A strange confluence of recent events has me thinking about the #economics of #porn. Through legal research for porn/gambling/etc regulation for F-Droid, I saw that porn is illegal in most of the world. Then hearing about 11 year olds I know accessing pornhub scared me and made me hate the internet. It is far too easy to access porn these days. Now, a famous man was arrested for human trafficking, and I read about the "loverboy method", which requires the trafficker spend money up front. 1/
I wonder how effective porn bans in Asia and Africa are? Is it simply a question of making it illegal? Some country's free speech laws would prevent that, like the US 1st Amendment. I think economic regulation would be legal basically everywhere. In Austria, prostitution is legal and highly regulated, and it seems quite successful at harm reduction, at least compared to New York, where it is fully illegal. I'm guessing though, based on what I've seen on the streets, and read in the news. 2/
My gut instinct is that porn is never really a good thing. But I don't have much knowledge on the subject to say conclusively. Seeing that there are unions for sex workers in the US makes me think that at least some sex workers think it is a good thing. Of course, being abused, forced, tricked, etc. is always bad. So I was wondering if the same general Austrian policies for prostitution might work for porn: considered a job in the eyes of the state, the workers get the money, no pimping, etc 3/
That could then mean that something like pornhub can't really exist, since they make money as middlemen or really they are a kind of pimp. Or what if copyright did not apply to porn, but only something like the part of French "droit d'auteur" copyright law where the "author" has certain inalienable rights over the material. That could be used to maintain control over the images of one's own body. I would like to see something like that since it would make the worst porn much less accessible 4/
The real power to control the problems related to porn comes from the payment. If sites can't accept credit cards or build substantial advertising businesses, there will be much less money going to middlemen. For me the open question is how much to be concerned about also making it harder for the performers to get money //
I guess I left out my personal motivation: as the father of two curious boys, I'd love for the #internet to be a place of free exploration again, like I first experienced it in 1994. It is far too easy for an 11 year to find things they can never unsee, or really even understand. And even worse, lots of it is coming from services that are literally trying to hook people and get them addicted.