1. I am developing a (positive) Pavlovian reaction to the opening theme music of the podcast. It's the trumpeter heralding the end of the week.
2. I agree with Jen that Matt's 15-second rant was a thing of poetry.
3. I agree with Matt that the jerk registry is bad politics. Not because people will explicitly rally against this, but because the privacy dangers are so obvious to anyone with a scintilla of understanding of how the internet works. They're now looking at the Conservatives like they're the most clueless fools in the world, and I don't think "they" are a particularly small group in Anno Domini 2024.
If the Conservatives are smart, they'll walk away from this at top speed.
I doubt that a CPC government under Poilievre would actually implement age verification on porn sites. In fact, I doubt that he will be talking much about it in the coming months. Rather, he is sending a message to his social conservatives in his base that he has not walked away from them. Given his positions on abortion and gay marriage, they may have started to wonder about supporting him. The present message was about re-energizing, or at least reassuring, that part of the base.
I think that Mr. Poilievre and his "team" realize that it is economic issues that will carry them into office.
while I agree it doesn't jibe with CPC's hands-off approach to governing - I still think we need to do *something* about porn and the ease with which young children gain access
(also continually referring to the 'jerk-off police' really demonstrates how everyone has forgotten that we used to NOT have on-line porn and people did, indeed, jerk off - to late night movies, to smutty books, to sears catalogues, to - gasp! - their imaginations)
but porn today is nothing like the porn of 40 years ago. so-called 'vanilla' porn is being crowded out by weirder and darker stuff (and surely you are aware that, just like the algorithms of FB brought people down political rabbit holes, the algorithms of porn sites lead porn viewers to more violent images)
Now that AI generated child abuse content is being created, I can't see a better time to start talking about the harms of unfettered porn. the CPC's idea is off-brand, and it won't work - but they opened a conversation that I'm glad we are having
On Poilievre's Porn Police: Personally, I think the policy and political problem is the same: It's that the risk v. reward tradeoff of online age-gating is not the same as buying a nudie mag at your local corner store. And I do think most Canadians are smart enough to see that.
But as you pointed out, no one thinks giving kids unfettered access to porn is good. (Also, they are not going to need to set up blackmarket servers to share it - they are going to do it where they already do it: In the GroupChat. And unless you are also going to age rate DMs on Instagram, it will continue).
My advice for concerned parents:
When my eldest got her first phone and chromebook 6 years ago, we bought something called "Circle". It came recommended from a US colleague. It's a little device that links up with our wifi router. It gave a good balance of allowing me to be detailed with restrictions, but it was still user friendly. I have girls so I was really more concerned with time limits than online porn. But it was a good purchase. We read through reddit threads of angry kids who hadn't found out how to break it successfully. My kids tried. It blocked VPNs, and most other attempts to circumvent, it sends the parents a notification. There is better tech for parental controls out there, than most people realize. The only issue was that this controlled only the Wifi in our house. But, I was to cheap to buy my kids data plans for their phones. And the school wifi... I mean, there are a lot of kids sharing porn gifs and pics on school wifi. But probably fewer full videos.
Maybe all we need to do is make Canadian ISPs offer this to parents as standard? Give parents the tools and information, and know that most of them will make good decisions.
G'day folks. Jen and Matt, the porn 'registry' is a maple syrup/poutine issue - make my kid click a button asserting he/she is 18 and good to go just like tobacco and liquor sites. Now, if you want to 'order product' like rum from Ironworks Distillery in Lunenburg (go chek the site out by the way) THEN you need a credit card. Show me a group of parents who are in support of free access to porn for their thirteen year old and you are looking at a real small subset of the population. As for your belief that kids will then film themselves and post it - ah, that ship sailed folks.
I have already commented on Jen's post about JT and his mesianic beliefs but, frankly, that is a Liberal afliction at the best of times along the lines of "what's good for GM is good for the U.S.A." - correct me but Alfred Sloan I believe.
As far as the pendulum swining point, perhaps our politicians (PP for example) are simply seeing that the woke left wing 'everyone a victim' ideology is simply not part of mainstream life in Canada. We were fine with rights for gays and homosexuals, fine with recognizing marriage (though that is a church concept so we should have done 'civil union but I digress), accepting of the issue that residential schools caused harm (though not to all students, let's be clear) but when it is men in women's locker rooms, men beating women in women's sports and all the pronoun stuff plus education as a colonial construct and white's being systemic racisist with unconscious bias (whatever the heck that is) then lines need to be drawn and supporters of those concepts have 'jumped the shark'.
PP is on a role and people are taking a good look at him, seeing his policies being articulated clearly - remember when Stephen Harper listed his six points goals for a Conservative government? and then accomplished them?? Canada is in real trouble economically and socially. Our federal government policies on immigration, refugee accptance (no issue with Ukraine but Mexico??), turning a blind eye to electoral interfeerence, money going to other countries when we have people living on the streets in Canada due to mental health issues and, oh, 60 million spent on an ap that didn't work - the list goes on. As I have said on your comments threads before, I was willing to give JT a chance (though without my vote) but boy was I wrong on that one and more folks are seeing the attempted buying off of the voter with OUR money and is it any wonder a straight talker with ideas that we can understand is leading in the polls?
As to the moratorium on renewables - remind us how all that stuff played out during the cold snap in Janaury when Saskatchewan managed to exceed their throttle on the transfer line to Alberta so that the lights stayed on (yes BC helped as did shutting off lights). People don't seem to realize that wind generation requires electricity to START the spinning blades, can't operate in high winds and are very fragile after -25C (the blades can and do shatter). Solar needs no comment once the sun goes down does it? Alberta will build more renewables and will still lead the country BUT you can't block the view, take up productive farm land to accomplish the unicorn of all renewables. A pause for reflection was needed just like the slow rise to the top of the roller coaster. as you need to really question 'why am I here adn why are we doing this'.
What I am broadly noticing with the coverage on Poilievre's overall statements is that the things he talks about rarely (and in a limited capacity, and only as a response to questions from reporters) gets disproportionately waaay more attention than the stuff he most likes to talk about on a daily basis.
Trans issues and porn firmly fall in the former while housing, affordability and government corruption - very much the CPC's main priorities - fall in the latter category. This disparate coverage was evident in the mainstream media, but now I am disappointed it being reflected here at The Line as well.
I feel like you are way too soft on Trudeau. He's not acting this way because he's been in the job too long. This is just how he is.
Some of the more egregious things that come to mind for me:
1) His phoney feminism schtick. I am apparently in the one demographic that still supports this man, and I am so ashamed of that. When he first came on the scene, he was extremely condescending towards women, and we apparently lapped that up. What is wrong with us?
2) His treatment of Mark Norman. That is something I will never forgive. I am disappointed that so many people seem to have forgotten it.
3) SNC Lavalin. Seems like a lifetime ago.
4) The weirdness around Portapique. He was practically salivating at the opportunity to fit this into his anti-gun agenda.
5) When Covid first hit, he wanted to legislate that the government could do anything for two years. That is not the sign of a normal leader in a democracy.
6) The vaccine mandate, which was a totally opportunistic way to get votes. Canadians were 80% vaccinated, which was the original goal. He should have left it at that.
7) The whole We Charity thing. Again, feels like a lifetime ago.
8) Electoral interference—apparently that was great rhetoric when it suited them and suddenly was not something worth taking seriously when there were indicators that it actually happened.
9) Electoral reform. I was never big on it but respected the hard work of the committee. They actually had me convinced there was some merit to it. But, alas, we know what happened to that.
10) The constant lack of accountability. It's always someone else's fault, according to him.
I could go on, but won't. I just feel like Canadians have become immune to government scandals. That is not good. One advantage to having Poilievre as PM is that people will start holding government to account again. Elected officials are supposed to work for us.
I'm quite frankly surprised at the rancour Pierre is drawing for his stand. It's well known that porn sites siphon off a disproportionate amount of energy to operate, so any move to reduce the amount of energy used on these sites, like installing an age-controlled toll booth, should be welcomed enthusiastically by Guilbeault, Wilkinson and Trudeau. But alas, such simple logic eludes them.
I wish as a country that we could have a civil discussion about the harms to children and women that unfettered access to porn is causing. This should be part of Public Health policy discussions and it would be nice if they would examine what other countries are doing and what the studies are telling us, but that seems like a non-starter under this Liberal government
Am I the only one who thinks it’s adorable that G&G think it is about teens seeking boob pics? As if those aren’t freely available and have even been considered porn since, maybe, the 1950s?
And not about restricting kids’ access to an*l g*ngb*ngs, non-con teen videos, forced-fem material, and other stuff that is truly messing up kids’ perception of what is a healthy sex life?
Thanks for the education on the stupidity of trying to age-gate on-line porn. Being generally in favour of free speech for its own sake, some of the other “reasons not to do this” hadn’t really occurred to me — the one about the anti-long-gun registry folks now wanting to do a long-jerk-registry is classic.
On your other subject as to how Americans look to Canada as a warning signal… one of my other fave SubStacks for a clear-eyed view of US politics is Andrew Sullivan’s The Weekly Dish (also littered with sufficient f-bombs to warm this old sailor’s cold dark heart). This week his main discussion is on Alexei Navalny (shy on f-bombs but a must-read on its own), but for our purposes he always does a weekly digest of “Money Shots”, hardly ever dealing with Canada, but this week we are over-represented by pop with 3 of 10, 2 of them being folks you ref’d, and the 3rd needing no further comment. Your point taken:
“All of the major American medical associations have signed off on [sex changes for kids] and I have never seen those organizations sign off on anything with less information as to whether or not it does long-term harm of anything in my life,” - Dr. Phil McGraw.
“There’s no such thing as parental rights in Canada; there are parental responsibilities. In Canadian family law, the primary responsibility of parents is to support and affirm their kids,” - Randall Garrison, Canadian MP, on sex changes for kids.
“Education is a colonial structure that centres whiteness and Eurocentricity and therefore it must be actively decolonized,” - Toronto School Board on its “core beliefs.”
I don't know if you can get her as a guest, but you should try to ask Poilievre director of communication. I volunteered for her run as candidate in 2019 election, and she already said in 2017 leadership election that she thought that Poilievre would have been her first choice had he run.
When I first heard of porn on the internet (many years ago, obviously), I had to go and see for myself and wow, I saw! I don't know what has changed in the last couple of decades but it seemed like there was a LOT of porn absolutely free just by searching - no credit card required. Sure you could sign up/pay for more but it wasn't necessary if you wanted an eyefull. I don't know if my teen kids accessed it - they're all in their 40's now and I don't feel like asking! I think having some kind of control over your own home network would be a good idea, especially when your kids are young but you might have a difficult time controlling anything outside of the home, as mentioned elsewhere here.
A better question might be why is all policy coming out of Ottawa a replica of what’s coming from EU? Age verification is already well advanced in the EU GDPR and Digital Services Act. Ottawa / S-210 is merely importing it much like they’ve done with health, energy, environmental, and criminal code etc.
That aside, I wouldn’t see the need to backup your Mia Khalifa collection just yet. The focus of any rollout, I expect, would be on the worst of the impacts relating to addiction, violence, revenge porn. Education and awareness would tick the box on this requirement.
For Poilievre to say he didn’t support S-210 would then see him criticized for being in favor of protecting womens spaces/ sports but not for protecting them against sexual violence? That’s incoherent. So damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario. Pick the option most consistent with policy and membership, deal with the outrage, survive the news cycle.
1. I am developing a (positive) Pavlovian reaction to the opening theme music of the podcast. It's the trumpeter heralding the end of the week.
2. I agree with Jen that Matt's 15-second rant was a thing of poetry.
3. I agree with Matt that the jerk registry is bad politics. Not because people will explicitly rally against this, but because the privacy dangers are so obvious to anyone with a scintilla of understanding of how the internet works. They're now looking at the Conservatives like they're the most clueless fools in the world, and I don't think "they" are a particularly small group in Anno Domini 2024.
If the Conservatives are smart, they'll walk away from this at top speed.
I doubt that a CPC government under Poilievre would actually implement age verification on porn sites. In fact, I doubt that he will be talking much about it in the coming months. Rather, he is sending a message to his social conservatives in his base that he has not walked away from them. Given his positions on abortion and gay marriage, they may have started to wonder about supporting him. The present message was about re-energizing, or at least reassuring, that part of the base.
I think that Mr. Poilievre and his "team" realize that it is economic issues that will carry them into office.
while I agree it doesn't jibe with CPC's hands-off approach to governing - I still think we need to do *something* about porn and the ease with which young children gain access
(also continually referring to the 'jerk-off police' really demonstrates how everyone has forgotten that we used to NOT have on-line porn and people did, indeed, jerk off - to late night movies, to smutty books, to sears catalogues, to - gasp! - their imaginations)
but porn today is nothing like the porn of 40 years ago. so-called 'vanilla' porn is being crowded out by weirder and darker stuff (and surely you are aware that, just like the algorithms of FB brought people down political rabbit holes, the algorithms of porn sites lead porn viewers to more violent images)
Now that AI generated child abuse content is being created, I can't see a better time to start talking about the harms of unfettered porn. the CPC's idea is off-brand, and it won't work - but they opened a conversation that I'm glad we are having
On Poilievre's Porn Police: Personally, I think the policy and political problem is the same: It's that the risk v. reward tradeoff of online age-gating is not the same as buying a nudie mag at your local corner store. And I do think most Canadians are smart enough to see that.
But as you pointed out, no one thinks giving kids unfettered access to porn is good. (Also, they are not going to need to set up blackmarket servers to share it - they are going to do it where they already do it: In the GroupChat. And unless you are also going to age rate DMs on Instagram, it will continue).
My advice for concerned parents:
When my eldest got her first phone and chromebook 6 years ago, we bought something called "Circle". It came recommended from a US colleague. It's a little device that links up with our wifi router. It gave a good balance of allowing me to be detailed with restrictions, but it was still user friendly. I have girls so I was really more concerned with time limits than online porn. But it was a good purchase. We read through reddit threads of angry kids who hadn't found out how to break it successfully. My kids tried. It blocked VPNs, and most other attempts to circumvent, it sends the parents a notification. There is better tech for parental controls out there, than most people realize. The only issue was that this controlled only the Wifi in our house. But, I was to cheap to buy my kids data plans for their phones. And the school wifi... I mean, there are a lot of kids sharing porn gifs and pics on school wifi. But probably fewer full videos.
Maybe all we need to do is make Canadian ISPs offer this to parents as standard? Give parents the tools and information, and know that most of them will make good decisions.
Yes, what’s happening to those media outlets, HuffPost and Vice is sad.
But also, yes those people were assholes.
G'day folks. Jen and Matt, the porn 'registry' is a maple syrup/poutine issue - make my kid click a button asserting he/she is 18 and good to go just like tobacco and liquor sites. Now, if you want to 'order product' like rum from Ironworks Distillery in Lunenburg (go chek the site out by the way) THEN you need a credit card. Show me a group of parents who are in support of free access to porn for their thirteen year old and you are looking at a real small subset of the population. As for your belief that kids will then film themselves and post it - ah, that ship sailed folks.
I have already commented on Jen's post about JT and his mesianic beliefs but, frankly, that is a Liberal afliction at the best of times along the lines of "what's good for GM is good for the U.S.A." - correct me but Alfred Sloan I believe.
As far as the pendulum swining point, perhaps our politicians (PP for example) are simply seeing that the woke left wing 'everyone a victim' ideology is simply not part of mainstream life in Canada. We were fine with rights for gays and homosexuals, fine with recognizing marriage (though that is a church concept so we should have done 'civil union but I digress), accepting of the issue that residential schools caused harm (though not to all students, let's be clear) but when it is men in women's locker rooms, men beating women in women's sports and all the pronoun stuff plus education as a colonial construct and white's being systemic racisist with unconscious bias (whatever the heck that is) then lines need to be drawn and supporters of those concepts have 'jumped the shark'.
PP is on a role and people are taking a good look at him, seeing his policies being articulated clearly - remember when Stephen Harper listed his six points goals for a Conservative government? and then accomplished them?? Canada is in real trouble economically and socially. Our federal government policies on immigration, refugee accptance (no issue with Ukraine but Mexico??), turning a blind eye to electoral interfeerence, money going to other countries when we have people living on the streets in Canada due to mental health issues and, oh, 60 million spent on an ap that didn't work - the list goes on. As I have said on your comments threads before, I was willing to give JT a chance (though without my vote) but boy was I wrong on that one and more folks are seeing the attempted buying off of the voter with OUR money and is it any wonder a straight talker with ideas that we can understand is leading in the polls?
As to the moratorium on renewables - remind us how all that stuff played out during the cold snap in Janaury when Saskatchewan managed to exceed their throttle on the transfer line to Alberta so that the lights stayed on (yes BC helped as did shutting off lights). People don't seem to realize that wind generation requires electricity to START the spinning blades, can't operate in high winds and are very fragile after -25C (the blades can and do shatter). Solar needs no comment once the sun goes down does it? Alberta will build more renewables and will still lead the country BUT you can't block the view, take up productive farm land to accomplish the unicorn of all renewables. A pause for reflection was needed just like the slow rise to the top of the roller coaster. as you need to really question 'why am I here adn why are we doing this'.
What I am broadly noticing with the coverage on Poilievre's overall statements is that the things he talks about rarely (and in a limited capacity, and only as a response to questions from reporters) gets disproportionately waaay more attention than the stuff he most likes to talk about on a daily basis.
Trans issues and porn firmly fall in the former while housing, affordability and government corruption - very much the CPC's main priorities - fall in the latter category. This disparate coverage was evident in the mainstream media, but now I am disappointed it being reflected here at The Line as well.
I feel like you are way too soft on Trudeau. He's not acting this way because he's been in the job too long. This is just how he is.
Some of the more egregious things that come to mind for me:
1) His phoney feminism schtick. I am apparently in the one demographic that still supports this man, and I am so ashamed of that. When he first came on the scene, he was extremely condescending towards women, and we apparently lapped that up. What is wrong with us?
2) His treatment of Mark Norman. That is something I will never forgive. I am disappointed that so many people seem to have forgotten it.
3) SNC Lavalin. Seems like a lifetime ago.
4) The weirdness around Portapique. He was practically salivating at the opportunity to fit this into his anti-gun agenda.
5) When Covid first hit, he wanted to legislate that the government could do anything for two years. That is not the sign of a normal leader in a democracy.
6) The vaccine mandate, which was a totally opportunistic way to get votes. Canadians were 80% vaccinated, which was the original goal. He should have left it at that.
7) The whole We Charity thing. Again, feels like a lifetime ago.
8) Electoral interference—apparently that was great rhetoric when it suited them and suddenly was not something worth taking seriously when there were indicators that it actually happened.
9) Electoral reform. I was never big on it but respected the hard work of the committee. They actually had me convinced there was some merit to it. But, alas, we know what happened to that.
10) The constant lack of accountability. It's always someone else's fault, according to him.
I could go on, but won't. I just feel like Canadians have become immune to government scandals. That is not good. One advantage to having Poilievre as PM is that people will start holding government to account again. Elected officials are supposed to work for us.
I'm quite frankly surprised at the rancour Pierre is drawing for his stand. It's well known that porn sites siphon off a disproportionate amount of energy to operate, so any move to reduce the amount of energy used on these sites, like installing an age-controlled toll booth, should be welcomed enthusiastically by Guilbeault, Wilkinson and Trudeau. But alas, such simple logic eludes them.
I wish as a country that we could have a civil discussion about the harms to children and women that unfettered access to porn is causing. This should be part of Public Health policy discussions and it would be nice if they would examine what other countries are doing and what the studies are telling us, but that seems like a non-starter under this Liberal government
Am I the only one who thinks it’s adorable that G&G think it is about teens seeking boob pics? As if those aren’t freely available and have even been considered porn since, maybe, the 1950s?
And not about restricting kids’ access to an*l g*ngb*ngs, non-con teen videos, forced-fem material, and other stuff that is truly messing up kids’ perception of what is a healthy sex life?
Everybody needs the Peter Griffin sponsored, YANKET.
Thanks for the education on the stupidity of trying to age-gate on-line porn. Being generally in favour of free speech for its own sake, some of the other “reasons not to do this” hadn’t really occurred to me — the one about the anti-long-gun registry folks now wanting to do a long-jerk-registry is classic.
On your other subject as to how Americans look to Canada as a warning signal… one of my other fave SubStacks for a clear-eyed view of US politics is Andrew Sullivan’s The Weekly Dish (also littered with sufficient f-bombs to warm this old sailor’s cold dark heart). This week his main discussion is on Alexei Navalny (shy on f-bombs but a must-read on its own), but for our purposes he always does a weekly digest of “Money Shots”, hardly ever dealing with Canada, but this week we are over-represented by pop with 3 of 10, 2 of them being folks you ref’d, and the 3rd needing no further comment. Your point taken:
“All of the major American medical associations have signed off on [sex changes for kids] and I have never seen those organizations sign off on anything with less information as to whether or not it does long-term harm of anything in my life,” - Dr. Phil McGraw.
“There’s no such thing as parental rights in Canada; there are parental responsibilities. In Canadian family law, the primary responsibility of parents is to support and affirm their kids,” - Randall Garrison, Canadian MP, on sex changes for kids.
“Education is a colonial structure that centres whiteness and Eurocentricity and therefore it must be actively decolonized,” - Toronto School Board on its “core beliefs.”
I don't know if you can get her as a guest, but you should try to ask Poilievre director of communication. I volunteered for her run as candidate in 2019 election, and she already said in 2017 leadership election that she thought that Poilievre would have been her first choice had he run.
When I first heard of porn on the internet (many years ago, obviously), I had to go and see for myself and wow, I saw! I don't know what has changed in the last couple of decades but it seemed like there was a LOT of porn absolutely free just by searching - no credit card required. Sure you could sign up/pay for more but it wasn't necessary if you wanted an eyefull. I don't know if my teen kids accessed it - they're all in their 40's now and I don't feel like asking! I think having some kind of control over your own home network would be a good idea, especially when your kids are young but you might have a difficult time controlling anything outside of the home, as mentioned elsewhere here.
A better question might be why is all policy coming out of Ottawa a replica of what’s coming from EU? Age verification is already well advanced in the EU GDPR and Digital Services Act. Ottawa / S-210 is merely importing it much like they’ve done with health, energy, environmental, and criminal code etc.
That aside, I wouldn’t see the need to backup your Mia Khalifa collection just yet. The focus of any rollout, I expect, would be on the worst of the impacts relating to addiction, violence, revenge porn. Education and awareness would tick the box on this requirement.
For Poilievre to say he didn’t support S-210 would then see him criticized for being in favor of protecting womens spaces/ sports but not for protecting them against sexual violence? That’s incoherent. So damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario. Pick the option most consistent with policy and membership, deal with the outrage, survive the news cycle.