contextPosted on: 09/21/24 08:09PM
As someone unfortunate enough to live in an impacted state (Idaho), some context.
The popular thing in red states now is to pass laws where a thing is declared illegal, and enforcement is handed over to the citizenry by empowering them to sue the providers of the thing to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. This shields the state from legal scrutiny and sticky Constitutional issues, since they're not technically bringing forth criminal prosecution, the citizenry is with civil lawsuits.
In the case of Idaho, the law in question is HB 498 (2024).
legislature.idaho.gov/wp-...024/legislation/H0498.pdfThe TL;DR of the law is:
* Any website where at least one-third of the content is "actual, simulated, or animated displays" of pornographic acts (yep, this includes hentai) is a porn website.
* Any porn website, regardless of whether it's based in Idaho or even the United States, is required to verify the user's age by collecting (but not storing) government ID.
* Failure to do so entitles any Idaho resident to sue the website for not less than $10,000.
* Because this 30-year-old issue is somehow suddenly a moral panic, the law was declared an emergency and went into effect almost immediately without notice.
If you are thinking this is wildly overreaching for a state law and Unconstitutional, you are correct. The various states pushing these laws are in the process of being sued for this very reason. Unfortunately a minority of websites like PornHub folded, albeit with the malicious compliance of just blocking anyone from the impacted states and not collecting ID. This can easily be circumvented by using a free web proxy like ProtonVPN.
Anyhow, please don't humor my stupid state government. Najar's videos are one of my few remaining joys in life. If it comes down to it, just geoblock Idaho and I'll VPN around it.