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Free Speech, Porn And Internet Controls
dragons_flight writes: "The US Supreme Court is starting their next session, and on the docket are two cases that pit internet controls vs free speech as applied to porn. The first case will decide whether the government can force online providers to use age verification systems before allowing access to material deemed 'harmful to minors.' The second case deals with whether computer generated imitation porn can be treated with the same laws as porn involving real people (the particular case deals with child pornography). This news article discusses these and other issues before the court. Also ACLU commentary on the upcoming docket." The second of these cases was discussed before, in "Virtual Child Porn: Is It Illegal?"
Everyone else in the real world has to use real age verification systems (be is visual "hmm, he looks like a 11 year old" or "ID please") when it comes to things that can be deemed "harmful" to minors, so why shouldn't online systems? Asking for something like credit card information seems to be the easiest and most widely spread use of such a method, as I cannot think of any other methods that can be (more) successfully used? (not that credit cards are an infallible age verification system, as they're easy to "borrow" and also I had my first credit card at 16 years old)
As for the child porn, for starters I think that if you get a kick out of that then there is something seriously wrong with you, but that feeling aside I can't see why "virtual" child porn should be illegal. The arguments against real life child porn is the exploitation of children, which is perfectly understandable. However if you get a kick out of seeing some sort of 3 year old alien that's virtual, or a pair of boots, or anything else that's virtual, hey, whatever turns your crank. No minors are being harmed or exploited in such endeavours (unless of course they're being modelled or are the ones being forced to program it), but as for the act of "virtual child porn" I cannot see why it should be illegal. Morally reprehensible, perhaps, but not illegal.
Just my $0.02
If God gave us curiosity
The supreme court also plans to do other things like decide whether public funds may be spent to educate children at church-run schools, whether mentally retarded persons may be subject to capital punishment, and like you said how far the federal government may go in controlling Internet speech to protect children from pornography. The justices will tackle the question of child pornography on the Internet in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, No. 00-795. The court will have to determine whether Congress violated the First Amendment guarantee of free speech when it passed a 1996 law making it a federal offense to post on the Internet computer-generated sexual images of children.
A coalition of photographers, moviemakers and producers of "adult" materials challenged the law, arguing that it was vague and that only pictures of actual children can be banned because only they do harm to children.
While a lower federal court sided with the Free Speech Coalition, the Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that even fictitious images of children having sex help to feed the overall market for child pornography, and that prosecutors would find it difficult to prove that any image was of an actual child, as opposed to a computer-generated one.
A separate case, Ashcroft v. ACLU, No. 00-1293, involves a different statute designed to protect children from seeing sexually explicit material on the World Wide Web. Passed in 1998 after the court struck down a more broadly worded version in 1997, the statute says "commercial" Web sites may not post material that is "harmful to minors" as defined by "contemporary community standards."
Diplomacy is the art of letting people have your way
Age verification systems won't work and here's why: 1) there are a plethora of sites posting passwords/verifications/credit card info/etc that will allow Johnny to view pornographic material on sites that are attempting to implement such a scheme, and 2) There are many sites that are outside the jurisdiction (and reach) of the US (gasps of disbelief from the "soccer moms"!). If they don't want to play along, they won't, and furthermore, those in the US who don't want to play will move elsewhere.
This is nothing more that a political "bone" being tossed at the "soccer moms". Maybe they instead need to be told to stop abdicating their parenting responsibilities to the TV or the Internet and start getting personally involved with raising their kids. You can't legislate well-raised children...it takes personal involvement and WORK!
You're using her as bait, Master!
Trying to screen minors from accessing porn on the net is like -- well, like trying to screen MP3s from the net. You can't stop it, can't even put a significant dent in it without imposing drastic controls.
What happens when kids can't get onto adult websites? Well, they'll use stolen credit card numbers, or stolen adult ID codes, or just plain lie. How can you tell if the person on the other side of the monitor is below 17? Do you plan on implanting smartcard chips below the skin of everyone once they reach their majority?
Parents whine and wail because, after they've given their kids unrestricted access to the net, the little tykes are heading straight to XXX websites. The horror! But while they'll lobby and rally for all sorts of controls on this monster we call the world wide web, they'd never consider picking up and installing some parental control software. (For the most part, I don't think a majority of parents are even competent to install any software; that may be why.)
...to ``protect'' children from being ``harmed'' by the sight of naked people having sex is not by passing laws.
It's by parents putting the computer in the living room.
Children are required to show ID before they can purchase a copy of ``Playboy'' or whatever because they can enter stores where pornography is sold without being accompanied by a responsible adult.
In the home, many adults have access to pornography through cable TV, videos, or copies of ``Playboy,'' or other means. Parents who don't want their children to see pornography on TV should be monitoring and restricting their children's access to TV--but they should be doing that anyway. If they can't lock out channels, they should lock up the remote with the VHS stash.
Parents who don't want children calling 1-900-LIVE-SEX should have the phone company block 900 numbers, or pay attention to their phone bills.
Parents who are really paranoid about the matter should know what kind of pornography exists in their children's friends' homes before allowing visits.
The computer should be treated no differently. You don't want your children surfing over to www.hotsexyteenlesbians.com? Fine, do it the same way you keep your children from all the rest of the pornography in the world.
And maybe, just maybe, recognize that children are also sexual beings. Talk with them about sex (in an age-appropriate manner, of course), relationships, pregnancy and parenthood, love, STDs, marriage, committment, and what it all means to you.
Or, in other words, parents being parents and legislators making laws is good; parents making laws and legislators being parents is bad.
b&;
All but God can prove this sentence true.
You're right about the credit card problem. Why should anyone have to give someone the ability to access his credit or bank account just to view "adult" material? And why should the government be arbiter of what's suitable only for adults? And should parents be able to overrule the government's choices for their own kids, or are we going to make it illegal for parents to let their kids access the grown-ups' Internet?
/.--the cunts here use so fucking much profanity sometimes that it's unfuckingbelievable. So should /. only be accessible by adults willing to go through an age verification system involving their credit card number?
/.'s, where people somwetimes say naughty "adult" words (despite the fact that we know all kids know those words, too, and many use them)? And if I have a kid who wants to read something "adult" like IMC, or /., or whatever pretty mild linguistically-based stuff is also covered once the COPA censors get to work, and give him my age verification password to do so, he has access to all the other stuff--the porn, the sexually based sites, etc.--anyway. And if I don't give it to him, he can't read a lot of good sites that I may want him to be reading. But if I do give my own child my access password to an age verification system, might that be a crime, like contributing to the delinquency of a minor? Even if the Federal government passes no such law, there are doubtless state governments which would. That effectively would prevent me from letting my children read anything useful on their own on the Internet. It would also limit access of the young to websites which are useful for helping them learn responsibly about sex--an example of such a site is http://www.allaboutsex.org , a web site which I would probably want a young son to read at the right time.
Many people forget that this isn't just about "pay" adult sites with porn, or even about sites with porn at all. The COPA was extraordinarily broad, and would have completely stifled free speech on the Net--it didn't apply only to porn pictures, it applied to everything deemed "adult," including words. So if I use lots of fucking profanity on my goddamned motherfucking website, should I have to go through an age verification service before people can access my pages? What about
And what of anonymity? Speech can only truly be free when accessing it can be anonymous, or else suddenly Big Brother becomes a real entity which can trace every electronic thing you've ever read or accessed. Hell, do you think most porn would exist at all, if everyone who bought something from a porn shop had to leave his identifying info behind? That's what it would be like in cyberspace if this law were upheld. But it wouldn't just be porn. It would be politically controversial websites, such as the Independent Media Center. Would people be so willing to go there if they had to provide personal info and knew that maybe next time there's a protest, the FBI might get hold of the list of visitors and start harassing people? They tried to subpoena IP addresses directly from the IMC before, but were shot down. But imagine how much easier it would be for them if third parties, like age verification services, also had access lists, complete with names and credit card or other personal info? Then maybe they could get partial lists just by asking these third parties, who have no real interest in the matter, instead of having to subpoena the IPs from the actual organization that runs the site. Very bad.
And what would be covered as "adult"? Would the IMC and other indie media outlets be blacklisted as "adult" because they're subversive? Or because they have open forums like
And what if I let my underage son or daughter have access to my adult verification password to access sites like that, and he or she makes the mistake of sharing it with friends at school despite my warnings? Should I then be responsible for something like contributing to the delinquency of a minor, if the parents of one of these other kids gets offended by a website accessed with my unwittingly and unwillingly leaked password?
It opens up a huge can of worms that's best left untouched. The fact is, COPA and similar legislation would do nothing but make free speech nonexistent on the Internet, make it difficult or impossible for parents to have real decision-making on the sites thweir kids visit, and muck things up real good for everyone except the ultra-right-wing Xtian moralizing Jerry Fallwells of the world who bought this unconstitutional legislation.
Your ISP based solution is unworkable because then they'd lose their common-carrier status and suddenly become legally liable for everything their users access on the Internet. What if a porn site got through to Little Johnny and Little Johnny's mommy got really upset because she ordered the "clean" internet? Lawsuit. What if Bob posts some child porn of Alice using that service? Lawsuit. ISPs cannot exist without common carrier status.
What that leaves us with is Internet filtering on the client-side, like AOL's Parental Controls, like Surfwatch and Cyberpatrol, etc.--which is what all parents are free to install right now.
That's why COPA and such are bad and not just that, but unnecessary--parents should just get filtering software if they don't want their kids alone on the big bad Net. I'd be perfectly happy with Federal legislation to buy every parent in the country a free copy of the Net filtering software of their choice--that would be the equitable solution. But of course the lawmakers who drafted COPA aren't really interested in just helping parents keep their kids away from adult content--they want to expurgate all adult content and turn the Net into a Xtian Coalition-approved "family" establishment. And that's not constitutional, it's anti-free-speech, and it's wrong. And we shoyuld all fight it and chastise every member of Congress who voted for this drivel, and who will vote for the next round of drivel when the Supremes put COPA to rest for good. If we don't actively fight for our liberties, we deserve to have them Bowdlerized.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Does anyone remember the "age verification" routine in the old Leisure Suit Larry game? Just ask them a bunch of questions that someone under 18 isn't likely to know. :)
You're making the same illogical argument that the whole anti-child-porn industry is founded on.
Sex with a minor is rightfully illegal because under our current legal system we assign ages at which it is presumed that a majority of people of such an age can make a good decision regarding something difficult. In my state, for example, you can't drive until you're 16, since most 16 year olds can handle a car after driving school, but at younger ages they cannot. You can't smoke until you're 18, because that causes physical harm and psychological addiction which people under 18 may not be able to make good decisions about. You must also be 18 to consent to sex in my state under the theory that the decision to have sex is a very important one with physical and psychological consequences and people are probably not able to make that decision well and freely until most of them are 18. And the decision to drink isn't legally available until 21 because there are both physical and emotional consequences, there is the possibility of death or disability thanks to overdose, there are chances of addiction, the poor decision to drink and drive can lead to a violation of public safety, etc.
Well, child pornography falls within the same rubric. The theory behind making it illegal to make pornography involving minors is that the decision to have sex that is being recorded and documented and possibly seen by others is a serious one with life-altering consequences, and so people cannot give consent to have sex starring in moving or still images or audio until they reach the age of 18. That at least is the legal theory upon which the federal law against child pornography is founded. Taking the images is and should rightfully be illegal, since it harms the minor victim. Distributing the images is and should rightfully be illegal since that propagates the images which were illegally taken and causes further harm to the minors involved, since it exposes their exploitation to a wider audience. The legal theory underpinning this framework is that it causes harm to the minors in the child ponrography, *NOT* that it may induce other adults to go out and have sex with other minors. Indeed, that could not legally be the underpinning of the law, because it would be a restriction on the content of speech. Child porn is illegal not because it says something objectionable or incites viewers to take a harmful action, it is illegal because it harms the minor being portrayed. I can say, "Hey, go fuck a 12 year old, they're so tight and cute and they just love to suck on a grown-up's cock" all I want; it's objectionable, but not illegal. I cannot, however, send you a picture of someone fucking a 12 year old--under the legal theory that doing so harms the 12 yeatr old in the picture by exposing her abuse.
But the real trap you fall into is the notion that seeing pictures of child pornography causes people to imitate what's depicted. It doesn't. Either you think sex with young people is wrong, or you don't--an image isn't goin g to change your moral bearing. The easy explanation, and the true one, for why "a much larger majority of those who indulge themselves in child porn actually will act out the things they indulge themselves in" as you said, is that the kind of peoplw who collect child pornography are the kind of people who are attracted to children in the first place and who don't think having sex with them is wrong--or else they wouldn't be keeping pictures of it, would they?
To say that child porn causes people to molest children is like saying that gay porn causes people to be gay or straight porn causes one to be straight. It just doesn't work that way, because you're mistaking cause for effect. If you find lots of gay porn in a guy's PC, the odds are he's gay--he wasn't converted to gayness by the gay porn, either, rather he got the gay porn because he was already gay. Likewise with child ponr--if you find a bunch of child ponr on a guy's PC, he's probably a pedophile. The porn didn't make him a pedophile, rather, he collected the porn because he was already a pedophile.
"This argument can be extended to regular porn, which can cause a person to be so overwhelmed by sex that they could turn to rape (although this doesn't really apply to the many casual porn viewers, only porn-"zealots"). And this can definetly be extended to extremely hardcore porn and things such as snuff films."
Well, in that above paragraph you make it clear that you're either trolling, or an anti-porn thumper type. "Adult" porn has never made anyone rape anybody; that whole theory came about when notorious serial killer Ted Bundy claimed that "my addiction to porn made me rape and kill all those girls". He said so not because it was true, but because he thought it would get him a lighter sentence if he was a "victim" too. Not coincidentally, he made this claim at the height of the social debate that was occurring back during the years when porn was first going "mainstream" and being sold fairly openly instead of in illicit back-alley shops. The Moral Majority types of course took it as Gospel that porn causes rape--ironic that they'd believe a convicted serial killer and obvious psychopath (no we call them "sociopaths" instead) over all the repected scientists who've refuted the claim.
The fact is, porn is a release valve for our sexual frustrations. That's why porn is as old as civilization--the explicit paintings in almost every Rioman villa, the pictogram porn of the Egyptians, the explicit sculptures and paintings of ancient Greece. We see it, we get excited as if by a real partner, we jerk off, and our tensions are gone.
That's precisely why I hope "virtual" child porn becomes acceptable. Wouldn't it be great if pedophiles could freely download CGI child porn, pound their puppies, and not have to dabble in ral child porn? And have that release valve, so they don't explode their sexual frustrations and touch a real child? I think so.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
For the record, the Bush administration has ruled out national ID cards. Not that I expect democrats.com to rely on facts.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
*Warning, message mostly sarcastic, but in a non-flaming way.*
"Essentially every major world religion..."
You're right, the largest religions in the world, are all just like christianity. Islam promotes monogamy, right? What? they don't? You're kidding. Well, surely Judaism tells you masturbation and polygamy is wrong. What? The only prohibition is on coveting somebody's wife, and lying with farm animals? Next thing you know, you'll tell me hinduism doesn't make that big a deal out of virginity, and hatched a big book of sex with some wacky name like Khama Sutra or something, some of the positions in which involve more than two people. At least there was a stigma on all that awful, non-puritanical sex in historic cultures, like greece, right? Harems of little boys for the emperor you say...oh my.
I'm sorry, but whether you like it or not, people liking to do things that feel nice are usually encouraged, except in christianity of the last couple thousand years. Don't just take that statement in reference to sexuality. (Warning, short libertarian rant coming) Why shouldn't people do whatever they want? The government's role is to keep people from hurting each other in that process. As long as nobody but my poor old right hand suffers, and people are willingly being naked/drunk/angry in online forums without gaining deep psychological scars, then so be it. Let the teens have their thrills, as long as nobody else suffers. Let the suck fucks look at bondage, as long as the lady in the nipple clamps isn't unhappy, why should you be? Let lady liberty wave her torch high, as long as she doesn't light the sky on fire.
My Karma is so good, I'm the Dalai Lama...or something.
The purpose of having a mock-life in your head has clear evolutionary advantages. You don't need to walk into the lion's den to find out what would happen -- you can simply imagine the outcome and do something harmless, instead. (please don't quibble with the example -- it's contrived, but the point still stands). However, our ability to imagine things that haven't (or won't) happen has a secondary, and possibly inadvertent, purpose. It's mental masturbation. It stimulates the pleasure centers of our brains. Not just by thinking about sex, but by thinking about things that give us pleasure. Daydreaming, for example. In fact, the extreme extension of this unique condition explains our love of TV shows and movies (and books, for that matter).
But also, it provides us with pleasure not as a "how can I achieve this goal" function but as a "I'd like to _____ but the consequences would be too severe so I'll just imagine it, instead." I'm sure we've all been with our respective bosses at one point or another and imagined clubbing him/her over the head with a clipboard or stuffed barricuda, I mean, who hasn't?
Yeah, yeah, get to the point, right?
Many men fantasise about rape (I won't say 'most', because I don't have any studies with numbers at hand, but I'd be inclined to) for a number of reasons, one of the most pertinent being that rape provides zero cost access to the thing men desire extremely highly (I'll skip the Freudian bit about how everything boils down to sex and death, but it's well understood that men spend a lot of time trying to get laid, not just in bars, but trying to get prestige careers, fancy cars, etc.) Zero cost because there's no initial investment (everything from buying drinks and being interesting to demonstrating long-term fitness as a mate) and there's no follow-up investment (everything from cuddling when you want to sleep to being a long-term fit mate). It's what Erica Jong refers to as the "zipperless fuck".
Most male rape fantasies commit what is generally termed the "she really wanted it" genre. And this is because most men really don't want to hurt their sex partner -- they want to be nice guys and still get zero cost sex. Once again, I haven't read or conducted any studies on the matter, so this part is pure speculation, but I would be very surprised if the majority of men who have rape fantasies imagine the way it really is. That is, I doubt they imagine the pain and suffering they're inflicting.
To use a couple of examples from the media. I'm guessing for most guys it's closer to the rape scene from "The Hollow Man" -- sexy, a little scary, and mercifully blurred, as opposed to the rape scene in "Boys Don't Cry" one of the most visceral moments in American cinema, in my opinion.
My point is that men's sexual fantasy lives, especially as conditioned by the media, are of the 'bonk the boss on the head' sort of thing. Any rape support group will tell you that rape isn't about sex, it's about violence. My contention is that rape fantasies, generally speaking, are about sex and that most men find the idea of violence against women to be abhorrent.
These same arguments apply to kiddie porn. Imagining sexual relations with a child is a far cry from the reality. I think that, in order to be fair, the bifurcation between fantasy and reality needs to be carefully considered. Especially the idea that more often we fantasise so as not to do something than to do it.
DISCLAIMER: I do not advocate rape. I do not advocate molesting children. I do not advocate violence. In fact, I don't even advocate thinking. I think we were better off as monkeys. Most of this diatribe is pure flim-flammery and it's only purpose is to propose an idea that may incite thought, but I hope not, as I don't advocate thinking. Please don't send me e-mail telling me I'm a sick bastard (I already know that -- my degree was in philosophy and cognitive science). One final point -- I think the same arguments apply towards women, but I omitted them since I'm not "in-house".
Ceci n'est pas une
What is a 'virtual child'?
Take manga, for example, or hentai. Most of the characters in most Japanese animation have characteristics that look to westerners child-like. Does that make all sexually explicit manga child pornography? Is this child pornography [warning: explicit]? Should it be banned?
Then, how do you tell by looking at a picture how old the subject is? Sure, yes, you can (almost always) tell the difference between a five year old and a fifty year old, but can you always tell the difference between a fifteen year old and a twenty-five year old, even in real life? If you can't in real life, how can you in drawings?
What about fantasy worlds in which people change ages? Take, for example, Freaky Friday, in which a mother and child exchange bodies for a day. If the 'mother' character (supposedly actually an adult but in a child's body) had had sex, would that be child porn? If the 'daughter' character (supposedly actually a child but in an adult body) had had sex, wouold that be child sex?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.