☕️ CASH KING ☙ Monday, March 11, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Royal Family's self-inflicted photoshop injury; Nordic states move to protect cash; Texas law restricting porn sites upheld at federal appellate court; and more.

Good morning, C&Cers, it’s Monday! This morning, the Childers clan is decamping from the desert city and is off to the national parks. Thanks to everyone for yesterday’s birthday wishes. I had a great birthday! As a surprise, I got to shoot a machine gun and drive a race car. So now I am almost certainly on some kind of eco-terrorism watchlist. It was worth it.

Today’s quick roundup: Royal Family problems continue swirling as the Palace makes a gigantic unforced error; Nordic states move to protect cash; and the Fifth Circuit slaps porn producers and upholds Texas age verification law in a terrific decision that punches above its weight.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥 Deadline ran the latest baffling Royal Family story yesterday headlined, “Kate Middleton Conspiracies Given New Lease Of Life After Major News Agencies Pull Family Photo Amid Concerns It Was ‘Manipulated.’”

Kate Middleton has been missing, out of action, A.W.O.L, ever since her sudden and unexpected “pre-planned” surgery in December. The “scheduled” surgery caused her to strike her entire calendar through Easter. She has gone completely and unaccountably dark, and her picture is cropping up on milk cartons.

Meanwhile, the Royal Family’s official spokespersons insist that Kate is just taking a little personal time and is doing great. Super duper great.

Yesterday, they tried to quiet the controversy a little using a happy, wholesome proof of life photo opportunity. It was UK Mother’s Day yesterday, and Kate Middleton sent out a lovely photo of herself and her three kids. But instead of proving she was alive, it exploded into controversy more violently than a Ukrainian drone yesterday afternoon.

Then, late in the day, four major news agencies (Associated Press, Getty Images, Reuters, and AFP) suddenly issued grimly-worded “kill notices,” indignantly pulled the photo from their archives with prejudice, and censoriously cited concerns that “the source has manipulated the image:”

The kill notices were prompted by extreme social media interest in the picture. After Princess Kate’s social media account first tweeted it out, it took about ten seconds for things to start blowing up. Independent conspiracy theorists — not useless reporters — immediately sensed problems with the photo.

TikTok and Instagram began filling up with video takedowns pointing out all the photo’s weird photoshop problems. One user posted a guide to just some of the hard-to-explain editing errors:

Unsurprisingly, apart from issuing the kill notices, corporate media did not forensically analyze the obvious deep fakem or quote skeptical image experts, or criticize anything. Instead, media remained delicate and circumspect, even-handed, not accusing anybody of anything, and generally giving the Palace the white-glove treatment usually reserved for top democrats.

But shortly after the kill notice issued, Kate’s social media account — or whoever is running it — apologized. The apology confirmed that, once again, the conspiracy theorists were right that the photo had been altered. Kate’s short post weakly blamed the ‘misunderstanding’ on sloppy iPhone editing.

Slate ran the only article I could find mentioning how profound were the photo’s mismatches and problems, and debunking the ‘editing errors’ excuse::

The inexplicable blurriness of Kate’s hair and one of her hands, tiles not matching up on the floor beneath their feet, a truly hatchet bit of photoshopping around Princess Charlotte’s sleeve (near the top left of her skirt). “These are such basic mistakes,” one photographer said, “that there is something fishy happening here.” “It’s mad how bad it is. If I were a betting man, I’d put money on her face being switched in it,” another photographer said.

The AP requested a copy of the ‘original,’ unedited picture, but the Royal Palace politely declined to provide one. Instead of reassuring Royal watchers that Kate is okay, they made the problem infinitely worse. And that wasn’t all the bad news; a recent New York Post article referenced rumors that Kate’s recovery period has been quietly extended from three months to six months.

Six months would be a bit long to recover from a minor, pre-planned abdominal surgery, if they stick with that increasingly difficult story.

You already know what I think. Princess Kate posed for jab shots during the pandemic. A Spanish reporter who’s covered the Royal beat for two decades is sticking with her story that the Princess remains in a coma. The better question is, why would they lie about a serious illness?

It’s hard to reckon this kind of self-inflicted public relations injury. We’ve recently seen other high-profile people, like Lloyd Austin, return from these weird disappearances and seem fine. Hopefully Princess Kate will also be back soon and will be fine.

Image editing technology keeps getting better and better. Soon, it will be increasingly hard to know what to believe, and personal witness testimony will become more and more important — as, historically, it always has been.

🔥 Sweden and Norway are getting the right idea. Bloomberg ran a story Friday headlined, “Norway Wants to Strengthen Consumers’ Right to Pay Cash.”

It seems weird to say this, and it’s a sign of how far we’ve come, but Norway is considering new regulations to force vendors to accept cash along with other types of payment. The article also mentioned that Sweden is considering similar rules.

The weird thing is that cash even needs protection. Cash used to be “king.” But nowadays cash looks less like a king and more like a crested snapping turtle or some other odd-looking endangered animal, or maybe like whatever is going on with the British Royal Family. Cash is King ... Charles.

🔥 There was more great news from Texas late last week. On Friday, US News & World Report ran a story headlined, “US Court Upholds Texas Law Mandating Age Verification for Online Porn.” It’s an even bigger and better story than the headline suggested.

Last year, Texas passed a great law requiring porn website operators to really verify users’ ages, using a government-issued ID, a photo, or other available information that could verify the user’s age. Porn providers were horrified — mostly, I think, because they fear their users want to stay anonymous — and so they sued Texas in federal court.

That lawsuit produced bad news for common sense. The providers successfully argued the age verification requirement violated their First Amendment rights of free speech. The federal trial judge granted their request for a preliminary injunction stopping the Texas law from taking effect.

Then, about a month ago, Texas filed an emergency appeal to the Fifth Circuit, trying to undo the trial judge’s injunction against the law.

On Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Lone Star State’s outstanding attorney general Ken Paxton and the new law, at least for the most important part of the case: the requirement that providers like PornHub verify users’ ages and keep kids from accessing obscene materials.

The Fifth Circuit disagreed with the lower court. Applying the lowest standard of review, called rational basis, the appellate court ruled that Texas’s interest in protecting its children from accessing harmful material was rational. And in possibly better news for the future, the three-judge panel went further, citing long-standing law for the general principle that the government has a rational interest in controlling certain kinds of materials for kids — in general. The opinion explained:

The decision in Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205 (1975), reaffirmed a robust reading of Ginsberg’s principle: “It is well settled that a State or municipality can adopt more stringent controls on communicative materials available to youths than on those available to adults.” Id.  Ginsberg’s central holding—that regulation of the distribution to minors of speech obscene for minors is subject only to rational-basis review— is good law and binds this court today.

It’s possible the porn producers will appeal, they have a couple options. They could ask the full Fifth Circuit to review the decision, but are unlikely to get a different result. Or they could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which also seems doubtful. Regardless, the injunction has been vacated, and PornHub’s options to get it back are vanishingly small.

The decision was great news for Texans and their kids, but more than that, the decision’s careful wording creates two even more interesting possibilities.

First, the Texas law is a blueprint for other states to follow. In the Fifth Circuit’s view, the law satisfied the First Amendment. The judges also explained they were satisfied about potential user privacy issues, because the law bars website operators from keeping any user information (like IDs) and sets a $10,000 fine per violation.

So other states can now pass their own versions of Texas’s law. If enough states join Texas, we could actually see wide-scale progress in pushing back the worst effects of online pornography. If a different circuit goes the other way, then it will go to the Supreme Court.

But second, Friday’s decision also delivered fresh ammunition to parents working to scrape obscene books and pornographic materials out of schools. If the state has a rational, constitutional interest in controlling minors’ access to obscene materials on the Internet, how much more obviously rational is the state’s interest in protecting kids the very same way in the school library?

Historically, states (including Florida) have been overly-delicate about regulating obscene school books, fearing First Amendment challenges. But this Fifth Circuit decision could fuel a renaissance in understanding that adults and children are treated differently under the First Amendment. Kids don’t enjoy the same scope of free speech as do adults.

Finally, the court did agree with one of the providers’ arguments. It struck down a second part of Texas’ law, that would have required providers to publish a ‘health warning’ on every web page. The court unsurprisingly found that part — aimed at adults — was unconstitutional ‘compelled speech,’ rejecting Texas’ argument that the warnings on porn websites were like warning labels on cigarettes.

Either way, Friday’s pro-common-sense decision was great news. PornHub will now have to decide whether to implement age verification just for Texas or go ahead and require it across the board.

Have a magnificent Monday! Coffee & Covid shall return tomorrow morning for more.

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