I think the most damning thing about porn hysteria is that society as a whole ran the experiment of an open internet for 30 years, long enough for a full generation of people to be fully raised on it and -none- of the things the anti-porn crowd cried about came true. In fact things actually moved in the opposite direction. The whole think is unsurprisingly just as bunk as the hysteria over violent video games and "demonic" music.
It seems plain old social media is the actual damaging thing to come from the internet.
One could make the argument that it has, via political changes. DOGE, for instance, who's cuts have been linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths, would have been very unlikely without social media.
Because of the misinformation that led to DOGE cutting funding on programs that saved a lot of lives, but cost almost nothing. People elected the present government based on the lie that the budget could be balanced by cutting things like foreign aid and the arts, but in fact those things are a rounding error in the overall budget.
“Damage, difficult to measure” was not what was predicted 30 years ago. Satanic apocalyptic 40k dark elves society, blood orgies and lawlessness was much closer to the messaging. Literal actual Judaic apocalypse was a major risk.
Could you qualify the things the anti-porn crowd claimed would happen that didn't?
Just saying they didn't seems shortsighted when there are obvious harms. Kids go into relationships expecting rough play, choking to be okay. Onlyfans normalised online sex work. Porn's omnipresence enabled its addition. And a whole pile of people have a very odd idea about what parts of the body should look like. Internationally it has enabled a slew of sex slavery mechanisms.
It seems plain old social media is the actual damaging thing to come from the internet.