Originally Posted by kane

You are correct in that there is a ton more free porn now than in 1998 and these big free sites have a ton of traffic.

That doesn't matter. If you use a filtering software it doesn't matter if there are 20 porn sites or 20 million porn sites they get filtered out. So if a parent wants to keep their kids from viewing porn it can pretty easily be done. Hell, these days more browsers have filters built into them.

A law could pass and could be signed by the president, but that doesn't mean it would survive a court challenge. The supreme court said during the COPA arguments that a credit card is not a valid form of age verification and that it could limit access to those who should have access. They also said that existing filters were good enough. Now it is 12-14 years later and yes, the free porn technology has improved, but so have the filters. Hell google even offers a way to filter your searches. For a law to survive it would have to have a compelling reason why filtering software no longer works.

Originally Posted by kane

As for it limiting free speech. the supreme court said during the COPA trial that any adult with a valid form of ID could walk into any porn store in the country and buy whatever they wanted with cash. If you limit it to membership sites you are essentially saying that a credit card (or checking account) is a valid form of age verification and that the only people who should have access to it are those people who have or are willing to use their credit card (or checking account).