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UK Proposes Banning Computer Generated Abuse
peterprior writes "The UK Justice Minister is planning to outlaw computer generated images and drawings of child sex abuse. While photographs and videos of child sex abuse are already illegal, undoubtedly to protect children from being exploited by these acts, what children will be protected by this new law? If there is no actual child involved is the law merely protecting against the possibility of offenders committing future crimes against real children?"
This can only mean there are now illegal thoughts.
Gee, I had no idea South Park was considered snuff. Oh my god, you killed free expression! You bastard!
So you have no problem with the concept of thought crime ?
Killing people because of what they think is most likely not a good idea.
Even if you're right, that's the price of free speech. You either protect everything, even the vile, disgusting, hateful speech you disagree with or you don't have free speech at all.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Its banned to have images with real children, as it should be. Now they want to ban just a drawing. Then, they will want to ban writings talking about child abuse; think of it, not only adult/porn books but every novel in which any of the characters had been abused. After that it will be illegal to talk about sex with children. Results? child abuse will be an undeground thing again, flying below the radar of the society (as it was 30-40 years ago) and the govt/media will have to find the next ScaryThing(tm). Somebody should tell them that a mental illness cannot be fixed with a ban...
I look foreward to your up comming shooting spree in Japan. I would appreciate you doing everything you can to spare Gravure Idols. I'm sure their enthusiasim for mass transit will present a number of attractive targets.
Hurting children is vile. Expression of vile ideas, is both forewarning and proof of freedom. The inability to recognize the difference is ignorance, and the first step towards tragedy.
Right, as I'm posting this as an anon. coward, I know there won't be as heavy leverage behind my opinion. Nevertheless... this is drawing a -very- fine line. Child porn is a horrible, horrible thing. But to ban computer generated images is the first step down a slippery road.
It's illegal to rape anyone, or to kill anyone. Does that mean images, or say 90% of films in the case of the latter, should one day be outlawed? What of films like lolita? OK, so you can argue that these are movies made not for the purpose of people getting a sick pleasure out of it. Surely there will always be people who get pleasure out of graphic images in the way they were not intended.
I'm just afraid that once you start banning one form of fantasy produced content, not based on an act that has actually helping, what will stop law makers from using this as an example in the future for banning other forms of media? Kind of reminds me of the point the fellas over at South Park tried to make in the Cartoon Wars... either its all alright, or nothing is.
But Hollywood is profit driven, so how about just not watching it? I've spent US$0 on US movies in the US in the last 10 years (and I'm not BitTorrenting stuff), and you?
I think society would be better served by putting people like you in jail than *anybody* else.
That is what I was thinking. And where do you draw the line? Hentai? Crudely drawn comic books? Or will even a stick figure get you thrown in jail since a stick figure doesn't have breasts and therefore must be underage? While I am for getting rid of the producers of REAL child porn,a drawing is simply thoughts made form with pixels or paint. And as we have seen lately any power given to the state WILL be abused,and abused badly. Not to mention the child pron laws have already reached the level of insanity that a 15 year old can go to prison for taking pictures of her own body and giving them to her boyfriend. The "save the childrens!" excuse doesn't really fit in this case unless they are determined to save imaginary kids as well. But that is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You don't. It's free speech. When the creep tries to abuse a real child, that's when it's a crime, and that's when you bust them.
They don't. That's like asking what effect Bugs Bunny has on real rabbits.
I have a question for any legal scholars. First, I have a gut feeling that possession of child pornography is wrong, but what is the rationale for why it is illegal to possess? Is it that the possession implies that the possessor bought it and therefore is driving demand for it? If so, the creation for demand of it has to be considered wrong, which once again I understand at a gut level, but why is it illegal? Maybe the answer to this is that the demand for the material causes actual abuse of children to occur in order to produce the material. Ok, so the root of this is that the demand causes abuse, which is clearly a violation of the rights of a child, and therefore the demand causes the abuse which itself is indicated by possession of the offending material. If my logical train of thought here is correct, why isn't it also illegal to possess a picture (or movie or book etc) of any criminal act? For example, say I had a picture of someone being beaten up. Also say that this picture had no artistic or political value. Possession of this (using the above reasoning) implies that I have created demand for the picture. The demand for the picture (thanks to Adam Smith) causes the creation of the picture, which leads to the actual beating up of someone. Why isn't any media (that has no political or artistic value) depicting a crime considered illegal?
Now just keep focusing on them whilst we take away all your rights.
Peadophilia is, statistically speaking, less of a threat to your children than lightning. Seeing as how most child abuse comes from a family member, the best way for parents to protect their child from molestation is to not molest them.
Yet this insignificant threat is used to scare people into allowing the government to take control of the Internet piece by piece. Our government has an overt disrespect for its subjects (remember, we are not citizens) and seems to think we should only have such rights as allow the economy to function and no more. They need shooting, all of them.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
NOOO! There goes all my Lolicon hentai...=(
No seriously though, this is really, discrimination against thought crime. Just because someone gets turned on by that kinda stuff doesn't mean they're going to go out there and do it. That's like saying "We should ban all TV's that contain themes such as murder". There's a HUGE difference between seeing Saddam Hussein's execution and watching the latest action flick at the movies. Likewise, if you have animated porn featuring controversial themes - underaged girls, rape, etc - how is that the same as videos which actually have real girls?
I'm sure there are heaps of guys out there who watch hentai or other animated pornography which feature underaged girls, rape and whatnot. And I'm sure these same people are sickened when they hear about pedophiles going out there and doing shit to little kids - I'm sure all of them are just as likely to want to beat the crap out of rapists and Michael Jackson, and so on.
The whole point is its a fantasy - a fantasy one could enjoy without their conscience coming and biting them. It's not like watching an animated 15 year old being raped in a high school is gonna make them more likely to go to a high school and do it...unless they're already messed up in the head.
Honestly, what's next? Banning of violent video games...? Oh wait...
~Jarik
Agree with both posters. This is very blurry area. Borders thought control. We should never feel guilty about thoughts we have, and feeling we have. Cause we cannot control either. What we CAN control is our actions.
There is a world of difference between someone who thinks about committing an illegal or immoral act and someone who actually commits the act.
We should recognize that difference.
Preventive action, where you would imprison people who have dangerous thoughts or intentions is a very tricky and dangerous thing.
Very reminiscent of certain religions where impure thoughts are punished.
I am all for arresting and prosecuting producers and to some extent consumers of child pornography.
However this law will get abused, for political games I assure you.
By this line of reason. Anyone who watches an action flick is a killer.
Doesn't matter if you don't like it, thats the point of a free society.
:holy creepy batman, my captcha is eighteen!
It is your god given right to be a sick bastard as long as you don't hurt anybody else in the process.
If it affects no one else you can be as much of a dick, religious nut, liberal, conservative, annoying git, asshat. weirdo, freak, or any other adjective you care to name, as you want.
Deciding to restrict actions from a society, even when they affect no one else is unacceptable because it opens the door to a very slippery slope. Because then you've got the problem of who gets to decide what's right, and I don't trust anybody with that decision, its far too arbitrary.
A Muslim will tell you not to eat pork, a Hindu will tell you not to eat beef, which one is right?
How about since it only matters to the individual, let each one decide form them selves?
I think the advent of realistic CG pron is a boon for society, people with specific leanings can now have their urges satisfied without having to involve other people. And its just possible that a market for a legal product would weaken the market for illegal pornography, you know the stuff that actually exploits children. Remember the laws banning child pornography were based on the fact that you have to have a child having sex to create it, the laws were not passed to protect the sensibilities of other people. with GC art no actual children are involved
Its simple economics, you remove the market for something and the suppliers will go away all by them selves when they see theres no money to be made. While it probably wont solve the problem completely I would think that stopping some is better than nothing.
Surely the default position for any free society should be to allow things and only legislate when there is demonstrable proof of harm? Otherwise you start to get chilling effects.
This was predominant theory half century ago, which supported bans on pornography, censorship etc. Then some countries lifted the ban under the less supported theory, that such material provides surrogate fulfilment. Statistically they were correct as the number of sex-related crimes fell sharply. Surely some of the sickos will go into feedback loop, but most of them will happily "go manual" while drooling on the pages/screens.
The most logical limit is very simple: Was any child actually abused to make that particular material? If yes, drag the producer to the jail, lock him up and throw away the key. Punish for real crime, not thoughtcrime.
Anyway, even for people that are not into this kind of "entertainment", it's quite important to defend freedom. If it's legal to publish sick offensive shit (with a limitation as above) it guarantees the right to publish anything less sick and less offensive, like the views of average people. Larry Flynt comes to mind...
And UK is "special" (like in "special olympics") when it comes to related issues. There's very few actual cases of this kind of abuse, but the local media paint a picture of a country with violent pedophile at every corner, in every bush and three of them in every dark alley. With this level of hysteria they may very well ban photos of children whatsoever or require permits and observation by govt inspector.
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
"The death penalty is too quick, a jail sentence has them safe from the rest of the world. It is the only case in which I would approve the use of torture - indeed, in it's most sadistic form, since the goal isn't information or confession, just suffering."
Perhaps you should add those who delight in thinking about others being slowly tortured to death to the list of people who should be slowly tortured to death for thinking about things.
"Obviously everyone who has modded me down thinks kid-fucking is okay."
A more likely explanation is that they reckon that you're a hypocritical sicko who thinks that torture and death fantasies are OK because he's having them, but other sick fantasies he doesn't have must be prohibited at all costs.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Being anti-pedophile doesnt give you a free pass for being a fucking moron. There's a difference between thinking about something and doing it. Actual child pornography has a direct link to child abuse [no producer without consumer] so is rightly banned. Simulated child pornography does not. Making simulated child pornography equivalent to actual child pornography means that people who currently find a harmless outlet for their sick impulses can no longer do so. They would no longer have an incentive to opt for simulated images over real images which would directly lead to more actual child abuse. So, "would someone please think of the children" goes both ways.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/