Bakla Ako, May Reklamo?

The US federal government is proposing regulations which may eventually lead to the closing down of several adult social networking sites. They are doing this in their “efforts” to fight child pornography.  Enacted in 1998, Section 2257 or The Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988 is a federal law designed to fight child pornography.  We are one with the whole world in the fight against child pornography and this seems like a good law to protect our youngsters. This is a good cause right? Right.

The 2257 Regulations were originally designed to require producers of sexually explicit material to acquire proof of age of all their “actors” and likewise keep these on record.  (If you have adult videos like Corbin Fisher and Sean Cody, you would see these notices at the beginning of the clips.) [sample below]

However, in 2006, it was amended and was expanded to regulate the Internet and the term “secondary producers” was introduced.  Secondary producers are those who publish, reproduce or reissue explicit material, ergo adult social networking site owners and administrators:

A “secondary producer” is defined as any person who produces, assembles, manufactures, publishes, duplicates, reproduces, or reissues a book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, or other matter intended for commercial distribution that contains a visual depiction of actual sexually explicit conduct.

So how does it affect users and members of adult social networking sites (straight and gay, mind you)? The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force breaks them down into the following:

• The regulations would require the people running a site to get and maintain personal information from every user (that means you) who posts a “sexually explicit” photo, including your photo ID (driver’s license, passport, or military ID).
• The regulations would allow the Attorney General to conduct warrantless searches at will on the sites’ records, including your personal information.
• There are few safeguards over what the FBI can do with the information it obtains.
• If a site operator fails to comply with the regulations, he or she would face a prison sentence of up to 5 years.

It’s that harsh eh? We here at Bakla Ako, May Reklamo are kind of torn in this issue. Even if this law does not apply to the Philippines, many gay (and even straight) men and women will be affected as the adult social networking sites they are members of are owned and operated by Americans, in the United States.  Guys4men for example has posted a notice on their homepage regarding this. We may be one with the rest of the world in the fight against child pornography, but we are also one in the fight for freedom of expression and the freedom to use social networking sites to meet other people for whatever reason fits us. We are a bit worried that these ammendments to the 2257 Regulations may result in the eventual demise of the social networking industry.

If you wanna do something about this, click here to find out more.

link: full text of the 2257 Regulations