If you really care about protecting kids from harm, focus on and prioritize regulating industries that actually do demonstrable life-shattering harm to children – the FOOD industry, for example – rather than obsessively wasting energy and resources trying to regulate porn.
The latest example: NEARLY 120 CHILDREN MAY HAVE BEEN POISONED BY LEAD IN APPLESAUCE.
120 is actually a really low estimate of how many little kids have consumed cheap, convenient snack pouches of applesauce with lead-laced cinnamon from DollarTree stores . As of November 7th, 2023, news was out that the FDA knew of at least 52 children from less than one year old to four years old with cases of lead poisoning with “adverse events” after eating the fruit puree, but it’s highly likely a shit-ton more people are completely unaware that their babies’ brains have absorbed poison from cute, handy, affordable, “healthy”-seeming applesauce snacks, and will suffer developmental delays and brain damage because of it. At that time, and probably still, there were STILL pouches of the applesauce in question on Dollar Tree shelves for sale in multiple states.
There is NO SAFE AMOUNT OF LEAD for humans to consume. It should not be in our bodies. It is poison, and it is more likely to cause harm to babies and little kids because it crosses the blood-brain barrier more easily. But the FDA “has never before regulated levels of metal in baby and toddler foods, with the exception of arsenic in rice cereal” even though “a 2021 congressional report … found many [baby and toddler foods] made by the country’s largest commercial baby food manufacturers contain significant levels of lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury.”
It’s not crazy to be concerned about media’s influence and potentially harmful impacts on those who consume it, whether it’s the news, or entertainment like sitcoms, cartoons, and pornography. But it *is* crazy to behave as though porn is more dangerous than lead, e. coli, salmonella or listeria.