview Carl about her time at OneTaste. Afterward, agents prepared a report about the interview that "mischaracterized things I said" and "reframed my story in a misleading way," according to Carl. She also said the FBI offered to pay for therapy if she went through an FBI victim specialist: In the summer of 2022 I reached out to one of the other witnesses for a reference to a therapist but then ultimately ended up declining because the offer that I got back was not something I was interested in. The offer was that the fbi would put me in touch with a victim specialist and pay for my therapy. She said they had offered to pay for her therapy retroactively and would do the same for me. I declined because I didn't want to use a victim specialist. Or process my issues with the fbi. Because I didn't feel like a victim. Carl isn't the only woman involved with OneTaste who feels the FBI tried to paint as a victim despite her objections. Reason talked with two other women—Alisha Price and Jennifer Slusher—who felt pressured by the FBI to say they were victims. You can read their stories here. • The "big beautiful break between Trump and Musk" signals Silicon Valley's wider disillusionment with the Trump administration, writes Yascha Mounk. • "A recent ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is raising the stakes for any business that operates a website collecting user data," reports The National Law Review: In Briskin v. Shopify, decided in April 2025, the court held that California courts can exercise personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state company—Shopify—for allegedly collecting personal data from a California resident without proper disclosure or consent. This decision signals a significant shift in how courts view digital jurisdiction in the age of online commerce and widespread data collection. • How Hollywood studios are quietly using AI. The post FTC Pivots From Competition to Children appeared first on
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Minor's lawsuits against adult sites show new state law is working as intended to protect kids: state AG
Four first-of-a-kind lawsuits in Kansas were filed Monday aiming to hold porn websites accountable for violating state law, which mandates they use adequate age-verification systems. There are no federal laws requiring porn sites to verify a user's age. The suits, filed by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and a Kansas law firm on behalf of a minor child and the child's mother, are groundbreaking. It is apparently the first time a minor is seeking a legal remedy through the provisions of state age-verification laws for pornographic sites, according to NCOSE's general counsel. Kansas is among roughly 20 other states that have enacted age-verification laws for porn sites. Louisiana became the first in 2023. Social Media Giant Hit With Scathing Ad Campaign Amid Anger Over Ai Chatbots Sexually Exploiting Kids "The Kansas law also allows for a private right of action, meaning that private individuals and organizations can bring cases against offending companies or websites," Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach told Fox News Digital. Kobach filed Kansas's first lawsuit in January against a porn site over a lack of age-verification mechanisms, a case that is ongoing. Read On The Fox News App "I think the combination of my office's first action followed by this private action shows that the law is operating as the legislature intended," Kobach said. NCOSE sued on behalf of a minor child, whose mother took numerous measures to ensure her 14-year-old child would not be exposed to pornographic websites but later learned her child was using an old laptop to access the sites. Online algorithms and content-curation processes from these sites' parent companies, or from contractors working for the sites, drove the teenager to at least two of the sites, according to the initial complaints filed with NCOSE. According to NCOSE, pornography is harmful to children because it disrupts the natural formation of children's sexual functions and maturation. Studies have also shown links between pornography and sexual violence and a litany of other health and well-being issues. Gop Lawmakers Target Online Pornography, Propose Interstate Ban On Obscene Content "The parents in this instance thought they did everything right," NCOSE General Counsel Benjamin Bull said. "It's not enough just to try to prevent children from gaining access. It's just a question of when children will gain access. "They'll find a way. It'll either be the kid next door with a kid in school, or an old, you know, thrown-away computer up in the closet some place. And, so, unless these online platforms actually install age verification, this boy's … what's happened to him and what's happened to hundreds of thousands of others is just going to continue and get worse." According to the lawsuits filed Monday on behalf of the 14-year-old, at least one of the four pornographic sites being sued, Chaturbate, ostensibly has an age-verification mechanism, but it can be easily manipulated, and that does not satisfy Kansas' law. Multi Media LLC, Chaturbate's parent company, insisted to Fox News Digital the site "is fully compliant" with Kansas law, calling the lawsuit against it "completely baseless." Porn Case In The Supreme Court This Week Is About Protecting Children, Says Republican Ag "As we explained in great detail to the plaintiff's counsel back in November, the company thoroughly investigated the claim and found the individual was never able to view any explicit content on the company's platform. The platform's ID verification age gate functioned exactly as expected, and the individual's attempts to view adult content without first proving he was an adult were entirely thwarted," a company spokesperson for Multi Media LLC told Fox News Digital. "The company takes very seriously its responsibility to ensure that the platform only publishes material created and viewed by consenting adults," the spokesperson added. "Since the law went into effect, the company has displayed an 'age gate' page to any visitor who arrives on the site from an IP address that is geolocated in Kansas and who has not previously been verified as an adult, by requiring the individual to provide a government issued photo ID." The spokesperson added that Multi Media LLC intends "to seek sanctions" against the plaintiff over its "frivolous complaint," noting that when the company was first contacted about the allegations by the plaintiff in November, Multi Media LLC explained why suing it was baseless. Click Here For The Fox News App But AG Kobach said the lawsuit brought by the mother and son, along with another unidentified "friend" of the family, shows state law is doing its job. "I think the really important point, at least from my perspective, is that laws are working, and companies are being taken to task for marketing this material in a way that minors can get it when there are now technologies out there to prevent that from happening," Kobach told Fox News Digital. The 14-year-old and his mother, with the help of NCOSE and others, are seeking statutory damages of no less than $50,000 per violation in each of their four lawsuits. They are also seeking actual damages, attorney fees and any "further relief" that the court considers article source: Minor's lawsuits against adult sites show new state law is working as intended to protect kids: state AG
Fox News
17-05-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Minor's lawsuits against adult sites show new state law is working as intended to protect kids: state AG
Four first-of-a-kind lawsuits in Kansas were filed Monday aiming to hold porn websites accountable for violating state law, which mandates they use adequate age-verification systems. There are no federal laws requiring porn sites to verify a user's age. The suits, filed by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and a Kansas law firm on behalf of a minor child and the child's mother, are groundbreaking. It is apparently the first time a minor is seeking a legal remedy through the provisions of state age-verification laws for pornographic sites, according to NCOSE's general counsel. Kansas is among roughly 20 other states that have enacted age-verification laws for porn sites. Louisiana became the first in 2023. "The Kansas law also allows for a private right of action, meaning that private individuals and organizations can bring cases against offending companies or websites," Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach told Fox News Digital. Kobach filed Kansas's first lawsuit in January against a porn site over a lack of age-verification mechanisms, a case that is ongoing. "I think the combination of my office's first action followed by this private action shows that the law is operating as the legislature intended," Kobach said. NCOSE sued on behalf of a minor child, whose mother took numerous measures to ensure her 14-year-old child would not be exposed to pornographic websites but later learned her child was using an old laptop to access the sites. Online algorithms and content-curation processes from these sites' parent companies, or from contractors working for the sites, drove the teenager to at least two of the sites, according to the initial complaints filed with NCOSE. According to NCOSE, pornography is harmful to children because it disrupts the natural formation of children's sexual functions and maturation. Studies have also shown links between pornography and sexual violence and a litany of other health and well-being issues. "The parents in this instance thought they did everything right," NCOSE General Counsel Benjamin Bull said. "It's not enough just to try to prevent children from gaining access. It's just a question of when children will gain access. "They'll find a way. It'll either be the kid next door with a kid in school, or an old, you know, thrown-away computer up in the closet some place. And, so, unless these online platforms actually install age verification, this boy's … what's happened to him and what's happened to hundreds of thousands of others is just going to continue and get worse." According to the lawsuits filed Monday on behalf of the 14-year-old, at least one of the four pornographic sites being sued, Chaturbate, ostensibly has an age-verification mechanism, but it can be easily manipulated, and that does not satisfy Kansas' law. Multi Media LLC, Chaturbate's parent company, insisted to Fox News Digital the site "is fully compliant" with Kansas law, calling the lawsuit against it "completely baseless." "As we explained in great detail to the plaintiff's counsel back in November, the company thoroughly investigated the claim and found the individual was never able to view any explicit content on the company's platform. The platform's ID verification age gate functioned exactly as expected, and the individual's attempts to view adult content without first proving he was an adult were entirely thwarted," a company spokesperson for Multi Media LLC told Fox News Digital. "The company takes very seriously its responsibility to ensure that the platform only publishes material created and viewed by consenting adults," the spokesperson added. "Since the law went into effect, the company has displayed an 'age gate' page to any visitor who arrives on the site from an IP address that is geolocated in Kansas and who has not previously been verified as an adult, by requiring the individual to provide a government issued photo ID." The spokesperson added that Multi Media LLC intends "to seek sanctions" against the plaintiff over its "frivolous complaint," noting that when the company was first contacted about the allegations by the plaintiff in November, Multi Media LLC explained why suing it was baseless. But AG Kobach said the lawsuit brought by the mother and son, along with another unidentified "friend" of the family, shows state law is doing its job. "I think the really important point, at least from my perspective, is that laws are working, and companies are being taken to task for marketing this material in a way that minors can get it when there are now technologies out there to prevent that from happening," Kobach told Fox News Digital. The 14-year-old and his mother, with the help of NCOSE and others, are seeking statutory damages of no less than $50,000 per violation in each of their four lawsuits. They are also seeking actual damages, attorney fees and any "further relief" that the court considers fair.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Andrew Tate's Return Is A Huge Win For The Internet's Most Influential Misogynists
Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist and notorious leader of the right-wing 'manosphere,' unexpectedly landed in Florida on Thursday morning after years of imprisonment and house arrest in Romania. Tate and his brother, Tristan Tate, were arrested two years ago for allegedly forming a criminal gang to exploit and sexually assault women. The charges included the alleged rape of a minor. The Romanian government suddenly lifted international travel restrictions Thursday morning, and the Tate brothers promptly boarded a plane for the United States. It's not clear why, or how, this happened, but it followed a pressure campaign from the Trump administration, which reportedly pressed Romanian authorities earlier this month to lift the travel restriction. Trump denied on Thursday during a brief press availability that he was involved in the Tate brothers' freedom. Andrew Tate has been an outspoken supporter of Trump, and the feeling amongst the president's family is mutual; Donald Trump Jr. has described the Tate brothers' imprisonment as 'absolute insanity.' One of Tate's lawyers, Paul Ingrassia, now works in the Trump White House as a liaison to the Justice Department. Whatever happened, the release of the Tate brothers delivers a huge victory to the internet's growing underbelly of incels and men's rights activists, sometimes known as the 'manosphere.' It signals to his millions of fans that the sexual abuse of women won't just be brushed under the rug, but rewarded. A social media star and former professional kickboxer, Tate was at one point the biggest influencer in the manosphere — gaining millions of followers teaching young men how to get rich and have sex with women, while also preaching violence against women. He was triumphant upon his return on Thursday. 'It's extremely important that we stop allowing media spin, ramp-up smears, lies, carefully constructed narratives from George Soros-funded operations trying to destroy the reputations of good people who have no intention to do anything other than to follow the law,' Tate said to a flock of reporters and fans who met him at the Fort Lauderdale airport. But many critics worry that triumph will have disastrous consequences. 'It sends a message that if you have an opinion or political ideology that the people in power like, then it doesn't matter if you sexually abuse and exploit women and children,' said Dani Pinter, an attorney with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) who represents Jane Doe, the only American victim in the Romanian sex trafficking case. Doe accused the Tate brothers of luring her from Florida to Romania in an attempt to sex-traffic her in 2022. She escaped in the middle of the night and reported the trafficking operation to authorities with the help of a friend. Romanian officials later expanded their investigation into the brothers after 35 additional women came forward alleging the rape and trafficking of minors, and money laundering. The brothers sued Doe and her family for defamation after she provided witness testimony in the Romania case. Pinter says Doe is terrified for her safety and is contemplating leaving the country. The support from Trump's inner circle came even though Tate built his star power on violent and misogynistic rhetoric. The 38-year-old has claimed on social media that rape is the victim's fault, and that women become their husbands' property after marriage. He was kicked off the reality TV show 'Big Brother' after a video of him beating a woman with a belt surfaced. (The woman later said the video showed consensual sex.) In one TikTok video, he acted out how he'd attack a woman if she cheated on him: 'It's bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up bitch.' But the manosphere promotes the same type of toxic masculinity and rigid gender roles that Trump has championed for so long. Many manosphere influencers used their platforms to endorse Trump during the presidential campaign and effectively handed him the White House. It's a perfect partnership for a man whose rampant misogyny and disregard for women's humanity has been a signature of his political career. Trump himself has been accused by two dozen women of sexual assault and rape, and just last year a federal jury found him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s. Similar to Tate, he's bragged about sexually assaulting women and has surrounded himself with men accused of committing the same type of violence. Even for a Republican Party that appears fully beholden to Trump, some high-ranking GOP politicians have found Tate's freedom to be unacceptable. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters on Thursday that 'Florida is not a place where you're welcome with that type of conduct.' Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told HuffPost's Igor Bobic on Thursday, 'I don't think conservatives should be glorifying this guy at all, and I certainly don't think that we should be using any influence in our government to try to get him out of what seemed to be extremely serious charges in Romania.' Pinter invited the Trump administration to speak with NCOSE about the case. 'I think it's only fair if they are acting on behalf of the Tates as American citizens, they should act on behalf of Jane Doe who is also an American citizen,' she said. 'At least take her side of the story under advisement, accept the evidence that she has to provide. Because right now, they're only listening to one side of the story.' Igor Bobic contributed reporting. Need help? Visit RAINN's National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center's website. Need help? In the U.S., call 1-866-331-9474 or text 'loveis' to 22522 for the National Dating Abuse Helpline. Trump Is Filling His White House With Men Accused Of Sexual Misconduct Andrew Tate, Who Faces Rape And Trafficking Charges In Romania, Arrives In The U.S. Police Raid Andrew Tate's Home In Romania As New Allegations Emerge Involving Minors
