“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession,” Ronald Reagan once remarked. “I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”
The recent news that the porn industry has hired K Street hustlers to seduce federal lawmakers might have struck the Gipper as a bit on the nose, but it wouldn’t have surprised him. Apparently, Big Porn now “needs protection” from Congress. The legislative body of the American people must emphatically reject the overture.
Now might seem a strange time for pornographers to be panicking, given that business has been booming as of late. During the pandemic lockdowns of last year, visits to porn Web sites increased dramatically. On just the adult entertainment site OnlyFans, users spent $2.4 billion, representing a growth in revenue of more than 500 percent.
However, despite the porn industry’s record profits, there are darkening clouds on the horizon. As it turns out, the massive growth in online porn stems partly from a special benefit provided directly by the US government. And lately, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have begun to question the wisdom of providing such protection to one of the most exploitative industries in human history.
The special benefit is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which, ironically, passed in 1997 as part of an anti-pornography bill. The statute gives online platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, immunity from being sued in civil courts for the content hosted on their sites. While this immunity helped give rise to the modern Internet, expanding access to information and facilitating commerce and dialogue, it has also had unintended consequences.
For example, Big Tech giants now rely on Section 230 to avoid consequences for the content that they themselves — as opposed to their users — allow, or disallow, on their platforms. This has helped them shape news and fuel profits.
Section 230 has also been a boon for some of the Internet’s most notorious and salacious actors. Over the past several decades, the explosive growth of online porn “tube” sites has mirrored that of social media. Just like Facebook’s business model, Pornhub’s is only viable because of the immunity from civil liability that Section 230 affords it. With over 1.3 million hours of content uploaded to its Web site every year, avoiding potential liability for that content is not merely advantageous; it’s absolutely necessary.
This is evident once one considers the nature of much of its content. “Adult entertainment” might be a pleasant euphemism, but The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof revealed the reality of Pornhub’s offerings: “Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for ‘girls under18’ (no space) or ‘14yo’ leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.”
Under current law, Pornhub’s only non-moral incentive to remove such content is if contacted by law enforcement. Even then, as long as the flagged content is removed, the site has nothing to fear of any further consequences. Sexually exploited women and children have no legal recourse against Pornhub — or any other tube site. Section 230 provides a virtually impenetrable shield, or better put, a bludgeon to be used by predatory companies against victims of sexual violence.
Democrats and Republicans are taking notice and have begun to discuss reforming Section 230, or even doing away with it entirely. The motivations for doing so vary, from curbing “disinformation” and “misinformation” to discouraging the censorship of conservative perspectives. But there is also a growing, bipartisan recognition that amending the law could additionally help crack down on the porn industry’s abuses and better protect children from psychologically harmful content online.
Even credit card companies have begun to distance themselves from the porn industry. Last year, Visa, Mastercard and Discover separated from Pornhub.
No wonder Big Porn is suddenly running scared and buying up lobbyists. Unfortunately for them, but thankfully for our country, it may be too little too late. Americans are finally waking up to the destruction that the scourge of online pornography has wreaked on our society. Now, it’s time for our elected representatives in Congress to ensure that this evil industry can no longer profit off the victimization of vulnerable individuals.
Terry Schilling is president of American Principles Project.
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