Pirate's Cove

Remember, Democrats are totally supportive of sex workers and freedom and stuff. Oh, and don’t forget they really, really love net neutrality. Except when it’s government doing the blocking

(Fox News) A new bill aims to charge Rhode Island residents a one-off $20 fee to access sexually explicit content online and impose stringent rules on Internet providers that do not comply with the law.

Two state Democrats, Sen. Frank Ciccone and Sen. Hanna Gallo introduced a bill on Thursday that would mandate Internet providers to block “sexual content and patently offensive material,” The Providence Journal reported.

Consumers will be able to lift the block but only if they pay a fee of $20.

The fees would be collected by the state government and go to the state’s treasurer and fund the operations of the Council on Human Trafficking.

Some people expressed opposition to the bill, criticizing the lawmakers for conflating sex work with human trafficking.

Whose thought immediately went to “how in the hell does this not violate the First Amendment, as well as the Constitution of Rhode Island”?

The text of the initiative does not specify what constitutes “offensive” material online.

Meaning that virtue signalers/SJWs will soon be deciding what is offensive. What could possibly go wrong?

But the companies could face monetary damages if they do not create effective reporting systems, allowing consumers and the state’s attorney general to sue for leaving offensive and sexually explicit content accessible with a block.

For every piece of content reported – but still accessible to the consumers – the attorney general or a consumer may file a civil suit against a provider and seek damages up to $500. The winning party may also ask the losing party to cover the legal fees.

Not only censorship, but fines if companies do not comply. It’s most likely not going to pass, and probably won’t even make it out of the Judiciary Committee. But, it is interesting that Democrats would even put up such an anti-free speech bill.

But, hey, let’s consider something: Democrats (and fake conservatives) are trotting out talking points that we follow the 2nd Amendment as it applied in 1791, so, only muskets and blunderbusses and single shot pistols. And swords (how cool would it be if we all carried a sword?). Because that’s what they had then. So, since there was no film then, and no Internet, every liberal would be just fine with the RI bill which would not be censorship and a denial of free speech at the time, right?