Welcome To The Prude Internet: No More Sex Talk Allowed

While we talk about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, we almost never talk about any other section of the law. And there's a good reason for that, a few years after it was put into law, every other part of the CDA was ruled unconstitutional. The original part of the CDA that is no longer law included criminalizing the knowing transmission of "obscene or indecent" messages to anyone under 18 or anything "that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs." The Supreme Court, rightly, judged that this was a clear 1st Amendment violation.

However, with last year's passing of FOSTA beginning to eat away at CDA 230, we're actually moving back to a world described in the original CDA -- where plenty of "sexual" content is being barred, in part out of a fear of getting sued under FOSTA. Take for example, the writer Violet Blue, who we've linked to many times in the past. Last week, she revealed that Amazon has now cut off her Associates' account, which she had been using to support herself for years.

Amazon just terminated my Associates account and said it will not pay me any outstanding fees it owes me. The reason is "because the content [on @tinynibbes] promotes unsuitable activity." This affects ALL my books and book links everywhere, over a decade of linking. pic.twitter.com/ZaS9znYnhY

- Violet Blue(R) (@violetblue) March 28, 2019

Blue writes about sex. That's her beat and she does a great job writing about it, and all sorts of issues related to it (including, FWIW, writing about the impact of FOSTA on sex workers). And, because of that, basically every major internet company is now banning her:

Because I write about sex, I can't use:
Amazon Associates
PayPal/Square
MailChimp
Wordpress dot org
Google / Facebook ads
Most web hosts
Apple/Play

- Violet Blue(R) (@violetblue) March 28, 2019

It's not clear how much of this is directly related to FOSTA, though certainly some of it likely is. When there's risk of massive liability, the easiest move is just to ban anything that might trigger liability. And thus, we get censorship.

But it also means that the internet that we all get is a very prude one, where any discussion of sexual content is now suddenly not allowed. It is, in other words, returning us to the world of the original Communications Decency Act -- the very one the Supreme Court properly tossed out as unconstitutional, recognizing just how much important content would be barred from the internet.

And while some may argue "good riddance," that is both silly and closed-minded. Even leaving aside the question of "indecent" content, what Blue writes about is educational, not indecent or prurient. But, because it merely touches on sex, it gets banned. And that means that many people who might otherwise learn about important information cannot because it's considered too risky for the internet. The internet loses much of its usefulness when it's judged on the standards of the most prude and most uptight. And, tragically, that's where we're increasingly heading.