Germans Pursuing Kiddie Porn In Second Life

Several readers sent in links to the BBC, which has picked up news of a German investigation into child pornography in Second Life. A German TV station captured images of two avatars, an apparent adult and an apparent child, involved in sexual activity. The station also said they had infiltrated a ring trading real-world child porn in SL. SL creator Linden Labs is cooperating fully with the investigation, they write on their official blog: "Our investigations revealed the users behind these avatars to be a 54-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman. Both were immediately banned from Second Life." The German prosecutor's office hasn't responded to Linden's offer of help in identifying the real-world traders.

Comments

Re:Anyone surprised it began in Germany?

[JoelMartinez]

what part of "trading real-world child porn in SL" is a thought crime?

Thought crimes?

[krbvroc1]

This may sound odd in this 'thinkofthechildren' world we claim to live in:

Has anyone considered that allowing someone to 'role play' or 'express' their desires, no matter how taboo, in a virtual world, might lessen real-world activity? Any studies on this?

I mean how many people satisfy themselves with porn rather than engage in risky real life behavior?
Maybe these 'sickos' can get their satisfaction on a virtual world?

It seems like a lot of the 'oddballs' are the ones who come from a background of extreme sexual repression. A virtual outlet could eliminate that repression.

Re:Thought crimes?

[Applekid]

There's one example of real world evidence I know of: Japan.

Pornography in Japan really doesn't have many limits except simply the censoring of genetalia. While fringe, there is easily available and obtained media of simulated rape, public exposure & sexual activity, sexualized streaking. In the fiction world there are lots of animated and printed works that very obviously depict additional rape, child sex (consentual and non), incest, disfiguring and nonconsentual S&M and human bondage. Hell, just look through Somethingawful's articles on hentai games and you'll see japanese interactive games that let you live out fantasies of banging your younger underage sister. And another one where you literally stalk and rape victims from a train.

And yet, Japan enjoys the lowest rates of sex crimes of all 1st world countries. I'd say the ability for an individual to safely vicariously explore deeper and more sinister fictional sexual practices (as defined by society-at-large) definitely prevents a significant number of real crimes with real victims.

I don't know anyone sexually abused as a child, but I'd be willing to wager that if the abuse could have been prevented by the perp getting his jollies off with a few drawn pictures of his fantasy instead, they'd definitely go for it.

Re:Thought crimes?

[theStorminMormon]

And yet, Japan enjoys the lowest rates of sex crimes of all 1st world countries. I'd say the ability for an individual to safely vicariously explore deeper and more sinister fictional sexual practices (as defined by society-at-large) definitely prevents a significant number of real crimes with real victims.

While certainly a valid point, I think this is hardly definitive. Like the gun-control debate, comparing crime statistics across nations is notoriously prone to confirmation bias. There are too many legal, cultural, economic, and social differences to really compare results in one nation with results in another. I do know, for example, that many people feel sexism is rife in Japan and that women are objectified to a much greater degree than in the US. Compared with other studies about porn, this would strengthen the old idea that porn leads to desensitization and objectification of women. The actual incidence of violent sexual crime, however, could very well not show an easily observable statistical change.

This is precisely how the connection between smoking and cancer was combated for so many years. The incidence of cancer is so low that it's easy to construct studies which reflect no statistical increase. It's similar to the lag in acceptance of global warming.

What we do know, however, is that pornography's impact on those who view it is considered so detrimental that you can't get randomized, control-group studies approved and that those studies which were randomized and controlled (and led to the conclusion that it was too detrimental to ethically get people to watch porn) found statistically significant connections between exposure to porn and a lower support of women's rights, a declining importance of marriage, and laxer attitude towards rape punishment.

Re:Thought crimes?

[Fex303]

Interesting point. IANAP (I Am Not A Psychologist), so, who (or which organization) dictates that it's unethical to expose people to pornography ala. actual scientific research?

IANAPBISPAU (I am not a psychologist but I studied psychology at university.) Pretty much all universities have their own ethics committee whose job it is to come up with very pedantic rules for how any experiments should be done so that no-one is hurt or distressed. Getting permission from these groups can be incredibly difficult and they will often hold up grad students' research for months.

Going another level up, the APA (American Psychology Association) is the dominant body with regard to psychology (around the world, not just in the USA). They have an ethics committee which set a best practice policy on what other ethics committees should think about.

While I agree that it would be nice to be able to study anything without having to worry about the ethics, the can lead to interesting, yet morally flawed experiments such as the Stanford Prison experiment or the Milgram experiment, which were informative, but quite traumatic for participants. As a rule psychologists don't like to leave people more messed up than when they got them, so they tend to view overly cautious ethics committees as a necessary annoyance.

This may be controversial, but...

[popo]

As personally distasteful as I find this -- I'm not sure this constitutes a breach of any laws. "Kiddie porn" involves the sexual photography (and horrible exploitation) of children. It is difficult to see who is being "hurt" by this Second Life activity. Yes, one can make the argument that if one engages in virtual fantasy, one is more likely to engage in the 'real thing'. But this is a straw man argument that has been applied to video games for years with zero proof of any virtual/real-world crossover.

The question ultimately becomes: Can fantasy involving only digital, or make-believe characters, be illegal?

If the answer is yes, I find that to be extremely disturbing in an Orwellian sense. While I find the concept of finding children sexually appealing to be personally abhorrent, I'm not sure the law extends (or should extend) into virtual roleplaying between consenting adults.

My two cents.

Re:Counterstrike?

[the_wishbone]

RTFA. It's not just that some people were PRETENDING to be children, there were, allegedly, groups in there trading actual illegal material within SL.

Morality Plays

[Doc Ruby]

So the German government says the problem with kiddie porn is that some adults are perverts, even if no children are involved.

Do they arrest people in Germany for the love scenes in Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_ between two underage kids, but played by adults?

Re:Anyone surprised it began in Germany?

[NeutronCowboy]

The part that referred to "trading in virtual child pornography is punishable by up to three years"?

I'm as horrified as anyone by real child abuse and pornography, but virtual one? Age-play? That's just dumb. If anything, it might be possible to identify whether the people acting out their fantasies have either engaged in real child abuse or have been victims of it. But to criminalize virtual role-playing is indeed a complete thought crime.

Re:Aren't they both consenting adults?

[the_germ]

It's legal in the US, but not in Germany.

In Germany photographs/videos of adults who look like children performing sexual activities are considered child porn.

Don't know about other countries.

Coming up next

[suv4x4]

In the same line of reasoning, I expect these coming soon:

Banning midget sex (as they look like kids). You'll have to be this high to have sex.
Banning sex with stupid individuals (they act like kids). You'll have to be this smart to have sex.
Banning sex with people dressed like kids. strict outlines of what "dressed like adult" will be written in a law.
Banning sex with people who said something that could suggest they pretend to be a child or pretend their mate is a child, or think about something child-related during sex.
Banning videos pictures of adults looking at a kid, smiling or something else that could suggest the drawn indivial could have had eventually potentially thoughts about sex.
Banning adults from touching kids, or people that look like kids, and talking about kids if they saw or did something sexual in the last 24 hours.

Re:Anyone surprised it began in Germany?

[Tuoqui]

I have no problem with anything two consenting adults (or their SL avatars) do with each other. That is covered by the whole 'government should stay out of our bedrooms' thing.

The entirety of the problem lies in the fact that RL child pornography was being displayed and/or sold to other people via Second Life. When this occurs it is a crime. The fact it is happening in SL doesnt mean it is any different from someone selling them on a web page.

Honestly? I'm not suprised it is happening in SL. Considering it is a place where you go to fulfill your fantasies in a virtual life (IE. house, car, good looking outfits, seems some sickos added kiddie porn to that list).

Japan and Denmark

[Per Abrahamsen]

Japan has a generally low crime rate, so it is not really that surprising that sexual crime is also low.

The traditional example is Denmark, where there was a statistically significant decrease in rapes after the legalization of pornography. That statistic actually helped getting pornography legalized in other countries, not always with the same effect (so it might have been a fluke).

ERROR IN reprod(m,f)

[Aelcyx]

MEMORANDUM

To: God
RE: Error found in reprod(m,f)

I found a threading issue with reprod(m,f). Someone set the priority way too high and it's creating a system-wide slowdown that's eating up a lot of resources. I'm thinking of de-prioritizing it to spend more resources in power management instead. Also, invoking reprod(m,m) and reprod(f,f) appears to halt other parts of the system inexplicably.

Please tackle these issues ASAP. They've apparently been around for a while, but since after fixing a lot of other stuff, they seem to be more of an issue.

Sincerely,
Humanity