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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."
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.
That /is/ next. See, they will never be able to accurately define which drawn cartoons can be seen as child porn and which can't. That, in turn, will allow them to effectively ban a much wider range of them; in the end, all cartoon pornography is vulnerable.
I don't particularly care for cartoon pornography, especially when it depicts children, but I really wonder if it is the right way to ban it. Does anyone know of studies that prove this kind of stuff to be benevolent or malevolent? I don't ever recall hearing facts being stated when someone argues for this kind of stuff to be banned.
I expect they'll be arresting Quentin Blake for his illustrations of child abuse in Roald Dahl'sMatilda then.
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.
As soon as start restricting anything people do *without hurting other people* on a moral basis, you're already slipping on the slope. I understand banning real child porn because children are hurt making it, and I can understand banning photoshopping greenbacks because the fiduciary system, and society in general is hurt, but whatever people do that hurts no-one should be nobody's business to regulate or ban, including peddling or collecting Nazi-ware, which is banned in Europe for some stupid reason I might add.
Any state trying to prevent you from making or watching Hentai smells of police state. Plain and simple. And given the UK's recent track record in this domain, I can't say I'm surprised.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Would plain nudity qualify then? If so, does this qualify:
(_|_) - butt of a minor
Either way, I sympathize with the intent but I doubt it will do any good in practical terms.
I disagree. I thought that the reason those photo's are forbidden was becauce you'd need to abuse children to make such photo's. If you just draw something on your computer, you're not harming anyone. Sure it's sick, but is that a crime?
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
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?
That makes me wonder where the "virtual child abuse" line is drawn. There are lots of non-porn instances in pop culture. Can South Park still kill Kenny? Can Charlie Brown still get whacked with a baseball and go flying off his pitcher's mound? Can Popeye still chase Swee'pea around a construction site? Can God still tell Abraham to kill his son Isaac in the Christian Bible? And don't get me started on the mythological dysfunctional families in the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, and other ancient polytheistic pantheons that most kids learn about in school.
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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?
Reminds me of a post once where someone asked why China's Ministry of Truth was so effective at censorship.
By not saying "You're prohibited from discussing topics X, Y, and Z" and instead just hauling people off to prison when they decide the line has been crossed, people censor themselves far more effectively.
We should also ban images depicting murder.. and books.. and movies.. and talking about crime.. and thinking about crime.. and thinking.
MABASPLOOM!
What's wrong with cartoons depicting murder?
The question is always, "By allowing this stuff to exist are we providing an outlet for an antisocial impulse, or are we feeding an antisocial desire?"
It is rarely so clearcut. When the cops bust a pedophile, and he has a huge collection of child porn, they blame the porn for the pedophilia, but it's a chicken and egg problem.
It's my feeling that people who are prone to committing these types of crimes will do it regardless of the existence of these videos, so the creation of these videos should be allowed in the hopes that they'll fill some of the kiddie porn niche that is currently filled by actual kiddie porn.
You can't fight supply and demand. The regular sick exploitive stuff is already illegal, and yet still being made. Until you can find some way to make people not want this stuff, the existence of an animated substitute that doesn't involve a financial incentive for live action child porn doesn't seem like a bad thing.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.
This points out the blurring of the line between fantasy and imagination, and reality and causality. You can stop such artwork from being drawn and distributed (maybe), but you can't legislate what goes on in the mind of the creator of such work (yet).
Look at the CGI work that is done in movies. As computer-generated characters look and sound more like real actors, does what we can do to them change? No more violence, bestiality, child abuse depictions in movies? Take it a step further -- assume a CG character could be made alive via AI. Does this character now have the protection of the law? Can a CGAI character be made to perform in a gratuitously sexual manner?
Technology advances and as it does, it makes the moral distinctions we carry even more ambiguous than they were before. The question is, how do we handle this? At what point do we say enough?
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A) Horror films invoke fear, and many depictions of murder are designed to give the viewer a viceral charge, espcecially of revenge. Clearly fictional works of violence work very hard to arouse the emotions of the viewer.
B) So what if someone gets aroused by a cartoon depiction of kiddie porn? "No child was harmed in the creation of this film." I abosolutly have no tolerance or empathy with child pornographers. I loathe them as the lowest form of existance. But that's because they hurt kids. If no kids are harmed, I don't really care how you get your jollies.
TW
o
\|/ -- Naked twelve year old girl!
/ \
0
\|/ -- Naked prophet Muhammad!
/ \
There, now I can never go to the UK *or* the middle east!
Wow, the only thing missing is
"THINK OF THE CHILDREN"
Your post is a series of "yes, but" and "what if".
What if child porn incites pedophiles? Is there any evidence at all of this? No, there isn't. People claim it's "common sense" and site statistics that show 70% of molestors have viewed child porn.
Know what? I'd bet 90% of married men have viewed straight porn. Can I conclude that porn incites marraige?
There is no provable connection, nor is there even anicdotal evidence that shows a causal link.
I, personally, believe that porn is a great outlet for people who would otherwise do freaky things... like that guy in college who had the bestiality porn.... (not joking).
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
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.
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.
How is this different from trying to ban violent video games?
Either you know the difference between fantasy and reality, in which case CGI child porn should not be banned... or you don't, and violent video games should be banned also, by the same reasoning you use above.
Be very careful with your thinking, lest it be applied in ways you won't like. Decisions are not made in isolation, and consistency of thought is important.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
The potential benefit of a law has to always be weighted against its potential drawbacks. In this case, benefits are imaginary, while the drawbacks will happen immediately. Or are you planning on relying on all artists labeling their art with "child porn here", so that law-enforcement doesn't have to rely on completely arbitrary yardsticks?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Just for slashdot's education, based on my non-lawyer reading this has been illegal in the US for some time:
...
(a) In General.-- Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly produces, distributes, receives, or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that--
(1)
(A) depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and
(B) is obscene; or
(2)
(A) depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; and
(B) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value;
(c) Nonrequired Element of Offense.-- It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist.
source
(emphasis mine)
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.
By this logic, 'gangsta' rap music should be illegal in the highest degree.
Take an underprivledged kid, put them on the street and bathhe them in masoginistic, violent, crime ridden lyrics and 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.
Now that I've said it that way, does it not reflect on how absurd the argument is?
Stewed
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
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.
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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.
Then let's ban depictions that glorify rape. They might be encouraging it.
Then let's ban depictions that glorify murder. They might be encouraging it.
Then let's ban depictions that glorify fighting. They might be encouraging it.
Then let's ban depictions that glorify violence. They might be encouraging it.
Then let's ban depictions that glorify nonconformity. They might be encouraging it.
Then let's ban depictions that glorify revolution. They might be encouraging it.
Then let's ban depictions that glorify rebellion. They might be encouraging it.
Then let's ban depictions that glorify (enter anything you are against here). They might be encouraging it.
Meanwhile, as people are off looking for pedophiles under every bed, trying to find someone, anyone, else that can be blamed for the ills of their society, their children are keeping busy watching television. They watch commercials for Bratz girls with jeans halfway down their buttocks. They see that the penultimate expression of being a woman is to have jiggly breasts and to have guys slathering like brainless drug-addled fools after them. They see that their parents are liars and hypocrites who treat relationships and marriage like a game to grow bored with and other people's hearts like things to be toyed with. They learn that sex and lust are all that their adults seem to care about.
At least there won't be any nasty pictures of fictional children having fictional sex. That at least is a consolation when Mrs. Clarkson calls up about her daughter Cindy being pregnant and naming your son as the father. And when your daughter is found taking off her clothes in front of that webcam you bought her, for some guy named Chuck in South Dakota, you can comfort yourself knowing that you were dead set against cartoon child porn.
Yup. You can sleep a lot better knowing that you had nothing to do with furthering the problems...
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
But the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down such provisions as unconstitutional; see Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (here's an article about the decision). I'm fairly sure the provisions you highlighted would fall under this decision and thus could not be enforced.
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.
Wow you just drew a "Naked twelve year old girl!" on top of a "Naked prophet Muhammad!"...that's hilarious
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.
That line isn't nearly blurred enough yet. How do you accurately determine the age of an individual who doesn't exist except as a virtual construct or a drawing? What if the character's purportedly sixteen but looks like she's fifteen? What if she's thirteen but looks like she's seventeen? What if it's a 30-year-old woman's mind transplanted into a twelve-year-old cloned body? What if it's a shape shifter? What if it's an adult character drawn in chibi style? What if she's drawn from the back and her age is completely unclear? What if it's so dark in the drawing you can't tell what's going on? What if there are just haphazard lines on the page and you can't tell if it's even a person?
What happens when you realise that all you are actually looking at is marks on a piece of paper or patterns of light on a screen, and nobody was actually hurt to create them?
qntm.org
There are an awful lot of "things" that a free society allows simply because some people enjoy them.
That's the nature of free society.
I'm glad you don't want to live in a free society.
Take your desire elsewhere, because I want to live in a free society.
A victim has to file a complaint. Your grasp of "victim" is deluded so much by your moral indignation at the topic being discussed that you simple shrug and decide to throw methodology and logic out the window in favor of your personal moral interpretation becoming codified in law.
I see only moderate social benefit to religion, for example, where I see a great deal of damage and strife caused by religions which procliam a "one, true" anything that is worth fighting for (islam, christianity, flying spaghetti monsterism)
That said, do I have a right, as a politician (if i were one), to ban religion outright because I believe it can be used in nefarious ways and does, in fact, hurt many people?
Legislate your morality elsewhere. I want to have 3 wives if i damn well please. And i want the government not to recognize marraige as a binding legal contract so they can't each steal half of my assets..... or so my sleazy neighbor can get his part-time-hooker benefits based on a Las Vegas priest's proclimation "I now pronounce you..."
I think the institution of marraige being codified into a legal contract system with a licence to practice..... that's a travisty of justice and immoral in my opinion.
We do not legislate morality. Legislating morality is not how our society was built and not how free thinking people would want to excercise their will. That is dictatorship or theocracy... or worse.
Society should do the minimum necessary to ensure basic freedoms. The more laws, the more corrupted they become.
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
- Provides an escape for people with unusual fetishes that can not participate in them in reality
- Provides a nice 'release' for those of us without a female. Much easier to choke the chicken with a little mental 'lube'.
- It's good entertainment
Most of this can be excused as opinion, but, I do think it has some value to society(including myself).Bullish Machine Tzar