require all internet-enabled devices to come installed with an anti-porn filter, which adult consumers could choose to have removed for a fee of $20. They're calling it the Human Trafficking Prevention Act.
Haha. I expected a either a link to The Onion or to a Rick Astley video.
Seems like a bad idea. Waste of their time and the taxpayers' money because it creates yet another layer of bureaucracy. It unnecessarily adds costs to consumer electronics as well. Also, it involves censorship--one man's dada is another man's cubism and all that. I know that there are well-established methods of art appreciation, but having to recognize forms for a grade in a class is not the same as having a government censor to officially decide what's what. Not a good precedent.
Moreover, it's ideologically inconsistent. If one really thinks that viewing of pornography is such a great public health crisis for society that there ought to be a law against it, then why have the twenty dollar-licensing option? It's like saying, "Murder is illegal, but if you buy this five thousand-dollar chit, then you can go human hunting with impunity." Either it's bad or it's not. Make up your minds.
The good news is that it was started by a man who actually tried to marry his computer and who has been charged with harassing his daughter as well as a country singer. Not a very inspiring endorsement. I don't think it will get much traction.
