The “Boogie Man” concept is a useful tool for deterring children from doing things they aren’t supposed to do or to teach them to fear wrongdoing. Negative...
Category: Internet platforms
Beyond censorship: the case for a flexible standard
Recently I watched a video of a naked twelve year old girl—a victim of child sex trafficking—being slapped around by an adult who was attempting to photograph her. In...
Furry fandom: untying the knot
Are you comfortable in your own body? Or sometimes, when you close your eyes and dream, do you imagine yourself in a different body—perhaps not even a human body, but...
FOSTA: you’re hurting the people you want to help
On
paper, FOSTA was supposed to be about protecting people like me.
During 2017, when the proposed law was still called SESTA (Stop
Enabling Sex Traffickers Act), I was 17...
Harry Potter and the Death Eaters at the United Nations
You know what’s really awesome? Stepping out of your boring real life and into a whole new world where you get to hang out with friends, go on adventures, and defeat bad...
Is censoring online porn the best way to keep children safe?
If we want to make sure children are safe online, let's stop them watching porn.
Does that sound like a sensible proposal? Or even a realistic one? While, on reflection, such a proposal seems a...
Tumblr’s adult content ban is an admission of defeat
In a blog post yesterday in which Tumblr announced that it would ban adult content from the site come December 17, it took pains to point out "something that should not be confused with today’s...
Should we Kik anonymous messaging to the curb?
Kik is a messaging app launched by Canadian company Kik Interactive in 2010. It is free of monetary cost to users, but is not a basement operation; Kik Interactive has received over $120 million...
Defending Lolita from censorship
Lolita was never officially banned in the United States, although it was banned in France where it was first published in 1955, and in several other countries. Yet today, although the novel...
FOSTA and the alt-right are censoring speech about child protection
The proponents of the anti-trafficking law FOSTA have claimed (falsely) that since passage of the law there has been a 90% fall in the number of sex advertisements published online. But whatever...