Some societies need a good turning upside down.
Egypt is one of them. There is value in most of the value being in the shock value. Egypt has already done the sorts of things you suggest. It doesn't work. Putting up porn actually makes a lot of sense from a decision matrix perspective here. First of all despite the pretense otherwise Egyptians watch a lot of porn (like most countries). It's sort of a great "in your face" mirror to a country rife with hypocrisy.
It's not like the authorities give much breathing room for more nuanced protest anyway. They're already in for a very unwelcome visit to the slammer if they are caught. Might as well go as transgressive as possible while you still can.
If the goal is to get companies to get their security in order, than showing porn is certainly one of the most effective ways. It'll put political pressure on the company that owns the billboards, for one.
Show a cute picture of Big Bird telling people to eat more pizza, and the company will just reset some passwords. Show a couple of choice scenes from Brazzers and the CEO just got a call from a government minister and suddenly the leaky hardware is getting replaced at breakneck speeds.
Works well too if the goal is just to get people to object to digital billboards.
Yea, it's harmless, and a criticism of digital billboards, and it can't be swept under the rug by the billboard companies as if it didn't happen. Really great stunt!
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Contrary to what the religious warriors claim, I can assure you nobody's head is going to explode, nobody is going to get cancer, and nobody is going to suffer psychological damage by briefly riding past these billboards. Truly, let's get serious here.
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Genuinely curious, as someone who was exposed to porn on several occasions as a kid (with seemingly no negative long-term consequences): what makes you think it's "really bad"?
You're kidding, right? Am I seeing correctly that there are multiple people on HN actively arguing against children seeing porn being a bad thing?
Do you have kids? I can assure you that children are quite good at automatically blocking out everything related to intercourse and other sexual acts until they reach puberty. Like an advertisement for mortgages, they will just treat it as something that is probably relevant to adults, but not at all interesting to them.
Seeing some girl getting ploughed by a slab of a guy might raise questions (which is excellent, questions are always good, because then you as a parent can guide their understanding), but it won't harm them in the slightest.
Repeated exposure to porn is a problem, but that comes from teenagers having an intrinsic interest in sex and private exploration of unsavoury websites on the internet, not accidental viewing of a naughty billboard.
It fascinates me what people will defend publicly in the name of “hacker good, advert bad.” One of these comments also just builds a straw man: “it’s like someone yelling ‘fuck’ at a ballgame… it doesn’t mean the kid’s ruined,” but at least they don’t go as far as claiming it might actually be a good thing because “seeing some girl get ploughed by a slab of a guy” might just raise a constructive question in a child.
Yikes.
Iunno, but it was a blast going back through Rockos Modern Life as an adult and catching all the shit I missed as a kid.
He did self diagnose as "with seemingly no negative long-term consequences".
It's like the kid hearing someone yell "fuck" at a ballgame. Just because most people in the culture might agree it's not particularly age-appropriate doesn't mean the kid's ruined.
There's a huge difference between regular exposure via neglectful or abusive parents and "oops I saw a thing". More than a few kids have "walked in" on their parents too, I assure you.
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Funny how in US it's okay to show to kids drinking alcohol, smoking and using the gun while naked body is a taboo and will harm someone (parents).
Just curious, do you think it will harm kids to go to nude beach or naked sauna?
Watching porn at home and not wanting to see it in public space does not make one a 'hypcrite'.
> Might as well go as transgressive as possible while you still can.
This only computes in the mind of an national adversary that wants to see a society in chaos. No one in their right mind would want to "trangress" against their own society because of some political goal. Those that do are iirc are technically in the terrorist quadrant of 'protest'.
Who gave you the right to decide that Egypt needs turning upside down? It seems that some people in the west cannot leave the rest of the world alone without trying to impose their values (which the rest of the world looks down upon) on others.
Under no circumstances is it ok to show porn in a public setting. I say this as someone who very much enjoys porn.
Porn cinemas are very much a public settling, no?
No. They are a private enterprise that does ages checks. It is totally fine for consenting adults to go in a room and watch porn together.
Age checks does not change the fact they are public setting. Contrary to your point, sometimes it's okay:
>>Under no circumstances is it ok to show porn in a public setting.
It's not public. It's private. Let's be super annoying about it and argue semantics. Really helps the discussion.
Not your place to turn anyone's society upside down but your own.
Imagine if Time Square was hacked with images of the consequences of monkey pox on HIV+ gay men because an Egyptian thought our society needed a shocking turning upside down.
The people who want to outlaw pornography and put scriptures in every classroom agree with you on two points: society does need to be turned upside down, and a tiny group of unelected people should be the ones to do it.
Porn in the Arab world is probably going to turn already misogynistic men even more down that path. First, perhaps they can try to view women besides their mothers as humans, then we can work forward from there
Are a few clips or screenshots shown on billboards going to influence people to that extent?
I'm responding to OP who is saying exposing randos in Egypt to porn is a good thing and will turn their society upside down
You have a very heteronormative view of porn. Plenty of Arab women also enjoy porn and the origin of misogyny in Arab society is way older than any kind of modern porn.
Where in my post did I say that Arab women don't enjoy porn?
My point is that many Arab men wont have a single meaningful interaction with a woman outside their family this year. Presenting women as sex objects to those men isn't going to have great effects. Similar to incels and porn.
> My point is that many Arab men wont have a single meaningful interaction with a woman outside their family this year
And you got this information from where, western media? Even if, how is it a negative thing?
> Presenting women as sex objects to those men isn't going to have great effects
Incidentally, western liberal capitalistic systems are the ones presenting women as sex objects in ads and the like. Where as they are preserved in the conservative culture in Islamic countries.
Men in the Arab world are already porn consumers and have been for decades. I hitchhiked around Egypt for a few weeks in 2009, and men would occasionally show off short porn vids on their Nokias or iPods. Internet cafes in the whole region would, upon request, give customers the details for connecting to a proxy to access forbidden content.
Fast forward to now, and the big porn video sites have content expressly tailored to the Arab world. Everyone has smartphones, and everybody finds some alone time to wank.