The list includes social media giants Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat. Halverson said Snapchat’s entire history is clogged with trafficking in obscenity.
“Snapchat is frequently used for sexting. With its new addition of Snapcash, Snapchat is actually monetizing a lot of sexting, some child pornography and also prostitution,” she said.
“That’s something that Snapchat could easily fix or at least clean up by allowing users to age-gate some sexually graphic content that in their ‘Discover Stories’ section,” Halverson explained. “Snapchat has actually been sued by a 14-year-old who was exposed to some graphic material in their stories section, which users can’t opt out of. They have to see what these images are.”
YouTube has volumes of explicit material available, and Halverson said that site and Twitter do a terrible job of enforcing policies against such content.
“They’ll have a policy against something like pornography or prostitution, but then they won’t do anything to enforce it,” she said. “It’s time that we just stand up and say, ‘It’s your platform, and if you’re going to have this policy, you need to do your best to actually create a safe and friendly user environment.”
Comcast makes the “Dirty Dozen List” while Verizon does not. Halverson said Verizon is taking steps to force users to access explicit programs rather than listing it where every family member can see it. She says Comcast is doing just the opposite.
“Not only do they sell this on-demand pornography, but they’ve actually written us a letter defending the pornography on there that has very violent, incest and racist themes, saying it’s all part of their consumer choice,” Halverson said.
HBO is also cited. Halverson said the premium cable outlet is guilty of “mainstreaming” pornography in popular television programs such as “Game of Thrones” and “Westworld.” Other violators in this category include Roku, Amazon, Backpage and Cosmopolitan magazine.
The list also takes aim at educational institutions that insist on making explicit material available to users of any age, specifically the American Library Association, or ALA, and Ebsco. The ALA consistently says it refuses to allow Internet filters because of its commitment to the First Amendment.
As WND recently reported, Ebsco specifically caters to kids.
“They’re an online resource to public and private school and some libraries,” Halverson said. “They’re basically a big database that kids can go in and find some academic resources for their papers.”
However, she said they end up finding a lot more.
“You can go in there and search something as innocent as seventh-grade biology, and there will be links to hard-core pornography websites. There will be articles advising kids to try public, violent and anal sex and on how to convince your girlfriend to do that,” said Halverson, who notes that elementary school kids use the resource as well.
Halverson also pushes back against the argument that the First Amendment is an adequate defense for allowing kids to see such content.
“The First Amendment does not protect obscenity, which is most hard-core pornography,” Halverson said. “That has been upheld by the Supreme Court several times. Secondly, the Supreme Court rules against the ALA in a case, saying that it is OK within the First Amendment to filter out sexually graphic material in order to create a safe environment for children to learn.”
One asset in the fight against the proliferation of obscene materials is a Justice Department willing to enforce existing laws. Halverson said the DOJ almost made the list due its inaction.
“The last administration did not enforce this law,” she said. “They’re on the watch list now because it’s still early. We’re waiting to see what the DOJ will do moving forward.”