By admin 
It’s going to be a bad election for sex and technology. I don’t need a crystal ball of 2024 election results to make that prediction with confidence. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both have a history of making bad moves in this area, and they both have legions of supporters eager to make even worse moves in the future.
Who would be worse from a libertarian perspective? Good…
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Trump is said to be worse on sex policy
Let’s start with sex.
Harris has a history of crack down on sex work and opposes its decriminalization. She has been a strong advocate of weakening Section 230 — the federal communications law that, among other things, helps shield web platforms from any liability for user content — to allow them to target platforms that allow sex work advertising. They routinely spread untruths about the sex work-friendly advertising platform Backpage and as attorney general of California, she twice arrested the founders on absurd pimping charges that a federal judge twice dismissed. Later, as a senator, she was one of the co-sponsors of the law that would become that FOSTwhich made life harder for sex workers and severely chilled all kinds of sexuality-related content online. Harris also has a history of spreading panic around sex trafficking, including presenting a fake story about sex trafficking as reality.
Trump signed FOSTA into law. He represents a party for which an influential core wants to ban pornography, and members of that party have a plan to do so through the “backdoor” route of age verification laws. He has repeatedly spread falsehoods about sex trafficking at the southern border and sex trafficking by undocumented immigrants, and its supporters have peddled some absolutely insane sex trafficking conspiracy theories, like QAnon. Trump also represents a party full of people who try to define all kinds of LGBTQ content as “harmful” to minors and limit access to it on those grounds.
That said, neither Harris nor Trump appear to be personal animated by widespread hostility toward sex work, LGBTQ people, sex workers, or sexuality in general. To both, any attack on these matters seemed opportunistic rather than ideological. Harris used the then-popular issue of sex work ads and Backpage to gain national attention. Trump is using an alleged epidemic of sex trafficking across the border to advance his anti-immigration agenda. And so on.
This isn’t great by any means; indeed, I would call it quite despicable. But it is qualitatively different – and bodes better for sex policy – than situations in which politicians seem to be driven by a deep personal or ideological aversion to sex in the public sphere.
If I had to speculate, I’d say Trump probably has less dangerous personal beliefs on this front, like Harris corpses to truly foster a paternalistic attitude towards sex workers.
But Trump almost certainly is more of a threat to healthy sex policy than Harris, simply by virtue of the fact that he represents the Republican Party. Hysteria around sex is certainly a bipartisan phenomenon, but conservatives are still far behind on this front. And while Trump is politically idiosyncratic on some issues, he tends to fall prey to some of the strange fixations of those around him. Be that as it may, I find it unlikely that he would, for example, veto an attempt at federal age verification for porn platforms or restrict books about sex in libraries as a GOP-controlled Congress send it his way.
And if we broaden our focus here to include issues like contraception and abortion in the realm of sex policy, a Trump presidency looks even worse. Harris has some bad ideas about who has to pay for condoms and other forms of contraception, and that could drive up costs. But on balance, a Harris presidency would generally be good for reproductive freedom.
A Trump presidency would not do that. While Trump be able to have no personal desire to ban abortion nationwide (he has a checkered history about this), to restrict access to mifepristone, or to make it harder for people to access contraception or assisted reproduction, it is infinitely more likely that he will appoint both judges sympathetic to some or all these matters, as bills will be signed that will protect reproductive freedom.
With technology, it’s harder to tell who is worse
Let’s move on to technology policy and, by extension, speech policy.
Both Harris and Trump represent parties that are hungry for more technical regulation. Both Republicans and Democrats want to use the federal government to “break up” big tech companies. Both parties strive for more control over online speech. And both the Biden/Harris and former Trump administrations have a history of attacking Section 230, attacking TikTok, and generally being hostile to popular technologies and/or technologies that enable free speech.
This is especially concerning in light of the fact that the president can actually have a significant effect on technology policy, in terms of who he or she appoints to agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). in terms of executive orders telling federal agencies to prioritize certain types of regulations and enforcement.
President Joe Biden’s FTC has been incredibly hostile to tech companies, driven by Chairman Lina Khan’s staff antitech antitrust agenda. And while it’s not a given that Harris will keep Khan around, Harris has so far refused to indicate otherwise — even in the face of some Democratic bigwigs. encourage her to do so. “On calls with her staff and at fundraisers, deep-pocketed donors have repeatedly named Khan as someone who is holding back the tech sector and other lucrative parts of the economy,” Bloomberg reported in September. But “no clear communication has been given to donors about Harris’ position on Khan.”
The Trump administration was bad too in taking questionable antitrust actions against tech companies, but it hasn’t been nearly as productive on this front as Democrats have been in recent years. I think a Harris FTC is more of a technological threat than a Trump FTC.
The slight advantage for Harris here is that because she is from California – and specifically the San Francisco Bay Area – she has a lot of support in the tech industry and is under pressure not to pursue policies that could hurt the industry .
Meanwhile, Trump has a long history of bad actions in the field of technology. He wanted the FCC to undermine Section 230. He urged Congress to pass legislation limiting or eliminating Section 230. He tried to kill TikTok. And yet he has done so ever since turned itself around as for that, it’s unclear whether this marked a real change of heart or was just an attempt to defeat Biden, who signed an anti-TikTok bill into law.
Trump has real authoritarian instincts when it comes to media and online platforms he doesn’t like – which was recently highlighted in his comments about taking broadcasting permits from TV news channels that he believes are too partisan. I have no doubt that a Trump 2.0 presidency would result in extreme efforts to destroy free speech and internet freedom through executive and regulatory actions.
But the Democrats did no particular love for freedom of expression online or. Democrats in general, and the Biden/Harris administration in particular, have a history of attacking online speech under the auspices of limiting ‘misinformation’ or ‘hate speech’ (two categories that lend themselves to vague and opportunistic definitions – and are generally protected by the First Amendment). I don’t think any sensible observer would describe Harris as a great advocate of freedom of expression, online or otherwise.
Trump has worse impulses when it comes to issues surrounding speech and technology, and he will try to implement worse policies. The advantage of this is that his efforts on this front are often so excessively unconstitutional that they encounter significant legal and popular resistance. Perverse, perhaps too bad to be a real threat.
A Harris administration will be less likely to take steps on speech and technology that are so blatantly authoritarian that they will be clearly rejected by regulators, courts, and members of its own party. But maybe that makes her more dangerous on this front than Trump, because it will be a lot easier for Democrats to sell anti-tech and pro-censorship measures as simple matters of common sense and protection.
In fact, Trump will too attempt more bad technology policies; Harris will do that get away with more of them.
More sex and tech news
• “I think we’re going to be adding a whole new category of content, which is AI-generated or AI-summarized content, or some kind of existing content that’s been brought together by AI in some way,” said Mark Zuckerberg. reportedly said last week in a conversation with investors.
• AI is come for photo models.
• On “the broken promises of USB-C.”
Today’s image
If you need something soothing today | West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, 2014 (ENB/Reason)