It will be a bad choice for sex and technology. I don’t need some kind of crystal ball for the 2024 election results to make the prediction with confidence. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both have a history of bad moves in these realms, and both have plenty of supporters eager to make even worse moves in the future.

Who would be worse, from a libertarian perspective? ok…

Trump would be worse on sexual politics

Let’s start with sex.

Harris has a history of repression of sex work and opposing his decriminalization. She has been a big proponent of weakening Section 230 — the federal communications law that, among other things, helps shield web platforms from some liability for user content — to go after platforms that allow sex work ads. She usually does spread falsehoods about the sex-friendly ad platform Backpage and, as California’s attorney general, she twice arrested its founders on preposterous pimping charges that were twice dismissed by a federal judge. Later, as a senator, he was one of the co-sponsors of what would become the law FORMERwhich made life more difficult for sex workers and seriously chilled all kinds of online content related to sexuality. Harris also has a history of spreading panic about sex trafficking, including passing off a fake sex-trafficking story as reality.

Trump signed FOSTA into law. He represents a party for which an influential core wants to outlaw pornography, and members of that party have a scheme to do so by the “back door” route of age verification laws. He has repeatedly spread lies about sex-trafficking at the southern border and sex-trafficking by undocumented immigrants, and its supporters have promulgated some absolutely insane sex-trafficking conspiracy theories like QAnon. Trump also represents a party full of people who seek to define all kinds of LGBTQ content as “harmful” to minors and restrict access to it on those grounds.

All that being said, neither Harris nor Trump appear personal fueled by widespread hostility toward sex work, LGBTQ people, sex workers, or sexuality in general. To both, any attack on these things seemed more opportunistic than ideological. Harris used what was then a hot issue of sex work ads and Backpage to gain national attention. Trump is using an alleged cross-border sex-trafficking epidemic to push his anti-immigration agenda. And so on.

This is not great, by any means; indeed, I would call it quite despicable. But it is qualitatively different—and bodes slightly better for sexual politics—than situations in which politicians seem driven by deep personal or ideological aversion to sex in the public sphere.

If I had to speculate, I’d say that Trump probably has less dangerous personal beliefs on this front because Harris has look to really harbor some paternalistic attitudes towards sex workers.

But Trump almost certainly is More is more of a threat to healthy sexual politics than Harris, simply because he represents the Republican Party. The hysteria surrounding sex is certainly a bipartisan phenomenon, but conservatives are still incrementally worse on this front. And Trump, while politically idiosyncratic about some things, tends to fall prey to some of the strange fixations of the people around him. In any case, it seems unlikely to me that he would, say, oppose an attempt at federal age verification for porn platforms or restrict books about sex in libraries, if GOP controlled Congress send him on his way.

And if we expand our focus here to include things like contraception and abortion in the realm of sexual politics, a Trump presidency looks even worse. Harris has some bad ideas about who should pay for condoms and other forms of contraception, and that could increase costs. But overall, a Harris presidency would generally be good for reproductive freedom.

A Trump presidency would not. While Trump May do not have the personal desire to ban abortion at the national level (has a checkered history for that matter), to restrict access to mifepristone or to make it harder for people to access contraception or assisted reproduction, they are infinitely more likely to both appoint judges who are sympathetic to some or all of these things and to sign bills that restricts reproductive freedom.

With technology, it’s harder to say who’s worse

Let’s move on to the politics of technology and, by extension, the politics of speech.

Both Harris and Trump represent parties that want more tech regulation. Both Republicans and Democrats want to use the federal government to “break up” the big tech companies. Both parties seek more control over online speech. And both the Biden/Harris administration and the former Trump administration have a history of attacking Section 230, attacking TikTok, and generally acting hostile to technologies that are popular and/or enable free speech.

This is especially troubling in light of the fact that the president can actually have a significant effect on technology policy, in terms of who he appoints to agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and what concerns executive orders that tell federal agencies to prioritize certain types of regulation and enforcement.

President Joe Biden’s FTC has been incredibly hostile to tech companies, led by President Lina Khan’s staff. the anti-technology antitrust agenda. And while it’s not a given that Harris would keep Khan around, Harris has so far refused to say otherwise — even in front of big Democrats urging her to do so. “In calls with her staff and at fundraisers, deep-pocketed donors have repeatedly singled out Khan … as holding back the tech sector and other lucrative parts of the economy.” Bloomberg reported in September. But “no clear communication was provided to donors about Harris’s position on Khan.”

The Trump administration it was also bad in bringing dodgy antitrust actions against tech companies, but he hasn’t been nearly as prolific in this regard as Democrats have been in recent years. I think a Harris FTC is more of a technological threat than a Trump FTC.

The slight advantage for Harris here is that, being from California — and the San Francisco Bay Area in particular — he has a lot of support tied to the tech industry and faces pressure not to pursue policies that could harm him.

Trump, meanwhile, has a long history of technology-related misdeeds. he wanted FCC to undermine Section 230. He called on Congress to pass legislation to limit or repeal Section 230. He tried to kill TikTok. And while he has since it reversed For that matter, it’s unclear whether this represented a real change of heart or was just an attempt to contradict Biden, who signed an anti-TikTok bill.

Trump has truly authoritarian instincts when it comes to media and online platforms he doesn’t like — most recently shown in his comments about taking broadcasting licences from TV news they consider too partisan. I have no doubt that a Trump 2.0 presidency would lead to extreme attempts to roll back free speech and internet freedom through executive and regulatory action.

But the Democrats have no particular love for free speech online either. Democrats in general, and the Biden/Harris administration in particular, have a history of attacking online speech under their auspices limiting “disinformation” or “hate speech” (two categories that lend themselves to vague and opportunistic definitions—and that are generally protected by the First Amendment). I don’t think any sensible observer would describe Harris as a great champion of free speech, online or otherwise.

Trump has worse impulses on speech and technology issues and will try to pass worse policies. The upside is that his attempts on this front are often so unconstitutional that they run into a lot of legal and popular resistance. Perversely, they can be too bad to be a real threat.

A Harris administration is less likely to attempt moves on speech and technology that are so obviously authoritarian that they will obviously be rejected by regulators, courts and members of her own party. But this could do it More dangerous on this front than Trump, because it will be much easier for Democrats to sell anti-tech and pro-censorship movements as mere matters of common sense and protection.

In fact, Trump will try more bad tech policies; Harris will escape with more of them.

More sex and technology news

• “I think we’re going to add a whole new category of content, which is AI-generated content or AI-summarized content or sort of existing content that’s been brought together by AI in some way,” Mark Zuckerberg he said last week in a call with investors.

• AI is coming after fashion models.

• On “the broken promises of USB-C.”

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