Does 'rape culture' accurately describe (many) societies?

[Poem]

I am not missing the point, you are. The point is clear - banning and making it a crime to watch, access or even receive child abuse "pornography" does not stop people from making and accessing such material. Therefore, banning all pornography will not prevent people from making and accessing pornography. What you want to happen - pornography to be totally banned - will not achieve what you want i.e. will not stop people accessing pornography.

I am well aware of that fact and it has already come up; I mentioned slavery. I asked if banning slavery was the right thing to do.

 

[theprestige]

What?

Here you go:

Education cannot compete with what social media + algorithms exploit about human psychology.

 

[Darat]

I am well aware of that fact and it has already come up; I mentioned slavery. I asked if banning slavery was the right thing to do.

So what are your suggestions to stop people accessing pornography?

 

[Poem]

Oh, okay, so it's just politicians bloviating. No actual emergency is being declared or acted on.

Since when are police chiefs politicians?

 

[Poem]

I don't know about the article iteself, but the headline at least is a lie. The Internet is observably not "overrun" with such material.

Evidence?

(But like I've been saying, large swaths of the Internet are something like "overrun" with other kinds of manipulative and anti-social brainrot aimed at children. Remember the controversy about banning TikTok? Where was the NYT then, talking about a platform overrun with toxic crap? Nowhere. The NYT is not an authority on anything as far as I'm concerned. You need to stop these hand-wavy appeals to authority. You cannot use the ersatz opinions of others, to make your case by proxy. The best you can do is say that you found the claims of this police chief or that media outlet convincing, and let others make up their own minds.)

That's right, the NYT isn't an authority - but in the absence of expert counter argument it seems likely to be true...and it isn't just the NYT saying it.

 

[Poem]

So what are your suggestions to stop people accessing pornography?

I have already accepted that porn will never go away. We ban porn like we ban slavery. We make a stand. That is all.

 

[Poem]

Ah. Opinion...

I asked - IS THERE? Yes, my voice got louder.

 

[theprestige]

Since when are police chiefs politicians?

Since always. Chief of the police force has always been a political position. But that's not the point. The point is that I'm dismissing this rhetoric from this person because I don't find it authoritative.

 

[Poem]

Since always. Chief of the police force has always been a political position. But that's not the point. The point is that I'm dismissing this rhetoric from this person because I don't find it authoritative.

It's not one person.

If you want to present some evidence of your conclusions nobody is stopping you.

 

[Poem]

Do porn consumers have a bias when talking about the rights and wrongs of it?

 

[theprestige]

Evidence?

Hypothesis. If the Internet were "overrun" with such material, then we would see certain things.

• You and I would be stumbling across it all the time, in our normal websurfing.
• Avoiding/blocking/reporting such material would be touted as a key feature of anti-virus, ad-blocking, and vpn products.
• Half a dozen commentary YouTubers with over a million followers each would have each done a piece on it by now.

We don't see any of those things, ergo, the headline is full of ◊◊◊◊. I've seen more articles and commentary about the child-exploitive stuff that is overrunning large swaths of the Internet, than I have about whatever scourge the headline editor imagines has swamped us all.

 

[theprestige]

Do porn consumers have an bias when talking about the rights and wrongs of it?

Tell us what you think. Tell us if you think there's a bias. Tell us how you think it affects their arguments. Tell us how you think it affects your conclusions about their arguments.

 

[3point14]

I asked - IS THERE? Yes, my voice got louder.

So, you'd like me to present a conflicting opinion?

Where do you think that gets us? We could then spend another 15 pages arguing about who has the better expert?

I did try to explain to you why all of those you have presented opining about things have understandably skewed samples and, indeed, skin in the game. A social worker, in the course of their work, encounters very few well adjusted families and is therefore likely to assume that the vast majority of families are not well adjusted. A police force will, naturally, provide an opinion that will, if acted on, give them more money/power/prestige. I just don't think that you understand that opinions are not, to me, evidence. At best they are anecdotal.

You really, really don't know how this works, do you? I mean, I don't claim to understand it particularly well, but well enough to know that, and forgive me here, you're just not very good at debate. You don't know how it's supposed to work.


Oh, and there really, really is no need to shout. Shouting doesn't, in any circumstances, make your argument, such as it is, more valid.

 

[Helen]

I have never watched any porn on the internet (nor has any been suggested to me; you have to go looking for it to find it) - not into watching, so atypical female according to research; women read erotica, men watch porn - am I unbiased?

 

[dirtywick]

early in the thread poem cited many experts and studies on porn that made a variety of claims about the sites. you can simply go on the sites and observe many of these claims were misleading and false.

so i would say, like most things, if you have no familiarity with the topic, have a preconceived idea about it, and are relying on experts that agree with your conclusion to back you up, you’re in a bad place as far as making a convincing argument goes.

 

[Myriad]

As I said, this is not my definition of porn.

Until you clearly state what IS your definition of porn, there's no point in discussing banning it. To ban something you would have to be able to define it.

 

[Poem]

early in the thread poem cited many experts and studies on porn that made a variety of claims about the sites. you can simply go on the sites and observe many of these claims were misleading and false.

so i would say, like most things, if you have no familiarity with the topic, have a preconceived idea about it, and are relying on experts that agree with your conclusion to back you up, you’re in a bad place as far as making a convincing argument goes.

I got the 90% figure wrong and said so. That 90% of porn isn't violent isn't exactly a victory for porn advocates. I have cited other studies as well.

 

[theprestige]

That 90% of porn isn't violent isn't exactly a victory for porn advocates.

Really? That seems like a huge victory to me. It's estimated that 90% of movies are violent. Estimates for TV shows are around 60-70%. It seems like the public appetite for violent porn is extremely low. Don't want to normalize violence? Advocate for more kids to watch porn.

 

[Poem]

Really? That seems like a huge victory to me. It's estimated that 90% of movies are violent. Estimates for TV shows are around 60-70%. It seems like the public appetite for violent porn is extremely low. Don't want to normalize violence? Advocate for more kids to watch porn.

Now tell us how serious you are with this.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I don't know about the article iteself, but the headline at least is a lie. The Internet is observably not "overrun" with such material.

(But like I've been saying, large swaths of the Internet are something like "overrun" with other kinds of manipulative and anti-social brainrot aimed at children. Remember the controversy about banning TikTok? Where was the NYT then, talking about a platform overrun with toxic crap? Nowhere. The NYT is not an authority on anything as far as I'm concerned. You need to stop these hand-wavy appeals to authority. You cannot use the ersatz opinions of others, to make your case by proxy. The best you can do is say that you found the claims of this police chief or that media outlet convincing, and let others make up their own minds.)

I see just as many if not more adults wondering around staring at their phones as children, who often have someone who occasionally takes it away.

Here you go:

Google's AI summary:

How Algorithms Tap into Psychology

• Reward System Activation:
  Algorithms exploit the brain's dopamine-driven reward system by providing intermittent rewards, like "likes" and notifications, which can lead to addiction and prolonged engagement.
  
  
• Leveraging Biases:
  They amplify content that aligns with human biases, particularly "PRIME" information (prestigious, in-group, moral, and emotional), which we are evolutionarily predisposed to learn from.
  
  
• Exploiting Social Motives:
  Algorithms cater to fundamental human needs for connection and status by facilitating social interaction and providing social feedback (likes), influencing self-esteem and posting behavior.
  
  
• Personalization and Engagement:
  By predicting user preferences based on their interactions, algorithms deliver personalized content to maximize clicks and engagement, keeping users on the platforms for longer.

Psychological & Societal Consequences

• Mental Health Impacts:
  Algorithms can fuel negative social comparison, addiction, poor sleep, anxiety, and depression, particularly affecting young people.
  
  
• Polarization and Misinformation:
  They contribute to the spread of fake news and hate speech by promoting extremist content and fostering filter bubbles or echo chambers where users are primarily exposed to belief-consistent information.
  
  
• Warped Information Environment:
  The amplification of PRIME information, often exploited by individuals and groups, can lead to an oversaturation of negative content, hindering cooperation and creating a distorted view of reality.

What might we do about this?

Mitigating Negative Impacts

• Digital Literacy:
  Fostering a better understanding of how algorithms work can empower users to critically engage with content.
  
  
• Healthy Social Media Practices:
  Encouraging moderation in social media use, such as limiting screen time, can help reduce negative effects on well-being.
  
  
• Ethical Platform Design:
  Advocating for more responsible algorithm design that prioritizes well-being over engagementand incorporates "bridging" mechanisms to counter divisiveness can create more positive online social spaces.

The first two are like telling gamblers to "stop when the fun stops". The last is only going to come about by making not doing it hurt the bottom line of the companies.

Actually I think my idea of making Pornhub's tax bill inversely proportional to the deviation between the content that it serves to users and what we teach children in sex education is the way to go.

Social media companies only care about one thing: profit. Use that to align their interests with those of broader society. No need to ban any content at all, just categorisation and counting clicks.