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UK Wants To Ban Computer-Generated Child Porn
An anonymous reader writes "UK Home Secretary John Reid has urged a ban on computer-generated images of child abuse, including cartoons. The Register asks if this would criminalize role-playing gamers, and what about Hentai? Currently, such images may be illegal to publish under the Obscene Publications Act, but they do not come under child pornography laws. The attempt to criminalize possession of virtual images mirrors the attempt to criminalize possession of 'extreme porn' which would also include fake images, as well as photos of simulated acts involving consenting adults (as discussed on Slashdot). A petition on the Government's new website urges an end to such plans."
It's not like we're talking about images of Mohammed or something!
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
What's next? Banning computer generated or drawn beastiality?
That would mean the tentacles have to go too!
I imagine it won't be too long before the petitions are flooded with "DESU DESU DESU"
Sounds like a long overdue idea at the forefront but where does the line get drawn? Do they stop at the internet "fantasy" sites that have started popping up or will they suddenly include Anime? What about some Mod for The Sims that some kid cooks up that makes all the characters naked? Would hate to think some poor bastard out there gets 10 years in prison for mixing together the perfect nudist colony on his sims block. Any chance they will just limit this to the internet pr0n sites that have cropped up?
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
I hate to tell people what they can and can't create on their computer, but if there were a situation that warranted it this might be it. I guess the real question is whether this starts down the slippery slope.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
What would constitute a child in a drawing? Would one of the figures have to be small? What if the creator said it was a midget? Would it have to say it was a child in a caption? Would it have to have pigtails or some streotypical childish feature? Would they ban people from play acting as kids during sex?
How about realizing that you can't legislate away all the bad things in the world.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
In real child porn a child is being abused.
In 'virtual' child porn no children are being abused.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I'm just an Ordinary Average Guy (apologies to Joe Walsh)
I am an example of an average person, and I take the responsibilities of representing the average person.
Anything that offends me, therefore, must offend average people.
non-average people tend to have these weird fetishes and ways of speaking and bizarre cultural beliefs and, well, I'm just going to say it...the offend me.
Therefore all non-average people offend average people and we must ban them all so that the only beliefs & cultures left are the average ones.
Thus, everybody wins!
You cannot argue with logic.
At what point is it a good idea to attempt to regulate thoughts, feeling and their expression? At what point does it become bad? I find myself asking that question at every turn when I see laws regulating "morality."
Some easy cases for regulation is in the constant sexually oriented marketing and the results it has on children. We like to turn a blind eye to the fact that "adult targetted advertisment" affects the way young developing minds perceive the world. (Yet at the same time, we recognize the fact when we are talking about tobacco and alcohol advertising?)
I don't feel up to making cases against regulation -- I think they don't need to be stated -- I think they are pretty obvious. It's just bad to attempt to control thought.
But perhaps what needs more control is the attempts at controlling thought themselves!!! Better controls on advertising. Better controls on laws on morality. Those kinds of controls might actually have a better chance at addressing the causes of the problems and not just the symptoms. The way I see things, frustrated and confused children growing up to be frustrated and confused adults are the problems and these crimes against children are the symptoms.
I expect they'll be arresting Quentin Blake for his illustrations of child abuse in Roald Dahl'sMatilda then.
Ok so they want to forbid drawings made on a computer in which kids are doing it with adults. Since the real thing is already illegal and since it doesn't stop the more dangerous pedophiles to trick kids into posing for them or to simply kidnap them, how is this law supposed to bring fear to these persons ? Also I prefer that these persons get off from virtual pictures that look real than from real pictures where child were molested. In other words, this is a stupid and useless law that is only on the table to trick the public into liking the government. Instead of thinking about votes, could you think of the children ?
While I am all for preventing child abuse, the problem with this is... how do you outlaw images that come from a different country? You can go to servers all over the world from the UK. Or is it just applicable for websites that are hosted in the UK? Why not just require all sexually-related material to be placed on a .XXX domain to make for easy filtering? This would be a pretty easy, almost binary yes/no question as to whether it should be on a .XXX domain. Part of the answer, IMHO: there is way too much money out there in commercial pornography and all of the related stuff in the industry, and no one wants to lose that money, or cause that money to be lost.
With Turner's syndrome, a person can look 13 and be much older.
a l_Victims_Unit_(season_8)#Clock_.289.2F26.2F06.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_%26_Order:_Speci
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Here you go with another well-intentioned, but poorly thought out piece of legislation. The kind of thing that they're trying to prevent is obviously repugnant, but, as with all government-driven restrictions on expression and speech, you end up casting the net far wider than anticipated. These things are much better left for the market place and society, in general, to sort out.
The nanny state grows larger every day!
As far as I can tell, any episode where Homer throttles Bart would fall foul of this, and who wants to miss out on the "Why you little..." sound bite?
My UID is prime!
People must have some serious problems if they are taking the time to generate this kind of stuff.
I for one welcome our new Hentai-tycoons-on-UK-market overlords.
But now seriously speaking, you know all those 14 yo looking girls in hentai are probably supposed to be 18-19 for them. We see the japonese women as younger than they really are, and they see the white women as older also.
This means my firefoxy wallpaper will be illegal, it's too cruel.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
http://lois.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/280586.html#Sec
"My fellow Americans, these are not the droids the nation is looking for."
We must ask for the facts sometimes, because perhaps it has lost its original meaning in the emotional charge the masses have given to it.
I remember watching the debates on the flag burning amendment. One Representative burnt a napkin with a flag on it at the podium saying that if we ban flag burning, that action would be illegal.
Regardless of the issue of flag burning, he had a point. Even those who are for the amendment don't intend it to go that so far as destroying any image resembling a flag, so perhaps they need to take a step back before blindly banning things under the name of patriotism.
I find the same point to be applicable here. Whether stopping child porn will help protect the children or not is irrelevant, those who promote child porn bans by saying it will help, probably don't intend for it to ban all images resembling it, and they need to take a step back before blindly banning things under the name of thinkofthechildren.
There is another, at first helpful but then noticeably nefarious, movement here. Some find pedophilia in-and-of-itself to be so loathesome they want to strip all pedophiles of everything, regardless of whether it helps the children or not. This then would become an issue of freedom. If there is no victim, and they keep to themselves, why should anyone else care. If it is because it may in the future hurt a child, again, perhaps they need to take a step back before blindly banning things under the name of thinkofthechildren.
Have you read my journal today?
There are plenty of websites out there that feature "barely legal" young women who are 18 and over. They usually have them dressed in schoolgirl outfits or acting like a "girly high school girl." Would that be considered illegal because it "simulates" an underage girl?
As for cartoons, how the hell does a court determine whether or not the drawn picture is of an underage girl, or a "barely legal" 18 year old? And why is this such a big deal? I thought the whole point in stopping child porn is because it exploits and abuses the children. Who is abused when an artist draws pictures? For there to be a crime, there has to be a victim. Where's the victim?
If such a law came into effect, what would constitute possession?
Would a computer owner who had previously stored such images on their computer be required to delete them? Or securely delete them (multiple overwrites)? Or scrub their entire hard-drive with Darius Boot and Nuke? Thermite? etc.
I'm always interested to hear the UK goverment tell its citizens that possession of data on computers will be made 'illegal' from a fixed date onwards. The same woolly legal thinking applied to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which criminalizes the possession of data that the owner encrypted but is unable to decrypt when demanded to do so by the police.
You point out an important distinction, between the public interest in protecting children, and the public interest in promoting virtue.
To play the role of devil's advocate for a moment, there are reasons other than paternalism to promote public virtue in this case; these interests may not be unrelated.
Virtual child porn has two effects:
(1) It provides a more acceptable alternative to child porn with real children, removing the economic incentive to produce it.
(2) It encourages its users to view children in general as objects of sex gratification.
Personally, I doubt anybody produces live child porn purely for profit. I'd expect there must be elements of sexual sadism, voyeurism and/or exhibitionism involved for somebody to do something so reviled. Therefore I think the loss of economic incentive will have less effect on production than expected.
On the consumer side, the encouragement of sex gratification through a more acceptable means may actually increase demand for live child pornography, especially among those whose fixation has a strong element of sadism or voyeuerism not satisfied by virtual models. Put it this way: if you have a drinking problem and a smoking problem, chances are any time you have drink in your hand you're craving a smoke. Drink enough and you'll end up smoking too.
Argued from a utilitarian viewpoint, there may be little difference in the need to ban virutal and real child porn. From a basic rights (deontological) perspective the distinction between virtual and real is sharper. Virtual porn is not a violation of a specific child's rights.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What else should we expect since so many english politicians were recently caught in dirty affairs.
Is it just me, or does it seem like every time there are real issues that need addressing, but require a lot of effort and a change in government policy, said government comes up with some diversionary issue?
"We need to reevaluate our Iraq policy." "Right, here's a measure we need to fight child pornography!" "We've got an immigration issue." "BTW, did we mention this epidemic of child porn?" "We have to look at healthcare costs" "Look! Kid porn! Child molesters!" It's a quick hot-button issue that allows them to spend immense amounts of time pontificating, while diverting public attention from any lack of work on real issues.
That's not even asking the question of "Why didn't the last 10 laws you passed on this subject work, or why didn't you enforce them?" Which is the question I'm asking of them. Until they have a good answer, I letting them know that I expect them to stop trying to divert me, and get to work on real issues.
From 18 USC 2256:
andI'm guessing that simple nudity would not be considered child pornography, then. But, I suppose that depends on what constitutes "lascivious exhibition".
You zoom in really much on the pixels, and if they have fewer than 18 age rings on them, the pixels are too young.
Seriously, yeah, that judgment would be entirely left up for the law to make, and with as exaggerated erotica the computer generated art I've seen can be, that should be an interesting judgment to watch to say the least.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Guess now Sailor Moon & al. are going to have to show ID cards before being tentacle-fucked :P
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the la -- hang on, I posted that yesterday or something.
Are we reaching a situation where vague, ill-defined laws that basically criminalize whatever's unpopular or unprofitable or unlucky are actually being made faster than I can quote Tacitus? In the UK I'd say we are.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
You must be new here. And by here I mean to organized government.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
... if progress can only be achieved by outlawing thought-crime.
What I'd really love to see is some way to put a cost on creating legislation. Just so that people can't just create legislation for the sake of looking good.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
O
/|\
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So... is that ascii drawing child porn? What if I say it's a drawing of a child?
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
And why is this such a big deal? I thought the whole point in stopping child porn is because it exploits and abuses the children.
So there are at least two issues here. One is legislating morality. Lots of people in power like to do that. It's not justified.
Second is preventing crime. The theory is if you take a mentally unstable person and bathe him in child porn, virtual or not, he's more likely to actually commit a crime acting out what he's been exposed to. So, by removing the stimulus, you prevent the crime.
I don't know how much data there is on that, but the hypothesis at least has merit for study.
Further, there's the issue of whether preventing said crime is worth the infringement of the rights of those without the tendency to act out their crimes. There's no acceptable regime that can limit the ban to those actually likely to be affected.
Our society is all over the place on this issue. On one hand, someone can't smoke next to me in a restaurant because their smoke probably causes me harm. On the other hand, we haven't banned motor vehicles from roads, where people do walk on foot and a very real number of people are killed by the fact that there are cars on those roads.
In the end it's all a careful balancing of trade-offs.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Hi !
like most people, I started by wondering why cartoons needed to be banned since no child was molested in doing it.
But then I remembered what other uses those cartoons (and real photographies/movies) get put to.
They're used for grooming. Paedophiles may use those to show the kids and explain that it's an OK thing to do,
"see, everyone's doing it", that kind of thing...
So I guess the line is where you start to over protect or when people start to lose any kind of freedom.
because of the internet who gets to decide what the age of a child is?
and what are the physical characteristics are we going to measure it by?
and whats constitutes porn? Provocative poses? Skimpy clothing? No Clothing? touching or not touching?
too many ways to bite everyone in the ass
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This was Ashcroft's pathetic argument. I've worked with the application that's used to generate 99.9% of all CGI porn out there (Poser), and its models are instantly recognizable. The lighting and rendering options are prosumer level at best, but more importantly the artists who create Poser porn have NO INTEREST in making their work indistinguishable from photography.
This is not a trivial point. CGI porn is created by artists who don't have the skills or talent to draw it themselves, not Hollywood-level techs looking to circumvent the law. And their paysite customers are comfortable in the knowledge that possession of images of recognizably non-real events means no exploitation of real-world models. No victim, no crime.
The unspoken presumption here is that what pervs want more than anything is photorealistic images which defy distinction. The number of people who subscribe to sites with hand-drawn furry porn says otherwise.
Maya is the gold standard for images indistinguishable from photos. People take college-level courses to learn it, never mind master it, and the investment of time and money is inconsistent with the ROI they could get using it to make loli porn.
When the police's argument devolves to "this means the burden of proof is still on us," I honestly don't give a fuck.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
I'm sorry for UK fans of Negima!: Magister Negi Magi. It's one of the funniest manga teen comedies I've ever read, but due to the protagonist being a 10-year old who is surrounded by partially naked teen girls, it might end up being targeted by such a dumb law. How absurd!
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Now let's just assume that Dru Blair decides, for whatever reason, to paint a naked child and post it on the internet. Is that a violation of the proposed law?
Humans have always created images. Humans will always create images. The computer is just another tool that happens to also be good at distribution.
Even in cultures that frown upon "realistic" images art is created. Now, I don't know what is going through the minds of those that look at the abstract decorative art in Islamic culture, but I'm sure they have their share of pedophiles as well as other things I would classify as freakish.
People who suggest such draconian laws and principles just don't understand human beings. Human beings are creative, and versatile. Even if you lock a man in a dark room, his mind will conjure images that he finds pleasing.
Bottom line, you cannot legislate imagery. I suggest that if we were to travel to 19th century Iraq, or Iran we would find "realistic" images, just as we would find "porno" in Queen Victoria's London.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Lets face it, having any type of image, either real or computer generated, de-synthesizes its viewer to the actual criminal act of molesting a child. This in turn makes it easier for themselves to justify or at least in some form allows them to rationalize that what they are doing is ok. Who knows how many more innocent victims there have been because of the availability of this type of material on the internet. We have all seen "To Catch a Predator" on TV.....this exact type of material is creating an epidemic in this country. Whether it is real or computer generated material, it is wrong, it is disgusting and anyone who would defend it in the name of freedom of speech or expression needs to seriously question their own moral judgment. I would even be curious to see if since the internet becoming main stream if cases of child molestation have increased due to it making this type of material more readily available.
We're talking about child porn that tries to play games with legal loopholes about whether a child is actually harmed. It encourages the direct physical abuse of real children by conditioning the paedophile to consider their lustful and abusive mentality "acceptable" or "normal". It's the same problem that is caused by allowing pre-teen and teen models to be dressed up as if they were adults by clothing advertisers.
Comparing South Park's creative and repetitive killing of the self-repairing Kenny to someone trying to portray a realistic scene of rape and torture is disingenuous at best. No one would ever confuse Kenny with being real, but when you consider the stellar work done by SquareSoft, Pixar, or the team behind Ghost in the Shell 2, it's pretty clear that we can do the synthetic actors that Lucas fantasized about years ago.
Even Hentai isn't a fair comparison, because while the material is deeply disturbing "tentacle sex demons" ties in with some Japanese religions and folklore. It is an excellant example of a storyline where you don't want live human actors, but that doesn't mean it should be suppressed by people who don't understand the cultural significance.
When's the last time some sicko dressed up as a Japanese sex demon and tried to molest a horde of young women?
When's the last time a child got dragged off by a paedophile to be raped in darkness and terror?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Would that be considered illegal because it "simulates" an underage girl?
Yup.
It's a simple answer. Possibly not the one you were expecting. I'm not sure what the law is at the moment, but there's always demand for it to apply to photographs of somone who "is or appears to be under 18" largely because this makes it easier to prosecute without having the inconvenient defence of the photo being of someone of legal age.
I make no attempt to defend this asttitude but it seems to be a common attitude.
Fine , ban these virtual images of child porn. Presumably all the carved cherubs and statues in fountains of pissing children will have to go too , not to mention numerous works of art. No? Oh and why's that then Mr Reid? Oh , of course , its called double standards, something politicians are past masters at.
Of course not, then only the people who really want them will trade them illicitly...however the freedom of everyone else will have slipped away down that slippery slope in the name of protecting the children.
Pedophilia just like any other form of rape is about control more than just sex
Pedophilia is a state of being, rape is an act.
I don't think any hardcore pedophile will be satisfied with virtual playthings for very long so in the end virtual child porn will not achieve anything more than just postpone the inevitable a little while longer.
You claim willful ignorance of what makes pedos tick and then you try to speak authoritatively about how they think. Which is it?
Think of the children! err, wait, no stop thinking of children! Why are you thinking of children, are you some kind of pedo?!?
Oh, come on. Loli characters in hentai often look like their 8-10 years of age and are purposely designed to look that young.
That doesn't mean I support this type of legislation. Like you, I think that stopping real child pornography is a worthwhile activity because I oppose the abuse of real children. Nevertheless I think it's pure obfuscation to suggest someone can't tell how old a loli character is supposed to be by looking at the pictures.
I also don't think, as some have suggested here, that hentai artists need to look at real-life children to figure out how to draw animated child porn. Somehow they've managed to figure out how to draw large tentacled monsters raping women without any real-world referents. Human imagination is (thankfully) a very powerful thing.
All citizens of the UK sign this http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/juggle/. Everyone else should check it out, and I recommend Americans form a similar petition to Dubya
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Illegal!: The act
Illegal: A recording of the act (photograph, video)
Illegal?: A recording of a thought about the act (drawing)
ILLEGAL?!?: The thought about the act (Thought Police, here we come...)
Let's suppose that you're chosen for a jury in a kiddie porn case. In order to render a verdict against the accused, you'll have to look at the porn. Will this make you go out and rape kids? No, it won't. That's because porn doesn't make normal people commit physical acts against others.
But even if it were true, it wouldn't matter. Making pictures that 'encurage' activities is the expression of an idea, which isn't the same thing as the activities themselves. If someone abuses a child, they have committed an act against an actual person, which is justly punished. If all they're doing is looking at pictures and thinking about it, no one has been harmed, so there is no justification for sending Men With Badges And Guns to stop it.
Got that, pervs? Look, but don't touch, m'kay?
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Aren't the anti-child pornography laws in place to protect children from abuse? Which children are being abused in making a cartoon again?
Then again , anti drug laws are there to protect us from the crime involved in drug trade, right? That's why once a pharmacy manages to legitimize the use of a drug it's suddenly decriminalized.. oh.. wait.. nm
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Wow, and I thought our crazy "18-year-old-boy sleeps with 17-year-old-girl on the boy's 18th birthday and thus becomes registered sex offender for life" was nuts.
But in Canada, it is illegal to depict having sex with a 14 year old, but it is legal to actually go out and boink a 14 year old (assuming no relationship of trust or authority or prostitution/pornography, apparently). That is truly insane.
The enemies of Democracy are
Uh, wouldn't it be the same people trying to ban joe the camel are the same people trying to stop things like this, and not the exact opposite?
For example, although I don't smoke I see no problem with cigarette ads. I see no problem with people smoking openly in public. In a building I can understand a restriction because the smoke doesn't leave, it stays there and becomes a problem. Eyes burn, and I'm even alergic to cigarette smoke. It's unfortunate but it's not the reason for my wanting to get rid of it indoors.
As for the computer generated child porn, how are you going to "prove" the age of a virtual actor? Once they can blur that line, they're free to interpret it as they wish.
It's not about perversions, IMO... this is a rights issue. Real child pornography images has real mental (and physical) harm behind it, and that's reason enough for it to be illegal IMO.
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
If fake pedophiles had sweet suits and leather jackets, rode around on motorcycles and sports cars and were frequently surounded by a throng of attractive women maybe people would think pedophilia was cooler.
Or, maybe children are more suseptable to having their minds altered by what they see and that why we make efforts to keep R rated movies, violent videogames, and yes, even pronography and ciggarettes out of their hands. Saying that violent pornography has no affect on mature adults is up for debate, saying that sex and violence has no effect on forming minds is ignorance.
Your comment makes me think of this law as one step closer to defining Orwellian "thoughtcrimes."
Joe Camel really has nothing at all to do with this. The violent video games and porn cartoons are directed at adults, and meant to be restricted from viewing or use by children. If you show a child hentai, you're guilty of child abuse.
The Joe Camel cigarette ads, on the other hand, were directed toward the general public and viewable everywhere, including places children would see them.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
every fantasy book/comic/video game ever made features at least one scantily clad "elf princess" which is pretty much a racy illustration of a 15 year old girl... with pointy ears. we have all seen them and gone on to lead normal lives. whole generations of nerds have been raised on this stuff and thus far real world child abuse has been the same as it ever was... tragic and deplorable, but rare. does this mean that all of those CGIpr0n sites can now photoshop in pointy ears and call it "elf porn"?
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
I thought the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 already amended the Protection of Children Act 1978 to make pseudo images of child porn illegal anyway. Sounds like this would be extending that to "abuse".
There was a case earlier this year of someone being arrested under that act. See here
You are confusing things.
MOST CHILD ABUSE is perpetrated by non-pedophiles. These are "situational molestors" to scientists who study this and they are triggered by power and violence. These people are highly unlikely to look at child porn. These people are highly likely to have mental illness.
The rest of child abuse is perpetrated by pedophiles. These are "preferential molestors" to researchers and they are highly likely to be interested in child porn, however, are very unlikely to be seeking the violence/power/domination relationship and often see themselves on the same level as the child, as a peer (of sorts). Within this group, there are actually very low rates of mental illness and according to studies, most in this group are regarded as "highly normal" by psychologists except that they are attacted to children.
Fred Berlin and Johns Hopkins University, probably the world's most prominent researcher on this topic, says that with these people, their attraction is most effectively studied in a similar contest to other, more normative "sexual orientations", and not studied as a mental illness, because it, clinically, has more in common that direction.
The trick is that differentiating these two groups is critical to understanding the issue.
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
How about when exposure to those expressions becomes no longer a moral issue, but a scientifically reproducible psychological or even physiological issue? Fast food makes you fat, duh (or maybe not, for the less educated) -- it would be stupid to need a label on your burger to tell you that. But how about the TV and autism correlation ? How about chemically observable effects of viewing pornography and/or violence, producing changes in the brain or addiction (if/when the technology gets good enough to show it one way or the other)?
As we discover more about this, I have to think this may move out of the morality arena and into the public health and/or disease arena, to be classified alongside (but not the same as) addictive behaviors or drug dependency -- at which point freedom of expression may have another label on it (warning: may reinforce addictive behavior in slashdot readers).
Lets face it, having any type of image, either real or computer generated, de-synthesizes its viewer to the actual criminal act of molesting a child. This in turn makes it easier for themselves to justify or at least in some form allows them to rationalize that what they are doing is ok.
Aside from the fact that the grammar in these sentances is questionable, I see no evidence to support what you are claiming.
We have all seen "To Catch a Predator" on TV.....this exact type of material is creating an epidemic in this country.
Yes, I have seen "To Catch a Predator," and I have seen no evidence on the show that computer generated images cause people to commit crime.
Whether it is real or computer generated material, it is wrong, it is disgusting and anyone who would defend it in the name of freedom of speech or expression needs to seriously question their own moral judgment.
Moral judgement is a funny thing - it varies from person to person. In light of the fact that there is very little evidence supporting the claim you made about child molesters earlier in your post, many people are taking a different moral standpoint than you are. This does not suggest that they need to question their moral judgement, only that they are looking at this from their own angle.
It seems to me that you are basing your judgement on this issue purely in the visceral loathing that you feel toward people that would hurt children. While this is perhaps an understandable response, I do not consider it a reasonable one. No one wants to see children get hurt, but right now we can't say if images either alleviate or exacerbate the problem, so banning them is not the right solution.
I believe that we, as a society, need more information before we can decide how best to alleviate the problem of child abuse. I do not advocate inaction, I advocate research. Actual research about child abuse is somewhat of a taboo and sees inadaquate funding and support, but society needs the research if we are to make any headway on the issue.
I understand that you don't defend the attitude you posted about, but I have problems with the attitude, and the biggest problem I have with that attitude is how on earth are you supposed to judge the "age" of a cartoon character by just looking at the picture? (let's just pretend the artist who drew the cartoon left out any references to the age of the character). Sometime's it's hard enough with real people. I posted earlier (in another thread) would it be a crime for my wife to dress up in a schoolgirl outfit to make hserself appear to be a teenager and we have sex? With the pervasive attitued I suppose it would, and that's just wrong. (Flipside of the coin is why if the cartoon character is know to be 17, but looked 35 would it still be illegal). This whole set of laws is just screwed to no end, a tangled mess of shit and now we can't get out of it without looking like pedophiles ourselves.
I got nuthin
Dude, what does Delaware State University have to do with this?
Don't mod me down: I was joking!
The difference is that if you don't want to see porno cartoons, no one is making you (except perhaps spammers and goatse-style "pranksters"). But if Camel is using Joe's iamge all over the place, I can't avoid it. More to the point, children can't avoid it.
Otherwise how can we be objective?
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
As long as the cartoonist draws little cartoon drivers licenses that show the participants are of age, then there should be no problem
saying that sex and violence has no effect on forming minds is ignorance.
No more so than saying they have an effect and yet not being able to back it up with any reliable measure of said effect.
Just use Tor and get rid of this idiocity all at once.
It is really sick, first they try to convince us that sex = violence and now that drawings = violence.
Idiots.
http://tor.eff.org/
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Making child porn illegal is about trying to stop the custom that drives the victimisation of children. They can't police the idea though. But if they try and police the expression of an idea (which drawing are expression, no victimisation is taking place unless you have children in sweat-shops doing your in-betweening), then really they're trying to move on to the policing of the idea itself.
Which is obviously where they're trying to take it, which is absurd. I have the gift of being able to draw, and what if I make my own sketch book of my particular brand of hentai... does that mean that I'm going to get in trouble for expressing whatever disturbed ideas I have in my own head!?... and having my own sketch books in my own posession?...
This is basically trying to turn anyone with a kink and the skills of expression into a Marquis de Sade. Even the good Marquis shouldn't be denied the right to express whatever he has to deal with within the walls of his own skull.
(looks like I need to hide my high-school sketch book with interesting drawings of the Ninja Turtles and April O'Niel... or at the very least, stop the sales of it in the UK)
According to a recent supreme court ruling, CGI/drawn images of children are protected by the 1st amendment
Can you give a source for this please?
How about I draw a photo-realistic picture of your sweet little 2-year-old daughter getting her @ss pounded by a gun-totin' Republican?
If that is what would make you happy, then go ahead. She's 15 now anyway. I wouldn't LIKE it. I'd think it would be in bad taste. If this picture got seen by her friends and she started getting hassled about it, I'd probably even sue you. But I don't think you should be thrown in JAIL for it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
In this and many other situations, there is one big question: does a little pornography/violence/etc satisfy the appetite for it, or whet the appetite for it? Do violent video games make people more violent, or do they serve as a useful channel for violent impulses? Does child pornography (real or fake) satisfy the pedophile, or does it make him/her more likely to abuse real children? Everyone seems to have their opinion, but I'd like to see some scientific evidence to back those opinions up. I guess the answer is that it depends on the person: some people are easily satisfied, while some are never satisfied---but maybe people in the latter group would be driven to extremes eventually no matter what their stimulation.
What makes sense to me is that pedophilia is a sexual fetish, a lot like other fetishes except that it can't be indulged in. Pedophiles aren't necessarily evil people, though they may do evil things. They don't choose to be pedophiles. If simulated child pornography gives them some release and helps them control (or eliminate) their urges, then by damn let's give it to them. Just don't make me watch it too.
We can try to stick our heads in the sand as with climate change, but statistics show paedophilia charges and convictions are on the rise.
Do you have a better explanation than a weak-kneed permissive social attitude or a conditioning by media influences?
"Think of the children" is a specious argument when it's raised in a context that is (at best) only loosely associated with children. But when the direct victim is children, the argument is very valid. Even hardened criminals with life sentences have children they'll kill to protect -- and sometimes have.
No one likes a paedophile. It's hard wired at an instinctual level as a biological protection of our own offspring. There is no "moral question" -- it's so important it's a physically hardwired response to view such activities with disgust and contempt.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Here's a disgusting scenario: sicko A has a child, a camera, and a computer. He wants to make child porn. He would have shot his child with the camera, but oops, that's illegal. So he's considering using the computer to make something virtual, but he'll have to learn Photoshop. Now, the UK comes along and says making virtual child porn is illegal too. Now Mr. A thinks, "well, now that it's illegal either way, I don't have to learn Photoshop."
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
"The difference is that if you don't want to see porno cartoons, no one is making you"
You must be new to this internet thing. Porn is everywhere, and pornographers are targeting children.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Children are not full citizens of the USA. They do not have the right to smoke, drink, and do other things. Schools can search and seize items without warrants.
The internet is NOT a Child's right. It is a Citizens of the US right (and other countries.. rights.. based system). Thus anything on the Internet should be considered Adult viewing as default. Children should be restricted from the internet and either placed in DMZ's or just not allowed on.
I have 2 kids.. they don't touch the internet!
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
Your honor, I swear that the character was meant to be over the age of 18, look boobs, and pubes... (nevermind the diaper)... I rest my case your honor...
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Lets face it, having any type of image, either real or computer generated, de-synthesizes[sic] its viewer to the actual criminal act of molesting a child.
Unless you care to provide a source for this "fact" other than your ass, I'm curious why I should "face it". I could argue the opposite, allowing someone who feels such tendencies to view totally computer generated images could reduce the likelihood that they will engage in such behavior in a manner that actually harms a kid. But the honest truth is, I can't pull up any solid, peer-reviewed data to support my point, so I'm not going to insist that you acquiesce to it. And I'd appreciate the same.
Whether it is real or computer generated material, it is wrong, it is disgusting...
Well, "wrong" is a particularly nebulous term, and disgusting is a matter of personal preference. I'd be willing to bet, if I sorted through your material possessions, I'd find something that I would consider "wrong and disgusting". Hell, half of my friend's refrigerators in college contained things I would deem "wrong and disgusting". Ought those things be illegal solely because of my feelings towards them? Of course not. Now, if in the process of creating this supposed wrong and disgusting thing, a person victimizes another, that's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish.
I would even be curious to see if since the internet becoming main stream if cases of child molestation have increased due to it making this type of material more readily available.
Historically speaking? Almost certainly not. I refer you to the works of Socrates & friends. Or South America, where the age of consent runs from 15 in Uruguay down to 13 in Argentina. What we, today, would term child molestation was mainstream at times in history & in other parts of the world.
I'd be very careful about advocating laws against thought crimes-- I'd bet good money there's something in your head that somebody else out there thinks is "wrong and disgusting". And hopefully for your sake, they don't manage to get you incarcerated & turned into a pariah for life for thinking it.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Simulated under-age sex, then simulated snuffing of the participants: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063518/
Thank me later!
What a great idea! Worked great for drugs and terrorism right?
Because someone decides not to do drugs because of the lack of easy availability.
Because someone decides not to ram airplanes into buildings because piloting planes is hard and its against the law.
Because someone decides not to molest children because they havent ever seen an image of someone molesting a child.
Because people have no inherent desires or motivations and always let external stimuli dictate their decisions.
This my friends is why religion is evil. It makes you think that there are "reasons" for every fucking little thing in the world. It indoctrinates you to think that people are just randomly "corrupted" by magic satan elves or forceably conditioned to believe in different sorts of morals and that morality MUST be programmed into a normal human being, else they dont have any morals. Everything needs to be taught or influenced by something right? Theres no inherent morality? fuck that shit. People are who they are, and you dont need conditioning to turn you good, or turn you bad (if there was even such a thing as good and bad).
I love how with the "commence flaming" you some how feel that you are being repressed by the 'evil majority'. Religion really makes you think persecution always equates with being right eh? Your such a hypocrite too. If your a guy, you masterbate to something. If you say you don't, your lying. No one can keep that much spunk inside of them. It would back up all the way to your brai-
oh wait...
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Haha! Msobkow got pwnd!
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
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SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
There are arguments that assume a cause-effect relationship, but other arguments to counter it. The counter-arguments are generally shouted down by people like Bill O'Reilly and Nancy Grace as apologia for pervs, often with the implication that the apologist must himself be perverted.
I figure that every minute a perv spends looking at pictures is a minute he's not abusing a kid.
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SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Well, I suppose the argument is that if someone is looking at underage children then their intention is to do something illegal. The fact that they didn't is not really much of a defence. There is a parallel with other crimes. If I try to murder someone, even if my plan couldn't possibly work, I would stil be charged with attempted murder.
Causation is not the same thing as Correlation. Look it up, I'll wait...
Done? Now, present me with a study that says that viewing such images CAUSES these urges. Are you certain that it's not the case that people who have these urges *also* happen to be into that kind of pr0n? One *may* be a subset of the other, but they sure as hell aren't equal.
After all, I like (and view) straight pr0n. Does that make me more or less likely to have sex with a woman at any given moment? What, you don't have any idea? It could be either (or neither), and is extremely similar to the above scenario, except your opinion on the matter won't send me to jail, unlike the people we're discussing in this thread.
Provide solid, peer-reviewed studies on this (and any other causation-correlation issue) when you make wild claims: Child porn does not sate a desire to molest children, it inculcates this desire. , or shut the fuck up, Mormon or not.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
But what would not be illegal would be producing a movie about trying to kill someone (unless someone actually was going to die) or watching a movie someone else made about killing someone (again, fictional). So how is this different? No one actually had sex with a kid, and no one actually died.
I got nuthin
You can argue that this is not a child but 40-year-whore transformed into child by magic.
I'm by no means for a bill this wide in scope, but I think that it's worth considering that in 10 years, it will be possible to generated images from scratch that are indistinguishable from the real thing. While those images in and of themselves are not necessarily unethical, it complicates the prosecution of real child porn producers immensely, and I believe that stands as a possible reason to allow a law along these lines, albiet a more limited one. Even allow cartoons to continue could allow for 'A Scanner Darkly' style re-animation of actual videos, and then a defense could be used that they are just cartoons and nothing really happened. Just something to consider.
nobody
It has not... this is FALSE information fed by the sensationalist media.
d =17243204
Read this:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=211770&ci
Thanks,
Stewed
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
The rest of child abuse is perpetrated by pedophiles. These are "preferential molestors" to researchers and they are highly likely to be interested in child porn, however, are very unlikely to be seeking the violence/power/domination relationship and often see themselves on the same level as the child, as a peer (of sorts). Within this group, there are actually very low rates of mental illness and according to studies, most in this group are regarded as "highly normal" by psychologists except that they are attacted to children.
The actual definition of the word is "an emotional and often sexual attraction to prepubescent children." It is not common for someone emotionally attracted to another person to intentionally cause them harm.
One might argue that paedophiles are the LEAST likely to harm a child. But then, we're not allowed to say that, are we? The moral furor in this country knows no bounds.
Wow, I think you just revealed your total and complete ignorance for *blaming* slashdot for this discussion.
:-)
We are all slashdot drones and you are the only human here. Congrats on your psyche being the lone beacon of sanity in the cold, cruel Internet.
If I called you a fucktard, should i go to jail?
You're going to draw a picture of my daughter getting raped? Ooooo that's classy. But not illegal, nor should it be.
By the way, what's wrong with the ACLU? I mean NAMBLA... sure... but the ACLU? Are you a gay evangelical?
sometimes i make myself laugh.
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Smoking marijuana is illegal, but possession of these posters is not.
Yes, but you're ignoring the function of porn. A t-shirt of marijuana will not give you a buzz by itself. Neither will a poster. But the entire point of porn is to make you feel as if the action were really happening. So that's a little different, don't you think? Porn is *not* just a form of expression, it is fundamentally different than the other forms of expression you mention.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
The difference being the target audience.
Childrens minds work quite differently from those of adults (I'm a father of two, I think I have at least some experience.) Kids minds are much more impressionable than those of adults. No wonder, really, they have fewer pre-existing patterns and are much more pliable in all senses.
The problem is this: conservative adults are using the impressionability of children to justify broad measures, targeting not just content targeted at children but adults alike, to further their causes. Hence the mockingly exasperated use of the expression "Will nobody think of the children?!"
This is such an example and putting forward the example of Joe Camel against it is therefore a strawman's argument. Joe Camel adverts were most likely expressly targeted at children to get them to use an addictive substance because at a later age they are more likely to be swayed against using it due to them using their discrete thinking abilities.
These creative expressions, (yes, they're also creative expressions, besides being absolutely reprehensible to people with a less deviant sexual moral, like at least me, and I assume, perhaps to my peril, like you,) should be protected and not prosecuted. What adults do for their own pleasure, without harming anyone (not even just children) in the process, should be at their discretion, even if you disagree.
Corrolary: I could say riding motorcycles and mountaineering are examples of completely irresponsible behaviour, but as long as the risk to others is small (you mostly risk your own life and limb) there's very little I can bring forward to justify a ban.
Back on subject: it has been proven over and over again (I'm not backing this up with links to research, I think it is self-evident,) that trying to reduce the demand-side of an equation where people's deepest desires are involved doesn't work. Best to have government aim repressive measures at behaviour that is actually damaging to others (e.g. creation of real child pornography) and to make sure the demand side doesn't rise by making damaging behaviour socially unacceptible in a vocal way. A good example of this last idea is to ban smoking in the presence of non-smokers as has been demonstrated all over the world in the last decade.
Karma? What's that again?
I'm surprised no one has referenced this book yet: AIN'T NOBODY'S BUSINESS IF YOU DO The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Country Peter McWilliams Prelude Press see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain't_Nobody's_Busine ss_If_You_Do
"You have liberated me from thought."
Would this do? Pornography does indeed have a measurable effect on the human mind.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
shouldn't that be a naked nine year old girl?
*ducks*
I said "except spammers". They're already breaking the law by pushing kiddie porn and bestiality so this proposal will hardly make any difference either way. And I rather doubt they're "targetting children". They just send it to everyone. Kids don't have any money to spend buying porn. They're amoral businessmen, there's no profit in corrupting children.
Ummm, no. From TFA: as the panelists themselves acknowledged, there is no consensus among mental health professionals about the dangers of porn or the use of the term "pornography addiction." Furthermore, where are the details of the experimental methods used to "measure" anything?
You're going to have to try harder than that.
Not only Kenny, one of my favourite Ghastly Comic Strips, where Crackle is ordered to shut his sissy mouth and take a big rubber cock, would now surely become illegal to possess. Up until now, I thought the only thing that might be violated other than Crackle's behind was trademark law.
Whilst Crackle's age is unclear, he is certainly described as a child - "the good-hearted, fun middle child".
At what point do you draw the line between what looks real and what is real?
It's sorta "stupid" to ban "real" images if "manufactured" or "computer generated" images can look real.
Besides, it's not the "realism" that's the problem, it's the idea. Do we allow banning an idea? It certainly seems ok in the case of "real" porn.
What's the difference between sex porn and violence porn? Why is one "bannable", but the other not? Is sex somehow more obscene than killing?
Stupidity runs amok in governments. Hysteria and mass panic. Logic and reason don't enter into it -- it's about manipulating the masses. So are bans against "real" images effective in banning the ideas?
Evil monster molests child and takes photographs. Then he sells the photographs to wannabe-evil sicko's who don't molest children themselves but jerk off to kiddy porn.
Why do we punish the users of kiddy porn? The users are not molesting children. It is only the creators who are doing that. The reason for punishing the users of kiddy porn is that we want to protect children and they are undermining our efforts by giving money to child molesters. Paying money for kiddy porn gives the creators cash to move on, cover their tracks, and find new victims.
The punishment of users of kiddy porn is intended to turn up the heat on the creators/molesters by cutting off their source of funding, much like using "money laundering" laws to obstruct funding of terrorists. If the law prohibits real child porn and permits computer generated child porn, and if the consequence is that wannabe-evil sicko's spend their cash on photo-shopped adult porn and CGI instead of the real thing, then we have won that won that particular battle and made life harder for child molesters.
Banning Computer-Generated Child Porn is an actively evil policy that defends the child molesters source of candy money from competition that doesn't involve harming children.
There is another perspective, from the theory of bureaucratic infighting. If you want to undermine your organisations performance of function X, you can widen the remit of the department responsible for X. This undermines it four ways.
- Distracts management with a wider range of responsibilities
- Spreads the budget over more activities
- Makes the budget harder to justify because the remit has been diluted with less worthwhile activities
- Creates a 'downhill' dynamic in which effort shifts to easier or less umpleasant areas
The current focus is on the protection of children. Widening that to include computer generated porn widens it to include the investigation and prosecution of creators of pornography who have no access to children and are unable to harm them. Such a loss of focus could almost have been designed to undermine child protection.John Reid's idea of banning computer generated child porn has a Belgium spell to it, as though child molesters have friends in high places who are deliberately doing a poor job of protecting children.
I think you've touched on the real reason for these laws. As CG technology becomes more advanced and accessible to the masses, you probably will start seeing very realistic CG pornography (and possibly porn involving CG "minors").
Laws like this aren't an attempt to protect 1's and 0's that are less than 18 years of age. Rather, these types of laws are for prosecutional prudence. Imagine you are a prosecutor. You've got a guy who was found in possession of a child porn video. Currently, that ought to be a pretty easy case to convict on.
But what happens in the future when the defense says, "The child in this video isn't a person. He's a computer animation." Now, all of a sudden, the prosecution has to track down the child to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was, indeed, a child in the video who was under 18 years of age. Laws like this are an end-run around such a defense. It takes away the prosecution's obligation to produce a victim or lose the case.
Personally, I rather like the idea that a prosecutor has to produce a victim in order to prosecute someone. But I don't write the laws.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Oh, really? Are you saying all the media reports and convictions are fantasy?
The idea of increased reporting is plausible, but when you incorporate the charges of people arrested for picking up child prostitutes, the arrests for major child porn collections, the people charged and locked up for direct physical molestation (with or without cameras to share their "experience" with their "friends"), ...
Well, lets just say that the numbers are ugly and getting worse.
Have you ever known a rape victim? Even adults have difficulty dealing with the trauma. Now imagine the impact on a trusting child. We're not talking about something that they "get over", but a lifelong infliction of pain.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I am surprised that this post was marked as insightful. Are you arguing that there is no evidence that the environment that we grow in and the influences coming from it has no bearing on us? Do you have any data to back up that assertion?
I ask this because if what you are saying is indeed true, then we don't have to have legislation in place for banning adults from exposing themselves to children in parks, we don't have to worry about violence in the home affecting children who may not directly be the victims of the attack etc.
If what you are implying is true, most of psychiatry is bunkum.
most of psychiatry is bunkum.
Do you really need to condition that upon the truth of anything I said? Psychiatry is pretty far removed from hard science. If you see me place a rock in my pocket, does it follow that the rock is in my pocket? You can claim so. But perhaps there is a hole in my pocket. Point being... if you cannot measure an effect, how do you know there is an effect at all?
I am happy to draw the line at physically touching those who have not (or due to their youth or mental incapacity are unable to have) given consent. That is a nice bright line of distinction that avoids the need to worry about what correlates there may be to the physical act.
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SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Ok, so I take it that you have determined, contrary to what experts across the world have determined over decades of research and observation, that environmental factors and the circumstances under which a child grows up cannot possibly have any effect on their mental state as adults; that it has no bearing on their choices, actions etc. You have also determined, after careful research - no doubt, that pornography has *zero* effect on marriages, has no effect on psychosexual development of an individual, has no effect on society.
l ds/pornldsauthor/links/victorcline/porneffect.htm
May I present you with some evidence which indicates the exact opposite from the Mental Health Research Foundation - a non-religious, medical body.
http://mentalhealthlibrary.info/library/porn/porn
Some findings which may interest you:
1. People with higher education and generally higher levels of intelligence are more prone to indulge in pornography.
2. People do tend to act out what they see in pornography; please see the link for some cases and the effect it has had.
I do not mean to offend you in anyway, but those who claim that pornography has no effect on society haven't bothered to do the research and are seriously deluding themselves. Please look around and you will find research after research indicating the harmful effects of pornography - and these are all not from nut-job religious zealots.
Please do not be fooled. Pornography is very harmful. I have personally indulged myself in it and the effects it has had on my life is profound.