It means that especially those who went to the island but also most of the others don't care about protecting children. They merely see a way to consolidate power and are jumping on it.

Like who? Name some names of people pushing for this, and we can dissect their motivation.

How about the first country to ban social media for kids, Australia[1]? So far as I can tell the PM/party leader was not in the files. Of course, if you make your inclusion criteria absurdly wide (eg. anyone who voted or advocated for age based restrictions in any shape or form), you'll probably find some pedophiles or even epstien island visitors from sheer luck alone.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Amendment_(Socia...

This has been on Labor’s agenda, in various forms for many years.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-09/government-abandons-p...

That doesn't change the conclusion, unless you're trying to imply the entire party is full of pedophiles.

At this point the burden of proof is on the party. Benefit of the doubt has ran out.

>Benefit of the doubt has ran out

...because they're pushing age verification legislation? Did I miss some massive Labor pedophile scandal? If not, this just feels like a tautology. Labor is only pushing age verification because they're pedophiles, and they're pedophiles because they're pushing age verification.

Moreover even if we ignore that, what does that mean for the rest of their platform items? If Labor is pro net-zero, is it fair to characterize the situation as "the people pushing for net-zero are pedophiles"?

My point is that this has been consistent with their policy for the last couple of decades, and that the recent round of scandals have nothing to do with it.

These laws were passed almost exclusively by the party of self-proclaimed free speech warriors led by Epstein's best friend.

    State             | Effective Date | Legislature Control
    ------------------+----------------+----------------------
    Alabama           | Oct 1, 2024    | Republican
    Arizona           | Sep 26, 2025   | Republican
    Arkansas          | Jul 31, 2023   | Republican
    California        | Jan 1, 2027    | Democratic
    Florida           | Jan 1, 2025    | Republican
    Georgia           | Jul 1, 2025    | Republican
    Idaho             | Jul 1, 2024    | Republican
    Indiana           | Aug 16, 2024   | Republican
    Kansas            | Jul 1, 2024    | Republican
    Kentucky          | Jul 15, 2024   | Republican
    Louisiana         | Jan 1, 2023    | Republican
    Mississippi       | Jul 1, 2023    | Republican
    Missouri          | Nov 30, 2025   | Republican
    Montana           | Jan 1, 2024    | Republican
    Nebraska          | Jul 18, 2024   | Nonpartisan (unicameral)
    North Carolina    | Jan 1, 2024    | Republican
    North Dakota      | Aug 1, 2025    | Republican
    Ohio              | Sep 30, 2025   | Republican
    Oklahoma          | Nov 1, 2024    | Republican
    South Carolina    | Jan 1, 2025    | Republican
    South Dakota      | Jul 1, 2025    | Republican
    Tennessee         | Jan 13, 2025   | Republican
    Texas             | Sep 19, 2023   | Republican
    Utah              | May 3, 2023    | Republican
    Virginia          | Jul 1, 2023    | Divided
    Wyoming           | Jul 1, 2025    | Republican

It's curious that you've omitted California (Democrats) and Colorado (Democrats) from your list.

I thought the Colorado bill died.

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb25-201

Looks like the CA bill went through though.

https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1043/id/3269704

I updated the list. Still looks rather tilted to me!

And Illinois and New York.

This table seems suspect. I spot checked Texas, and while the party affiliation is correct, the dates are not. You put Sept 19, 2023 as the date for Texas, but Wikipedia[1] says it "Enacted September 1, 2024" and "Enacted June 13, 2023". Looking at the other dates, I'm not sure how you got Sept 19, 2023, even through a typo.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCOPE_Act

Can you cherry-pick harder? Geez...

25 states isn't cherry-picking :) geeeeeeeeeeez!

I think/hope they were being sarcastic.

No, it's bipartisan and even fucking international. I think there is a very obvious conspiracy to get this done, but maybe it's a big coincidence that governments and politicians everywhere suck now.

I was talking about the party. This shit is and always has been pushed from both parties. Even democrat states like California and Colorado are on board. See also, the OS age verification legislation.

TBH California one doesn't require age verification (while many other states do). It only requires the OS to provide a mechanism for the user to indicate their age group and apps should use the information (instead of asking for PII themselves). It's a fake one, but somehow drew most attention.

If that is true about the California case, it is basically a fluke. Lobbyists don't have total control of the legislation after all. It sounds almost benign when posed that way, but it is the wrong solution either way. The better solution is to tell people to install filtering software to block content that they don't want. Then you don't have to worry about compliance of individual sites, personal information, or any of it. This filtering strategy also makes sense for privacy and handling the subjective nature of what is age-appropriate or offensive.

Zuckerberg?

https://mashable.com/article/tech-ceos-epstein-files-musk-ga...

> shadowy cabal of pedophiles elites

Its a shame that this used to just be a conspiracy theory one could mostly ignore, but we simply can't pretend that there isn't rampant CSA by those in power, because we've had proof of it despite their best efforts. Without wanting to get into politics, the leader of the United States right now was friends with the supposed ring-leader...

> but what about everyone else pushing for the law but who didn't go?

Useful idiots, perhaps? Wanting to protect their own power and gain more?

It's certainly not actually about protecting children. Never has been.

I don't like the "those in power" framing because it implies that they all participated and that such a homogenous group even exists.

In the USA it literally is two homogenous groups though? One of which is majorly complicit in covering up the files, against their constituents’ wishes.

I wouldn't even call them two groups. It's just one group ostensibly and publicly split in half, but it's still one group that intermingles behind the courtains.

I would say both parties are complicit at this point.

Keep in mind Epstein died in 2017. We had two GOP terms and one Democrat term from then to now.

With what we know from the files that have been released thus far (and how obviously the worst if it has either been shredded or will never see the light of day), the fact they refused to release/prosecute those implicated tells you all you need to know.

Yes, and many people have an extreme incentive to retreat to that framing because

* In 2024, they had a choice between pedophiles and not pedophiles and chose the pedophiles.

* In 2020, they had a choice between pedophiles and not pedophiles and chose the pedophiles.

* In 2016, they had a choice between pedophiles and not pedophiles and chose the pedophiles.

There was plenty of evidence of this association in 2016 (bragging about creeping into Ms Teen USA dressing rooms, bragging about being Epstein's best friend in the same sentence as acknowledging he's a pedo, victim testimony under oath that he diddled kids, etc etc), so "I didn't know" isn't an excuse if they cared one iota about the children at any step of the way.

It should be good news that the powerful pedophiles are largely (but not exclusively) concentrated in one party, but those who put them in power will do anything to avoid admitting culpability.

Couple small corrections:

In 2016, the choice was between a pedophile and the wife of a pedophile.

In 2020, the choice was between two pedophiles.

Couple small corrections:

Hillary has not been implicated by the Epstein files. Not today and not by evidence available in 2016.

Biden has not been implicated by the Epstein files. Not today and not by evidence available in 2020.

Bonus: not only was Trump implicated in the Epstein files both today and by evidence available in 2016, he was also in charge of every federal prison and every US spook agency in 2019 when Epstein died under mysterious circumstances.

>Bonus: not only was Trump implicated in the Epstein files both today and by evidence available in 2016, he was also in charge of every federal prison and every US spook agency in 2019 when Epstein died under mysterious circumstances.

Who was in charge when Epstein got the sweetheart deal on his first conviction?

I never accused Hillary or Biden of being implicated in the Epstein files. Those aren't corrections, those are non-sequitirs.

Bonus: at no point did I refute Trump being a pedophile or being in the Epstein files.

I might be misreading you, but are you saying that the whole Qanon thing isn't a baseless conspiracy theory?

Qanon is absolutely a baseless conspiracy theory.

The overall idea that far too many of those in power politically and economically are involved in CSA isn't though, it seems.

The threshold for "far too many" is like, a single digit number. It's an extremely weak claim. Even if those in power were half as likely to be involved as the average adult, that would still be far too many.

>we simply can't pretend that there isn't rampant CSA by those in power, because we've had proof of it despite their best efforts

What's "rampant"? The news coverage provides no shortage of people, but ringing off 100 (or whatever) people that are in the files doesn't say much, even if we make the questionable assumption that inclusion in files implies guilt. I'm sure that everyone would prefer the amount of pedophiles that are in power to 0, but if it's the same rate as the general population that can hardly be considered "rampant", or a "conspiracy". Given some neutral inclusion criteria (eg. members of legislative bodies), is there any evidence they have disproportionate amount of pedophiles?

>the leader of the United States right now was friends with the supposed ring-leader...

You conveniently omit the fact that they broke up 5 years before he was first convicted. From wikipedia:

"Trump had a falling out with Epstein around 2004 and ceased contact. After Epstein was said to have sexually harassed a teenage daughter of another Mar-a-Lago member in 2007, Trump banned him from the club. "

>Useful idiots, perhaps?

So basically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness?

> Wanting to protect their own power and gain more?

How does adding age verification help in that? Are they blackmailed by the shadowy cabal? Are they just doing what the voters/lobbyists want? If so, what makes invocation of this reasoning more suitable than for any other political issue? Is everything from tax policy to noise ordinances just something pushed by pedophile elites, helped by useful idiots and people who want to "protect their own power and gain more"?

You sure are giving them quite the benefit of the doubt. Why?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/see-the-alleged-tr...

>https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/see-the-alleged-tr...

1. "alleged"

2. I'm not sure what you're trying to refute. I specifically quoted a passage saying that they broke up in 2004, which implies they were together prior to that.

3. For the specific claim that Trump's a pedophile, a "drawing of a curvaceous woman" is hardly proof. At best it's a proof that he's a womanizer, but we hardly need proof of that given the "grab her by the pussy" quote.

Oh nothing, just wanted you to see how you’d attempt to rationalize away what you see with your own eyes.

Sounds like you don't have any arguments, if you have to resort to thinly veiled personal attacks.

Sounds like you have no argument besides “I don’t believe the evidence.”

Or maybe “the evidence isn’t THAT bad.”

The resistance to the release of the files including redactions and outright refusal of Congressional order is enough to reveal the magnitude of what's going on. I would even dare say this Iran war is in part due to blackmail gained on DJT.

>The resistance to the release of the files including redactions and outright refusal of Congressional order is enough to reveal the magnitude of what's going on.

I agree this makes him look suspect, but it's hardly conclusive. Moreover Democrats did a similar U-turn a few years before. The only difference is that they weren't bombastically pushing the conspiracy theory during the election campaign, which made it easier for them to backtrack later.

>When Maxwell was charged in 2020, Democrats continued to push for transparency. [...] After Biden took office in 2021, Democrats appeared to dial back their public calls for Epstein records’ release.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/6/fact-check-did-democ...

I dont disagree with anything you have written in the above reply. But why does democrats' reversal somehow annul or invalidate the claim about trump? Do you honestly believe it could all be an overly-embellished fable? If you do, then do you think the hundreds, some-say-thousands, of women who claim they were raped are lying?

Another explanation could be the democrats' AIPAC handlers told them to back off because it wasn't the precise time to leverage the material yet.

>But why does democrats' reversal somehow annul or invalidate the claim about trump? Do you honestly believe it could all be an overly-embellished fable? If you do, then do you think the hundreds, some-say-thousands, of women who claim they were raped are lying?

What claim about Trump? That's he's a pedophile? Based on the rest of your comment it seems like the goalposts are subtly getting moved from "Trump raped kids" to "Trump committed sexual crimes".

> You conveniently omit the fact that they broke up 5 years before he was first convicted.

And? It doesn’t change the reality of the original statement.

The president of the United States was friends with the alleged ring leader of a large pedophile network.

>The president of the United States was friends with the alleged ring leader of a large pedophile network.

You're making some leaps logic here here. If someone's outed as a pedophile, everyone who's friends with him should be assumed to be a pedophile? Surely not, given that pedophilia is considered taboo, we'd expect them to hide it, and therefore at least some friends might not be in the know. That's not to say there's no conspirators, but "he was friends with a pedophile therefore he's a pedophile too" is just guilt by association. What you need to prove is that he knew, or ought to have known that his friend was a pedophile. A conviction works decently for this, because it's presumably public knowledge, although even that's questionable because most people don't do a background check on people they met. In the case of Epstien he also hired reputation management firms to suppress his conviction from showing up in the results, which weakens the case even more.

> You're making some leaps logic here here.

No, you’re just shifting the goalposts.

The original claim was “The president of the United States was friends with the supposed leader of a pedophile ring.”

Your response to that was to imply that over time, they had a falling out. To which my point was, so what? It doesn’t materially change the original claim you challenged.

A falling out in NO way changes that the original statement was correct, the current president of the United States, Donald J Trump, was good friends with the alleged leader of a large scale pedophile network.

> If someone's outed as a pedophile, everyone who's friends with him should be assumed to be a pedophile?

If a given friend had their own history of acting like a creepy sex pest when it comes to young women, had a known and close relationship with the alleged leader of a pedophile network AND knew about “the girls”, would I assume them also to be a pedophile? At a minimum, I may in fact conclude that the odds they are also a pedophile are significantly higher than that of the average individual. Birds of a feather and all…

It’s not to say they are of course and it may in fact be as simple as they are nothing more than a creepy sex pest with a bad taste in friends, but NOT a pedophile. I gotta be honest but, me personally, I’d rather be neither.

>To which my point was, so what? It doesn’t materially change the original claim you challenged. [...]

It changes the claim in the same way that "he ran over a kid" isn't "materially changed" by the addition of the detail that the kid jumped in front of the car and he had no time to stop. The original statement is still technically true, but it's a massive omission to leave the latter part out. That's doubly true if you're invoking that fact in the context of trying to imply the person did other crimes.

And more importantly, resisted releasing the files as hard as he could.

Those are just stupid.

you mean the guys who are working alongside a bunch of pedophiles and doing little about it?

> but what about everyone else pushing for the law but who didn't go?

Who exactly is influential & organized enough across many western countries to push legislation that no one is asking for? Notice that epstein said he worked for [withheld] in some of his emails.

>Who exactly is influential & organized enough across many western countries to push legislation that no one is asking for?

The anti-social media sentiment has been brewing for a while now, not least due to books like The Anxious Generation (2024). It's also reflected in opinion polls and media coverage. Unless you want to imply there's some massive conspiracy by The Elites™ (ie. not just a few lobbyists Meta hired, but those in academia and media as well), it's probably organic.

I don't know the precise combination of stupidity vs evil that compelled the "think of the children" crowd to choose the single most publicly implicated man in the Epstein scandal as their champion and elect him over someone who wasn't and hasn't been implicated at all in the slightest, but they did. Either way, they receive the culpability for doing so and we should expect their future decision making to be equally compromised.