Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Any further goatse, 2 girls 1 cup, or tubgirl links will result in the poster being modded -1 Troll and reported to the UK computer police.
Pedophiles make me sick. The sooner a law is instated that allows us to slaughter the lot of them, the better. Computer generated child porn is still child porn. Snuff movies are still snuff movies when nobody really dies. It's the idea of it, not the act.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
This can only mean there are now illegal thoughts.
Allowing these images may make people think of child sex abuse as semi-normal if they can view them at any time without any repercussions.
... would a recent Simpson's movie have been unviewable in the UK due to Bart Simpson's brief nudity?
Without birth records or a child / parents to ask, how do you determine the age of a person in a drawing?
While (true)
{
me.bitchSlap(wife)
}
before anyone one says anything,
I know this wont compile.
Cause wife is null.
Won't someone think of the pixels?
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...
Bart's universe has an Edit button...
Not that I particularly like only being able to watch edited versions of creative works, mind you.
"This is a welcome announcement which makes a clear statement that drawings or computer-generated images of child abuse are as unacceptable as a photograph. "It adds to the range of measures to help ensure the safeguarding of children and young people."
I hate paedophiles as much as anyone, but there is something seriously wrong with phrases like these; is the UK government starting to condemn intentions and comparing drawings to real child abuse?
oh my god... it's full of stars!
....there goes 90% of encyclopediadramatica.org
Psychiatrists have known for a long time that paedophiles are "born that way", that their perversion isn't really a product of their upbringing or past life experiences, just like homosexuality. It's not something they can control or repress, or avoid becoming by not looking at certain images.
So, while outlawing real kiddie porn is understandable to avoid children being used to produce the material, outlawing computer-generated images makes no sense at all: it won't lessen paedophiles' drives and it won't prevent "would be" paedophiles from becoming real ones. What this is is some politicians passing a think-of-the-children law to look good, probably before elections or something.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
According the news article, the motivation for the law is close a loophole in the law whereby a paedophile manipulates a illegal photography in order to make it legal:
"The government has acknowledged that paedophiles may be circumventing the law by using computer technology to manipulate real photographs or videos of abuse into drawings or cartoons."
But an article I read on the subject quoted one of the main proponents saying that there's an increasing trend of child pornographers digitally editing or tracing real photos in order to get around the laws already in place. That being the case, I'm all for the legislation (though I don't even live in the UK).
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.
I'm not sure about UK law, but here in the US, we have a nice standard for what is Obscene:
(a) It (whatever it is, photo, "artwork", film, etc.) must appeal primarily to purient interest
(b) It depicts sexual activity in a patently offensive manner (according to community standards)
(c) Taken as a whole, the work has no artistic, political, or social value.
Frankly, the article does hit on one major problem with "synthetic" child porn - it's often not really synthetic. Remember the movie "A Scanner Darkly" ? That's the kind of thing were starting to see, not the full-on synthetic of a Final Fantasy. It's damned hard to figure out which is which, and in the mean time, people get exploited.
I don't see the need for additional legislation, as this kind of "artwork" has a far easier time being considered Obscene than most other types. When considered as a whole, most of this stuff would automatically pass (a) and (b) without much of an argument, and the bar for (c) would likely be lower than if the material solely used adults.
And, you certainly don't want to outlaw all cartoon "child porn" (i.e. things depicting sexual activity in children) - we need educational materials which depict certain acts in order to help victims of such crimes, not to mention basic (preventative) education itself. Additionally, I don't want to see documentaries become illegal (synthetic actors or real people), just because some people don't like the subject matter.
I like the obscenity standard. It's tough, for a reason. The only problem with it here in the US is jurisdictional - people should be prosecuted in the place where they possess it, not in some other place. That is, if Person A makes it available in California, but person B in Kentucky downloads it, then B should be liable for the Kentucky standards, but A should only be liable for California standards.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
(commenting anonymously because this debate is still taboo in western countries)
Hentai has been working around these limitation since ages. They draw child porn, tell the characters are 18 and voila. They look younger ? well, it is "artistic license".
While not my cup of tea, I have always considered these kind of drawings as a way for real pedophiles to drop the pressure. I have always thought that preventing the circulation of child porn was counter-productive : it creates a black-market where the prohibition makes the prices go high. With high prices, it becomes more profitable to produce photographs.
To me, pedophilia seems like the first pretext used to control Internet traffic. Production of child pornography is the real crime, this must be stopped. The porn industry must not employ children. Owning and distributing their works ? What is the problem with that ? That's called 'pirating' it is supposed to bring down their business model. Legalize the transmission and possession of child porn, and the production of child porn will die. It is not like they can file a complaint to the MPAA...
I often wonder how much of the statistics of sexual abuse and child porn are inflated because of our age of consent laws. Not sure what they are in the UK, and this is about a proposed law in the UK, but in the US the age is usually around 18. So a 17 year old taking pictures of herself has the same legal designation as a 10 year old being molested and photographed by her abusers. If we had a law like this then drawings too would be just as bad? They're making a category of crime even larger when it already lacks the subtleties needed to deal with the reality of the world we live in.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Given the horribly loose language used in the "extreme pornography" law recently passed in the UK and that the extreme pornography law covers staged acts as well as real ones I wouldn't be surprised if the language used in this law is also horribly loose. It's probably unlikely to distinguish between whether the drawing depicted a real act or not.
As usual we get a ministerial statement saying the plans are "not about criminalising art or pornographic cartoons more generally" in the same way that the extreme pornography act was not about targeting the BDSM community - the trouble is regardless of the intention of the plan they usually end up being overly broad in definition and thus leave a wider group open to prosecution.
Gary Dourdan won't go to jail for drug charges
"The 41-year-old actor was arrested after police found him asleep in his car outside of Palm Springs on April 28. He was allegedly parked on the wrong side of the street with the car's interior light on. Dourdan was charged with felony possession of heroin, cocaine and ecstasy.
Dourdan has played crime scene investigator Warrick Brown on CBS' "CSI" since 2000. The character was recently shot and killed during the eighth season finale."
How fortunate for Mr. Dourdan, any typical middle class black nigger, white cracker, mexican beaner or hook nosed jew would've faced much harsher penalties and would probably have a diseased gang member penis in their anus or mouth at this very moment. But in the land of the free, the rich slide. I guess Mr. Dourdan should feel lucky, big black hungry penises won't be spilling any diseased gangland semen into his hiney or lips any time soon.
I dub this law as Anti-Hentai law.
It's like the proliferation of guns: the fact that you have them easily available all the time, will make violent people simply reach for them in an access of fury (instead of using something less lethal).
IANAS ( I am not a shrink
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
This no more constitutes a loophole in UK child porn laws than the ability to freely purchase a water pistol amounts to a loophole in its gun control laws.
The reasons they gave on the BBC site was that Pedos are using special software to turn photos into drawings. I would like to see this software, it sounds very cool.
someone is substantially out of touch with reality if they think that someone could think that society nods at them doing it in reality because of CG... fixd
I'm as big a fan of "freedom of thought" as anyone.
But what are the purposes of these images, from a social/personal/psychological perspective?
I can see a reasonable argument that their purpose is to create a feedback loop for someone who already has pleasurable thoughts about child sex abuse gaining additional pleasure from looking at them, which in turn feeds future pleasurable thoughts about child sex abuse. It is also not particularly hard to think that someone who obsesses about such things might be encouraged by that loop to make the jump into real life, for example when the computer generated images are no longer "extreme" enough.
There is, for instance, a recognised pattern with (adult) porn that certain types of user will inevitably seek out harder and harder stuff because the less extreme stuff no longer excites to the same degree.
If these images even slightly reinforce that sex with children is acceptable or pleasurable, and if (in addition) they have no other legitimate purpose or value, then I think there must be a reasonable basis for arguing that banning them does not in any way infringe a freedom worthy of protection.
Yes, yes, once you get on the slippery slope of making that judgment it's all very complicated and risky. I don't know that I totally buy the foregoing reasoning myself. But a society which champions freedom of expression/thought/speech/action must perhaps still draw some limits or find some coherent basis for existence, or else risk becoming utterly dysfunctional. I fear the death of western culture by relativism of values whilst other (much less permissive) cultures, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, thrive by virtue of their strict enforcement of specific values.
However I'd be interested to hear counter-arguments or suggestions of what other value these types of pictures could possibly have to anyone.
As a totally alternative argument, consider that kiddy porn is a form of serious mental illness or addiction (I personally regard it as a form of mental illness), with the potential for dangerous symptoms to arise in some sufferers. Controlling access to these images can then be regarded as analagous to controlling access to addictive drugs.
New tag: thinkofthepixels
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
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?
Really and at the same time UK has the reputation of being a SM stronghold.
Bad as child pornography is, what scares me a whole lot more is the way people get worked up about it. Looking at the insane hysteria the surrounds this subject, one would think that there's a child molester around every corner, and that our children are never safe. Anyone seen that South Park episode on the subject? Not far from the truth... And worse: it seems that once an accusation has been leveled, the full burden of proof falls upon the accused, both in the legal and the public domain. In this day and age, how hard is it really to plant "evidence" on someone's computer (or even unwitingly download it)?
By the way, synthetic child porn has been outlawed here in the Netherlands for some time, and recently our courts saw a first conviction and stiff sentence under this new law. Mind, this was for mere posession, not creating or traficking.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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?
This post is primarily a pile of steaming horse shit.
There is a slightly higher rate of sexual abuse amongst incarcerated pedophiles.
The MODERN psychosocial assumption is that the abuse causes them to have reduced inhibitions, rather than "caused them to be a pedophile". There are VERY FEW accurate studies of population samples that include pedophiles who HAVE NOT been arrested for crimes.
There is substantial proof that pedophile tendencies are formed in early childhood, but the mechanism and cause is unknown. This is very similar to homosexuality, though how similar is unknown because research on non incarcerated pedophiles is pretty much career suicide for even the most tenured and respected professors (reference Dr Bruce Rind or Dr Harris Mirkin).
The few population studies that are out there suggest that somewhere between 0.5% and 1% of the male population in the US has strong pedophile tendencies, maybe half of these being exclusive pedophiles.
This means that there is likely somewhere around 1 million exclusive pedophiles in the US.
FBI statistics point out that only about 20-30% of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by exclusive pedophiles like we so like to call them. The other 70-80% is perpetrated by "situational" abusers, who are not necessarily pedophiles but choose children for reasons of power, domination, low self esteem, etc.
But even given these numbers, the concept of the average pedophile molesting 300 kids is absurd. This is a rare boundary case and is almost never played out by the statistics.
Real studies show the median number of kids a pedophile molests is 2-3. There are rare instances of hundreds, but they are extremely rare.
Real studies about child porn simply don't exist. It was 100% legal until the mid -70s in most of the Western world. Child abuse didn't drop after it was made illegal.
Since this is the only metric of its consumption that anyone has available, this seems like a logical point on which to conclude that it has little to no effect on "stimulating" child abusers to commit a crime.
But I may be entirely wrong. It would be awfully nice if this sort of ESSENTIAL research wasn't so politically charged as to be nearly suicidal to publish. The last few people who published research skirting this topic were getting weekly death threats.
sick fucks. (and i'm not talking about the pedophiles here)
And that, my friend, is the REAL truth.
Well, I guess Ghastly's Ghastly Comic is ok then, 'cause he says Chibi Sue is 36 and only looks like a little girl.
;) Because she was well over 20, looks be damned.
But seriously, how would one provide records to prove the the age of a drawn character?
And I'd worry more about judgments based on what it _looks_ like, in the context of a law where 17 years old is still considered paedophilia. Now I'm not saying one should look for naked 17 year old girls, just saying how it applies to a drawing. How do you prove that you had in mind a 18 year old girl, and not a 17 year old one, when you drew t.
I actually personally knew someone who looked like she was maybe 13 or 14 by the time she finished college and got married. No bloody kidding. Not only her face was that of a child, but she was really short too, so basically she was as close to a "chibi" drawing as it gets. She looked like she's probably not even in high school yet.
So what I'm saying is, basically this:
1. noone objected to her marrying and presumably having sex, unless a bright star appeared in the East again when she got pregnant
2. she could probably even star in a porn movie, if she wanted to, because proof can be provided that she's well over 18
3. but if you drew some character based on her, you're essentially fucked because it looks like you drew a child. And you can't provide any proof that the character you had in mind isn't really a kid in disguise.
And actually, depending on the country (e.g., I _think_ in UK that's the case already) probably even #2 might be illegal, because it _looks_ like fucking someone underage.
Again, I'm not arguing for allowing actual paedophilia or child porn. But when the law gets into the murky domain of what it _looks_ like, it gets very funny indeed. Especially with an age like 18 as a cutoff point. Girls get their puberty and get breasts quite a few years earlier than that, and from there it's just a very slow and gradual transition to young adult, and there's considerable variation in how fast it happens. There are people well underage which look like they're 20 already (e.g., Traci Lords didn't raise any alarm bells when she claimed to be 18 and was actually 15), and there are people who look a lot younger than they are.
When looking at a photo or movie of Traci Lords, or even interacting with her in person, pretty much noone could tell that she's 15 not 18. How do you tell if a drawing looks like 15 or 18 then? How about whether she's 17 or 18?
There are no major morphological changes that happen abruptly at 18. It's not like they sprout a tail or horns at 18, so you can look at the drawing and see if the character has them or not.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I was under the impression that computer generated images/drawings were already illegal, owing to the fact that it may be hard to determine if something is a real picture or not.
I mean, CG is getting good : http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=121&t=532817
It's not a massive stretch of the imagination to see where this could go.
On second thoughts - don't. It's illegal now.
Has anyone who has replied actually read TFA? I've in fact done a lot more as it's been covered on Radio 4 a fair amount.
The reason they want to ban it is because it's made by converting REAL CHILD PORN into computer generated images. In other words people know they can't distribute real child porn without being very careful, so they convert real child porn to this and get away with it. So demand for this sort of thing drives up demand for child porn and therefore child abuse.
But I'm sure none of you lot were bothered about that --- too busy getting a hardon about being the first to quote 1984?
A lot of hentai videos depict sex among under age minors. How will the law affect them?
This is getting reddicularse now. They're making more and more laws that no one's gonna enforce and no one's gonna give a crap about. Like that one that came into force a few weeks ago banning "violent" porn. I'm not personally into that stuff, but I know people who are and they don't give a damn about this law. The same will go for this new one should it come into effect. I know an insane ammount of people who are into their lolis, and none of them are gonna care about this new law since they can't enforce it! The Government should concentrate on making laws about stuff that actually matters to the whole of the country, not concentrating on what people get off on.
</rant>
From my experience reading Slashdot: it's always better to use explicit <sarcasm> tags; with so many readers, someone isn't going to get it if it's subtle.
Oh, and you might need to type < (or gt) to get the tag delimiters to display OK.
The neat trick here is the a pedophile is someone who THINKS about naked children. He has fantasies about naked children.
A serial killer is someone who has killed multiple people.
Do you see the logic gap?
If you would like to compare a serial killer and a serial child rapist, be my guest. But statistically, there are probably around 1 million "exclusive" pedophiles in North America and only about 80,000 of those are in prison. That's less than 8%, which is roughly the same incarceration rate as the general population.
Who is being executed here?
In the context of your example.... a child rapist is physically raping a child. Whereas the people we are talking about are enjoying a simulation of such a thing.
A serial killer is physically killing people. What's the corollary? Oh yeah... people engaging in simulated killing.
Which... is.... clearly.... pathological.
O wait....
Doh!!!!!
in reality, pedophiles are creepy and nobody likes them so it's easy to cast them as drooling sub-humans.
But is it reality?
does anyone know what purient means?
you can paint them like leo did:
Fondle me!
o.
|8===:> O-:
^
The character on the left is a Muslim. The smiley on the RHS surely depicts a boy only 15 years of age. What better excuse?
And leave it to /. to stick up for paedos that want to jackoff to kiddie porn cgi and like all good paedos do, move on to the real thing
Why have all these arseholes missed the main point of this new law? It is piss easy to make movies of children doing anything and then convert them to cartoon images to avoid prosecution. It's hardly rocket science. Scum lawyers would have a field day getting these bastards off the hook when they should be getting dowsed in petrol and burned.
maybe now... but with the advances in generating life-like graphics (still and video) what happens in the (near) future when you can no longer tell the difference between a computer-generated scene and a scene filmed for real and involving actual abuse?
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Besides bad taste, would this be forbidden? What if someone just photoshops the ears, or hair from a 12 year old onto a 39 year old?
The law in it's heart is good, in practice is bad. It's basically a thoughtcrime.
Wouldn't it be better if the sickos could look at computer generated stuff, and give them a relatively safe outlet, instead of making it illegal and having them look at the real stuff since it all will be illegal?
I guess the old Coppertone adds will be outlawed, since the cartoon doggie pulling down the 6 year olds bathing bottom will be construed as beastiality, S&M, and child porn.
... that Tom-and-Jerry cartoons are next ?
If *any* cartoon could be considered abusive than that one should be at the top of the list.
A nude baby is coming out. Can I keep my medical textbooks that happen to have pictures of any children in it?
This whole thing seems bizarre, and I imagine, is approved by the same types of people who want Michelangelo's David statue covered up since he is a naked man.
..........FULL STOP.
. & . . . . .
[ & @ [
. [ & .
We can't (yet?) predict whether someone will develop a paraphilia and we can't do anything about it. People just end up having different tastes for different (and often non-obvious) reasons. Whether or not poonography catering to a particular taste is available does not decide whether or not someone develops that taste; it can only be one of many influences.
Banning CP so hard that even mentioning it carries a mandatory prison sentence will still do nothing to "solve" paedophilia. It will only further cloud up the water and force the affected further into obscurity and violence.
What we need is an objective discussion of the issue. We need to view it as a controllable problem like alcoholism or an addiction. It's manageable, but only if we behave like mature, civilized human beings and treat issues like this with a bit of distance.
"Clean" child porn might allow paedophiles to blow off steam instead of waiting until the pent up sexual frustration makes them abduct, rape and kill some little girl. We don't really know, which is why we need scientific evaluation. And that is not possible while idiots with shotguns/the media are running around shouting: "I NEED TO KILLS Y'ALL OR IT MIGHT BE MY DAUGHTER!!1"
I think prohibition, the War on Drugs(TM) and similar endeavours have shown just how well complete demonization of an issue work towards safely controlling said issue.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
In theory I can now end up in prison for drawing something with a pencil and paper.
No sig today...
FTA:
"The government has acknowledged that paedophiles may be circumventing the law by using computer technology to manipulate real photographs or videos of abuse into drawings or cartoons."
But under the new Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, Section 69:
"References to a photograph also include- a tracing or other image, whether made by electronic or other means (of whatever nature)- which is not itself a photograph or pseudo-photograph, but which is derived from the whole or part of a photograph or pseudo-photograph (or a combination of either or both)"
So not only is it absurd to suggest that all drawings need to be criminalised because pedophiles are allegedly converting child abuse images into them, this simply isn't a loophole anymore anyway!
What if pedophiles start converting images of children into page 3 girls, will they need to be criminalised too?
The claim that this material is already illegal to sell or distribute is also bogus (they made this same false claim with the extreme porn law - on that note, expect to see "extreme" adult cartoon images made illegal in a few years). The Obscene Publications Act requires a jury to believe that the material would "deprave or corrupt" those likely to see it, but these new laws do not have such a test, instead using a dictionary definition of the word "obscene" (i.e., disgusting etc). I suspect that a jury made up of Daily Mail readers would consider plenty of Manga and Hentai to be illegal.
Also see the official announcement, and consulation and consultation response documents.
I fear that to the police, hentai is not merely something that may be unintentionally caught, but it is a direct intended target. In the response to the "extreme porn" law (a different law, but the comment is relevant), Greater Manchester police stated "Would like to see account of several child cartoon images e.g. Hentai material."
And note that whilst the age of consent is 16 in the UK, the age for child porn was raised to 18 in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. So sex with a 17 year old is legal, but a fantasy drawing of someone who might look 17 would be illegal!
The Register has a better write up.
Will South Park's Red Rocket be illegal?
How many people have I killed in GTA?
It's like being in Jack Thompson's mind!
Agggggghhhhhhhhh!
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
The crime isn't important - the fear it generates it. Politics are driven by fear, more specifically by the formula "look how dangerous the world is - elect us so you're at least a little bit safe". The different parties only play on different areas of fear - right-wing usually on fears of crime, foreigners, etc. and left-wing on fear of unemployment, illness, poverty, etc.
So everyone who's posted a comment detailing how computer-generated images hurt nobody is missing the point entirely. Nobody cares who is being hurt or not. It doesn't matter. "Abused child" is merely a meme that is being exploited by power-greedy politicians. Since our emotions do not differentiate between "real" and "computer-generated", they are triggered by both, and since fear is an emotion, politicians don't see why they should make a difference, either.
Logic doesn't apply here. Psychology does.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
But this boils down to the key point that sexual orientation isn't a choice. Lots of people don't really think things through.
I'm happy I was born as a socially acceptable heterosexual... It must be living hell for all the people born pedophiles, knowing they will become an outcast the moment they tell anyone about their sexual orientation. Even though they have never hurt a child, and never will. I think we can safely assume there are vast numbers of pedophiles living "in the closet".
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The dancing baby screen saver never aroused me, but if it saved a real baby from being forced to dance for hours on end I am in favour of it.
Passing a law to stop generated images would surely mean more real kids are at risk?
Now that we're taken care of child molesters we'll focus our attention on those who molest pixels. To graps the scale of the number of abused, mistreated and permanently scarred pixels all you need is a visit to myspace.. Those people should be doing hard time I say!
First, I suggest reading the FBI's testimony to congress:
For those who don't want to take the 5 minutes it essentially boils down to this: everyone pretty much agrees 'real' child porn should be illegal. Not everyone agrees that the 'fake' child porn should be. So, if you are caught, you claim it is all the 'fake' stuff and make law enforcement prove it is the 'real' stuff. That part is really hard next to impossible unless you can find the actual people in the photographs, but you don't have to take my word for it....
http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/heimbach050102.htm
So what happens when someone invents an algorithmic method of producing such pictures? Do we start banning programs like "Blender"?
OMG it's children. CHILDREN!!!!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Given the horribly loose language used in the "extreme pornography" law recently passed in the UK and that the extreme pornography law covers staged acts as well as real ones I wouldn't be surprised if the language used in this law is also horribly loose. It's probably unlikely to distinguish between whether the drawing depicted a real act or not.
They've made it clear that this will cover drawings that are nothing to do with real acts.
I agree entirely with your comment - I suspect that despite assurances, this will be just as vague a law, if not more so. According to the consultation response document, they are borrowing the term "of an obscene character" that exists in the "extreme porn" law. Which is not the same test that's in the Obscene Publications Act (that an image must deprave and corrupt). I'm sure that mainstream works won't be caught, but all it means that material on your computer, imported from abroad, or downloaded from the Internet, gets seen as "obscene" or "not a work of art", and will be illegal. Some police chiefs can't wait to be able to arrest someone simply because of Hentai on their computer.
I agree. And not only on the outside, look at this room, for instance: notice the statues of nude children. And while we are at it, how come Google allows searches like this??? Shocking, absolutely shocking!
The Government claims that these images are "often very realistic".
That's right, this is a ban on "very realistic non-realistic images" of children...
I feel this is entirely wrong. I fully support making 'harmful' activity illegal, especially in the sense of sexually related and/or involving minors. I don't feel that fantasy, or 'synthetic' imagery is in any way relevant. Yeah, I find some of the stuff I've run into vaguely distasteful. I don't think much of slash, or furry stuff. But ... as long is it's in places where I, and more importantly underage people won't run into it, I don't much care. Indeed I feel that people _should_ indulge whatever fantasys they care to, provided it's between consenting adults.
Until the day where they prove that thinking 'I'd like to do her' is the same as sexually assaulting someone, that's exactly the way it should be.
I don't have the benefit of being entirely clear in my thinking on this issue.
The law could be interpreted as an effort to starve paedophiles of any stimulus, a form of cultural castration. It's the cultural side I'm particularly nervous about.
You (and JaredOfEuropa, above) cherry-picked a quote.
The point I was making was in response to everyone who tries to say that "synthetic child porn hurts no one", which, since we now know that much of what appears to be synthetic really isn't, it's just a color-by-numbers photoshop job of a real picture involving real people.
In any case, as the rest of my post pointed out, we're just fine with Obscenity laws, and don't need any of this random extra crap being passed off as "crucial for combating the scourge of XXX". It's all just overkill, doesn't really add any protection we don't already have, and interferes with useful actions, in any case.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
"...If you make child porn, be sure to watermark it so the people know the content is authentic."
In the meanwhile, I feel sorry for anime fans who are inevitably going to end up lumped into the same group as the weirdos who actually hang out alone in parks to watch kids play while thinking, "God I want to hit that!" because of such vague laws.
Just think, one day we might start creating life destroying "potential sex offender" lists for anyone who has "too much" anime containing young characters.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I read another article that examined the bill a bit more closely, and apparently the motivation was (according to the authors) to go after people who photoshopped real images to make them look fake enough that they could pass as legal. I've never heard of such a thing, has anybody else?
It's okay if chicks, like a hot teacher, does it !! My first year teacher, she was a hot blonde, who let us boys fight over who got to take off her boots !! She liked to take pictures of us, too !!
...listen to Benny Benassi's Who's Your Daddy?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
... stick figures having sex if the sticks are short?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
From TFA:
The government has acknowledged that paedophiles may be circumventing the law by using computer technology to manipulate real photographs or videos of abuse into drawings or cartoons.What law are they circumventing? The law that was intended to protect the children by outlawing erotic/abuse pictures of them? Or are they just circumventing some person's idea of what the law should be? Sure, if you think that generated erotic/abuse images should be illegal, go ahead and propose the law change (and explain why we need it, such as to avoid encourging actual abuse from happening). But until there is a law against some particular action, don't say that action is circumventing any law when no law makes it illegal (or if there is one already, then enforce it).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Does this mean that paintings of Cupid are now illegal? Or just JPEG scans of paintings of Cupid?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
That will stop all possible child abuse for sure!
The key point here is that they're trying to avoid people processing their existing illegal photographs using software into drawings and/or graphics. Therefore there is a child directly involved.
'The government has acknowledged that paedophiles may be circumventing the law by using computer technology to manipulate real photographs or videos of abuse into drawings or cartoons.'
This can only mean there are now illegal thoughts.
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
Any further dancing baby pictures will result in the poster being modded +5 defiant and reported to the UK computer police just to see what they do about it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Books and pictures describing rape, murder, and anything else illegal and morally questionable must also then be banned. Let's start with the bible.
The criminalisation of "non-photographic visual depictions of child sexual abuse" was first proposed by "children's charities" - who are forever desperate to encourage donations by exploiting people's emotions - in 2006. In 2007, the campaign was backed by low-importance MPs who wished to elevate their profile, but who were most likely uninterested in the issue in question.
The campaign became irrelevant when, earlier this month, any image derived from an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child became illegal under Section 69 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. It is also illegal to distribute any obscene publication under the Obscene Publications Act, and despite the contrary claims of the Ministry of Justice, it is illegal to take, make, distribute, show or possess a pseudo-photograph, which means that all efforts to a implement this new law will have only one effect: the possession of material which is not derived from photographs of 'abuse' and which is clearly not photographic will be criminalised.
Unfortunately, the UK economy is heading for recession and the criminal justice system is under attack due to a lack of space in prisons (the latter is ironically due to silly, politically-motivated legislation). The Labour government recently suffered a horrendous defeat in the recent by-elections, due to their drastic inability to deal with these issues. They have no choice but to use distraction techniques to divert attention from their incompetency.
Paedophiles are being used as pawns for political and economic reasons, simply because they are currently the weakest minority who nobody will speak out for.
The pathetic irony of this situation is that someone who is convicted of possessing a cartoon derived from a photograph of a child masturbating will get the same sentence as someone who is convicted of making a photograph of an adult molesting a child, because the person in the former case would be charged under the recently amended Protection of Children Act and the new law (Protection of Proper Thoughts Act?).
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
I guess the Brits have watched too much cartoons when they were young. Someone aught to tell them that Wiley Coyote and Beep Beep the Roadrunner are not real.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Heh. You know, you spelling nazis amuse me. You know why?
Well, I'm not a native English speaker. I'll take it I'm fluent enough in English, if that's the only word you could pick on. And I don't mean just in vocabulary, but also in grammar. Let's put it like this: if I used my native grammar in English, I'd sound like Yoda.
In fact, I'm fluent in three languages, only one of which is my mother tongue, and can understand another two decently.
While your claim to glory is... what? That you can spell a four letter word in your mother tongue? (It's a funny thing how spelling trolls only pick on 3'rd grade level words, but invariably miss longer typos.) I.e., that your grasp of language is enough for IQ 50 or so? _That_ is your great achievement and position from which you try to look down on people? That you could do well in a primary school spelling bee? Heh.
No, dearie, let me tell you who's the ill-educated loser: you and your ilk. If you actually had an actual achievement in your pathetic waste of a life, you'd brag about that, not about being up to 3'rd grade in spelling skills. Heh. You amuse me. Please continue.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
After all, "she was just seventeen!"
You know what I mean?
I'm as much of a pedant as the next guy, but there's no need to get mean about it. Anyway, if "nobody" is a word, as is "cooperate", then why can't "noone" evolve into a valid word? I don't think it would confuse anyone.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
In real life, the demand for depictions of brutality (torture, murder, a.k.a. "snuff") is negligible - or at least I sincerely hope it is.
You've forgotten about the telly and movies. Almost 100% of police and thriller TV series and films depict violence and/or murder.
If possessing a picture depicting child abuse means you are a criminal, then all of Hollywood and 75% of TV-watching humanity should be behind bars.
Apparently politicians and the lawyers who advise them haven't heard of the concept of consistency.
Who's with me?
You are welcome on my lawn.
...I thought computer-generated abuse in the UK was something along the lines of the Shakespearian Insulter.
God..I so don't care about this "horrible crime." What, do we have old creepy men hiding in their basement with sketch pads? Does this keep people awake at night. The only law we need is a law that prevents victimless crimes from being legislated and propagandized to death over a small, small fraction of people. Just as I am sure there are pedophiles who look at this shit, there are far more legitimate artists who would be harmed by such a measure. Pedophiles are going to be more interested in real life shit - and if they aren;t then I would much rather have them doing their sick shit with imaginery drawings. People should be able to draw or paint or use computer software to create any sort of images they wish. That is art, period. Let's see. What could an incendiary artist draw orpaint that would cause outrage...AH..I got one: How about a picture of an infant Hitler being sodomized by an infant George W Bush while he is being sodomized by Pappy Bush while the ghosts of Avrell Harriman and Prescott Bush look on from the bank vault in hell where they keep their blood money. That sounds like art to me, disturbing art that hits you at the gut and says soemthing - yes, it is crude, and only a segment of the population would truly understand it other segments would find it offensive and say it was shock value only (and to a degree they may be right) - the neocons would cry porn/subversion/"you hate America" etc - which is one reason why such an image would be art. These sorts of laws just reek of thought and art police - seriously - who spends their time on this shit? - aren't there more important things for legislators to deal with?
And this is not just for us, humans.... Other species are also affected by pedophilia...
The obvious next step is to realize the people generating this sort of vile garbage are not actually criminals, but merely mentally ill. Make them a safe place to stay and put them on some drugs to straighten them out, and they can be returned to productive society. Lots of people could me severely mentally ill without even knowing it, we might have to widen the criteria a bit...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFDC1538F932A35751C1A96E948260
;).
"The United States is opposing efforts at a United Nations treaty-drafting conference to raise the minimum age at which soldiers can be sent into combat under international law"
"The proposal to raise the minimum age for military combat, to 18 years old from 15, is proving to be one of the most contentious issues in negotiations on an international Convention on the Rights of the Child"
Age of consent is 16. Min age for military combat is 15.
So, it's illegal to have _consensual_ sex with somebody who is 15, but it's fine for 15 year olds to consent to military combat where they have a higher chance of being killed and killing others.
Not ok to fuck with, but still OK to fuck up
"Save and protect the poor children, so that we can send them to Iraq/Afghanistan/wherever to kill and die".
Am I to assume we have rid society of real child porn and therefor law enforcement has time to spend going after animators?
Mission accomplished folks!
" UK Proposes Banning Computer Generated Abuse"
Does that include Vista startup screens, and Microsoft Help? Or for that matter almost *ANY* online help?
Oh p0rn...My mistake... I read the headline... fuget it.
This law criminalizes ot the violent, not the fraudulent, not theft of something or abuse of someone, but merely the icky. It's against the law because we don't like the thought of it. Great.
I piss off bigots.
You attack thin air.
There is about as much logic in what Eagle proposes as in banning trenchart on account that the material it is made of has been used to (maybe) kill or hurt someone, it "arouses" the possessor of said trenchart to also kill or hurt someone and that the said trenchart is a dangerous weapon in itself because it DERIVES from a real weapon that can be and might have been used to kill or hurt someone.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I'm reminded of an exchange I observed on FreeRepublic; it was on plain ol' porn in general, but the point, I think, applies here as well.
In reply to "BTW, just what is so great about pornography that compels you to spend so much time oozing to its defense??": "I can't think of a good reason not to" is never a good reason to ban something. Speech gets the benefit of the doubt; that's the whole idea. You have to show a damned good positive reason for banning; being unable to think of a reason not to ban is no excuse. "Even slightly reinforc[ing]" a bad idea doesn't even come close.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I know a hot little firecracker of a girl that is 4'6" tall and very girlish still at 30. You could easily take her for a girl of 12.
From what it sounds like pictures of her would be virtually indistinguishable from illegal pictures.
This is a serious issue- I can see real child abuse pictures doctored just to the edge of legality and computer generated images that can't be told from real ones not far around the corner.
What if they have green skin... pointed years.. blue skin (so when you put on a negative filter they look normal).
This is a wicked nasty grey area to get involved in.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The Baby Raper Brigade:
http://nukesylo13.com/component/content/article/1-latest/362-the-central-intelligence-agency-child-murderers-and-paedophiles
No, we don't. We heard and that's an important difference. I doubt there are any statistics or reliable numbers on this. So for the moment, I will go with some synthetic pictures aren't, and call everyone who claims more to prove it.
And that's the point. You make a claim, you prove it. That's the way things should work, but often they don't, especially when children or terrorists are involved.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The scenario:
- In Lord of the Rings Online, a PvP a hobbit player is defeated (they just go down on their knees) and an enemy player moves his character to such a position that it it looks like the defeated hobbit is doing a blowjob to that character
- Somebody captures the frame and posts it to a forum
Hobbits in LOTR look remarkably like children in fancy clothes.
Will that somebody be prosecuted?
What about if they post it with the title "That's what we do when we pwn kiddies"
What about if two consensual adults have cyber-sex in Second Life with child-like characters?
It has already been determined by courts in Canada that possession of childporn is legal when it is drawings or stories - google John Robin Sharp. According to some sources, 1 in 5 Canadians don't have a problem with pedophilia. There is no "slippery slope"- we can draw the line right here and here it stays. But there is a thin edge of the wedge. Already 1 in 5 Canadians has no problem with pedophilia, and pedophiles everywhere see Sharp as a hero. We need to "denormalize" pedophilia, and not in the database sense of the word. Being arrested tends to send the message that we don't tolerate this behavior, mental illness or not. I was a little kid 30 years ago. Pedophilia was not under society's radar, everybody knew it was a problem. It was under the radar of activist judges. I hope this bill passes, it may encourage the Canadian Parlaiment to fix our law.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
A few years ago, back when I was 18, I was in a relationship with a girl of 17 from Liverpool, whereas I'm from London (a distance of a few hundred miles, and a few hours of train travel as I didn't drive back then). Obviously with us spending a good few weeks apart at a time, things would get a little horny for both of us and, sometimes, out would come the webcams and, well, you know. I'm not ashamed to say that I got some good use out of the PrtScr button to keep myself 'stocked up' for later when she wasn't around. Those images, on their own, not distributing them, not showing them to anyone, would land me several years in prison. They were, to the best of my legal knowledge, technically child pornography.
Do you see the stupidity of that law yet? Mere posession of those images could have landed me with a long prison sentence and a place on a national register for the rest of my life, but when I hopped on a train and went and actually fucked her, that was perfectly legal. Now I wouldn't even be allowed to think about doing it - I'd have to shut my eyes and think about something else, maybe.
America, you might complain about your country's puritan approach to sex, your age of consent might be higher than ours, but remember, at least you guys are consistent. We're just fucking stupid.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
.. Child Gateway Interface...
Ahh.. it's all making sense now.
I disagree with that defintion though. First, it's too open ended. Second, why should someone not be allowed to view something because his neighbors don't like it? I thought a free society respected the rights of those in some kind of minority.. but if you happen to like watching S&M you can't do so in KY but you can in NY?
This is such an obvious case of pure hatred, fear and hysteria over the obviously serious crime of child abuse. Yes, it's horrible, no, that does not mean that artificial child porn causes child sex abuse. The causal relationship is merely assumed. In fact, I would expect the opposite, that sexually disturbed people would get satisfaction for their disgusting urges by watching artificial child porn, thus REDUCING, not increasing, the risk of them abusing an actual living child. But of course, the hysteria will win, as usual.
OK I screwed up. The US only allows enlistment (with parental consent) at 17.
Oops.
Sorry, I screwed up. The US only allows enlistment (with parental consent) at 17.
Looks like slashdot is going to be screened at the perimeter!
We can blast it in from wifi-enabled ships outside the territorial waters, 'tho. Radio Caroline becomes 21st century.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
This is as ridiculous as it first appears. Even more so, in fact, given their flimsy justification.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
...does that make me a terrorist?
Do any real people get killed because I draw pictures of explosions??
It's the exact same thing as making *fictional* kiddie porn illegal: a *representation* of something is being equated with *the real thing*.
As I've said numerous times -- how is this not Thought Crime??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
As a part of a criminal investigation or prosecution, for what purpose are photographs categorized on the Copine scale? Is it just to guide in deciding the severity of punishment?
The Wikipedia stub on the subject is more confusing than helpful. It emphasizes that the scale was intended to distinguish between erotica and porn, yet the description given of Level 1 lumps the two (by common definition) together. And, if my readings in re Dost and others are correct, all the images described in Level 1 are prosecutable as porn in the U.S., anyway.
So I'm just trying to figure out how the thing is used. Can you recommend any good online resources where I could look this stuff up? TIA.
It occurs to me that with synthetic images, it would be very easy to take adult actors and make them LOOK like children -- just crunch the aspect ratio vertically and you'd get an apparent height/weight ratio that approximates an immature human form.
In that case, where is the crime? The actors are all adults. Which children were harmed by this?
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Yes. I've also read the consultation for this proposal, replied to it, read the summary of replies and next steps, and read the announcement on the MoJ's website.
Shotacon - cartoon material featuring boys in sexual situations - is certainly not derived from images of real children; humans couldn't physically do many of the things which are depicted in shotacon, because such cartoons are so absurd.
Furthermore, there would be no logical reason to use real children to produce material for conversion into what can be generated by a computer. Child sex cartoons are mass produced in Japan and are widely available in shops; such industries are not a kind of underground child abuse industry. The Japanese cartoons which I'm referring to are posted to the internet and are therefore widely available on the internet. And no child has been used to produce them.
As has already been discussed, converting real child pornography to cartoon images (and possessing converted images) is already illegal under the Protection of Children Act, as amended by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. I suggest that you try to apply some degree of critical analysis to what the nice people in the government say, because they'll do or say anything to get your vote.
The BBC is no more trustworthy; in their article they state that possessing child pornography is illegal under the Obscene Publications Act, despite the fact that the Obscene Publications Act says nothing about child pornography nor the possession of any material without intent.
We've already established that this proposal will do nothing to combat real child ponography, but what makes you think that all real child pornography is abusive? A recent study found that, in 44% of successful prosecutions, the most severe material didn't actually depict sexual activity.
What is the real reason for your support of this proposed law?
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
... on which sticks you're talking about.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Actually there are a lot of really insecure people trying to label others as "evil" so they can feel as if they are "good" although they've never actually done anything kind or productive in their lives, and are afraid others will notice that if they don't find an easier target to hate.
The more fanatically "anti-something" someone is, the more likely they are to be hiding something about themselves.
A couple of years ago I read the case of a Canadian pedophile who was under scrutiny by the courts for his penning and online publishing of written stories of child rape. Usually featuring boys who would thank the rapist afterwards for providing such a healthy and formative experience. It really challenged my "Zero Tolerance" attitude towards anything anti-freespeech. This guy is being persecuted for penning fictional stories, the nature of which ought to be illegal... But then do I become an advocate of the Thought Police? Free speech is free speech... Even if it is drawings or stories about things that no adult should reasonably be engaging their mind with. If somebody is deep down a pedophile, that may never change... Like somebody who is thoroughly heterosexual or homosexual, you can't change your nature. The problem is that they are so demonized they are probably more likely to become twisted people on the fringes of society rather than productive adults with a mental illness. Remember all the serial killer homosexuals from the last half-century? If society can give them therapy for their problem rather then blanket condemnation and scorn then there may be more pedophiles willing and able to engage therapy as a solution. The question is, could it be accepted that the creation of fictional pornography, in which no children are actually exploited, be used as a means of therapy?
------- "I must create my own system, Or be enslaved by another man's" -William Blake
That just about wraps things up for Second Life.
Careful! You will be marked a heretic by the government for questioning their Christian based legislation. Anyone else find it odd that US has a registry to track sex offenders, but does not bother tracking those who are convicted of assault and or murder?
Hmm. If this law comes to pass, what do I do with Dokidoki Majo Shinpan? Is that abuse? Is that consensual since it's "legal in that country"? Should I take it to the police and say "Do... um... do I need to give this to you?"
Toon child porn is a very real problem that affects residents of Toontown every day. Local ordinances only go so far. So long as there are no laws against toon child porn outside of Toontown, the demand exists and toon children continue to be exploited. Toon children are regularly taken across municipal lines and blatantly exploited in dark basements to produce these images. It's about time we did something about this and I applaud this ban.
That was him giving the audience the finger, wasn't it? Or was it?
When I cannot give her a hug or kiss in public? Its fucking ILLEGAL?
Thats where this is all headed. Intended or not, some "offended" idiot is going to make a fuss out of something like that because "they" were offended.
Who decides what is affection and what is "lust"?
Who decides whether or not an image is on my PC because I thought the artwork was interesting from an art standpoint or because I get a hard-on viewing it?
Please tell me, who decides what MY intent was? ME, or someone else?
I haeve aesked you fucking paeople ae million times to pleaese stop spaelling it like ae faeggot!!
It's spaelled pedophile
That would fail your "Was any child actually harmed..." clause, but is that OK?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I believe that adults having sex with little kids are perverted and that these kids are not old enough to make up their minds so they need to be protected (I am not sure the same can be said about a 17-year old teenager though with their 22-year old partner). The question is this: -Why is it so different to watch a 40 year old woman sexually abuse a 12 year old boy, than watching one adult killing another? -Why is it illegal at all to watch that, and is it still illegal when it is examined as evidence against these people in court? -What if someone in the courtroom or police station where the material is examined gets aroused? Murder and pederastia are both crimes, and there are laws against those crimes. I don't see what is so special about watching them, and if someone can be sexually satisfied by watching crimes why are they a threat to society? (Please don't demonstrate your proof with an illustration! :-) )
Is it just me or does anyone else think it sad that a Ministry of 'Justice' would potentially ban drawings and cartoons, while ignoring the fact that their country (the U.K) participated in the Iraq war which has indirectly not abused but actually killed thousands (or more) iraqi children?
My country (USA) also is responsible for this and I consider the people who started this war far guiltier than any child molestors.
Their day is coming and they will be punished, so help us God.
Clicking those links is now a felony in the UK! And you aided that activity, you sick bastard...
What makes you so sure in this case? If someone enjoys watching pornography they'd probably enjoy actually participating far more, as experiments have shown that orgasms are far more pleasurable when actually having sex compared to masturbating, based on blood prolactin levels.
Circular logic. Yeah, you have no problems. You're a pedo. We'll just trust your instinct and judgment. Do you make sure to stay away from children? Are you a teacher? Do you spend lots of time with children, or do you have or know what healthy boundaries are? The arguments you've put forth are lame and we all know your true intent when suggesting this material should be free to help the children. It's a Straw Man. Give me a break.
You mean you think it's worse to merely be killed than to have some nasty adult's finger up your pre-teen twat? /sarcastic wide-eyed stare
I think a lot of the people espousing this legislation need to get their priorities straight. Kiddy fiddling is very, very bad, but killing people is worse.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Rule 34 For The Win.
http://www.statuemolesters.com/gallery/0-200/012.php
People have a need to be able to process thoughts "OffStage". The easy example is 3,000 years worth of murder & scorned-love in literature.
That's great! Whenever I'm angry I can read/watch vigilante justice at work, and sigh in contentment. It's the principle of cathartic release that enables a person to maintain their stable persona OnStage in life. Even children's literature contains murders! However, this is socially *encouraged*, so it's simply fantastic.
We're less comfortable with sex overall, but we barely tolerate it "among consenting parties in very discreet situations". Indecency guidelines and the age limits barely hold the situation in check.
Sexual material *specializes* in cognitive dissonance situations! All kinds of scenarios that would be top-grade felonies are fair game. 18th Birthday Parties are great!
Try this *opening paragraph* from the 1600 BC Egyptian story "The Doomed Prince".
"There was once a king to whom no man child was born. His heart was very sad thereat; he asked for a boy from the gods of his time, and they decreed that one should be born to him. He lay with his wife during the night and she conceived; when the months of the birth were accomplished lo, a man-child was born. When the Hathors came to decree him a destiny, they said, "He shall die by the crocodile, or by the serpent, or indeed by the dog".
Sex and Baby-Killing in three sentences.
the big thing to remember here is NOT who you are protecting, but the mechanics of the law itself- the problem with it isn't child abuse itself- (I and I am pretty sure damn near all of us are against it), the problem is that the law is attempting to legislate thoughts and intents and not acts. When you begin to legislate what people can think about or how they think about a subject you open the floodgates for very scary laws and rulings when the wrong person comes to power or the wrong judge sits on a bench. Lets face it- if you can legislate intent and morality this may be the start, but who is to say that you don't use the precedence of a law like this to say- you can't display the intent of political upheaval in order to protect from riots or negative images of religion (umm kind of like a lot of middle eastern countries) or any number of things that a person or group of people in power plain don't like.
I've had evil thoughts all my life, and I've not done any evil deeds.
The argument that evil thoughts leads to evil deeds is like saying that being born leads to sin. It's the original sin argument, and it's stupid.
People do evil behavior because they don't have a conscience. It has nothing to do with what a person is thinking. Most people who have a conscience think about doing evil stuff just as much as anyone else, only we have a voice in our head telling us it's wrong.
How accurate do the drawings have to be? (eg, would a stick man with a label "14 year old naked girl" be banned?)
Do existing images still count as legal? (classical art?)
It does seem like a slippery slope despite their best intentions.
It was a similar situation when the age at which someone could appear in pornographic images changed. An example is that Sam Fox appeared topless in the Sun newspaper aged 17 (which at the time was legal) but the change in the law made posession of that newspaper paedophilia. You say despite their best intentions, but how do we know their intentions aren't to create precisely the slippery slope you fear? It's the same government that started a war with Iraq despite their best intentions to avoid it.
I wonder if you'd also support the police keeping an eye on people who read literature which has child-sex themes? Perhaps monitoring those who check out "Lolita" at the library?
I'd say you picked a fitting career for yourself. Congratulations. See, maybe we've run out of Muslim terrorists as an excuse to build up the surveillance state, so now we need a new boogyman, the Pedophile terrorist. And by casting as wide of a net as possible, anyone with a computer is now a potential pedophile and so now we should monitor every computer in cyberspace.
And of course, anyone can be labeled a pedophile easily if set up properly, you know, the feds give them the illegal pictures and then arrest them for possession, or a virus downloads it onto millions of computers in some botnet as part of some cyber war tactic.
I can see some hackers in China or Russia writing viruses to make the governments waste resources arresting people for this. I can also see the real terrorists trying to make this situation worse because all it's going to do is cause the government to turn on it's own people.
Say some crazy programmer writes an ASCII child porn generator. Should the programmer and the people who go to the websites which displayed it be arrested and given prison time for seeing the ASCII images?
A. Pre-crime is now a reality.
B. Thought crimes are now a reality.
If you think like a pedophile, you are a pedophile.
So why do we even bother trying to pretend that pedophiles are human?
How about we treat all who think like pedophiles as thought terrorists and give them the death penalty? And we can develop our brain scanning and genetic technology so we can remove the genes from all fetuses once and for all erasing the existence of them.
But I have a feeling that wont happen because the government needs the fear of pedophiles as a way to do surveillance on the rest of us. If we were to give all pedophiles the death penalty right now, we wouldn't have a wide enough net cast to catch the millions or billions of pedophiles that could be on the internet.
So in 5 years thats when the inquisition will begin and if you don't think all pedophiles should be given the death penalty, maybe you're a pedophile supporter, and maybe you're just one of them.
The difference is, pedophiles are not considered human. This is why we can arrest people for thinking as a pedophile.
You have suspicious thinking.
Or perhaps billions who have to be labeled pedophile.
All we will need is some evidence that you had a sick thought, if you write some suspicious text, if you download a suspicious image, if you look at a 16 year old in the wrong way, perhaps there should be laws to address all of these possibilities so that anyone can be labeled a pedophile.
Here is a list of reasons why we need at least a billion pedophiles.
A. It allows us to infinitely increase the budgets and power of law enforcement agencies. Now the FBI and local police have a reason to work together, now there is a reason for the unmanned drones to be scanning the skies and a reason for every phone and internet connection to be tapped. Terrorism doesn't work because it's just not believable that there could be a billion terrorists, but a billion pedophiles works just fine.
B. It allows for the institution of both thought crimes and pre-crimes, which can lead to massive government DNA and brain scanning to see exactly who has the genes and brain of a criminal. No need for trials anymore, simply arrest all who fail their yearly medical exam, drug testing, or sexual preference testing.
C. If there must be a billion pedophiles, how hard would it be to get someone put on the pedophile suspect list? Probably about as easy as it was to get people put on the terrorist watch list. Last I heard it's almost a million people. And they can use something similar to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_TIPS to build a list. Consider what the world would be like if a billion people were put on this watch list? And what if it just happens to be the billion people you dislike or actively hate?
D. By having a billion pedophiles, we'd have every excuse we need to launch a war on pedophillia, spend hundreds of billions monitoring the internet usage of billions all around the world.
We can use this money to encourage informants to entrap people by offering rewards based on conviction rate.
We can use this money to go after people who download mp3s and movies, and warez pirates. Limewire and other popular programs can be flooded with kiddie porn as a way to keep people from using it.
Foreign goverments that hate us will have the ability to write botnet and viruses and hide gigs of kiddie porn on millions of harddrives of selected people they dislike, and then tip off the very informants who track pedophiles down for a living simply by giving the informants a list of IP addresses along with the list of files.
Individuals who want to censor the internet will be able to do so, using the illegal hyperlink model as a way to censor other websites. And allowing for the legal creation of global thought crimes and thought viruses. Hate sites will be censored. If you say anything hateful you will be punished.
There are plenty of other reasons for why we need at least a billion pedophiles, but this post is just a way to get you to think in this direction.
If you can pass any law you want as long as it has to do with fighting pedophilia, why draw a line at all? You can declare war on pedophilia and test everyone with brain scans, DNA testing, and sexual preference testing, and require every citizen to pass this test or go straight to prison as a pedophile.
Basically we show you a series of sick images and if your brain shows that you are turned on by any of these images you get life in prison or get chipped. Problem solved.
Every adult male or female must pass this test or receive their choice of a life sentence in prison for pedophilia, or be chipped.
You must pass a brain scan/sexual preference test to determine whether or not you are a pedophile.
You are shown a series of sick images and if your brain shows that you are turned on by any of these images you get life in prison or get chipped.
Problem solved.
Sacrifice your freedom of thought so that we can live in a world without virtual snuff films and computer generated child pornography. Keep your sick thoughts to yourself so that other people can express their sick thoughts in public.
If you support torture, you are no different than the pedophile who tortures children.
Torture is torture. However, I do agree that pedophiles should be locked away in prison. The question should be whether or not being exposed to certain images makes someone a pedophile.
I personally think it takes a bit more than that, but thats just my opinion. If you believe people should be locked up for thinking as a pedophile, why not just institute a sexual preference test and determine who they are once and for all so you can leave the rest of us alone?
A pedophile will fail that test, the rest of us sane people will pass.
Answer: Yes? No?
Give them a brain scan and force them to view sick images. If they fall into the pedophile category, offer to either chip them or put them in prison.
I don't see how you can determine the age of an image. In real life, there are plenty of 18 year olds here in the USA that can pass for 15. And plenty of 15s who can pass for 18. My 20 year old ex was mistaken for a high-schooler by old people.
How the bloody hell do these damn brits expect to determine the intended age of an image??
They should all go bugger themselves, I say.