Larry Sanger Tells FBI Wikipedia Distributes "Child Pornography"

Taco Cowboy writes with news that Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has reported to the FBI what he says is child pornography on Wikipedia, including links (redacted in the letter just linked) to entries about pedophilia and the genre of manga known as lolicon. The Register has up an article with some analysis, which mentions the opinion of at least one attorney whose "reading of the statute [requiring reporting of child porn images] is that it does apply to the Wikimedia Foundation." Update 20100414 5:00 GMT: Larry Sanger has posted a general reply in response to critics of his report to the FBI, in which he addresses the form, content, and motivation of his complaint, and offers some discussion of the relevant statute.

Comments

No conflict of interest there

[Arancaytar]

Just doing his civic duty, yessir.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Kong the Medium]

From the article:

I have also since founded a more responsible project, Citizendium.org, and a teacher-edited non-profit directory of preK-12 educational videos, WatchKnow.org. Given my position of influence on matters related to Wikipedia, though I'm no longer associated with it, I feel I have a moral obligation to make the following report.

And I have the moral obligation to call you an opportunist, a shill and accuse you of mudraking to further your goals, Mister Sanger.

IMHO, there are fair use cases, e.g. for educational purposes, for the depiction of under-age sexuality, and if wikipedia doesn't fall under the umbrella of educational websites, I want some suggestions which website does. Hey, here in Germany even our cabinet members can show hard child pornograghic pictures in press conferences.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[kestasjk]

I have also since founded a more responsible project, Citizendium.org, and a teacher-edited non-profit directory of preK-12 educational videos, WatchKnow.org. Given my position of influence on matters related to Wikipedia, though I'm no longer associated with it, I feel I have a moral obligation to make the following report.

What a douchebag.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[msclrhd]

So, is this the new communism? The new witch hunts?

Sanger: Wikipedia is a distributor of the communist agenda and everyone associated with it is a communist.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Imrik]

Would you want said children around the sort of people that take pleasure in viewing photos such as the ones in question?

You don't actually have a choice in the matter, the question that you can change is whether or not those people are going to have access to those pictures or not. Would you rather have your children around a pedophile that has an outlet or one that doesn't?

P.S. Since I don't have access to the pictures, I'm assuming you're talking about anime style lolicon pictures rather than pictures of actual children.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[commodoresloat]

Hey, here in Germany even our cabinet members can show hard child pornograghic pictures in press conferences.

"Press conferences"? Is that what they're calling them these days?

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Luckyo]

No, but it should NEVER be criminal to indulge and satisfy in whatever fetish you have so long as it is victimless and harmless to real people. Problem with hysterical pedohunters is that they don't care how their actions actually affect children. They are simply out for blood because it's their fetish, just like spanish inquisition was. The whole lolicon issue is one brilliant example of this - why should anyone care if someone masturbates to an image of a drawn child? If that gets his/her kicks so that the person can be a normal productive member of society, all's good, or at least should be good - no child is ever harmed, and the person has taken care of his/her urges. Yet modern pedohunters would love to string every single one of these people from a nearest flagpole inspite of them posing zero real threat to the children. At the same time, it's a known fact that those who are most anti-[issue] people tend to have extreme fetishes themselves, and typically perform and support witch-hunt style actions to cover their own "shameful" fetishes. Great example of this are some of the most hardline anti-gay activists who come out of the closet later in their lives.

Finally there is a lovely issue of children as sex objects which many love to deny ignoring the cold and brutal medical facts and often their own experiences as parents. Every parent knows that children discover their sexuality long, long before teenage starts. Explaining to your child why masturbating in public is inapproproate when he/she is around age of 4-5 is fairly typical - it's just that in "this is shameful" families it's done in such a traumatizing way for the child, that child gets too afraid to explore it any further before teenage hormones kick in. This is stuff that's widely known in medical community. In fact, there are medical books who mention sexuality in babies - for example babies "humping" their bed covers because it feels good. Before the concept of "morality" kicks in, children sexuality is typically ignored, and is considered "acceptable if shameful" by most.

You have to remember, if you're close to someone who is actually working with real pedophiles who have actual victims, your view is very strongly skewed, same as a police officer's who's working in slums. You tend to see the worst in people because you're used to seeing worst in people. Not because it's actually there.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Anarki2004]

While I have never really considered things from the angle that you suggest and I appreciate the insight, the fact of the matter is that I have seen the worst in people and I know what man is capable of when left unchecked. I wish it was so simple as just allowing an outlet for pedophiles to "relieve" themselves, but is that really the correct solution? Wouldn't offering a support network or psychological evaluation and treatment be a better solution? I can agree that is necessary to have some images for educational purposes such as those offered by wikipedia, but by allowing lolicon and similar images to become acceptable I feel as if an important social barrier may have been breeched. I honestly can't make a truly informed decision because I don't have a degree or education in psychology, but based on what I have seen and heard, I have a very hard time accepting that child porn or lolicon (victemless or otherwise) should be allowed in any manifestation.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Compaqt]

I can't comment on the pedophilia claims, and Sanger is definitely not a disinterested party, but on the other hand, there are plenty of people who would love to see the Wikicabal get slapped for various nefarious and high-handed administrative acts over the years. (Deletionism, notability, citation-required spam, funneling articles toward Wikia, etc.)

Re:No conflict of interest there

[davidwr]

victimless and harmless to real people

This is just it, it's not harmless.

Or more accurately, even if viewing child porn causes not additional harm to the child depicted if people in a position to create child porn are aware there is a demand for it - which they are if people are downloading material from web sites they control - then it's much more likely that they will invest the time and resources to set up a camera and get a child to act in front of it. In many cases, the child is far from a willing participant.

So, yes, it is possible to view child pornography and not hurt anyone. However, in aggregate, the viewing of child pornography creates a demand for new images, and the filling of this demand results in child abuse.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[ChrisMP1]

By that logic, asking people for money should be illegal because you create a demand for them to mug someone for it.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[PopeRatzo]

And I have the moral obligation to call you an opportunist, a shill and accuse you of mudraking to further your goals, Mister Sanger.

You're absolutely right, Kong.

I know that in your case, you were mocking Sanger's words, but it's worth mentioning here that whenever someone starts a sentence with "I have a moral obligation to..." you can bet that what they are trying to do is seldom moral or obligatory.

When someone tells you that they're acting out of their sense of morality, run for the hills, because it's definitely a trap.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[mdwh2]

but by allowing lolicon and similar images to become acceptable I feel as if an important social barrier may have been breeched.

So you support that all images of distasteful things be banned - whether newsworthy (e.g., people being killed in war, to use a recent example), to fictional (violence and rape scenes in films) to unrealistic (cartoons that often show unrealistic violence)? Or is there something special about something that appears to unrealistically depict a 17 year old?

On that note, I'm curious what these images are supposed to be. The image on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon is surely not anything that would be considered "child" pornography, even in countries that have batshit laws against fictional images? Even if that was a real image with, you know, actual children, it wouldn't be child porn - unless you're going to say that nappy adverts be illegal...

Is there a stack of explicit sexual images of cartoon characters depicted as under 18? I'm scared to go looking myself, since as of April 2010 in the UK I'd now be a sex offender facing three years in prison if I stumbled across one.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[jbengt]

If that gets his/her kicks so that the person can be a normal productive member of society, all's good, or at least should be good - no child is ever harmed, and the person has taken care of his/her urges. 1

1. Citation needed

Re:No conflict of interest there

[mdwh2]

I think the OP was talking about fictional images (e.g., "lolicon")? Yes, for child pornography, there's the argument that even though the simply act of viewing or possession is a victimless crime, there are reasons to criminalise all of this. But none of this applies to people downloading fictional (especially unrealistic) images, even if they then go and download more of it.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[jellyfrog]

I find it hard to believe that viewing a picture on wikipedia creates a demand. Although it's a well known^Wdenied fact that piracy increases demand for its subject so maybe it does.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[mdwh2]

Now there's a point - surely, so the Governments tell us, piracy results in fewer people buying the material, and results in great harm to the producers, resulting in them becoming penniless and forced to live on the streets. As a result of piracy, there is no incentive for producers to create new material.

So surely, according to their logic, pirating child porn is good, as it will result in less child porn being created, and will harm the people trying to create it...

Re:No conflict of interest there

[KDR_11k]

Is there a stack of explicit sexual images of cartoon characters depicted as under 18?

Outside of fan art (rule 34) AFAIK no, all Japanese hentai artists go to great lengths to state that all characters are at least 18 years old and if the artist says that character is an adult who are you to object? Maybe he's just bad at drawing and didn't manage to make those characters look their age?

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Jesus_666]

by allowing lolicon and similar images to become acceptable I feel as if an important social barrier may have been breeched.

And that may be a good thing. Right now pedophilia is anathema. Anything related to the topic is considered so vile that even thinking about the topic itself is dirty. You don't get sensible approaches with that kind of atmosphere.

What would happen if some politician came up with the idea of pedophile support networks and state-funded counseling? An instant career end, that's what would happen. Because pedophilia and everything remotely associated with it is EVIL EVIL EVIL any nuanced approach to the topic is seen as insufficiently anti-pedophile which is the same as pro-pedophile, thus you're unfit for any office anywhere if you don't demonize pedophiles enough.
Progress can't be made if zealotry is the norm.

Now what if drawn child pornography does get some mindshare? People might start to wonder whether victimless* CP is really just as bad as regular CP**. And then they wonder whether the current laws are actually to the benefit of the people. And when we have people wondering whether a picture of Bart Simpson naked really warrants a prison term and an entry in the sexual offender database we're a big step closer to them actually bothering to question other aspects of current policy.


* Yes, we can't prove that a certain artist doesn't use actual children/CP as source material. Yet. We regularly catch companies doing bad things, though, so spot checks etc. can help. Requiring drawn CP creators to submit to random inspections (otherwise not getting admitted into the market) should keep the incidence of abusive drawn CP hitting the market low. And I do expect that the black market would take a large hit if a perfectly legal white market existed.

** The usual argument is that "all child porn turns people into pedophiles". So far I haven't seen any solid scientific support for that hypothesis. There are other hypotheses like "drawn CP allows pedophiles to let off steam without a child getting involved" which are equally unsubstantiated, seem equally sensible to a layman and make it seem a good idea to actually try and find out what is true.
Right now we can't even tell whether drawn CP is good or bad beyond resorting to truthiness.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you could make drawings that look like children having sex, which is what this entire thread is about.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Philip_the_physicist]

That isn't much help in some countries, where they ban images of persons who are *or who appear to be* under the age of 18, as is the case in Australia, for example.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Mr. Bad Example]

> Do you have children of your own?

The contents of my basement are nobody else's business.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Scrameustache]

So, yes, it is possible to view child pornography and not hurt anyone. However, in aggregate, the viewing of child pornography creates a demand for new images, and the filling of this demand results in child abuse.

We should hire the MPAA to represent child molesters, that way whenever someone downloads kiddy porn it will cause the abusers to stop doing it!

Also, the child molesters will bring in a bit of class and respectability to the MPAA. It's a win-win.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Hatta]

the viewing of child pornography creates a demand for new images

Do you have some evidence for this? One could think that viewing child pornography would satiate demand for it.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true and quite a paradox. I have a blood lust for those who want to screw children even if they don't actually do it. They still promote the harm of children by indulging their fetish by searching and viewing pictures of children placed in erotic situations.
            It may be considered a sickness to want to hunt, torture and eventually kill peds and molesters. It may also be an evolutionary urge to protect offspring. I am not concerned with historical revelations rationalizing pedos as harmless or even beneficial. This is today and the world is a different place, with different conditions to be dealt with for successful survival and advancement of the species.
          It does hurt to want to live life in peace and brotherhood with my fellow man on one hand and on the other hand getting a rush from the fantasy of having a child molester in my attic, his hands nailed to the trusses and his feet bound, mouth duct taped with the horror in his eyes as I use and exacto knife and pliers to slowly peel all his skin off.
          This is a conflict and a hurtful one as I strive for a peaceful life, so I will have to be satisfied that law enforcement still catches and imprisons them. Also knowing that their life expectancy in general population isn't much longer than it would be in my attic is a balm to my soul. Schadenfreude is what I have to settle on for my own mental health.
        So while I admit to being harmed as a child myself, I present to you that the harm continues to adulthood. It is my observation that if the children harmed don't grow to become pedos and molesters themselves, they grow to be the natural predator to the shorteyes bastards.
          Any verbal defense of those indulging in erotic stimulation from or toward children is as moot as any prehistoric creature with an argument against being eaten directed toward T-Rex.

         

Re:No conflict of interest there

[ScrewMaster]

I simply cannot agree with the idea that the promotion and/or glorification of child pornography is right in any way shape or form.

While I am all for freedom of speech and the rights of the people

Apparently not. The current pogrom against child pornography is a major and, I might add, deliberate overreaction. Aren't there other disgusting aspects of human behavior that we could be examining? Aspects which do even more damage to the fabric of society than child pornography? Rhetorical question: yes there are. Yet our government has chosen this particular perversion to focus its energies upon, mainly because nobody (and I mean nobody) wants to be seen as being against the children. Consequently, it's easy for those in power to use this to push their own agendas ... agendas which have nothing whatsoever to do with the children but do involve the acquisition of more power, the elimination of more of our hard-earned civil liberties.

Take, for example, the Child Online Protection Act. That's a classic example of what I'm talking about. Quoting the linked article:

On March 22, 2007, U.S. District Judge Lowell A. Reed, Jr. once again struck down the Child Online Protection Act,[7] finding the law facially in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution. In addition to the plaintiffs ACLU et al., several witnesses testified in defense of first amendment rights on the Internet, including the director of the Erotic Authors Association, Marilyn Jaye Lewis. [8] Reed issued an order permanently enjoining the government from enforcing COPA, commenting that "perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."[9] The government again appealed, and the case was heard before the Third Circuit.

There's a judge who "gets it." So, keep that in mind when you decide to unthinkingly jump on the bandwagon. Fortunately for us,

On January 21, 2009, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear appeals of the lower court decision, effectively killing the bill.

.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[ScrewMaster]

and the filling of this demand results in child abuse.

Only until James Cameron gets involved. Then it will all be generated on render farms, and at the end of every movie, there will be a legend that says, "no children were harmed in the making of this movie."

Trust me, that's going to happen: the porn industry has vast resources and computing power is getting cheaper all the time, and the current legal/law enforcement climate will probably drive them to it. Maybe they already are, I don't know. In any event, when that does happen, when photorealistic synthesized child pornography is available ... how will you feel about it then? The question then becomes "well, if children aren't being harmed in the production of this crap, has it now become just another harmless perversion?" It'll be harder for lawmakers to throw rhetoric around when kids aren't even involved anymore. Of course, they'll just begin claiming that child pornography creates sexual predators and throw up a couple of marginal studies to "prove" it. "Think of the children" has a magical effect in Washington and they won't give that up easily.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[mog007]

In Japan, the age of consent is 16, not 18. Also, I'm willing to bet that information is added during the translation/localization phase, because the Japanese government doesn't view lolicon as a crime, because it doesn't actually involve minors.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Thing 1]

Or more accurately, even if viewing child porn causes not additional harm to the child depicted if people in a position to create child porn are aware there is a demand for it - which they are if people are downloading material from web sites they control - then it's much more likely that they will invest the time and resources to set up a camera and get a child to act in front of it. In many cases, the child is far from a willing participant.

So, yes, it is possible to view child pornography and not hurt anyone. However, in aggregate, the viewing of child pornography creates a demand for new images, and the filling of this demand results in child abuse.

Okay, a car analogy:

Or more accurately, even if viewing car crash footage causes not additional harm to the drivers depicted if people in a position to create car crash footage are aware there is a demand for it - which they are if people are downloading material from web sites they control - then it's much more likely that they will invest the time and resources to set up a camera and get a car to crash in front of it. In many cases, the car is far from a willing participant.

So, yes, it is possible to view car crash footage and not hurt anyone. However, in aggregate, the viewing of car crash footage creates a demand for new images, and the filling of this demand results in automobile abuse.

Make more sense now? These are images. These images are evidence that a crime was committed. It should never be criminal to have photographic evidence that a crime was committed.

Blue laws also shouldn't exist. Here in MA we "fixed" the alcohol selling blue laws, or at least I thought we did, a few years ago; however, I just learned that you still can't buy beer before noon on Sunday. What the fuck? There is no state-sponsored religion, so why do we have religion-sponsored laws? God damn. Well, there, I just vented and it's after noon now, I'll be right back.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Known Nutter]

Remember that panhandling is illegal in many cities for exactly that reason.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[commodore64_love]

I looked athe wikipedia commons for "child pornography" and "lolicon"

I see no child porn. What I see is nudity (not a crime) and drawings (also not a crime, since there's no victim).

What we got here is an asshole trying to impose his mental illness (bodyphobia) upon us and upon wikipedia, via the force of government. Fuck him. Also get him a psychiatrist.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Thing 1]

In the US, the age of consent is as low as 14 in some states: http://ageofconsent.com/

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Znork]

and the filling of this demand results in child abuse.

Banning distribution of such items also creates a much stronger economic incentive; providing illicit controlled goods is immensely profitable as every other black market proves. This is a fundamental economic function, as long as there is a demand the price curve will adjust upwards the more difficult it is to fulfill. So if the idea was to turn a highly risky, unprofitable and abhorrent business into a highly lucrative one, then I'm sure the current approach is working fine.

Perhaps as a next step the US can apply the same tactics as against the Colombian coca farmers; bomb east European villages with sterilizing agents so they cant produce kids that can get abused...

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Paiev]

I see two problems with your analogy. Crashing a car is far more expensive than producing CP, so much so that it would be hard to justify ever doing it intentionally. In addition, people don't make money off car crash photos; they do make money from CP.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Shark]

So, yes, it is possible to view child pornography and not hurt anyone. However, in aggregate, the viewing of child pornography creates a demand for new images, and the filling of this demand results in child abuse.

Fair enough, but is anyone here arguing that child abuse shouldn't be illegal? We're talking about pre-crime and thought crime here... What if you ever got so mad at someone that you *thought* about killing them (before you cooled off or somesuch), do you really feel yourself deserving of jail time?

There are plenty of pictures depicting quite violent acts in movies, comics, etc. Heck, it could even be reasonably argued that *some* real crimes are influenced by some of those images. You want to ban the next Fank Miller comic and send him and everyone who's ever read his stuff to jail? I'm pretty sure murder and violence on that level is illegal.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[KDR_11k]

So they post on Slashdot too?

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Anonymous Coward]

drawings (also not a crime, since there's no victim).

I suggest you read a few laws. There are plenty of crimes with "no victim".

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Fastolfe]

This only follows if the only way to obtain money is to mug someone for it. Sort of by definition, it is not possible to produce (actual) child pornography without abusing a child. It is possible to hold a legal job and obtain money that you can then give to someone that asks for it.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[MaineCoon]

Only if you're an idiot (and the same to those who modded this insightful).

There are many legal ways to get money that does not harm anyone. You can't say the same about child pornography.

There is a huge difference between a demand for something that can be generated legally and without harm, and a demand for something that can only be generated through illegal and harmful means.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[NeutronCowboy]

Undoing some mods here, but this is too important....

Or more accurately, even if viewing child porn causes not additional harm to the child depicted if people in a position to create child porn are aware there is a demand for it - which they are if people are downloading material from web sites they control - then it's much more likely that they will invest the time and resources to set up a camera and get a child to act in front of it. In many cases, the child is far from a willing participant.

Really? You got a source for that? Every child porn case I've come across started as abuse first, and then turned into a video production. Furthermore, you completely neglect a very obvious hole in your argument: that of barriers of entry. Why would anyone in their right mind fill the demand created by cartoons of child porn (which is at the very least still a grey area, thank god) with actual child porn? One involves hiring a graphic artist with a strong stomach, the other involves raping children. Really? You're telling me that there are people out there weighing those two approaches and who go "Yes, but the market for live-action child porn is under-served. I should fill that gap!"?? Yes, I agree, there are people out there who will fill that niche - but that's because they're already pedophiles, and already have victims!

There is absolutely no economic model for the creation of child porn (and it seems I'm forced to specify live-action childporn) that doesn't require pre-existing child abusers and a child.

Finally, this is an incredibly dangerous attitude to take: it implies that child porn is a regular economic industry that a) has its roots in capitalism and b) responds to capitalist levers. It completely neglects the hard truth that child rape is to 70% a family affair, performed by people who largely have themselves been abused.

Could the regular masturbating to child porn create a lower psychological barrier, and associate the release of endorphins with the graphical cues of an prepubescent child? It probably does. I can guarantee you though that whoever is jerking off to child porn already gets off on it. There's no gateway masturbation that leads from adult porn being a turn-on to child-porn being a turn on. Humans don't function like that.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Jhon]

Would you rather have your children around a pedophile that has an outlet or one that doesn't?

I REALLY hate false choice scenarios. I, of course, would rather have my children not be around ANY pedophile.

Your question also suggests that if someone has child porn they will not become a predator. Many of the pedophiles arrested had collections of child porn or erotica. Many studies have suggested this not to be the case with male->female rape. Example.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[NeutronCowboy]

As for wikipedia, it does NOT have images of child pornography (sex). It has images of nudity, and a nude animal (which includes us) is not something to fear. Stop being afraid of bodies and their true appearance. Stop being afraid of Nature in its natural form. Nudity is also not a crime except in the minds of demented, sick people who have body phobia (i.e. they are mentally ill).

This is worth repeating: whoever says that the depiction of a nude child is porn is himself a pedophile. No one else looks at that image and goes "Man I'd like to bone that!" The most you get out of normal people is "Ohhhh... how adorable."

Re:No conflict of interest there

[CommunistHamster]

I see two problems with your analogy. Crashing a car is far more expensive than producing CP, so much so that it would be hard to justify ever doing it intentionally.

I don't know, I imagine all the underworld stuff involved with CP production is pretty expensive.

In addition, people don't make money off car crash photos; they do make money from CP.

But what if people made money off car crash photos, what would you think of the analogy then? With respect to the supposed implausibility of a car crash fetish.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_(1996_film)

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Jhon]

So you support that all images of distasteful things be banned - whether newsworthy (e.g., people being killed in war, to use a recent example), to fictional (violence and rape scenes in films) to unrealistic (cartoons that often show unrealistic violence)? Or is there something special about something that appears to unrealistically depict a 17 year old?

I REALLY hate this type of attempted rebuttal. It shows poor critical thinking skills.

"I don't think people should *NOT* be allowed to yell 'FIRE' in a crowded theater!"

"So, you support that all speech causing any incitement be banned - whether political or not?"

WFT?

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Kong the Medium]

Our current Federal Minister of Labor Ursula von der Leyen,called "Zensursula", then Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, presented examples of child pornography at a press conference in January 2009, promoting her Zugangserschwerungsgesetz. She was reported to the police, but the report has been struck down. See http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article1088198/Anzeige_gegen_Ursula_von_der_Leyen_eingestellt.html (sorry, can't find english text)

Re:No conflict of interest there

[DrLang21]

Requiring drawn CP creators to submit to random inspections (otherwise not getting admitted into the market) should keep the incidence of abusive drawn CP hitting the market low.

That's offensive and fails completely to address the real problem of society being incapable of telling the difference between fantasy and reality.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Thinboy00]

Wikipedia's article on Homeopathy

Citizendium's article on same

Interesting comparison there.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Fluffy Bunnies]

Jab Comix is commercial, US based and the characters are obviously underaged (despite their disclaimer which claims otherwise). And there are many just like it.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[toriver]

I have read that it has been shown that news crews covering car chases lead to an increase in car chases since people who normally would not have done so, do to get their 15 minutes of fame.

Do we ban TV crews and "America's Wildest Police Chases"? The TV broadcasts lead to dangerous traffical behavior.

(Not to mention that drunk driving kills more people each year than the 9/11 attacks so driving sholud have been severely restricted in the first place.)

Re:No conflict of interest there

[AJWM]

Many of the pedophiles arrested had collections of child porn or erotica.

And 100% of them had, at some point in their life, taken dihydrogen monoxide. The more relevant question is how many of those who have erotica collections (or have drunk H2O, or whatever) have done something arrest-worthy? (Other than having the collection itself.)

Do you have any idea how many people read murder mysteries? Are there really that many potential murderers out there? (Of course there's a broad spectrum between reading Agatha Christie and watching snuff films, just as there is between reading Nabokov and collecting porn photos, but the point remains.)

Re:No conflict of interest there

[KDR_11k]

The age of consent isn't necessarily the age at which they can be legally depicted in porn. Germany has an age of consent of 14 (with parental approval) but nobody below 18 is allowed in porn.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[mdwh2]

A implies B, doesn't mean B implies A.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Znork]

mainly because nobody (and I mean nobody) wants to be seen as being against the children.

I'm not certain that's really as clear cut as one might want. There's a fairly high level of tolerance for various forms of child abuse if it's done under the auspices of religion, including permanent body modifications that would be assault if done against an non-consenting adult.

With CP there's less of a drawback for the power hungry, there is very little PR risk as most religions at least don't actively promote diddling the choirboys.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[mdwh2]

I REALLY hate this type of attempted rebuttal. It shows poor critical thinking skills.

That's an ad hominem.

I didn't accuse anyone of holding that view, hence the question mark, and offering the alternative question. But right, you are going for "Or is there something special about something that appears to unrealistically depict a 17 year old?" - so care to elaborate? What makes that distinction?

"I don't think people should *NOT* be allowed to yell 'FIRE' in a crowded theater!"

"So, you support that all speech causing any incitement be banned - whether political or not?"

Well no, I wouldn't go "WTF" - that shows poor critical thinking skills. I'd simply answer the question with "No", and then respond with how the first causes harm, and the second doesn't, if that's what I believed. Here, we're already talking about cases that don't cause harm, so it's up to you to explain what the distinction is? Please, take the time to explain it clearly, as I evidently have poor critical thinking skills, and am unable to spot the difference.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Vellmont]

Remember that panhandling is illegal in many cities for exactly that reason.

No. Panhandling is illegal because most people find it annoying, and the panhandlers are in no position to find lawmakers to oppose making it illegal. Your idea that it "leads to mugging" is ridiculous.

Anyone that's ever walked around a decent size U.S. city has been approached for money before. This has happened to me perhaps a hundred times. I've yet to be mugged or even seriously threatened by a bum panhandling. Most of the time it's the "gas can scam" with someone claiming they "ran out of gas" and need some small amount of money. This is really just panhandling with a touch of fraud added in.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Alsee]

I always find it hysterical when people toss around that ass backwards supply-and-demand argument.

Seriously. If someone genuinely wanted to prevent actual children from being actual victims of actual crimes to produce such images, the supply-and-demand argument mandates you must do the exact opposite. The supply-and-demand argument dictates that you would revoke any possible copyright in such images and that you would have law enforcement dump their vast collection of images free on the internet. You would keep the act of abuse itself a crime, but you would FLOOD the existing supply in order to obliterate demand for production.

I'm always mystified when people bring up that argument. Arson is criminal, images of arson are not in themselves criminal, and this bizarre ass backwards supply-demand argument is somehow tossed around as a reason these sorts of images should be legally treated differently than images of arson.

Throw arsonists in prison, throw child abusers in prison, but just drop the ridiculous supply demand argument to justify criminalizing non-arsonists or non-abusers over images themselves. Drop the bullshit argument that it's being done to protect children and prevent abuse, when in fact it wildly INCREASES the profit and INCREASES the abuse of children for production. Again, it increases the abuse of children for production. The reason the images are criminalized has nothing to do with supply and demand, it has nothing to do with protecting the children, the images are criminalized because that are offensive and disturbing.

On Wikimedia there are some hundred-year-old fictional line drawings that might be considered offensive and disturbing. Oh. My. God. The sky is going to fall if we don't put somebody in prison over it.

-

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Khyber]

T'hell with the USA, the Vatican AoC is 12. Sick fucks.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Khyber]

"Do you have some evidence for this? One could think that viewing child pornography would satiate demand for it."

Someone doesn't visit /b/ I see.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Imrik]

Of course you would rather your children not be around any pedophile, but since you can't accurately identify pedophiles you can't make that choice. What is being decided with this issue is whether pedophiles should have access to drawn images of underage characters. There are arguments to be had for both sides, but the choice I gave you is the one that is at issue.

Also, I didn't suggest that they wouldn't become a predator. It's possible that having a legal outlet might make them more likely to do something illegal.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[drsmithy]

I can agree that is necessary to have some images for educational purposes such as those offered by wikipedia, but by allowing lolicon and similar images to become acceptable I feel as if an important social barrier may have been breeched.

How do you feel about "gore porn" films like Saw and Hostel, then ?

Can you make an argument why it's ok to watch someone being tortured and dismembered, depicted by actual people and realistic visual and sound effects, but not ok to look at supposedly underage individuals in sexual situations, depicted by completely unrealistic cartoon imagery ?

Re:No conflict of interest there

[O('_')O_Bush]

If this were the ivory trade, that would make sense.

However, since people that create real child pornography are their own demand, your argument falls flat.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[evilviper]

I have to disagree with you (and damn near everyone else posting to this thread) there. Larry Sanger has made his uneasiness with the graphic nature of parts of Wikipedia well-known numerous times in the past. He did so before he had put Citizendium (CZ) together, so no conflict of interest was possible at the time.

He's been consistent about it as well. The ban on obscenity is in the founding documents of CZ, and he's repeatedly stated his displeasure with Wikipeia's (WP) distribution of said obscenity.

That may make him many things (the closest proper term I can think of is "Prude") but suggesting he is cynically looking for anything he can find that will harm WP, appears quite baseless. Eliminating the obscenity on WP has been his Quixotic goal for a very long time, and this action seems completely in-line with his stated opinions on the subject. However misguided, his action certainly isn't a "conflict of interest." His letter doesn't make any statement that would promote his own project, such as "at CZ we strive to make our project child-safe" (even though that is true), or suggest harsh action, or the like.

He certainly didn't have to post said letter publicly. He could just as well have kept it quiet, and waited for the Feds to come knocking. Everything he's done sounds like a genuine desire to get the "child pornography" removed, rather than his interests promoted.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[drsmithy]

Every child porn case I've come across started as abuse first, and then turned into a video production.

You've never heard of Traci Lords ?

How about those cases of teenagers sending around pictures and videos of themselves having sex/masturbating/posing/etc ? Or conflicts of international law, where legal porn in one place is child pornography in another ?

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Stanislav_J]

** The usual argument is that "all child porn turns people into pedophiles". So far I haven't seen any solid scientific support for that hypothesis. There are other hypotheses like "drawn CP allows pedophiles to let off steam without a child getting involved" which are equally unsubstantiated, seem equally sensible to a layman and make it seem a good idea to actually try and find out what is true.

Good luck getting funding for THAT study. As someone else said (to borrow his words), the whole subject area is "EVIL, EVIL, EVIL" to many, who would rather use a broad brush to paint generalities and condemnation rather than actually study the matter and perhaps seek to understand the why of how such an interest develops, and possibly develop strategies for prevention and treatment. It's SOOO much easier just to write pedos off as sub-human monsters and treat them as such.

I think the more hysterical, over-the-top anti-pedos might fear that such a study WOULD show that so-called "virtual kiddie porn" DOES act as a "safety valve," more often preventing such an interest from escalating to harming or exploiting actual children. I don't know if that is true, but a study showing it to be thus would take some of the wind out of their sails.

Or not. Hell, plenty of studies show that abstinence-based sex education does absolutely nothing in the long run to prevent teens from having sex, but that hasn't quieted the naysayers. A similar mentality keeps the War on Drugs chugging along when it does little to actually curb drug use, whether habitual or recreational. Remember that most of the "antis" in these areas have a strong religious bent, and will easily ignore or reject practical solutions in favor of simple condemnation and prohibition because "God says it's wrong" requires so much less actual thought.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[syockit]

It has nothing to do with age of consent. All that ruckus about fictional characters needing to be 18 or above probably refers to the Software Ethics (i.e. computer games) where it bans depiction of sexual acts involving incestuous relationship or people below 18. Lately there has been commotion about the authorities mulling new law to cover anime and manga as well.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[syockit]

If such was the case, there wouldn't be loads of Seinfeld seasons, as viewing of a single episode would satiate the demand for a sitcom.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[dkleinsc]

Err, no, the new communism is called "terrorism". What makes that a better enemy than communism is that the terrorists can't just take their ball and go home like the USSR did.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[NeutronCowboy]

I can guarantee you that Traci Lords didn't start in porn just like that. As for teenagers sending pictures of themselves - I think that is not what people have in mind when they talk about child porn. And it certainly doesn't fit my definition of child porn.

Maybe we should just stick to calling this child abuse. It would make it a lot clearer what the issue is, and remove the entire crap about 16-year olds being allowed to have sex, but where videotaping it becomes a crime for which they are punished for life.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Opportunist]

Unfortunately, pedos don't wear a tag. They're not labeled. They don't come with warning stickers akin to "keep out of reach of children under 12" or something like that. The world does not bend the the sticker-craze of the US. So saying "I'd rather not live next to a pedo" isn't working out. They don't (for good reason, as you may be able to imagine) don't wear it on their sleeve.

Your example of pedos arrested for rape and then being child porn (drawn or real, you left it open, but let's assume we're talking about CP that came from the crayon instead of a camera) smell a bit like an argument often used when run amok and then finding shooter games on their PC. And the logic instilled in people like Mr. Thompson and his cronies that this is some sort of indicator of a shootist. Having FPS games -> some crazy gunman in the making. Having pencil CP on PC -> some pedo rapist in the making. Now, I tend to be a person that goes by the law of similarities when he cannot relate to the topic at hand, and this really seems like where the law of similarities could apply. I play FPS games. I still don't have the urge to go out there and go on a killing spree. Likewise, I can easily imagine how someone who hoards lolicon isn't interested in raping real kids. VR is one thing, RL another.

So, sorry, no sale. Unless you have better examples, like, say, that someone who has (pencil) CP on his computer at least significantly tends to become a rapist, we needn't continue the talking.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Alsee]

I know what man is capable of when left unchecked

As far as I'm aware, I don't think anyone in this discussion has disputed imprisoning people who have committed actual acts of abuse against actual children.

by allowing lolicon and similar images to become acceptable I feel as if an important social barrier may have been breeched. I honestly can't make a truly informed decision because I don't have a degree or education in psychology, but based on what I have seen and heard, I have a very hard time accepting that child porn or lolicon (victemless or otherwise) should be allowed in any manifestation.

I don't have any data on child porn or lolicon, but I would like to point out that the exact same reasoning is often used to assert ALL porn should be criminal in order to reduce rape and other sex crimes, and we do in fact have plenty of hard data on that. Over the last several decades quite a few countries have either criminalized or decriminalized porn, and we do have solid data on what happens to the rate of rape and other sex crimes in such countries. The consistent fact is that the rate of rape and other sex crimes is LOWER when porn is decriminalized, and HIGHER when porn is criminalized.

The problem is that most people crusading against "dirty offensive immoral pictures" generally have a dogmatic position that the images are evil in themselves and anyone who looks at them needs to be imprisoned and burn in hell, and they just don't care about facts or evidence or logic. They routinely persist in asserting that they are fighting their crusade to protect people from crime and harm, when in fact the available evidence indicates the exact opposite. All evidence is that societies where porn is socially tolerated and available have lower rates of sex crimes. All evidence shows that the most serious sex offenders were produced in repressive intolerant homes, particularly when it is strict religious moral repression. At some point the child becomes arouse by some image or idea and he is attacked with the message the image or idea is evil, that sexuality is evil, that arousal is evil, and that it makes him evil. An obsessive compulsive cycle of intensifying focus is created. Arousal triggers repression and intensified focus on the arousal and self loathing. The thoughts and feelings are defined as evil in themselves, and he is defined as evil for having them. Ultimately the cycle of obsession and repression reaches the breaking point, and they just plain decide that they are evil. They just plain give in to the idea of themselves being evil as the only available resolution to the conflict. The cycle is broken, the psychological tension and pain are relieved, and the most monstrous form of serial sexual criminal is created. Statistics show that the worst category of serial criminal is almost without exception created by a repressive environment.

I see no reason that lolicon and similar materials would be the opposite case compared to porn in general.

There are people who get off on watching fires. You don't tell them that getting aroused by fire is evil. You don't tell them the tight is evil. You don't tell them the feeling is evil. You simply stick to committing the act of arson obviously hurts people and is criminal. If he collects images and videos of fire and gets off on it, you can tell him it's a rather bizarre kink but you don't demonize him for it. You make it very simple, thoughts and feeling and strange harmless hobbies are not evil in themselves and do not define you as evil. You make it very simple, arson or sexually abusing children or other acts harming people are "evil" and are crimes. No thought crime, no feelings-crime, no strange-harmless-hobby crime, no crime for merely "disgusting" , no crime for merely "offensive", actual acts harming actual people are actual crimes.

Most of us have had the feeling that we would like to kill some particular infuriating person. Whether it is a boss, or an obnoxious driver on the road, or some ha

Re:No conflict of interest there

[sixsixtysix]

so, pictures of murder victims creates a demand for more murder victims? yet, photos of that nature(even dead children) are widespread on gore sites. they are also not illegal. i just don't see how photos of any crime (or just ONE, as is the case here), can also be a crime. where else does this apply? photos of murders, car wrecks, genocides, etc. i don't support CP, but i hate double standards much more.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Anonymous Coward]

This only follows if the only way to obtain money is to mug someone for it. Sort of by definition, it is not possible to produce (actual) child pornography without abusing a child. It is possible to hold a legal job and obtain money that you can then give to someone that asks for it.

Not so. For example, consider this:

=0-8-D

Tilt your head to the left, and it's a crudely drawn ascii naked woman with her tongue hanging out. Albeit one without arms

=p-8-D - "Hi, my name is Cindy Brady and I'm 8 years old"

This is the same picture, except it's labelled as under 18. That is literally the only difference, but that label makes it child porn as defined and prosecuted in the US and UK, among others.

You sir, are in possession of child porn. I don't think anyone here is seriously claiming that it's ok to rape 6yo kids and sell copies of the tape, pay per view or whatever. The argument is whether drawing the little mermaid/s clam shell bikini top falling off is reason enough, all by itself, to send someone to jail and make them a social pariah for decades.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Hognoxious]

Since when have the Vatican bothered about consent?

Re:No conflict of interest there

[darkonc]

Yes, children can, and do, have sexual thoughts when they're young. Perhaps they'll even act on them.

That's completely different from suggesting that adults should 'help them along'.

Let them develop normally, and make sure that they have the knowledge of how the body works and what they can expect when (rarely 'if') they become sexually active and what's going to be happening to them and around them during puberty. (( as far as can be told, education is often the best anti-aphrodisiac -- If nothing else, it makes informed kids more likely to use birth control ... even if it is just the rhythm method )).

I'm willing to discuss the question of kiddy porn manga, but I'm pretty clear that the live-child kind is incredibly harmful. I do know people who were used in the sex trade when they were kids, and the effects linger on decades later.

If young kids want to experiment sexually when they're young, that's one thing (discourage it but don't freak out about it), but adults are old enough to say better. If a young kid hits on you, it's your responsibility to say no, not theirs. ... and if you hit on a kid much younger than you, then don't depend on me to do much more than shake my head and turn my back if somebody decides to castrate you with a rusty spoon.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Hognoxious]

Won't somebody think of the pencils!

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Hognoxious]

One, the people crashing the cars are not the people filming it. Quite probably the cars don't belong to the people crashing them (or filming them) either.

Two, I have no idea how much it costs to produce CP. Care to enlighten us?

Three, people do make money off car crashes. Those people who produce "America's funniest musical car chases volume 27" do it as a business, not a hobby.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Iamthecheese]

actually in Japan each prefecture has an AOC of 16 to 18 so the national law doesn't apply. See my signature please.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Hognoxious]

But drawings are illegal in many jurisdictions. As for harmful, it makes baby Jeebus weep!

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Iamthecheese]

why should creating a record of a crime be a crime?

Re:No conflict of interest there

[fishexe]

victimless and harmless to real people

This is just it, it's not harmless.

Or more accurately, even if viewing child porn causes not additional harm to the child depicted if people in a position to create child porn are aware there is a demand for it...So, yes, it is possible to view child pornography and not hurt anyone. However, in aggregate, the viewing of child pornography creates a demand for new images, and the filling of this demand results in child abuse.

This post is off-topic and deceitful (not to mention over-rated), and should be modded as such. The parent was talking about VIRTUAL child porn, not the kind with actual children in it, which you in no way acknowledge. Nobody in this thread even suggested that viewing REAL child porn was a victimless crime. We all know about the demand effect and consider it a real, harmful crime.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[laddiebuck]

Except that there are victimless ways of making money but no victimless ways of making child pornography (not the drawn kind, the photographic kind).

I'm amazed at the shit that gets modded up sometimes.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Archades54]

Many rapists, abusers, have legal porn, wear clothing, brush their teeth, drink alcohol and take other drugs legal and illegal, etc etc etc.

Many people watch violent movies but wouldn't harm a fly, the correlation here just isn't justified.

Here's a fun fact, not all child sex abusers are pedophiles!!!

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Archades54]

Realistic 3d graphics, and in the future this will only get better and better, more lifelike and near impossible to tell from reality, some will use it to model their fav teacher/whoever is their fantasy, some will model on kids. When it does come out I dare say many pedophiles would prefer to goto that form of content vs actually harming a kid, I'm sure quite alot of pedos hate the fact they are pedos, and really wouldn't ever want a kid to be harmed.

For treatment and support centers to work we would need to make them closed from the "public" view, much more confidential than even abortion clinics (If a pedo has a chance of beign identified going in, they won't go) Then the tricky part comes in, what if they are working with children but are seeking treatment, do we fire them and ban them from the job for merely seeking treatment thus showing a possible threat?

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Lunzo]

We wouldn't expect anything less from Mr. Bad Example.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Gloume]

By that logic, asking people for money should be illegal because you create a demand for them to mug someone for it.

This is a poor comparison that does not match the OP logic. There are many ways to acquire money to fill the "demand." There's only one way to fulfill the demand for real child pornography.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Khyber]

I concede to your point.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[geck4o]

"By that logic, asking people for money should be illegal because you create a demand for them to mug someone for it". Did you think at all before you typed that? There are many ways to make money without mugging people and none to make child porn without abusing children.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[English French Man]

I think the point of the GP's GP is that consumption of drawn child pornography creates a demand for actual child pornography. Could anyone say that consumers of drawn material would never look at the live stuff? Do statistics about that exist?

I believe that some people that seeks lolicon images would never look at the live stuff, for moral/legal reasons. I believe the majority not to be that righteous.

So yeah, drawn child pornography doesn't hurt actual children directly, but legalising it could allow for a greater demand, quickly followed by a greater offer in the illegal stuff.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[English French Man]

I'm pretty sure there is very few Vatican citizens (the whole Swiss Papal Guard are (of course) Swiss. Other members of the High Clergy are from countries around the world, temporarily serving at the Vatican). So this lets the Pope himself, which is his own citizen, and I don't see anyone else.

By the way, the Code of Canon Law seems to say that men cannot marry before 16, and women before 14 (see Canon 1083 and that the conference of bishops can set a higher age locally (this is the assembly of bishops in a given country).

Re:No conflict of interest there

[plague3106]

Its funny you like to TruTV, which states "not reality, actuality." Actuality being of course made up crap. Like their repomam show. Oh, you didn't know they're all actors and they are "reenacting" "actual" events?

Anyway, your conclusion is dubious. Its likely that being a preditor means you accumulate pictures, but that doesn't necessarly make it follow that if you accumulate pictures, you become a preditor.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[davidwr]

** The usual argument is that "all child porn turns people into pedophiles"

I assume you mean child molesters, not pedophiles.

Pedophilia is what turns you on, not what you do. That's usually pretty well fixed by the end of adolescence, and frequently by the end of gestation. A pedophile who never looks at child porn and never molests a child is still a pedophile. A non-pedophile who looks at child porn or molests children for reasons other than pedophilia doesn't become a pedophile because of it.

Now, an "age bisexual" who is unaware of or is suppressing his pedophile side may look at child porn, be drawn to it, and become a high risk for becoming a child molester. Ditto a "pure pedophile" who is unaware of or in denial of his own sexuality. From a societal viewpoint this is only an issue if there are are a lot of these people. My guess is we are talking less than 1-2% of the population have any significant degree of sexual attraction to children, with a higher number having an insignificant but non-zero sexual attraction to children. Even only counting adults over 25, many more than 1-2% are turned on by young teens, but thankfully most 1) have a stronger attraction to adults and 2) are socially responsible enough to not act on these desires, either through molestation or teenage-child pornography.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[pugugly]

Above and beyond that, he explicitly cites as violations things long clearly noted as protected categories (art work and such) under SCOTUS decisions, after claiming to have done extensive research.

So, I'm thinking this is a brazen attempt to smear a disliked rival with a bit of 'easily disproven, but you'll never get that spot out' mudslinging.

Pretty much disgusted with you Dr. Sanger.

Pug

Re:No conflict of interest there

[plague3106]

Wouldn't those producing it use legal means (drawings, photoshop, young looking models) to fill the gap instead of risking their business by raping kids? I mean seriously, how is someone viewing to know if its even real or not? I don't think that very many would go that route if there's an easier, and legal, route to go.

So you think rape porn actually leads companies to engage in real rape to make it for those demanding it?

Re:No conflict of interest there

[RockDoctor]

What we got here is an asshole trying to impose his mental illness (bodyphobia) upon us and upon wikipedia

I don't claim to know what Larry Sanger's detailed motivation is, but I think that it's extremely unlikely to be "bodyphobia". I've had online dealings with Larry in the past, and he's always seemed pretty sane and intelligent to me. In the Slashdot population, he'd probably be in the top 10% on both counts, which would probably put him in the top <5% of the general population on both counts (accepting caveats about WTF is "sanity", or "intelligence"?).
My guess is that he's covering arse against any future personal liability for the contents of Wikipedia (he is one of the small group of people who set it up ; if someone in the "nutjob" category were to try to legally assault the whole concept, he'd be one of the prime targets), and possibly trying to bring some specific piece of parochial legislation into contempt by taking it to a ridiculous extreme.
Anyway, if the witch-hunt of the uninformed gets too bad, I'll have no hesitation about shaking down the sofa-bed for Larry. Time limit at his honour.

Re:No conflict of interest there

[ScrewMaster]

I'm not certain that's really as clear cut as one might want.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant "among our lawmakers, nobody wants to be seen as being against the children."

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Jesus_666]

Do you think the people who argue that drawn child porn turns people into molesters acknowledge the difference between "pedophile" and "child molester"? While their theory might indeed be based on something much more reasonable like what you wrote, there are a lot people who literally think that lolicon can somehow override someone's sexuality and turn them into a child rapist, whether they might have been predisposed or not. That's what happens when reasonable arguments are filtered through the lens of the common tabloid.

Come to think of it, there are some parallels to the old "gay recruitment" theory...

Re:No conflict of interest there

[Thing 1]

Thank you. I submit today's fortune for your consideration: "Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there. -- Sydney J. Harris"

In a nutshell, Catholics are asshole-raping self-protecting scumbags.

Re:First

[Useful Wheat]

How did they fail to mention the album cover of the Virgin killers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killers

This got wikipedia banned a few years ago, because they dared show an actual album cover.

Categories

[Gudeldar]

Good thing the links are redacted! Its not like anyone with a brain could go to http://commons.wikimedia.org/ and search for "pedophilia" or "lolicon" and find exactly what he was talking about. Nothing in those categories looks like child porn to me, I'm not afraid to post the links. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pedophilia http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lolicon

Re:Categories

[St.Creed]

It depends on your definition of child porn I guess, but the picture of a girl sucking someones dick sure does look like child porn to me. Or didn't you know that cartoons are banned as well? It's not about the children, it's about enforcing societies moral standards.

Re:Categories

[Gudeldar]

If the category hadn't been "pedophilia" would you still have assumed it was child pornography? The girl appears to me to be at least a teenager, but beyond that she could be 14 or 20 (or younger or older). Is it child pornography if the artist conceived of her as 13 or if I did? At what point does child pornography become a thought crime?

Re:Categories

[makomk]

Child porn laws that cover cartoons have repeatedly been found to violate the First Amendment. Yes, really - look it up.

Re:Categories

[loufoque]

it's about enforcing societies moral standards

And why should it be the government responsibility to dictate morals? They should just provide a practical framework to make life in a community work.

Re:Categories

[Anonymous Coward]

If the category hadn't been "pedophilia" would you still have assumed it was child pornography? The girl appears to me to be at least a teenager, but beyond that she could be 14 or 20 (or younger or older). Is it child pornography if the artist conceived of her as 13 or if I did? At what point does child pornography become a thought crime?

In Germany we recently got an "appearance pornography" law that says, if the depicted woman LOOKS younger than 18, it's illegal.

Hilarious what those moral morons come up with.

Re:Categories

[hldn]

( . )( . )

these ascii boobs belong to a 14 year old ascii girl. i'm serious.

Re:Categories

[Imrik]

Maybe true, but that won't stop people from being prosecuted under them.

Re:Categories

[sakdoctor]

The great thing about (moral) standards is that there are so many to choose from.

Re:Categories

[Wizard Drongo]

And of the course the entire world uses the US system of justice.

Wish we did actually. Here in Scotland, any picture which depicts an act in which a child is sexually active, or is witnessing sexual acts or involved in any way, can be deemed child pornography.

Only in the UK would a stick drawing of lisa simpson watching marge fuck homer land you in jail!

Re:Categories

[cerberusss]

( . )( . )

these ascii boobs belong to a 14 year old ascii girl. i'm serious.

Uuuurgh that's disgusting. Is there some sort of special term for these kinds of pictures, where the head and body was brutally cut off, and only a set of breasts is shown of an underage girl?

Also, I can't fap to this.

Re:Categories

[houghi]

At what point does child pornography become a thought crime?

The moment you are against whatever you elected government says.

Re:Categories

[Attila Dimedici]

Yes, but this story is about a report of pedophilia to the FBI, so unless Scotland has recently outsourced their law enforcement, U.S. law is what counts for this story.

Re:Categories

[Yvanhoe]

At what point does child pornography become a thought crime?

When we began apply it to cartoons instead of live "models" it became a thought crime.

Re:Categories

[billius]

At what point does child pornography become a thought crime?

If I recall correctly, it's never a thought crime. Child pornography (that is, pictures of actual children engaging in sexual acts) is illegal not because the content is objectionable, but rather because its very existence requires a crime to be committed. New York v. Feber concluded that the distribution of visual depictions of children engaged in sexual activity is intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children and that since the government has a compelling interest in preventing the sexual exploitation of children, it is therefore okay to ban child pornography without having to first show that it's obscene. Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition referenced this case when they decided that parts of the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 were unconstitutional because they attempted to ban simulated child pornography (eg drawings, etc) because the creation of such images do not harm children. In effect, it's like the difference between a snuff film and a horror movie. You can make a horror movie as gruesome as you like, but you can't depict actual death in it.

Based on these grounds, I think it's shameful for Larry Sanger to be slinging mud like this. As far as I can tell, the images in question do not require the sexual exploitation of children and are therefore not child pornography. But from what I've seen, accusing anyone of supporting child pornography online is an incredibly effective way to get people to turn off their brains and hate someone without a second thought.

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[Fuzzums]

The problem is the difference between virtual (photoshopped) child porn and real child porn sometimes is hard to see.
You don't want somebody to be able to say it's photoshopped, therefore not real child porn and get away with it.
So generalize and make all porn showing (real, photoshopped or drawn) children illegal.
Seems a good solution to me.

Anyway. If you want something special from Japan, there is always shokku-shu kei ;)

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[KDR_11k]

Even more hilarious that around the same time Media Markt instituted the rule that everybody must show ID for age verification, no matter how old they appear. So we can trust people's judgment on pictures enough to determine guilt but not in real life?

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[Wizard Drongo]

touché..

Nice idea though. Probably be cheaper if we could outsource; get them to run it for us, for a small profit
Obviously they'd have to be trained in Scots law. I might put that to the convener of the Justice Committee

Stolen!

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[dbIII]

Even worse, I'm looking at it on a 14 year old CRT screen!
Yes I know it's bad, but I'm not like those sicko's looking at it on an LCD screen that isn't even three yet! Or two at of those at once - perverts!

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[Posting=!Working]

Why would they need to be trained in Scots law? It's not like they know the US one any better, really. Just pick something that you want to apply to a situation, then look it up and try to wrangle the closest law you can find around it - no training required.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Provided you're not trolling, I'd like to ask how you'd cover those anime characters that look young but are "hundreds of millions of years old!" or some variation according to canon.

The question then becomes, are we banning those with the *appearance* of children from pornographic material or banning the idea of children being exploited.

The second, I'd say, is far more important. But then the question continues further as to exactly which point a child can be considered developed enough, mentally, to make decisions about their sexuality. In most of the world we've set up semi-arbitrary values which are reflected in physical appearance (puberty). As such, for someone lacking the proper appearance, we make the assumption that they lack the mental faculty to properly understand their actions.

So, if a cartoon character is stated to be older, acts in a mature manner, and shows all signs of being a rational, intelligent adult *except* in terms of physical appearance, would porn of that be child porn or not? I suppose in this case you'd have to argue as to the intent of the author and so on?

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[smchris]

We're _decades_ into thought crime within current generations:

1) Started with narcs looking for dealers.
2) If it was good hunting dealers, wasn't it good hunting users?
3) If undercover worked so well for drugs, why not expand it to other areas like burglary and car theft rings?

I wonder whether it was prostitution where the line was first crossed into temptation:

4) Why should we spend time busting prostitutes when we can pose as prostitutes and bust clients?
5) Why not set up our own fencing operations to catch burglars?
6) Why not set up our own kiddie porn sites? We can offer genuine confiscated kiddie porn either as downloads or send them by post for extra client criminality.
7) But that's so passive. Why not pose _as_ kids and troll for child molesters?

I'm sure in all these cases officers can come up with examples of "good work" where they imprisoned repeat offenders. But from a sociological viewpoint, America has become a very strange place where it is the government's job to entice "those so inclined" into crime. Do we have any idea of the cultural fallout from this shift and can it casually be assumed to be all good?

   

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[jez9999]

Child pornography (that is, pictures of actual children engaging in sexual acts) is illegal not because the content is objectionable, but rather because its very existence requires a crime to be committed.

A child porn cartoon does not.

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[je ne sais quoi]

I agree. The GP is asking why it's the government's job to dictate morals but I don't see any government dictating morals at all here, not even close. Society has said, "Thall shalt not engage in pedophilia nor be able to distribute anything portraying it" and the government is only responding to societies wishes. If you don't like it, either work to change people's attitudes on the subject (good luck with that), or find a society that has other moral standards.

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[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Funny, i thought they looked 13.

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[mdwh2]

Indeed - the problem here is one of definitions, in particular, the way that the common definition is conflated with the legal one, something that lawmakers love to do.

Either we take the definition that child pornography is images of abuse - and therefore insist that cartoons are never child porn, by definition.

Or we use the legal definitions and acknowledge that cartoons can be considered "child porn", but argue that child porn isn't always abusive.

There's also the issue of places that criminalise images of adults over the age of consent - e.g. places like the UK where the AOC is 16, but an image of a 17 year old is "child" porn, or places where an adult image is illegal if the person merely looks under 18. Personally I'm tending towards the first approach that I list - it seems ludicrous to describe adults and fictional characters as "children", so an image of them can't be child porn.

The new UK law that criminalises fictional cartoons is a particularly laughable piece of spin - the law talks about images of a "child", and only later does it define "child" is such a broad way as to include anyone appearing under 18, or even of adults where the predominant impression conveyed is of someone under 18.

IIRC, Wikipedia also defines child pornography as being inherently abusive - I did raise the problem on the article of the more general definition being conflated with the legal definition.

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[mdwh2]

Under new laws, a simple well known game now results in the creation of snuff porn:

=======
|/   |
|    0
|   /|\
|    |
|   / \
|
+-------

And how can you be sure that the person depicted here isn't under 18 too?

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[mdwh2]

If you can't tell the difference between drawings and actual photos, you must be blind.

This discussion is about non-realistic images - your argument only applies to realistic fictional images.

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[dave420]

Media Markt != German Government :) The distinction is pretty obvious, as MM clearly states "Ich bin doch nicht blöd".

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[Phrogman]

Yes, but just try to apply the moral standards of say Germany or Holland over here in North America. They seem to be much better adjusted about human sexuality over in Europe. In North America (Canada/US) we are positively out to lunch about sexuality, and completely accepting of violence.
Its okay for a child to watch someone get murdered on TV, but considered completely unacceptable if they should see a naked breast - let alone a naked human body.
I recall a woman in a local coffee shop, unobtrusively deciding to breastfeed her baby - and some American tourists got up and complained to the management - even though she was not in their view unless they strained to look. I was shocked anyone would object to breastfeeding, not that she was doing it (what could be more natural?).
I think our whole western culture has gotten so grossly twisted up over issues of sexuality that it gives rise to a lot of our problems. Granted there has to be some limits - Pedophilia is a great example, completely unacceptable - but we seem intent on enforcing limits that are very very extreme in a lot of cases, and yet, as I said above, we gloss over violence in film and television and accept it as perfectly natural and acceptable.
Christianity is at the heart of the matter in my opinion. Our currently accepted moral standards are based on a religion that most of us ostensibly Christian people pay no heed to.

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[jandrese]

Shouldn't that be: |.||.|

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[blackraven14250]

The new UK law that criminalises fictional cartoons is a particularly laughable piece of spin - the law talks about images of a "child", and only later does it define "child" is such a broad way as to include anyone appearing under 18, or even of adults where the predominant impression conveyed is of someone under 18.

They're not banning "child porn cartoons". They're banning 90% of hentai.

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[blackraven14250]

And how can you be sure that the person depicted here isn't under 18 too?

They're too tall compared to the gallows.

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[Low Ranked Craig]

And why should it be the government responsibility to dictate morals?

It's not, but a lot of dipshits keep voting for other dipshits that think it is.

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[mdwh2]

Yes, indeed - hence I argue that we shouldn't use terms like "child porn cartoons". You're right, even if one conceded that it was reasonable to use "child porn" to describe a cartoon (which I don't), the problem is still that the laws are far broader than that.

I fear this new law will be even broader than the dubious recent "extreme porn" law, Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. The worrying thing is, I don't even think that hentai is some unintended consequence of the law - I've seen references to police forces explicitly mentioning hentai, calling it to be banned (e.g., in the consultation for Section 63, Gtr Manchester Police also called for laws against hentai. And the sad thing is, all we'll see reported in the press is "man convicted of possessing child pornography", with at best a reference to cartoons or drawings (one of the problems with trying to follow the consequences of Section 63 is that details in the press are very limited, and usually follow the Government-spin definitions of "man possessing extreme pornographic images").

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[russotto]

It depends on your definition of child porn I guess, but the picture of a girl sucking someones dick sure does look like child porn to me. Or didn't you know that cartoons are banned as well?

Cartoons are not banned in the United States, or so sayeth the Supreme Court (on several occasions, as the politicians keep trying to say otherwise). Anyway, that "girl" is actually 40 years old and merely has a developmental disorder, so banning her use in pictures would be a violation of the Americans with Disabilites act.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Child pornography (that is, pictures of actual children engaging in sexual acts) is illegal not because the content is objectionable, but rather because its very existence requires a crime to be committed.

That was true, until children started taking pictures of themselves engaging in sexual acts. Now the act itself is not a crime, but taking pictures is.

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[Sir_Lewk]

They aren't gallows, simply a crude wooden frame built for the purpose of hanging from the neck until dead. As such, this image also qualifies as an image of a brutal torture killing.

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[russotto]

The problem is the difference between virtual (photoshopped) child porn and real child porn sometimes is hard to see.
You don't want somebody to be able to say it's photoshopped, therefore not real child porn and get away with it.
So generalize and make all porn showing (real, photoshopped or drawn) children illegal.
Seems a good solution to me.

That is because you are an authoritarian pig. If it's hard to distinguish between validly-criminal activities and activities which are benign but look similar, then the right answer in a free society is for the authorities to work harder to find the distinction. Not to make the authorities job easier by outlawing anything which looks similar.

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[at_slashdot]

Think of the cartoons! Oh, wait...

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[drinkypoo]

When I was 15 I had a fourteen year old girlfriend with D cups. rBGH++

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[Scrameustache]

Only in the UK would a stick drawing of lisa simpson watching marge fuck homer land you in jail!

There was a case on slashdot of a guy in Australia who got jail for Simpsons porn. Have a look outside the UK once in a while.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/01/28/0112246/Man-in-Court-Over-Simpsons-Porn

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[Fuzzums]

First of all, thank you for calling me a authoritarian pig. It's always good to have a friend that knows you better than you know your self.

The point you raise (exactly which point a child can be considered developed enough, mentally, to make decisions about their sexuality) is a valid one to which I have no answer. The thing is, however, that we want to protect children from being abused. I'm sure we agree on that.

The point I raise is simple. I don't want people to hide behind the argument that their childporn collection is all photoshopped or Maya renderings or very realistic drawings, so there was no harm done to children.

As you are probably aware 3d animation is getting really close to the point where you can't tell if it's a 3d model or real. (Benjamin Button for example)

This is no imaginary issue, but it is the actual reason why the law (in some countries) go one step further than "harm being done to children". That way there will be no discussion in court about the images being real or not.

Therefore: Real child porn and virtual (photoshopped, drawn, rendered) child porn is illegal. If that also means obviously drawn child porn is illegal, that is fine with me. Everybody that needs images of children of nay kind to fap should have their heads examined.

So, also reacting to "then the right answer in a free society is for the authorities to work harder to find the distinction", I'd say I agree in most cases (google for the article about twins, dna, robbery here on ./) In that case the solution isn't to put them both in jail, but find better evidence. But in case of children I'll gladly make the exception and save the law enforcement the trouble of finding the actual child who is in those pictures to prove the image is real or not.

And finally: "This discussion is about non-realistic images - your argument only applies to realistic fictional images."
Yes, that was my point indeed :)

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[Bragador]

Don't put Canada in there. Or maybe the rest of the country is different? In Quebec people are much more open to sex and we laugh at the USA on that subject.

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[phantomfive]

It should be obvious, but what you've suggested, "provide a practical framework to make life in a community work' is a moral judgement of how things should be. A lot of what government does is based on someone's morality or another. The ideas that we shouldn't have slavery, or that 'all men are equal' is better than a caste system or feudal system are all examples of morality, and in my opinion, really good morality. But that's just my opinion, others might disagree.

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[melikamp]

(.) ! (.)

Here, fixed it for you.

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[FriendlyLurker]

The great thing about (moral) standards is that there are so many to choose from.

... but only MY religion/race/communities moral righteousness are the divine/correct ones. And since we have the reins of power, thou shalt yield to our moral will come law of the land. /sarcasm. As the thorough research of Bob Altemeyer discovered:

What makes authoritarian followers? Altemeyer suggests that the “social learning model of aggression” explains authoritarian aggression in high RWAs. The model is basically fear plus a trigger, in this case self-righteousness.

Thus in the experiments done on this subject, if you know how highly people scored on the Dangerous World scale, and if you know how self-righteous they are,you can explain rather well the homophobia of authoritarian followers, their heavy-handedness in sentencing criminals, their prejudices against racial and ethnic minorities, why they are so mean-spirited toward those who have erred and suffered, and their readiness to join posses to ride down Communists, radicals, or whomever. (p. 57)

He also offers a personal-development model of overall high-RWA characteristics. “I have discovered in my investigations that, by and large, high RWA students had simply missed many of the experiences that might have lowered their authoritarianism” (p. 61). Altemeyer doesn’t rule out a genetic component to being a high RWA, but he suggests that life experiences that reinforce the correctness of authority and offer few chances to question received truth are responsible for the development of high RWA characteristics.

Some characteristics of high RWAs. Altemeyer has found that people who score high on the RWA scale tend to also have the following characteristics:

1. Illogical Thinking
2. Highly Compartmentalized Minds
3. Double Standards
4. Hypocrisy
5. Blindness to Themselves
6. A Profound Ethnocentrism (“Authoritarian followers are highly suspicious of their many out-groups; but they are credulous to the point of self-delusion when it comes to their in-groups.” p. 90)
7. Dogmatism: The Authoritarian’s Last Ditch Defense

Right-wing authoritarianism and religion.

The first thing you need to know about religious fundamentalists, in case you haven’t inferred it already, is that they usually score very highly on the RWA scale. A solid majority of them are authoritarian followers. (p.111)

Altemeyer sees religious fundamentalism as “a template for prejudice,” and not surprisingly, fundamentalists exhibit the same kinds of cognitive and ethical problems as high RWAs — a disregard of standards of reasoning and evidence, mental compartmentalization, hypocrisy, dogmatism, etc. This chapter is where the careful groundwork of earlier chapters really pays off — Altemeyer makes a convincing case that religious fundamentalism feeds its followers right-wing authoritarian attitudes.

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[pdabbadabba]

And why should it be the government responsibility to dictate morals?

Because that is a huge part of what the criminal law does. Why does the government get to decide that murder is wrong? That is clearly simply a moral judgement. Or how about banning gambling?

This, philosophically, is what makes criminal law different from civil law. If I'm careless and run into your car the government allows you to sue me. If I run into your car intentionally then you have all the civil rights to compensation that you had before plus I can be prosecuted for a crime. The diference that makes the latter a crime is the moral culpability of my mental state.

Generally, of course, we require a concrete harm before we punish anyone (and it's interesting, by the way, to really think hard about why this is). The impulse to avoid prosecuting thoughtcrime is particularly strong in the U.S. But it isn't always so: You can, for example, be put in jail for attempting (but failing) to commit a crime. Many crimes also have special-circumstance modifiers that will bump them up to more severe crimes based sole upon the mental state of the perpetrator.

Now, all this being said, I actually agree that it is very strange that possession of cartoon child-pornography is a crime.Whenever we punish someone based upon mental state alone it is to further a strong policy goal (with attempt, for example, we want the police to be able to stop a crime by arresting the would-be perpetrator and still be able to punish them). Here, it is hard to see what those are (except maybe the thought that fans of "lolicon" are also likely to consume real child porn? I don't know.)

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[Bobb9000]

First of all, thank you for calling me a authoritarian pig. It's always good to have a friend that knows you better than you know your self.

Sorry, but as a disinterested third party, I have to say that the position you just advocated kinda does make you an authoritarian pig:

That way there will be no discussion in court about the images being real or not.

In general, speaking positively of rules which ban the introduction of relevant, defendant-exonerating evidence in court, as opposed to mentioning it only as a last resort, means bad things about your commitment to having a free society.

If that also means obviously drawn child porn is illegal, that is fine with me. Everybody that needs images of children of nay kind to fap should have their heads examined.

Then again, looking for the intention behind the words is kind of silly if you just go and state your authoritarian prejudices explicitly.

Now, I don't necessarily disagree that, as a matter of necessity, some provision may need to be made for the criminalization of photorealistic 3D renderings. However, that isn't something to be happy about - it's a very bad thing. The only legitimate reason for banning child porn is protecting children from being exploited in its production. Take that away, and all you have is totalitarian moralism.

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[loufoque]

There are different systems to make life in a community work, indeed.
What I meant is providing a fair environment, that is to say an environment without bias. If it is neutral and unbiased, then it becomes quite hard for it to make anything "bad", whatever the morale dictating what "bad" is.

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[makomk]

Given that I live in the UK, I'm fully aware that the rest of the world doesn't use the US system of justice. That's also why I haven't looked into the exact details of the images; viewing such images here in England is indeed a crime. (However, there's some caveats. Firstly, the image "must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal". Secondly, it must either focus "solely or principally on a child's genitals or anal region" or depict one of several specified sexual acts - the law applying to photographs doesn't have this restrictions. Thirdly, there's an exemption for intact copies of BBFC-classified films; without this it would theoretically be possible to be convicted for possessing Kill Bill volume 1!)

As several people have pointed out, though, Wikipedia is a US organization and US law applies.

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[Thing 1]

Child pornography (that is, pictures of actual children engaging in sexual acts) is illegal not because the content is objectionable, but rather because its very existence requires a crime to be committed.

Yes, and "bank heist fetishists" require a crime to be committed, perhaps involving murder, in order to get their rocks off.

Yet, we do not criminalize the possession of bank robbery crime scene footage, now do we?

There is a disconnect here.

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[Wizard Drongo]

US law applies to them, but English and Scots law also applies if they knowingly distribute to persons in Scotland or England&Wales

Stupid, I know. And actually, merely representing a child in the same drawing as a sexual activity is enough to get you collared now.

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[phantomfive]

See, once again, you are making a moral judgement, this idea that 'an environment without bias' is a good thing. It's impossible to run a reasonable government without some kind of moral system.

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[budgenator]

yes they are, adult boobs are

(. ) ( .)

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[jensend]

Morality is the only practical framework which can make life in a community work. People claim that law shouldn't deal with morality; if it doesn't then there's nothing left for law to deal with. Every law- even the requirement to drive on one side of the road rather than the other- is motivated by the morals and values of some segment of society-- in this case the judgment of society that if most people drive on the right it is morally wrong for me to choose to drive on the left and that it's worth restricting my freedoms if I choose to use them that way. If most citizens' moral feelings do not help motivate them to assent to and follow a law, then the only way to even attempt to maintain the law is by becoming -- at least in the relevant respects-- a police state.

The only question is that how we choose, as a society, what kind of society we want to be- the question of what segment of society gets their conception of how life in a community should work (i.e. of what is a good society, of what is good, and of morality) enshrined in law. As others have noted, your statement is itself a moral one; the point was best put by G.K. Chesterton back in 1905:

Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good. We are fond of talking about "liberty"; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about "progress"; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about "education"; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. The modern man says, "Let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace liberty." This is, logically rendered, "Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it." He says, "Away with your old moral formulae; I am for progress." This, logically stated, means, "Let us not settle what is good; but let us settle whether we are getting more of it." He says, "Neither in religion nor morality, my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education." This, clearly expressed, means, "We cannot decide what is good, but let us give it to our children."

To say that your conception of what society should be like should override that of the majority just because it's more permissive is to advocate the overthrow of democracy. I don't intend to defend democracy here; if you really think we should get rid of representative government and instead have Gavin Newsom, Ruth Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer make the decisions about what kind of society we will live in, I don't intend to press the issue. But I think you should be upfront about what you're advocating.

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[mister_playboy]

Don't put Canada in there. Or maybe the rest of the country is different? In Quebec...

Don't a large number of people in Quebec wish to have their own country? That implies they feel they are quite different from the rest of Canada.

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[manicb]

Sorry, but as a disinterested third party, I have to say that the position you just advocated kinda does make you an authoritarian pig:

Seconded. Due process should not depend on the victim of crime.

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[loufoque]

I'm not saying it's a good thing, just that's it's a fair one.

Arguably, people would probably be happier by being formatted into being happy, so that could a better system.

But I don't want my government to claim to be good or to make me happy, I just want truth, fairness and liberty, which are concepts orthogonal to good or bad.

Again, by choosing these, I don't mean to pretend they're good, I just mean to arbitrarily choose them, and nothing more.

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[Reziac]

Quebec is France for people who are bad at either geography or navigation. ;)

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[rrohbeck]

You just make drawing it crime. Problem solved.

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[billius]

.....which is what I said, but somehow my post got modded troll and yours was modded +5 insightful.

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[mdwh2]

And finally: "This discussion is about non-realistic images - your argument only applies to realistic fictional images."
Yes, that was my point indeed :)

Okay, but:

Therefore: Real child porn and virtual (photoshopped, drawn, rendered) child porn is illegal. If that also means obviously drawn child porn is illegal, that is fine with me.

You seem keen to use this as a justification for drawn "child" porn, which last time I looked was generally not realistic.

Everybody that needs images of children of nay kind to fap should have their heads examined.

Sure, but (a) this is drawings, not images of children, (b) the law criminalises people for possession, whether or not they "fap" to it, (c) discussing on whether people needing their heads examined isn't the same as saying they should spend years in prison.

But in case of children I'll gladly make the exception

In the case of imaginary depictions of children, you mean. And yes, that says it all - "Please won't somebody think of the children". At the very least, why isn't it a defence to show that the image isn't real, which still saves the police from actually having to do work (because evidently you've decided that police having to do some work is such a burden, and it's better to throw an innocent person in prison so the police can have an easier job)?

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[mdwh2]

Thirdly, there's an exemption for intact copies of BBFC-classified films; without this it would theoretically be possible to be convicted for possessing Kill Bill volume 1!)

Indeed, this shows how mad the law is - they've criminalised possession of images that are available in mainstream media (South Park would be another example), and think that putting in the BBFC exception somehow makes it okay! (If these images are harmful, why doesn't this apply to a classified work? This also creates other problems - how is it going to be possible for a future work to be submitted for classification? The problem is that the film producers and anyone else in possession will be breaking the law, because they'd have possessed it before it received a classification.) The law even says that images or extracts from a classified work are not exempt!

These clauses a ripped straight from the equally-mad "extreme" porn law (Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act) that criminalises adult images. Whilst the law was being "debated" by MPs (and I use that term loosely), in response to criticism pointing out that the definitions could criminalise images in mainstream media, their response was not to revisit the definitions, but to simply whack on the BBFC exemption. This completely dumb and poorly worded law is now evidently being used as a template for yet more ludicrous laws.

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[WeirdJohn]

7) But that's so passive. Why not pose _as_ kids and troll for child molesters?

That's basically what the Australian Feds do. They lie about their age, and wait to see if the suspect wants a meeting. When the perp shows up (often with porn, toys and cameras) they arrest him. Good thing too. I'd be surprised if the US authorities don't do similar, with a few choice moves to ensure the process is legal.

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[Tablizer]

It depends on your definition of child porn I guess, but the picture of a girl sucking someones dick sure does look like child porn to me.

You looked! Locky Uppy 4U

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[Maxo-Texas]

Troll, how?

When I was 15 I had a 15 year old girl with C cups.

I started having sex at 13.

Heck, I didn't have my first cigarette until I was 16. It tasted nasty. Just now getting back into smoking (quality tobacco tastes *gooooood*) after over thirty years.

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[i_liek_turtles]

Ugh, that's more like GMILF boobs

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[LienRag]

Well, one thing that makes victimless pedophilia pervert is probably money...
Allowing adult people to do what they want but prohibiting any person to make money over pedophilic stuff (including advertisement of course) could be a solution in an idealistic situation.
Maybe the thing you americans are completely accepting of is the rule of money, being oblivious that money is a way to express domination when used by people of different classes.

(hope my broken english wasn't too catastrophic)

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[Belial6]

what could be more natural?

OK, that line is used profusely by pro public breast feeding folks. It is a very poor argument. What could be more natural? How about taking a crap. Does that make it ok to do in a restaurant? Natural != Good.

Then there is the fact that a woman showing her bare boobs in public is illegal in most of the US. Doing so to feed a baby should not change the legality of public nudity.

Those things being said, it seems ridiculous that it is legal for a B cup man to walk around without his shirt, but it is a crime for an A cup woman. So, from a legal standpoint, our laws are bizarrely discriminatory, but if being topless in public is illegal, it should be illegal. If it is not, then it should not be for anyone.

From a moral stand point, I don't mind you showing them if you don't mind me looking.

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[DarwinSurvivor]

Or clothed...

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[fishexe]

The great thing about (moral) standards is that there are so many to choose from.

Just like religion! Of course, mine are right and yours is wrong, whichever one I choose.

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[fishexe]

...mine *is* right, rather...

Re:Categories

[fishexe]

We're _decades_ into thought crime within current generations:

...America has become a very strange place where it is the government's job to entice "those so inclined" into crime....

You know that thought crime is not the same as entrapment or undercover work, right?

Re:Categories

[fishexe]

She's an early ASCII bloomer.

Re:Categories

[xenobyte]

In Germany we recently got an "appearance pornography" law that says, if the depicted woman LOOKS younger than 18, it's illegal.

A so-called civilized country with thought crime laws... Despicable! :(

One thing is to protect children, another entirely to ban the innocent fantasy or role playing involving concenting adults.

Re:Categories

[4D6963]

You have to remember the context of this. It's just another one in a long series of moral panics. Twenty years from now no one will care about child porn cartoons or whatever as we do now. Same thing for the war on drug. It was all the rage in the 1980s, then slowly they realised little of what they did worked that well or was worth it.

Re:Categories

[Hurricane78]

Yep. According to Encelopedia Dramatica that’s called lolicon guro! But it’s more a “cut off” than a “not shown”. I’m serious! They also have the boy variant ‘shota guro”: For the priest with extra-special “needs”. ^^

Re:Categories

[Wizard Drongo]

Came back after a week and noticed this:
it's even more insane here in Scotland, where you can have sex aged 16, indeed you can even marry at 16.
If you wife takes a video of you doing the deed, you're both guilty of producing child pornography.

In fact, if a 17 year old girl takes a photo of her snooch and sends it to her boyfriend (also 17 for the sake of argument), she's a child-abuser, and he has child-porn.

Madness.

I've also filed my own report

[DrXym]

I just spotted a case of sour grapes on Larry's website.

Re:I've also filed my own report

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of the cold war when everybody you didn't like in the West was accused of being a Communist, and in the East people would spy on each other. Now the boogie man isn't economics but child and teen sexuality. Everybody needs something to hate. It shows that even PhD's (in Philosophy no less) like Larry Sanger can play the think-of-the-children card just like other people play the "racism" card, or the "socialism" card.

The thing I find interesting is that people like Dr. Larry Sanger accuse and insinuate people of being evil just because they "defend pedophilia" (i.e. state views that are not anti-pedophilia), which really means that if you don't agree with his neoconservative view point you will likely be demonized and "turned in" to the FBI (which is what I determined from reading his open letter). This is the opposite of fair and balanced or reasonable or logical. Unfortunately the people who get vetted for law enforcement tend to be Right Wing (they've got HR and personality tests to deny people careers if they aren't). So yes, being "informed on" to the police, even if you don't do anything illegal, by somebody who accuses you of being pro-pedophile (i.e. somebody who doesn't hate children) will likely get you put on a black list and could very well ruin your life. Dr. Larry Sanger mentions the word "moral" on his site, so it is obvious that he has an agenda.

It's too bad that probably only neoconservatives, the Christian Right, the FBI, and the Republican party will take Dr. Larry Sanger seriously.

Re:I've also filed my own report

[Anonymous Coward]

blah blah blah i'm so persecuted because i'm completely fucked in the head and want to fiddle with little black boys blah blah blah poor me

Seek psychological help now before you destroy some kid's life.
Signed, everyone who isn't a creep hated by society

You probably don't have the intelligence or reasoning ability to realize this, but you just helped to validate my statements regarding the moral panic regarding the issues of pedophilia and those people (like Larry Sanger and yourself) who obviously think about children more than I do. The funny thing is that while I try to keep an open mind, it's people like you who accuse people of engaging in the sexual fantasies that pop into your head. It's sort of like the sex abuse counselors who told the police that children where involved in "satanic sexual abuse". Of course this was all in their perverted anti-pedophile imaginations, which were invented by "child advocates", police investigators and therapists. Funny thing is you can find this article on Wikipedia as well. Lets not mention all those Catholic priests and Right Wing religious evangelists who preached against sex... I can presume that this is (probably) an example of what Dr. Larry Sanger doesn't want people to know about, because it doesn't validate his anti-pedophile advocacy.

While the "child advocates" use such propaganda terms as "child sexual predator", "glorification of child pornography", "sex abuse" and the like to describe ANYTHING that THEY think makes children sexual, the rest of us quietly realize that yes indeed children do have sexual organs and sexual feelings, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is the people who are demonizing these children who should be closely monitored; not the people who don't have a moral issue with children and sex. It's the fanatics and the morally righteous that we need to worry about. And the ignorant. Ignorance is the greatest weapon of the fanatic, which is usually why they are enthusiastic supporters of censorship, and why their arguments are based on ad hominem attacks and other logical fallacies and propaganda techniques instead of knowledge and reason.

For good measure, and because I'm in a good mood, I'll specifically state that I have no interest in children, child porn etc (usually I'll just let people believe in their own biases and delusions about me without reproach). I DO however have an interest in logic and morality, which is what compels me to post on these morally dubious topics. I always find great disappointment in the intellectual dullness of people that just because I make points about an issue, that necessarily I have some self-interested political agenda, like when I talk about legalizing heroine or marijuana people (erroneously and stupidly assume) that I am a marijuana smoker. Same with all issues really. I suspect (and hope) this is only because "advocates" and moral evangelists are attracted to these types of discussions rather than the fact that people (like you) in general are just stupid. I can only hope.

I base my ideas and beliefs on Logic, Reason, and Knowledge. I usually find most people base their opinions and folklore and populism.

Re:I've also filed my own report

[msuarezalvarez]

Well, I suppose you thing some other form of organization has not been humanitarian and systemic failure throughout history...

Re:I've also filed my own report

[Bragador]

Yes, because capitalist societies would never try to encourage war by selling weapons or going to war themselves. It's not because capitalism is more easy to manage that it causes less horrors. Remember how bad life was during the industrial revolution? And look at countries like China where people are working for almost nothing and have a horrible life.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't somebody please think of the children?!

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedophiles thinks of the children.

Category:Pedophilia

[ultranova]

Yes, Wikipedia seems to indeed have a category for pedophilia-related articles, describing such things as the Catholic scandal, child grooming, various kidnapping cases and related stuff. I'm a bit unsure what makes this "child pornography" - does Mr. Sanger perhaps become turned on reading about the activities of less savory Catholic priests? Dunno what images he's referring to, either - the only ones I found were photographs of Greek vases. As for "lolicon", AFAIK it's legal in most countries due to it being cartoon not related to real people in any way.

Perhaps this case itself should be reported under pedophile hysteria, or, more cynically, barratry.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Anonymous Coward]

It also applies to fictional stories, apparently. Just text, no images. What it suggests is that Canada's laws on this matter are fucking insane.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[kestasjk]

Have you seen the famous "wikipedia lolicon" image? It's completely tame, especially when you compare it to some of the graphic images of cancer, surgically removed breast ducts etc, that you can see on some wikipedia pages. This is a non-issue.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Shikaku]

It still suggests a certain unacceptable behavior towards children.

Video games, most stories' actions of characters, and a fuckton of other things suggest unacceptable behavior towards children.

What are you trying to suggest? Cover your eyes and all the kids' eyes and make it go away?

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[FooBarWidget]

Several Americans have in fact been jailed for possessing lolicon. The judge deemed lolicon manga just as harmful as the real thing.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[init100]

It still suggests a certain unacceptable behavior towards children.

Many movies openly depict murder and excessive violence, which could certainly be classified as unacceptable behavior, but they seem to be completely legal. If depicting unacceptable behavior would be illegal, a lot of books, pictures, movies and video games would have to be banned.

So this cannot be about depicting or suggesting unacceptable behavior.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[init100]

I don't think you have to be hysterical to see why having a paedophilia image category might not be a good idea.

Why not? It could contain an image of the Pope, as well as his cardinals and many Catholic priests.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[davidwr]

They didn't have good enough lawyers or enough money.

People without good lawyers or the money to buy them get screwed in court all the time. Many others were convicted before the case law developed and they don't have the money to hire a lawyer to get their case looked at again.

OR, they didn't fight it because there was something in it for them not to fight. For example, if they had 100 pictures of child porn and 100 cartoon images, and they knew if they went to trial it would be a split verdict but they would get 10 years in prison on the 100 convictions, and the DA offered them 8 years to plead guilty to everything, many would take the deal.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[complacence]

I know I am, having at one time actually sought out the vilest shit known to man, to get a better grasp on the state of the human psyche. (No, really.)

What it didn't do is increase my desire to touch penors of 10-year-olds, burn pets alive, immerse in huge quantities of human feces, or maim, rape and eat diner waitresses (in that order) just one bit.

Pedophilia isn't contagious, nor is ASPD, sadism or coprophilia. What does increase the appeal is presenting said things in a positive light, as 4chan is wont to do for the iconoclastic and Hollywood movies for the impressionable youth. I'm not saying everyone browsing 4chan will be turned into a pedophile, but it will increase your propensity to be amused by it.

As sidenote and illustration, the movie "A History of Violence" which more aptly should have been called "An Aestheticization of Violence". I personally couldn't help actually being drawn towards the violent acts depicted and I'm sure many movies out there do the same thing. I appreciate the movie for what it is, but can't help wondering if it's such a great thing coming out of the cinema and imagining brutal scenarios in your head because they just looked so slick. I find it no great mystery that with the youth growing up basically watching nothing else than movies that show how cool it looks to snap a neck there, snipe a head there and saw up a few people in between develop not only a tolerance but an appreciation. It is more than a little hypocritical that the institutionalized glorification is a-ok, while the independent and often value-judgment-free displays end up on block lists.

(Pointing out stupidity in what I said very welcome.)

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[zblack_eagle]

Yet the emerging trend of dressing children in clothing that is tarty and/or has sexually suggestive slogans printed on them is A-OK

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[slartibartfastatp]

Not only child-porn is illegal, but talking about it (meta-child-porn?) is also. I wonder if talking about discussions about child porn, and the whole stack, is illegal as well.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[slartibartfastatp]

parent's opinion these days seems to be: "let's wait until they're 18 then it's not our business anymore"

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Tim C]

A thing doesn't have to be harmful to be illegal - e.g. the anti-sodomy laws that are still on the statute books in many places.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[tonique]

It's illegal all the way down!

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[mdwh2]

I don't think you have to be hysterical to see why having a paedophilia image category might not be a good idea.

Whether or not it's a good idea, that doesn't make the category illegal. Does the category contain illegal images, or not?

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[blackraven14250]

I'm fairly sure having a dick in the ass isn't comfortable for the receiving party.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[mdwh2]

Have you tried it?

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[St.Creed]

A lot of receiving parties beg to differ.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Duradin]

Child beauty pageants are a wholesome part of American life that allows mothers to vicariously relive an idealized childhood by exploiting their daughters by making their kid into child sized versions of themselves but with mature overtones that they wished they would have understood when they were that age. It's as American as apple pie.

But drawing pictures of a fictional character dressed up like that is EVIL! IMMORAL! COMMUNIST!

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[kasperd]

photographs of Greek vases.

Consider the following though experiment. Imagine a few years from now the hysteria reaches a level where society decides to destroy all of those vases and pictures of them. Then imagine what history "books" a thousand years from now will say about our time. Will it focus more on the child porn problem or the destruction of cultural heritage?

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Philip_the_physicist]

I've never tried it myself, but I've heard from several reliable sources that, done right, it is highly enjoyable.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[ultranova]

No need to imagine. This scenario has happened multiple times in history, for example with Taliban destroying Buddhist statues and Christians destroying pagan temples.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Chowderbags]

Last I heard Ashcroft v Free Speech Coalition struck down just that kind of law, precisely because it didn't harm kids to make child drawings and trying to ban it would be harmful to the first amendment.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

I'm not uncomfortable around homosexuals in social settings. But the thought of guy-on-guy is pretty yucky to me. Does that make me a homophobe?

I would say it makes you insecure. The crap in your toilet is yucky too, but are you going to die and give up if it clogs and nobody else is around to unplug it?

That yucky feeling is basically "I don't know how to handle it." Well, you handle it by saying, "No." And anyone who doesn't respect that you said "No" is a rapist, which will probably be a very bad thing for you whether they're a man or a woman, if only because they're likely to use violence, be cruel, or steal from you.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Child beauty pageants and child porn hysteria are two sides of the same coin; namely, the sexualisations of children and the sale of it for profit. And yes, I mean the "hysteria" is the sale of child sex for profit.

In both cases, business are selling images and/or stories of children to people hungry for them. Those involved will strenuously and vigorously deny this, but you need only to look at child pageant photographs or read pedophile/child porn news stories to see what is going on. The very people who howl loudest about child porn are the very same who greedily devour every morsel or every story about that same topic. It Freudianism on a sociological level and it stinks to high heaven.

These people are inexorably eroding free society as we know it; and we're letting them.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Anonymous Coward]

apple pie is french...

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[perlchild]

I also wonder why he needs to report this publicly, except to reap publicity from it. Wouldn't an actual child porn ring(as opposed to just a site hosting some questionable images) better handled by the appropriate divisions of the said FBI? Yes they would, they most likely have already seen the pic, and deemed they have better things to do, like catching the actual child pornographers/abusers. In the case they haven't making a public stink about the site just erodes our rights, but has the picture is already taken, it gains little by being aired in this manner.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Vellmont]

I'm not uncomfortable around homosexuals in social settings. But the thought of guy-on-guy is pretty yucky to me. Does that make me a homophobe?

No. Dan Savage (sex advice columnist) has commented several times that gay men find hetero sex pretty disgusting. Most people would say they'd find sex between old people disgusting.

My conclusion is that sex is essentially kind of disgusting unless you happen to find the particular people involved sexy. Homophobia (or discrimination in general) would only come into play if you thought the parties involved were themselves disgusting for engaging in the act rather than the act itself being disgusting. I don't like limburger cheese, think it's kind of disgusting, and don't want to eat it myself or be near someone eating it. But I don't think less of anyone that enjoys it.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[mdwh2]

Heterosexuals have anal sex too, you know (both ways round). And plenty of homosexuals don't.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[toriver]

Also: the Protestants who conquered Catholic Malta wrecked the statues of saints and Virgin Mary they came across (bigger statues had their faces hacked away) since they considered the Catholic "worship" of saints to be polytheism/idolatry.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Maxo-Texas]

Um.

Men screw women in the ass.

Women screw men in the ass ("Pegging").

Why?

submission, erotic, dominance, curiosity, unresolved issues, and... because it feels good-- strike that DAMN good.

a) use lots of lubrication
b) start small (for some reason a huge market for butt plugs exists-- who could be buying them?)
c) motion generates sensation- a plug generates a lot less sensation (even virtually no sensation- easy to sleep with smaller ones).
d) start *after* aroused (if you are aroused, it is a multiplier- making the arousal already there more intense)
e) if the dirty aspects turn you off (as they do with many), then play with enema's first and get clean.
f) use lots of lubrication

And yes,
gay men and gay women also screw each other in the ass.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Duradin]

The figure of speech goes *WOOOOSH*.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Hurricane78]

Well, since it’s a fictional depiction, it also was a fictional process and a fictional judge descision, right? ...right?

Hmm... anyone has the IP address of that judge. I got some “load” to “inject” into his “PC”. ^^
Then we’ll see what happens if he’s the accused.

Re:Category:Pedophilia

[Hurricane78]

Are you all just that ignorant, or why am I the only one who says it out loud: The reason for all those delusions is religious schizophrenia!!! (If that makes you angry, you are infected.)

Alternate statement

[Protoslo]

For reasons totally unrelated to the (unsubstantiated) rumors that I am deeply bitter that no one has even heard of my self-evidently superior encyclopedia, Citizendium, I have discovered that it is my solemn duty under Federal law to attempt to have Wikipedia's servers seized by the FBI, thus inevitably thrusting the 121 properly expert-approved articles of Citizendium back into the spotlight where they bel--ah--I mean, thus saving...the children...from Jimbo.

Re:Alternate statement

[kestasjk]

Don't even link to it, that's all he's trying to achieve with this..

Re:Alternate statement

[Idbar]

Geez! That page you sent has links to explosives, even nuclear weapons. That's totally uninformative and it establishes a clear link to terrorist groups.

Reading can be difficult...

[Iryan]

Read it again, do some math and you'll easily see, that 2010 (now) minus 3 years (the page existes since then) is not a date before 2002, the year he left.

Re:Reading can be difficult...

[Runaway1956]

Hey, that's not fair. Not every geek made it into the higher math classes!

Sanger's sour grapes

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, it doesn't inspire any level of confidence or conviction when the first paragraph of a letter, presumably about bad bad child porn on Wikipedia, is prefaced with what reads like the preamble on a CV. Citizendiwhat? Sorry you ditched on WP and failed to replicate its success, but trying to get the website shut down by pandering to think-of-the-children reactionaries is hardly an act of good faith or legitimate citizen concern. Sanger, how come you know so much about the pedophilia content at Wikimedia anyway?

Secondly, if one does visit the categories of which Sanger speaks, (not hard to figure out btw, in spite of link removals) all you see are A) historic pornographic cartoons, and B) Japanese pornographic cartoons. Even if one were to take the charges of child porn seriously, they are strictly limited to works of art, as in, not real people. I suggest that federal law enforcement should find much more pressing cases to deal with. If they have the time to perform an investigation over cartoon tits, they are overbudgeted.

Re:Sanger's sour grapes

[jez9999]

I suggest that federal law enforcement should find much more pressing cases to deal with

Like arresting people for smoking pot. ;-)

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

You can stop thinking of the children now.

What happened...

[lattyware]

What happened when a drawing is being called child porn? Did any child get hurt? No. It may not be to my personal taste, but if noone is getting hurt, then why the hell is it being intefered with?

Re:What happened...

[JackieBrown]

It makes it more common and the more common something is, the more people find it acceptable.

I am not big on the knee-jerk "think of the children," but if we do not, who will?

Some things should not be made more common nor more acceptable.

Re:What happened...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some things probably shouldn't be made more acceptable, but that excuse has been used to repeatedly to repress expression & whole groups of people(e.g. African Americans, Gays, Women, etc...)

"Child porn" and the "think of the children mentality is a slippery slope. We already have minors going to jail due to having consensual sex with each other. We have girls being charged with possession & distribution of child-porn for taking pictures of their own naked bodies and sending it to boyfriends, who are then also charged with possession of child porn themselves. Would you view the famous paintings or statues of Cherubs child porn? A lot of parents take pics of their kids growing up, sometimes kids run around naked or maybe it's their first bath, or potty training or something innocent such as that, could that be considered child porn?

There should be limits, but sometimes it can become a crazy witch hunt & used as an excuse to drum up fear or to manipulate sheeple. If someone is being exploited or harmed, that is definitely wrong. However, there are many imaginary images out there depicting many illegal things... Should we ban images that show drug use? Images that simulate murder? Images that simulate sodomy? Certainly we don't want drug use or murder to be more common, thus any depiction of it should be banned... Right? That'll solve all murders & drug use. No instead TV & movies are rife with murder & show drug use all the time, nor do I really think there is anything terribly wrong with that as these things are part of life, but so is sex. The USA has extreme hang-ups about sex and it just shows in how they prosecute child-porn, teenage sexual activity & terrible sex-ed.

Lolicon itself is a bit tongue-in-cheek usually with very cute characters who are slanted with a sexual side. One could draw parallels to how the USA has beauty pageants for 5 & 6 year olds, yet we are not running out prosecuting these parents for sexually exploiting their children, though in that case actual children are on display and probably being exploited by their overbearing parents, versus zero exploitation going on in an imaginary image.

Re:What happened...

[mayberry42]

It may not be to my personal taste, but if noone is getting hurt, then why the hell is it being intefered with?

So those in power can force upon you their own moral beliefs of what is right and wrong regardless of your own opinion. Same as any other victimless crime.

Re:What happened...

[Anonymous Coward]

A moment's reflection leads one to the obvious answer: because a large group of people, including many in power, are deathly afraid of a sexual fetish that violates their instincts to protect children (and about which they remain intentionally ignorant, preferring instead to denigrate from a safe distance). Thus, in their zeal to prevent real harm to children, they forbid even drawings of child abuse. Provided that no children were actually harmed in the making of the drawings, this kind of censorship is a vibrant example of the triumph of emotion over reason, of the limbic system over the cerebral cortex. Perhaps one day, the majority of people will have evolved to the point where they are able to distinguish fact from fiction, abuse from art, and overcome their baser instincts, but until that day they shall remain afraid of that which they do not understand.

Re:What happened...

[Yfrwlf]

Easy answer:

Sex that is positive, wanted, and truly loving in all ways is not bad, regardless of age. While the young and certain animal species may be more prone to being taken advantage of (raped in this case) by others for various reasons, and while doing so is obviously wrong, that in no way means "underaged" sex equals being wrong. Many, including myself, were sexually active from very early ages, and I cannot and will not condemn something which I myself enjoyed and which had no negative effects or ill will of any sort, just because I'm older now and can legally have sex, or just because it was more dangerous then. Everything was more dangerous then. Give me a hammer right now, I'd be more thoughtful about using it as I know more, but give me one back then and I could have been more reckless with it. That doesn't mean you make it illegal for youngins to wield hammers, it just means you keep a better watch, be a better teacher and parent, etc. While saying "no hammers" is one way out, it in no way means that allowing hammers in certain situations isn't okay.

Re:What happened...

[julesh]

It may not be to my personal taste, but if noone is getting hurt, then why the hell is it being intefered with?

Because paedophiles may be aroused by it and that's Wrong.

</dailymail>

Re:What happened...

[Duradin]

Media depicts murder as a rather common event but I don't think that it has made murder acceptable.

Not just modern media. Since the dawn of time media.

And murder is about the tamest thing in old myths.

Re:What happened...

[icebraining]

The install a filter on the educational institution and block Wikipedia pages that contain non-approved words, like Pedophilia or Lolicon.

I have no problems with self-censorship. I do have problems with others trying to impose their morality in others. If there are actual children being shown, I'm all for hunting down the photographer and jailing him.

no, most of it isn't "art"

Yes, by all means, you should dictate to everyone your definition of art.

Re:What happened...

[GreyWolf3000]

... unless there's a convincing reason to believe that viewing child pornography increases ones' likelihood in sexually engaging children.

I remember hearing a quote from a child sex offender in prison-- something to the tune of "not a single fellow child sex offender here in prison did not first begin with child porn."

Maybe that's a wad of nonsense; after all, I'm not providing a credible source. But if it could be successfully argued that viewing child porn creates material desire to abuse children sexually then the position to ban child pornography would no longer need to rest solely on the idea that children are being abused.

Re:What happened...

[Dhalka226]

It makes it more common and the more common something is, the more people find it acceptable.

You're right. I was against the whole child porn thing before, but now that I've seen a drawing of a fictional naked child I think ALL children should be used for porn. It just seems right.

Re:What happened...

[FooBarWidget]

Well read this article to get a sense of what the judges are thinking: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28319199
"it is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exists."

Re:What happened...

[aXis100]

That's the same argument as "every school shooter played violent video games". I'm pretty sure kids were being abused and people went on shooting rampages long before child porn or video games existed.

There are just some sick fucks in our society that will have a problem with or without support from fictional media. Censoring material that causes no harm is just wasted effort and makes a false sense of security. More money on treatment and support would help more.

Re:What happened...

[JackieBrown]

Media depicts murder as a rather common event but I don't think that it has made murder acceptable.

No but it is no longer shocking

Re:What happened...

[Duradin]

"No but it is no longer shocking"

And being able to think about things rationally is bad when we can just rely on our knee jerk reactions.

Re:What happened...

[Yfrwlf]

No, I mean enjoying sex with others too.

Re:What happened...

[Yfrwlf]

That was kinda creepy, what do you mean? Also, tell me what was negative about me having sex when I was young? Oh wait, there wasn't anything and you're wrong.

Re:What happened...

[lessthan]

Or maybe you are putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps people with a desire to rape children seek out child porn before escalating to worse things. Like how serial killers are supposed to start killing with animals. That is probably a bad example. I have heard the argument that porn, in general, creates rapists. Most rapists have porn, therefore porn creates a desire for rape.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

No I can't.

Can you stop thinking about zebras NOW?

Re:tired of this crap

[Anonymous Coward]

But... won't you think of the children?

Re:tired of this crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh gimme a break, I've spent *hours* today thinking of the children, my wrist is too sore to do it any longer.

Look at that

[Jerrei]

Larry mentions his own, new, quote "more responsible" encyclopedia project in the first paragraph. How convenient.

Re:Look at that

[Reservoir Penguin]

Agreed, how pathetic, he has resorted to reporting his competitors to the authorities in an effort to whore his failed Citizendium project that no one visits.

Re:Look at that

[nenolod]

"Our 121 expert-approved articles are reliable and of world-class quality, rivaling the best printed encyclopedias."

Wow, 121 whole articles! Amazing!

Re:Look at that

[noidentity]

I'd like to introduce you to a new website that has absolutely no questionable content: example.com. I offer it as a serious alternative to Wikipedia and even Citizendium, which mention some topics which some find uncomfortable, or even might find uncomfortable at some point in their lives.

Re:tired of this crap

[roman_mir]

Yeah, I am thinking of the children and the question is: should they be subjected to this level or retardation in the world?

Should the children be forced to grow up in this dark fucking place surrounded by these mentally ill, retarded, brainless idiots? What did they do to get this punishment?

Government Censorship

[kainosnous]

This is an example of what I believe is wrong with government censorship. I don't know how people get the idea that the web should be a safe place where you can click on any link and go to any site and never have the chance to be offended. The internet and the web, IMHO, should be a place where all information can be exchanged freely between all parties. There are plenty of things on the internet that I find quite disturbing. If you don't want to be offended, don't go there. If you don't trust the sites, don't click on the link. Wikipedia is no exception. I personally don't find it acceptable for children to browse unsupervised, but it isn't mine or the government's decision to make. On the other hand, don't be surprised if the government uses that free information to track down people who commit crimes.

The big problem that I have here is that we are using the government to legislate morality. Not only is that not their job, but they are really bad at it even if it were. So, unless we are willing to stone people for adultery we should let them make their own moral choices.

Just to clarify, I'm in no way in favor of allowing people to harm children. In those cases where actual children are hurt I have no problem hunting down those people. I just don't want to see a service shut down because somebody didn't like a drawing they had.

Re:Government Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice strawman; no one said the internet doesn't have rules, conventions, and standards...
There are plenty of conventions on the internet, but they are not necessarily tied to those of any particular physical society.

Here's some reading material for you: The Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

"We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonwealth, our governance will emerge.
Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions.
The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule.
We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis.
But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose. "

http://w2.eff.org/Censorship/Internet_censorship_bills/barlow_0296.declaration

Re:Government Censorship

[muridae]

You have to remember, the tricky thing about morals is that 'mine are always right'. Almost every sociology 101 course has to devote a huge amount of time just getting people to admit their own ethnocentrism, much less acknowledge that other people have values that are right for their culture. However, it is the government's job to legislate, if not morality, socially agreed norms. One could even say that legislation against murder is a moral legislation, if someone wanted to carry the argument that far. And I know one sociology professor who probably would, if not just to annoy his students. It seems that our culture has come to view the internet as our own. It follows that, if it is ours, then the internet must play by our rules. Circular logic says that, since we have used our laws to enforce our views on the internet already, it must be our own to legislate further. Bad logic, but the cynic in me says that the same logical problem pervades more of our culture than just the way we deal with the internet.

I do agree with you, that anyone harming a child deserves to be caught. I, personally, feel they should be shot on sight. The problem, for my opinion, is what constitutes harm? Given the way our society has come down strongly against child porn and abuse, what harm is done after the fact to the children involved? How much of a role does the stigma of being abused, and the ostracization that follow, play in the development of the children involved? And how can we, as a society, justify 'think of the children' when we so blatantly do not think of them at all after the 'bad guy' has been put away?

Re:Government Censorship

[HungryHobo]

The madness with legislating morality goes far deeper than that.

I've talked to people who honestly believe that it's right that teenage girls should be arrested, sent to prison and put on the sex offenders register for life because they took photos of themselves with their phone cameras.
The reason: "What if a pedophile got hold of the images..." "...internet..." "...pedophiles..." "zzzt zt" *brain shorts out*
They honestly believe the possibility of a pedo getting hold of a phone cam picture of you is more harmful to you than years in prison and getting classed right alongside rapists.

As for the murder- the whole euthanasia debate is based around that one so I'd class the problem not as legislating morality but rather legislating choice. "no you can't ever choose that no matter what because we think it's bad for you and to make the point we're going to punish you so badly that it ruins your life and the lives of everyone around you"
Weather it's applied to sick people who wish to end their own lives or to teenagers who snap photos of themselves.

Re:Government Censorship

[Zontar The Mindless]

...Even in truly anarchic societies people will develop conventions and standards, and they will be enforced, without formal leadership or guidance. E.g. Kowloon in Hong Kong.

I know a bit about Hong Kong, having been there several times, each time staying in Kowloon (Mong Kok, to be precise), and I have one simple question for you:

WTF are you going on about?

Re:Government Censorship

[Pentium100]

However, the internet is international, so, you either make it play by everybody's rules or let it be free.

Americans are offended by a lot of things, Germans are also offended by a lot of things, but not all the same things as Americans (for example the swastika is banned in Germany, therefore it should not be on the internet, ever), Iranians are offended by a lot of things, and some of those things are not offensive to Americans or Germans. Now make a list of what is offensive in each country, or better - what is offensive to each group of people. Your list will most likely be a complete index of what is on the internet.

If you allow only the information that does not offend anyone on the internet, the internet will be empty.

As for the child porn - how about catching those who make it? Or is it that only watching it harms the child and making it doesn't?

Re:Government Censorship

[moortak]

He probably meant Kowloon walled city, the densest settlement in human history, free from any central governing body, and still had a lower homicide rate than Hong Kong. It was bulldozed in 94.

Re:Government Censorship

[kju]

for example the swastika is banned in Germany, therefore it should not be on the internet, ever

BS. There are many reasons for which it is allowed to show a picture of a swastika. You might check german wikipedia, which also shows such pictures.

Re:Government Censorship

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Because the Internet should not be a place which does not play by any society's rules, like the high seas.

That's great. Now if you could just tell me which societies found among the 1.8billion+ people who access the Internet should determine which rules are in effect?

Re:Government Censorship

[Angst Badger]

I don't know how people get the idea that the web should be a safe place where you can click on any link and go to any site and never have the chance to be offended.

...which is, in the end, why things like the proposed .xxx TLD are fundamentally flawed. What the censors consider objectionable is a constantly moving target: once they've successfully banned or contained x, then they'll go after x-1. A better alternative would be a .beige TLD, where the censors can put content they consider acceptable, and people who don't care for freedom of speech can limit their browsers to that domain.

And to take this post squarely back on topic, yes, Larry Sanger is a vindictive little asshole, selfishly attacking what is, for all its flaws, one of our most valuable public resources because no one gives a wet crap about his pathetic little walled garden. I frankly wouldn't be surprised if he posted the content he subsequently reported to the FBI, and I certainly hope that WP's admins look very closely at the history of the articles involved.

Re:Government Censorship

[joe_frisch]

There are 2 different issues here. One is whether the government's definition of child porn makes sense. Personally I think that including drawings makes it unreasonable. The second is whether the wikipedia images meet the government's definition - I think they probably do.

The way to change the first problem is through political action / voting. If you think it is unreasonable to send someone to prison for looking at a DRAWING of a naked child, write your congress person.

The second is a different issue. On line as well as off line organizations should follow the law - or engage in specific legal challenges.

Re:Government Censorship

[Reziac]

Making murder illegal because it is theft of someone's property (their life) is different from because it is "immoral". Discuss.

Re:Government Censorship

[lukas84]

Meh, Germany bans about everything they can get their hands on. From video games to political views. It's a total mess over there.

This is one of the smaller problems Germany has.

Re:Government Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

>However, it is the government's job to legislate, if not morality, socially agreed norms.

I don't know what country you live in but, in the U.S., that is not among the privileges granted to the government. Doesn't stop 'em, of course-- the government is founded as a monopoly on violence, and just try to prevent them from abusing it.

Re:Government Censorship

[drsmithy]

I do agree with you, that anyone harming a child deserves to be caught. I, personally, feel they should be shot on sight.

So, without even a trial ?

Re:Government Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't know how people get the idea that the web should be a safe place where you can click on any link and go to any site and never have the chance to be offended.

I don't know where people get this idea either. Even when the web consisted of only 40000 pages, there was religiously offensive content.

> I personally don't find it acceptable for children to browse unsupervised, but it isn't mine or the government's decision to make.

I don't know where people get the idea that the Internet should be kid-safe. Why should anyone moderate their responsible, adult behaviour because of people with no parenting skills? If you let your kid get traumatized then its your own problem.

Fuck 'em and get off my lawn. That goes double for anyone who had a kid *after* I went online.

Re:Government Censorship

[muridae]

Hmm, alright, on re-reading how I phrased that, I see that it can be read that way. My train of thought focused more on the 'catching' part, requiring proof to be certain you have caught the person involved. Without proof, you haven't caught the person involved, just captured or detained someone you think might be. Similar thought for the meaning of proof, as opposed to evidence.

But that is my personal opinion about the criminal, not my opinion on what I feel the law should require.

Re:Government Censorship

[Dread_ed]

I remember once clicking on an article link on the main page of /. that was redirected to goatse. It was removed shortly after and the article was updated with a "link removed because of random redirects" message.

Here is the really terrifying part of the hysteria around these laws: A similarly redirected link, this time to a FBI child porn honeypot, posted in an article titled "George Lucas aplolgises for Jar-Jar, takes own life" would land all of /. in prison.

There is a fundamental incongruity, a wrongness in execution of unforgivable scale, when a government dedicated to liberty has the ability to destroy a person's life because they posess a picture of something.

Re:tired of this crap

[game kid]

He thinks about them aaaaall the tiiiiime. (to paraphrase every R&B song and new boyfriend ever)

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

Child zebras?

Re:First

[Posting=!Working]

You mean the album "Virgin Killers" by the Scorpions? Probably when they mentioned the banned Scorpions album cover. Maybe you noticed the large font "Scorpions" at the top center of the album, nearly touching the word "Virgin" of the album cover, if you can raise your eyes that far.

Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps a bit offtopic, but noteworthy: The German Wikipedia recently had a vulva image on the main page, as part of "today's article". The article snippet with the image (NSFW!).

This resulted in many complaints and a discussion about morals and Wikipedia. The rationale was that the German article "Vulva" is featured and purely educational - it has nothing to do with erotics or pornography. Here is a 0.5MB talk page about the incident.
(Posting as a AC, already spent mod points here)

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[dbIII]

Actually I think it's better they used something away from the "Playboy" look since some women think they are abnormal when they have genitals different to a pencil mark on a barbie doll. In some places women even get reconstructive plastic surgery done or just bits snipped off to fit that body image.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Jurily]

I really don't get this obsession about sex. Everyone[1] does it, everyone has the appropriate organs, and it's definitely a prerequisite of you being alive. Most people have even seen naked children. What's the problem?

I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather have pedophiles jerking off to Wikipedia than rape some kid. Ditto for child porn[2]. Give them all the animations and drawings they want, so they don't get stupid ideas every time they drive past a playground.

[1] statistically speaking. Cue the Slashdot jokes.
[2] actual children being molested is out of the question, of course

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[phoenix321]

90% of "Fixing up bits where nature wasn't good enough" can be completed with a shower, a hairbrush and a shave.

No wonder Hippies don't like any of these three.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[hairyfeet]

How is a woman having her genitals mutilated "fixing up bits" exactly? We aren't talking about women that, for example, have a labia so long as it is causing her pain, we are talking about women thinking they have to get chopped on, and risk all kinds of complications and possible infection, all so they can look like a 12 year old girl.

Personally I'm sick of this "all women should look like Barbie dolls" crap. I'm lucky enough to have a woman with a full beautiful labia, yet it took me ages to convince her to make love with the lights on because all this Barbie doll crap had drilled into her head that having a normal labia made her somehow ugly. Nothing could be further from the truth yet it is one more thing that makes nice normal women feel inferior, just like we have women getting balloons strapped to their chests if it isn't what the media considers a "good size" or starving/making themselves sick if they dare to gain a pound. Unless the labia is causing her real physical problems it is just so much horseshit.

As for TFA, Good Lord, can we pleeease stop the "eek! There's pedo!" bogeyman bullshit? All this crap ends up doing is throwing sanity right out the window and turning our laws into sick jokes. As it is now it is becoming another Red Scare, with kids being labeled child pornographers for taking a video of themselves or guys getting thrown into prison for fricking cartoons. Get real! Instead of looking for bogeymen on every webpage, why not...ohh I don't know...actually go after those molesting kids! How about that? The fact that anyone can seriously say Wikipedia might be distributing child porn for something like 70s album covers (BTW anybody with the Blind Faith album should just turn themselves in right now) or stupid Loli cartoons shows how far down the wrong path we've gone already.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[dbIII]

What is ugly to a photoeditor searching for a paticular look or more likely seen as too graphic by a censor is most likely just part of the normal range of beauty. To get away from specific body parts short isn't ugly, tall isn't, blonde isn't, brunette isn't either.
What you are suggesting is the equivalent of saying that every girl that isn't a 5"4' redhead is ugly - in other words complete and utter bullshit.
What you have completely ignored is that increasing numbers of completely normal girls are asking to get bits cut off mostly to match an ideal grown out of censorship.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Scrameustache]

In some places women even get reconstructive plastic surgery done or just bits snipped off to fit that body image.

And then they have bits snipped off their baby boys' privates, because it "looks better" too. Some people just think the best thing they can do to sex organs is to take a knife to 'em.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Achromatic1978]

You sound like the kind of guy that goes on 4chan and shouts "Man the harpoons!" if someone posts a picture of a girl who is anything more than a posterchild for a pro-ana group.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Myopic]

You can't possibly think that your reply contained a reasonable interpretation of what that person said.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Scrameustache]

Some people equate circumcision with "mutilation", which is

Factually correct.

Foot binding, neck elongation, excision, circumcision, stretching out your earlobes, those are all mutilations. And when all your peers have been mutilated in the same way, you're very happy to fit in.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[DrLang21]

And you don't have to deal with smegma!

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[gabebear]

Your parents had the most sensitive parts of your penis removed as a baby... Even if it is considered normal by society, that's got to fuck you up.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[phoenix321]

"increasing numbers of completely normal girls are asking to get bits cut off"

I think there's a severe oxymoron in there but I can't just completely normally pinpoint it.

In other words, I take it as a warning: don't emphasize beauty, because some braindead bimbos will be provoked to do some braindead things.

Great. Now can we ban YouTube please, all these extreme sports videos are threatening to cull the herd.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[toriver]

Not to mention tattoos, piercings etc...

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[sixsixtysix]

i still don't understand how having a photo of a crime can constitute a crime (especially drawings). if CP creates a demand for more CP, than pictures of victims of other bad things(murder, car crashes,etc) do the same for other bad things and should likewise be illegal. you can't have it both ways. i don't support CP in anyway, but i hate double standards even more.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Hognoxious]

Are?!?!

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[dbIII]

It's not beauty they are chasing, they think they are abnormal.
They are chasing a skewed version of normality that comes from censors being upset about depictions of dangly bits being "too explicit". Since the only pictures they see are barbie dolls with a pencil mark then that is what they think is normal.
This sort of genital mutilation is starting to catch up to breast enhancement and it has doctors worried about it.
According to a female doctor I knew most adult women look a lot like the photograph there anyway.
Of course most ten year old girls match the ideal but most adults don't.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[dbIII]

It was a more elaborate way of saying that you can't assume it's ugly just because a woman doesn't look like a ten year old girl.
Beauty or otherwise down there would be pretty irrelevant anyway if it wasn't for women getting themselves mutilated so that they can look like little girls.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Myopic]

Just to be clear, by saying it's "got to fuck you (me) up", you are saying that all circumcised people are 'fucked up' (in whatever way you mean that)? Obviously I disagree in my personal case, but moreover I think it's a rather bold and broad statement to make in a world with hundreds of millions or billions of circumcised people who, from external vantages, appear to get alone in life reasonably well. Was that all hyperbole, or are you prepared to defend the statement?

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Myopic]

My belly button lint is bad enough.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Myopic]

Oh, okay now I understand, you equate mutilation with any sort of bodily change. You didn't mention ear piercings or whitening teeth, but presumably you'd have similar problems with those. That's fine, but to me "mutilation" carries the meaning of something the owner doesn't want done. We simply disagree on what the word "mutilation" means, so there's no reason to argue about it. I am curious, though, do you refuse to cut your toenails? Are you appalled at people who pluck their eyebrows? If not (those mutilations are fairly mild), where do you draw the line? If it helps to ask a more narrow question, where would you draw the line between piercing ears and elongating earlobes?

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Myopic]

You can also never know what it is like to have polio, because your parents vaccinated you. You are so oppressed; in both cases I weep for you. Your parents robbed you of the life you were meant to live.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Lunzo]

On this issue, you are living up to your username - myopic (either that or are trolling). Polio vaccines benefit the recipient. Circumcision has no medical benefit whatsoever*.

* There is a study of African men showing that circumcised men have a 50% lower rate of STI transmission. In my opinion this is still of no medical benefit because it doesn't prevent disease transmission outright. Even halving the rate that AIDS spreads at isn't enough to defeat it. The only way to stop AIDS outright is to use a condom.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[MacWiz]

Your parents had the most sensitive parts of your penis removed as a baby... Even if it is considered normal by society, that's got to fuck you up.

Without taking a position on the wisdom (or lack thereof) in circumcizing males, this happened to me but I don't seem to remember anything that happened to me before age 3 or 4. Didn't even consider that my stuff might not be the same as everyone else.

But when we had to start taking showers in PE class, it was the uncircumsized that were different than the rest of us. The rest of us didn't know we had lost our most sensitive bits.

With no memory of the event, no lingering pain, and not even the psychological issue of feeling different than what was "normal," there's not really much about it to fuck you up. You're just like everyone else.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[mrchaotica]

There is a study of African men showing that circumcised men have a 50% lower rate of STI transmission.

But is that because being circumcised actually makes it harder for the infection to take root, or is it because it makes the African women not want to have sex with them anymore?

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Aceticon]

Reminds me of the shock joke we used to have when I was a teenager:
"Have you ever rubbed your ears in your mother's vagina?"

The answers is yes, unless you were born by cesarian.

Now, this was considered bad taste but was hardly "OMG call the cops" material. (In fact, calling the cops for hearing it would have you ridiculed, potentially by the cops themselfs)

Obviously I'm not from the US, and yet my home country (Portugal) was and still is strongly Catolic.

Here's another one: naked tits on the beach are really only shocking for 80 year old women from the deep countriside (nowadays, probably not even that). In fact, the only shocking things about seeing naked female breasts on the beach is [warning, nausea inducing imagery] some 60+ years old women that go topless.

I find it shocking that while in the last 30 years (since Portugal threw out a fascist dictatorship) the country has become culturally much more open minded and worldy, the US (which 20 years ago was seen in Portugal with awe and respect) or at least some part of it, has gone backwards.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[couchslug]

"Some people just think the best thing they can do to sex organs is to take a knife to 'em."

Google bmezine (NWS, NMS, AFU!).

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[LanMan04]

I like a roast beef sandwich as much as the next guy....

Actually I have nowhere to go with that comment, but the context in which this comment is appropriate is so rare that, hey, I had to. :)

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Myopic]

Well, what I'm saying is that I like my shaft. Thus, it is nonsensical and wrong for you to state that there is no benefit -- I'm telling you that I like it, and that is a benefit.

Of course, the medical establishment also claims there are medical benefits. However, medical benefits are not, in my opinion, a good reason to circumcise -- except maybe for the AIDS thing, but like you said, condoms and education are probably preferable.

But really, I'm telling you two things: I'm glad I never had polio, and I'm glad I never had a foreskin. My parents made lucky guesses in both cases as to my preferences later in life. I am personally attesting that I'm glad the way things turned out.

I feel bad for the men whose parents guessed wrong. Similarly, I feel bad for the (presumably very few) men who wish they could have had polio. That's a shame, really. But I'm not one of them, and many men are not. We like our trim dicks, and I take serious issue with people who tell me that, based on their ideology and cognitive dissonance, my opinion is somehow invalid. Not all men wish they had foreskins, and to say so is flat out false.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Scrameustache]

Foot binding, neck elongation, excision, circumcision, stretching out your earlobes, those are all mutilations.

Oh, okay now I understand, you equate mutilation with any sort of bodily change. You didn't mention ear piercings

Does the bold help?

As far as toenails and hair: If it regrows, it's not mutilation, [insert insult disparaging your low intelligence].

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Myopic]

Well, technically (I've heard) some men do try to regrow their foreskin, but let's say that's not the same (because, really, it isn't).

Hey, man, we have a genuine disagreement over what it means to mutilate a body, and I doubt we will find common ground. Let's just disagree. But I am genuinely curious about where you draw the line. Seriously. Do you consider ear piercing to be mutilation? or is it not because, given enough time, the hole will grow together? If science invented a way to grow together larger ear holes, then would ear stretching stop being mutilation? If science invented a way to regrow or replace foreskin, would that stop being mutilation?

What about balding? If a man who is balding cuts his hair, and thus can not regrow it, is that mutilation? what about laser hair removal?

Or what about chemo treatment for cancer -- is that mutilation in cases when the hair will never grow back?

How do you feel about having a cancer removed from the body, with the specific hope that it won't grow back? what about having a mole removed, which isn't cancerous, "just in case" it might someday become cancerous? What about liposuction? What about Lazik eye surgery?

I'm not joking, and I know this is off topic, but I've never met anybody like you personally to be able to talk to in depth about this kind of issue, and I'm piqued. Don't insult me and call me names, engage me and show me where you are coming from.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Scrameustache]

Seriously. Do you consider ear piercing to be mutilation? or is it not because, given enough time, the hole will grow together? If science invented a way to grow together larger ear holes, then would ear stretching stop being mutilation? If science invented a way to regrow or replace foreskin, would that stop being mutilation?

What about balding? If a man who is balding cuts his hair, and thus can not regrow it, is that mutilation? what about laser hair removal?

Or what about chemo treatment for cancer -- is that mutilation in cases when the hair will never grow back?

How do you feel about having a cancer removed from the body, with the specific hope that it won't grow back? what about having a mole removed, which isn't cancerous, "just in case" it might someday become cancerous? What about liposuction? What about Lazik eye surgery?

I'm not joking, and I know this is off topic, but I've never met anybody like you personally to be able to talk to in depth about this kind of issue, and I'm piqued. Don't insult me and call me names, engage me and show me where you are coming from.

Piercing, scarring, permanent inking, tiny laser versions of same, are all mutilations. I've had a few organs removed, I have scars, and I'm totally OK with medically motivated surgical interventions. I don't like plastic boobs except when used in their primary purpose: replacing what had to be removed for medical reasons. Reconstructive surgery is fine by me, but treating body-image issues through surgery is only acceptable because surgery is at least a hundred years ahead of psychology.

You can do what you want to your body, but I don't think it's ok to make that choice for someone else (as always, except for solid medical motivations).

As for what I think of your critical thinking abilities: Fingernails? Really? You might as well throw in "washing off dead skin cells" as long as you're being facetious. That kind of absurdity is not helping people to take you seriously.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Myopic]

Okay. We disrespect eachother, which means we agree on something.

I'm still honestly curious about what you think about all those things, but you don't seem to want to talk about it, which is fine. See ya.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[gabebear]

Yes, I am saying your parents fucked you up by having part of your dick cut off. You will never be able to have normal sex because of a decision your parents made!

You can try to rationalize it by saying you like the way it looks, but knowing that they made the decision to destroy the sensitive end of your dick for whatever reason has to effect you. Do you even know why they did it?

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[gabebear]

But when we had to start taking showers in PE class, it was the uncircumsized that were different than the rest of us. The rest of us didn't know we had lost our most sensitive bits.

And that is the NUMBER ONE reason people have their babys circumcised... It's just cultish and freaky

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[Myopic]

Wow. That's a boldly broad statement. Your brain must have gigantic cognitive dissonance for you to come up with something so outlandish, in order to preserve whatever corner of penile ideology you have backed your inner monologue into. I hope you can get over that someday, perhaps by simply listening to people, and accepting what they have to say.

It's fine to have foreskin. It's fine not to circumcise your son. It's fine to wish you had foreskin if you don't. It's fine to be angry at your parents if you are unhappy with their decision to circumcise you. All those things are fine. The opposite of all of those are also fine.

Good luck on your journey of self discovery.

Re:Vulva image on German Wikipedia main page

[gabebear]

All those things are fine. The opposite of all of those are also fine.

Ya... I'm being broad and have cognitively dissonant. You do know that cognitive dissonance means that you hold contrary views at the same time.

How was my statement broad... It really couldn't have been more succinct.

Re:tired of this crap

[roman_mir]

No, your anonymous cowardly reasons not obvious.

Re:First

[erroneus]

Among the worst "I read that wrong" comments:

"Won't somebody please link to the children?!"

Re:tired of this crap

[WrongSizeGlass]

The world needs to be FLOODED in child pornography. It must be put everywhere, so that there is not a single place, not a single site, not a single freaking lamppost that does not have a picture or a video of some child fucking.

Um, if you're going to go to that much effort, can't you at least make it regular porn? You know, the good kind? I'm sure you'd make a whole lot more people happy if you did that.

One thing makes me happy: everybody will die. Death, that's the fucking cure to idiocy.

I'm sorry to be the one that has to tell you this, but idiocy is far too pervasive to be wiped out by death. There are just way too many people doing or saying too many things that are stupid. It will survive their deaths, and even yours and mine. The internet is a giant library recording every stupid deed, stupid thought and stupid thing people have, and will, ever say. Thanks for doing your part.

The eveidence is overwhelming

[Posting=!Working]

As ValleyWag put it (as quoted by Mashable): ...they could pass the time reading a 2000 work by Möller. Its German title is "Kinder sind Pornos," which means "Children are pornography." Even in Google's rough translation, the gist [of the paper, not of the title] is clear enough: Möller argues that nonviolent child pornography does no harm. He relates the frosty reception he received when he put forth this view at a conference in Nuremberg in 2000.

Since Mashable quoted Valleywag who gave us the gist of a machine generated translation of a 10 year old article originally in German, it's completely obvious. Especially when the translation is so clear:

It is in the rest of the Judgement quoted abuse therapist without recognizable to its methodology would be a critical distance.

Just try to argue with that. You can't. Or this one:

"The opinion that children have sexuality and can enjoy this too, should / should not be distributed," says Schweer further.
That this is not an opinion, but a scientific fact that is not doubted by many self-proclaimed protectors children, he is silent.

The monster. He should/should not be in prison for quoting that.

Re:The eveidence is overwhelming

[mercurywoodrose]

OK, ive figured out what you are all REALLY trying to say, in your carefully coded statements (my comments in {})

How does putting Valleywag (quoted in mailers ):... and Mashable, you can reverse time {time travel, or turning women into girls?} by reading the works in 2000. Title in Germany is: "pornography for children" The meaning "is pornography for children." Google in rough translation from the nature of the paper [, type title] is clear enough: The mailer harmful not advocate violent child pornography. He was not concerned about receiving a cool reception at a conference put this view in 2000 in Nuremberg {aha, he was a defendent at the original nuremburg trials. how'd he get away?} him.

Mashable Valleywag quotes a summary of the machine-generated translation of the article to us for 10 years, originally in German, it is fairly obvious. Translation, especially if you are very clear:

This is an abuse of the rest of therapist statements are to be quoted without critical distance theory in any way.

Please discuss this only. You can not. Or this:

"The opinion that children, even with sexuality, can enjoy this / could not be distributed," and has said more Schweer. This is a scientific fact that this is an opinion, but many parents would not question a child, he is silent.

Monster. He / prison, or otherwise provide {provide what? child pornography through the prison system?}.

Jesus Christ. im calling the FBI immediately.
this was relatively easy to discover. just take the original statements, in God's english, translate into the evil german language, then into the evil japanese empire language, then back to english. worldwide conspiracy of pedophiles based in the axis of evil.

Re:The eveidence is overwhelming

[Hurricane78]

"The opinion that children have sexuality and can enjoy this too, should / should not be distributed," says Schweer further.
That this is not an opinion, but a scientific fact that is not doubted by many self-proclaimed protectors children, he is silent.

Yeah, right. I’m sorry, but I know I’m not the only one jacking off at 7 (yes seven! the cool thing: since you never come, you can go on forever ^^), and constantly thinking about sex starting at the age of what? 11? 12? :)

“Scientific fact” my ass. Perhaps for bible idiots who “teach” creationism. One shouldn’t talk about science or facts, when one doesn’t know anything about either.

Re:tired of this crap

[init100]

the war picture of a small completely naked girl running toward the cameraperson in panic

Are you perhaps referring to this picture?

Re:First

[Fuzzums]

They're so soft and cuddly and those cute stripes. Awwww!

Re:First

[eltaco]

damn you! I spat my coke out and then nearly choked reading that! I'll see you in small claims court for a new keyboard!
seriously though, thanks for the laugh.

ascii her nicelii

[davidwr]

Everyone knows that ascii girls with boobs can legallii say yes when you ascii consentii nicelii.

Larry Sanger is getting desperate, I see

[vadim_t]

He's been trying to get his pet project going for years, and people demonstrated repeatedly that nobody really cares about his vision.

Nupedia went nowhere and died after having produced 24 approved articles after 3 years. Then in 2006 he started Citizendium with great fanfare, and in those 4 years it managed to produce 121 approved articles.

So it seems that if he can't compete, he'll try killing Wikipedia the legal way. Maybe then some of the contributors will switch to Citizendium. On my part, I don't see how would that work for him, because I'd just really hate his guts and never touch anything related to him after that.

You should be ashamed, mr. Sanger.

Streissand Effect?

[davidwr]

Some things should not be made more common

Two words: [see subject line]

troll -1 or brilliant sarcasm +5?

[davidwr]

I'm hoping its the latter.

Re:Not new at all

[KDR_11k]

When practiced at a societal level they destroy the moral fabric of a society. Or perhaps they are merely an indicator that the moral fabric is already in tatters.

Is that a reference to ancient Greece and Rome?

Re:Not new at all

[jibjibjib]

Don't conflate sexual abuse and child pornography. The Wikimedia foundation obviously isn't involved in sexual abuse and doesn't tolerate or encourage it, and a lot of the images in question (perhaps all of them, I haven't checked) have nothing to do with the actual abuse of children. And if you're going to make claims about the destroying the "moral fabric of society" you should probably provide some evidence that something's actually changed.

Ask and ye shall receive

[davidwr]

The Children.

If that's not enough, try this one: The Children.

What, you want pictures? Okay, try The Children or The Children.

Re:Wikipedia is ran by a cabal

[sowth]

How do you propose they filter out heavily biased views, or people writing false articles for manipulation of the public? The way they do it may not be great, but it isn't any worse than a free for all.

You would have a much more difficult time getting published in a dead tree encyclopedia.

Editorial choices

[lyinhart]

Sanger seems more at odds with Wikipedia's editorial choices than anything else. Just to show you where some editor's heads are at, the site actually has an article dedicated entirely to Rasputin's penis.

Possessing images of things that never were.

[dbIII]

Damn, better hide all those Manga where the entire world gets destroyed - that's a consecutive murder sentence of a million years at least!

Someone check this link for me

[davidwr]

Is it safe for work?

Re:Someone check this link for me

[Jesus_666]

The site is apparently that of a manufacturer of fairly realistic lifesize dolls of children. Nothing inherently bad although some of the pictures show the dolls unclothed.

Re:Someone check this link for me

[haruchai]

Not in my opinion. If I were an employer, I'd be less concerned over employees going to Penthouse or Playboy
than to this site.
No, the images aren't at all explicit but these lifelike dolls are disturbing.

To whom?

[davidwr]

>> The judge deemed lolicon manga just as harmful as the real thing.

>To whom?

Probably the judge's guilt-ridden inner psyche.

Spam as news

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of you have complained about the selfish attitude of Sanger in cynically reporting wikipedia in the hope of promoting his own website.

But amongst the people reading the post, some will visit the site, and of those a few will visit the site regularly.

Don't imagine that because most of the posts are critical of Sanger, his ploy has not been successful.

That's where most people are mugs when it comes to advertising and PR. They imagine that because it is patently obvious what the manipulators are doing, it must fail. Sadly, that is not true.

child protection laws putting teens in jail

[davidwr]

We already have minors going to jail due to having consensual sex with each other. We have girls being charged with possession & distribution of child-porn for taking pictures of their own naked bodies and sending it to boyfriends, who are then also charged with possession of child porn themselves.

This is why some states have "youthful offender" diversion programs and other special rules for people who are close in age. In a perfect world, the lawmakers would ask themselves "is this something non-sociopaths do so often that we don't want to turn all offenders into felons or registered sex offenders" and if the answer is no, then tweak the laws accordingly.

A lot of parents take pics of their kids growing up, sometimes kids run around naked or maybe it's their first bath, or potty training or something innocent such as that, could that be considered child porn?

In some cases, current laws do describe it as child porn. However, most DAs will look the other way if its only 1 or 2 pictures out of hundreds or thousands. Unfortunately, photo-labs are required my corporate policy or law to call the police without using much if any discretion.

Look at it this way:

If 1,000 people put their kid's photo album up on flickr, and 500 of them had at least a few nude pictures and 50 of those were individually considered pornographic, the cops would probably visit each of those homes and be able to convince most of those 50 parents to destroy the images with nothing more than a reminder that perverts troll teh interwebs looking for babies to wank off to. However, if I was such a pervert and I had a folder on my computer called "xxx hot flickr babies" that had just those 50 pictures in it and someone saw it and reported me to the police, I would be toast.

Re:Wikipedia is ran by a cabal

[Dunbal]

How do you propose they filter out heavily biased views, or people writing false articles for manipulation of the public?

      Manipulation? Surely no one uses the internet for manipulation!

      If you think that "they" (whoever they may be) need to filter internet content, you are advocating that people should be trusting, obedient sheep that assume everything they are being fed has been sanitized by "someone". This gives that someone power - and people have tended to abuse power since there have been people around.

      I myself enjoy the internet, with all its trolls and biases and wild stories. Anyone with a brain is smart enough to take EVERYTHING they read with a pinch of salt - be it from Wikipedia or Encyclopaedia Brittanica... but the internet with its "low barrier for entry" in the realm of global publishing, is a place where such fantasies are rampant. It's just due diligence to confirm everything you read here from a different (non internet) source.

Chuck Norris Abuse

[MillionEuroMuppet]

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse Specific allegations from the cases included: * Seeing witches fly; travel in a hot air balloon; abuse and travel through underground tunnels;[113] being abused by Chuck Norris;[114] orgies at car washes and airports, children being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused, then cleaned up and presented back to their unsuspecting parents[113][115][116] (McMartin preschool trial, no forensic evidence was found to support these claims)

Re:First

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

So... just how small are these claims?

*fap*

Will Wikipedia be blocked again in the UK?

[mdwh2]

Now there's an interesting point - as of 6 April 2010, fictional unrealistic images (cartoons, drawings etc) are treated as child porn ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coroners_and_Justice_Act_2009 ). As a result, I don't dare even look at the images you describe, but yes, oral sex is covered by the law, and all that matters is the jury believe the character appears to be under 18, or the predominant impression conveyed is of someone under 18 - yes, even though the age of consent is 16 here!

So we also have the Internet Watch Foundation, which blocks any page that they think could be possible "child porn" (as they famously did with Wikipedia a while back). It's unclear to me if they have any plans to do this for the new law, but if they were, we could be seeing a lot more censorship.

(OTOH, now that the Digital Economy Act 2010 allows sites to be censored simply for being suspected of copyright infringement, we could see many more sites being blocked anyway.)

AFAIK, the status of these images in the US is unclear - IIRC, the Supreme Court overturned a previous law, but the problem is the Government keeps passing new subtlety different laws against it.

Games of the XXX Olympiad

[tepples]

And of the course the entire world uses the US system of justice.

The article is about Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimedia servers are in Florida, not in Great Britain or Australia.

Only in the UK would a stick drawing of lisa simpson watching marge fuck homer land you in jail!

Then a lot of people will go to jail in about two years because the logo of the Games of the XXX Olympiad, to be held in London, resembles Lisa Simpson giving oral sex.

Citizendium sensibilities

[tonique]

One fundamental principle of Citizendium is family-friendly. This has caused some confusion amongst the editors. I find that concept to be quite ill-defined.

Links (well, they obviously go to that site) http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Fundamentals http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php?topic=49.0 forum link, to a discussion spanning many years. It's about "offensive content".

In my opinion, Sanger is trying to ride on a high horse. ( That sounds bad, my English is failing me.)

Time and Money

[b4upoo]

There they go again with another waste of tax dollars. These must be the same people who want Big Bird to wear pants on Sesame Street.

Knock Knock Opportunity Here

[DrugCheese]

So my question is, since even in his letter he leads off talking about his new projects he's working on showing what his true motives are (free publication), how long has he known and sat on it?

Re:tired of this crap

[blackraven14250]

I'm fairly sure child porn has to have a sexual element to it to be considered child porn.

Conflicts of interest apart...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and they shouldn't be kept too long apart, since they're central to this issue...

But... please observe "child pornography" is relative to culture. What is acceptable to one culture maybe not in another. For instance, we get a lot of US movies over here which are too spicy in violence; if we were to censor based on such criteria, we wouldn't see a lot of the CSI franchise (not a bad idea de per se, IMHO). Economic interests are both involved in the violence and "child pornography" aspects of leaked or sold motion pictures.

Also, "child pornography" is undesirable not because of the pornography being disgusting -- we should aim at protecting the children. If we forget this, it all becomes selfish (besides misguided).

Last, pornography is a complex issue. In my country, adults above a certain age can determine what they (and their children) see -- censorship itself is very much abhorred. If we go that path, though, a lot of things will be prohibited -- not only "adult" things...

Re:First

[tomhudson]

So does the Pope.

Re:Unfortunately...

[adewolf]

By that logic we should all be prison with our genitalia cut out, fat cut off and decapitated. Sounds like good cause for a robot run world (anyone say Terminator). "If you spend a lot of time with obese friends you are more likely to find obesity forgivable and become obese yourself." So now obesity should be illegal and is "awful"? Wow is this wrong, on so many levels....Why do people think that empathy is such a bad thing? *eyes rolling emoticon"

lolicon is creepy

[malp]

and I kinda got to wonder what type of people enjoy it. But at the end of the day, no one is being harmed. It's kinda like asparagus. It's gross but some people like it. That's why next time the legality of lolicon comes up, I'm voting to criminalize it. Because I really don't care one way or the other.

Re:lolicon is creepy

[Ignatius D'Lusional]

So, let me get this straight... because you don't personally enjoy something (such as asparagus or lolicon), you would vote to make it illegal (criminalize it)? BECAUSE you don't care one way or the other??? That sounds pretty screwed up to me.

Re:lolicon is creepy

[md65536]

you would vote to make it illegal (criminalize it)? BECAUSE you don't care one way or the other??? That sounds pretty screwed up to me.

This modest proposal makes perfect sense to me. Everything that someone, somewhere doesn't care about, should be made illegal. This way, law-abiding citizens can spend their time doing only things that are of a concern to all others. The result is a perfectly efficient society, that wastes nothing. Even the carcasses of those choosing to involve themselves with unimportant activities can be re-used as food. It will lead to a Utopian future where people are kept in pods, free from their physical inefficiencies, generating energy so efficiently that our productivity as a species is effectively optimal.

Sorry, off topic a bit...

Re:lolicon is creepy

[malp]

this -^

Re:tired of this crap

[ultranova]

Sexuality is in the eye of the beholder, and some people love the smell of napalm in the morning. If some people get their jollies watching children get raped, as our esteemed moral guardians seem to be implying, then why wouldn't they enjoy watching those same children get bombarded with napalm?

Just imagine it's an adult woman instead, and ask yourself: would no one get turned on by the hypothethical image?

Lolicon

[dandart]

Save the lolis! If people want to be able to have and distribute their own pictures of something, then nothing should stop them. It's only pictures for goodness sakes, it's not like it's the real thing, It might even prevent abuse.

Re:tired of this crap

[phantomfive]

Wow, that's like at this very moment you have become some evil mad-genius ready for some James Bond to take down. It's like the moment when two-face fell in the acid, or Joker hit the crazy-gas, or Riddler just snapped. And I was here to witness it. I feel so special, should make a great movie for me to pick up when it hits the dollar bin.

Re:First

[budgenator]

OK I looked at the album cover and then looked at the law which said

(a) In General.— Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly produces, distributes, receives, or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that—
    (1)(A) depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and

(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), “sexually explicit conduct” means actual or simulated—
      (i) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex;
      (ii) bestiality;
      (iii) masturbation;
      (iv) sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
      (v) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person;
2256. Definitions for chapter

(B) is obscene; or
      (2)(A) depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; and
              (B) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value;
1466A. Obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children

and I'll be honest while the cover is more risqué, than I might have chosen personally, it doesn't fit any reasonable definition of obscene that I'm aware of and doesn't depict a minor in a sexually explicit act.

Some food for thought

[Wooky_linuxer]

Let's say you take a picture of your 5 yo daughter, in your backyard pool. She's wearing a swimsuit. You publish the photo on a public site, say Flickr, with a license that allows non-commercial use of the photo.

Some weeks later, a policeman bursts in a suspected pedophile home. He finds that picture of your daughter printed, which the suspect has jerked off to (I really hope you don't really have a daughter at this point), along with others pictures of girls about the same age he obtained in a similar manner. Was there any crime commited?

Let's try something harder. Your 16 yo daughter take her own picture doing a sensual pose, perhaps showing her breasts, using her own cellphone. She passes this picture to a friend of hers using SMS/text messages, which passes to another friend, which then passes it to the same supected pedophile of the above case. Was there any crime commited? If so, by whom? What if the picture was taken by your daughter's 18 yo friend, with you daughter knowledge and consent?

Laws can be a mess.

Re:Some food for thought

[Alsee]

Let's say you take a picture of your 5 yo daughter, in your backyard pool. She's wearing a swimsuit...
which the suspect has jerked off to...

Let's try something harder.

Oh, I'm sure it's hard enough already for a number of readers.

-

Re:Some food for thought

[Abcd1234]

Let's not split hairs. It is still the same ones taking pleasure from children and who will eventually cross barriers.

You have absolutely no proof that they will "eventually cross barriers".

Millions of people every year view porn, yet no one assumes that viewers of porn will inevitably rape someone. So why would you assume that to be the case of pedophiles? In fact, I would be very surprised if the opposite weren't, in fact, true.

Re:Some food for thought

[Hognoxious]

Let's not split hairs.

I don't see any hairs.

Umm, I mean that metaphorically.

Re:Some food for thought

[Carewolf]

A pedophile wouldn't be interested in a 16 year old girl...

If the age of consent in your state is 18. Then yes, pedophiles would be interested in 16 year olds, on top of that such state often have a rampant pedophilia-epidemic among young boys aged 16-20.

Re:Some food for thought

[English French Man]

Let's not split hairs. It is still the same ones taking pleasure from children and who will eventually cross barriers.

You have absolutely no proof that they will "eventually cross barriers".

Millions of people every year view porn, yet no one assumes that viewers of porn will inevitably rape someone. So why would you assume that to be the case of pedophiles? In fact, I would be very surprised if the opposite weren't, in fact, true.

Millions of people view porn, those people generally like to have sex, and I assume it is generally the same kind that the porn they look at (a man looking at asian porn would love to bone an asian woman, I have of course no proof of that)

People would look at child porn and would want to have sex with a child, which is generally not legally possible. So if they act upon this desire, it would be at least statutory rape (assuming the child is willing)

Re:Some food for thought

[mdwh2]

Millions of people view porn, those people generally like to have sex

Correlation is not causation - are you suggesting they only have sex because they watched porn?

People would look at child porn and would want to have sex with a child

The thing that you're actually asserting is that people who want to have sex with children, will do so. I'm not sure this is true in all cases, but either way, it's irrelevant to images - and certainly to the issue of fictional images.

(Most people don't have the choice to have sex with someone they want - people routinely might fancy someone, who doesn't wish to have sex with them - I guess according to you, this means that they go and rape them? I wouldn't want any woman to be near you, with that attitude... We criminalise actual images of children because of the harm done in their production, not because of the hoops of illogic that you are trying to argue.)

Re:Some food for thought

[English French Man]

Correlation is not causation - are you suggesting they only have sex because they watched porn?

I'm suggesting a correlation, by no means a causation, I'm perfectly aware that some people have sex and don't watch porn. (And perhaps some people do watch porn and don't like to have sex, but they may be aberrant points)

Most people don't have the choice to have sex with someone they want - people routinely might fancy someone, who doesn't wish to have sex with them - I guess according to you, this means that they go and rape them?

Of course not... But at least it would be legal if both parties were willing to have sex. In the case of children, it wouldn't. That was the only point I was trying to make actually. The fact that people watch regular porn and live with it isn't relevant, because, it is not that rare to find a willing partner in the general subset of people that one's attracted to. Now if this subset is children, it is more problematic, because there is no legal solution except abstinence.

I guess according to you, this means that they go and rape them?

Not even close to everyone, but, yeah, rape exists, so some must do it. That was not my point however.

I wouldn't want any woman to be near you, with that attitude...

Are you suggesting that I must be a rapist, based on your own extrapolations of what I said earlier? Or that I must approve of this behaviour, because I acknowledge its existence? And you lecture me about flawed logic?

We criminalise actual images of children because of the harm done in their production, not because of the hoops of illogic that you are trying to argue.

This doesn't explain the ban on sexually explicit drawings of children in some countries. Therefore, some must criminalise images of children because of both the harm done on actual children and the "hoops of illogic I try to argue".

My point was not to agree with the post that begins with "Let's not split hairs." by AC. Just saying that regular people watching regular porn might not be a good counter-example.

Re:Some food for thought

[Abcd1234]

People would look at child porn and would want to have sex with a child, which is generally not legally possible. So if they act upon this desire, it would be at least statutory rape (assuming the child is willing)

Yes it would be. Good for you, you just defined what statutory rape is.

But you still have absolutely no proof that viewing CP increases the rate at which pedophiles molest. You're just assuming that's the case.

Re:Some food for thought

[English French Man]

You're right, I haven't proved anything. My point was to the GGP, just because people view porn and cause no harm doesn't mean anything, because the situation is hugely different, as the sex depicted in regular porn is legal, and someone can just go out and do it (finding a willing partner is an issue of course... But not the issue at discussion here), as child porn depicts something that is illegal, so that nobody can "go out and do it".

The situations are quite different, therefore one can't draw that kind of conclusion.

Re:Some food for thought

[Abcd1234]

You're right, I haven't proved anything. My point was to the GGP, just because people view porn and cause no harm doesn't mean anything, because the situation is hugely different, as the sex depicted in regular porn is legal, and someone can just go out and do it

Well, no, that's not really true. If that were the sole determinant of whether or not someone chose to rape someone else, you'd see large numbers of porn-watching, overweight, ugly, old, or introverted people running around raping people.

But they don't, because, as has been pointed out many times, rape isn't about sex, it's about power. Why people will accept that idea when it comes to adults raping adults, but not adults raping children, I don't know. If you can admit that about pedos, then it should be clear that CP doesn't increase the odds of abuse, because, again, it's not about sexual gratification, it's about sadism and power.

Re:Some food for thought

[English French Man]

I see your point. I'm not competent in this area, is there no possibility that rape be about relieving oneself from urges and not about power? In particular considering statutory rape, when the other person seemingly agrees to the acts? This is a honest question, as I'm possibly prejudiced in these matters.

Re:Some food for thought

[Abcd1234]

I see your point. I'm not competent in this area, is there no possibility that rape be about relieving oneself from urges and not about power?

Honestly, no. That's why mammals masturbate.

Or do you *really* think that a normal person could have sufficiently powerful sexual urges that they would violate someone simply to satiate that need?

In particular considering statutory rape, when the other person seemingly agrees to the acts?

But that's not at all comparable. Statutory "rape" isn't a violent act. In fact, I would claim the term "rape" is a terrible misnomer, as actual rape is a completely different thing.

Now, I'm not aware of any pedophiles engaging in consensual sex with prepubescent children. As far as I'm aware, those incidents overwhelmingly involve violent acts of rape. And, again, those acts aren't about satiating need. They're about violence.

Re:Some food for thought

[English French Man]

Or do you *really* think that a normal person could have sufficiently powerful sexual urges that they would violate someone simply to satiate that need?

I don't know, I don't really understand killing people neither, but apparently some do it.

Statutory "rape" isn't a violent act.

It is still illegal, which was the only point I was trying to make, no legal way to have sex with a child.

Now, I'm not aware of any pedophiles engaging in consensual sex with prepubescent children.

There are though, I don't know how much or if it is even vaguely common, but if there weren't, there wouldn't be any laws regarding statutory rape.

Re:Some food for thought

[Abcd1234]

I don't know, I don't really understand killing people neither, but apparently some do it.

But that's precisely my point. I honestly believe that a large percentage of the pedophiles out there simply have deviant sexual preferences. ie, these individuals, like you, are simply incapable of raping or murdering someone because they don't have it in them, just as you don't have it in you to murder. Such individuals wouldn't be enticed by CP to rape because they still have a functioning set of morals, they're simply possessed with deviant sexual preferences.

Of course, like normal individuals out there, there is some percentage of pedophiles out there that are *also* violent sadists. Those individuals would rape, regardless of the presence of absence of CP, and so again, CP makes no difference.

There are though, I don't know how much or if it is even vaguely common, but if there weren't, there wouldn't be any laws regarding statutory rape.

The laws for statutory rape are invariably applied in cases where a legal adult is having consensual sex with a *teenager*, not a prepubescent child. And adults having sex with teens is *not* pedophilia.

Pedophilia involves sexual attraction to prepubescent children, and I strongly suspect your average prepubescent child isn't willing to engage in *consensual* sex, and so no, statutory rape laws are infrequently applied to cases involving (actual, clinical) pedophiles.

Re:Some food for thought

[English French Man]

The laws for statutory rape are invariably applied in cases where a legal adult is having consensual sex with a *teenager*, not a prepubescent child. And adults having sex with teens is *not* paedophilia.

Yes I agree with that.

I strongly suspect your average prepubescent child isn't willing to engage in *consensual* sex.

A prepubescent child might be more easy to manipulate than you think... And for the offending adult to convince himself this is not rape, even with a functioning set of morals (well, not very functioning :s). This is speculation, as I really cannot put myself in the place of a paedophile, as I cannot imagine the thought patterns said paedophile would go through.

Re:Some food for thought

[Carewolf]

You obviously don't know what the definition of pedophile is.

Well I do, and what is worse I probably agree with you on the real definition ;)

My point was using a legal definition in a similar fashion as the legal definition of child pornography. The problem with a lot of "child pornography" is that it is picturing 16 and 17 year old girls (or buys and cartoons), and the ones caught on this "crime" are stamped as sex offender and treated as pedophiles. By simply continuing this wicked trend and applying it to what people like, would make most 16-20 year-olds pedophiles.

Re:Some food for thought

[Wooky_linuxer]

so basically you imply that any depiction of an illegal act is in itself illegal? There is rape porn. There are (lots of movies) depicting murders, robbery. I enjoy fragging people in FPS, and even throwing nukes in RTS. Does that makes me a potential murderer or worse? Taking pleasure in imagining something is not the same thing as doing it. There might be some correlation, I don't deny it, but for me, people who shoot others after viewing violent movies or playing violent games would probably do it anyway. They are attracted to these media because they are mentally unstable, not the contrary. The question is, not only unstable people like these media. In the same way, there must be people who enjoy seeing kids hentai (or however it is called) who are not pedophiles - and I suspect they form the vast majority of the population. Heck, how many people watched 2girls1cup? do you most of these would do it?

Not in this case

[Wooky_linuxer]

because they are DRAWINGS. Artistic depictions. No real people were involved in the manufacturing of the drawing, other than the artists themselves. So no child ever suffered.

The only way you can say drawings hurt real people is by either stating [1] that pedophilia is such a vile thing that it can't even actually be depicted or narrated, because it hurts some kind of society moral conscience (which is exactly what most people defend), OR that [2] drawings somehow furthers demand for real-life child abuse.

The problem with [1] is that it's thoughtcrime, and with [2] is that it hasn't been proved. I don't feel confortable with either one, it seriously hurts what should be a definition of a crime in a civilized, democratic society.

I do acknowledge, though, that there is a real problem with today image processing software such as Photoshop. It is possible to edit a photo of a real child so that it is impossible to know its origin - a real photo depicting someone or an original drawing.

Re:Not in this case

[CommunistHamster]

I do acknowledge, though, that there is a real problem with today image processing software such as Photoshop. It is possible to edit a photo of a real child so that it is impossible to know its origin - a real photo depicting someone or an original drawing.

If it's that hard to tell, the point of making any original photos is moot. Unless these edited pictures are just a form of encryption, and the pedos then reverse the photoshop filters on their end... but still, that's no different from distributing encrypted CP, so what's the issue?

Re:Not in this case

[Hognoxious]

I do acknowledge, though, that there is a real problem with today image processing software such as Photoshop. It is possible to edit a photo of a real child so that it is impossible to know its origin - a real photo depicting someone or an original drawing.

If you have a photo already, why would you make a drawing of it?

It would be like robbing a bank at gunpoint, setting up a company with the proceeds then embezzling the money from the company.

Imaginary Rights Now!

[tverbeek]

I want to thank, and praise, Mr Sanger for bringing to light this shameful practice by his chief competitor. Poor innocent Toons like those who pose for "lolicon" images have been exploited for decades (and in fact, for centuries, dating back to the Cartones who posed for Italian Renaissance sketches). From the moment of their very conception, these underage Toons are forced to engage in degrading activities for the private amusement of readers in the solitude of their own homes, leading to the dire social scourge of inappropriate thoughts. A single Toon might find herself being viewed by hundreds of thousands of readers of all walks of life, traumatized over and over. But thanks to the efforts of legislators in the U.S., the U.K., and other countries, and the heroic actions of Mr Sanger and others like him, these Toons may finally be freed of this abuse. No person is free while other people – even imaginary ones – are still being oppressed!

World's Worst PR Campaign

[salesgeek]

Sanger just launched the world's worst FUD campaign:

My competitors are all pedophiles and their product is for distributing pedophilia.

Re:Wikipedia is ran by a cabal

[sowth]

Who the fuck said anything about wikipedia being "sanitized"??? Not me. What do you think will happen if they take away all the protections? I tell you what will happen: a whole bunch of fucking crazy nutjobs will constantly update just about every article with conspiracy theories, company pr, vandalism, spam, and just plain nonsensical shit.

If you still insist this would not happen, why don't you read slashdot at -1 for a while. On second thought, you won't get the full brunt because many trolls give up because most people don't read below 1 (many just read at 5). They realize they don't have an audience. You should go back several years and find where there were waves of shit posted by scripts and just loons with lots of time on their hands. This is also why slashdot uses captchas.

Wikipedia (and slashdot) would be useless if there wasn't some sort of system to filter out total shit.

Wrong question

[complacence]

While I mostly agree with your sentiment, the answer to your question seems obvious. It is called child porn because it's pornography involving children, using drawings as medium. Ignoring the difficulty in defining pornography, paintings can be pornographic.

Your question should be, "Why is child porn considered harmful when no one was actually harmed in producing it?"

There are people who claim that it indeed is, as in inciting or popularizing a fetish that would be harmful if acted out, but going by that rationale we'd have to illegalize a whole slew of fiction (written sexual fantasy like A.S.S.T.R, series like Dexter, video games like Hitman and GTA etc.) that is completely legal, and IMO justly so.

Re:Wrong question

[mdwh2]

It is called child porn because it's pornography involving children, using drawings as medium.

No, there aren't any children involved. Fictional depictions of children, yes.

One might as well say of a murder mystery film that "it involved people being murdered, using film as a medium".

Re:Wrong question

[complacence]

You're missing my point or being nitpicky. I agree with you completely.

Still, as you said yourself, it's porn in which children are depicted, and as such it can be called child porn.

Re:Wrong question

[aXis100]

It's as much "child porn" as horror movies are "snuff films" - i.e. not at all. Fiction makes a big difference.

Re:Wrong question

[complacence]

I still agree that fiction makes a big difference for harm and legality. It doesn't make difference in naming something after what it self-professedly tries to depict.

Snuff is explicitly defined as film that shows actual death or murder, child porn just means porn with children, so applying "snuff film" to horror movies is by definition wrong while calling porn with children "child porn" isn't. I can't believe we're even arguing about this.

You can call horror movies "murder movies" as they do depict (fictional) murder. Or you can call them "horror movies", even though the horror depicted is purely fictional.

Re:tired of this crap

[a whoabot]

"Sexuality is in the eye of the beholder... Just imagine it's an adult woman instead, and ask yourself: would no one get turned on by the hypothethical image?"

I could write a letter and someone may take it as threatening and another may think that it is not threatening. So then are threats in the eye of the beholder? I wouldn't think so: It just has to be established that I intended to threat and that the letter does express a threat on a reasonable interpretation of the text.

Similarly for child pornography then: You just have to establish that the creator of the work intended it to be sexual and that on a reasonable interpretation of the work it could be understood as sexual.

Re:tired of this crap

[ultranova]

Similarly for child pornography then: You just have to establish that the creator of the work intended it to be sexual and that on a reasonable interpretation of the work it could be understood as sexual.

Understood as sexual by whom? Establish intent of the work how?

Establishing the intent of some text is usually pretty straightforward, because text is generated entirely by him and has pretty low information content. On the other hand, the photograph is not generated by the photographer, it's generated by light entering the camera, and the photographers role is to point the camera towards interesting scenes.

Now how do you know if the photographer found as interesting the bombing of a village, a naked little girl running scared from a bombed village, or just a naked little girl? You don't. You can't. You can only speculate. And that means that the verdict depends on the personal opinion of the judge, not on facts.

Also, there are no such things as sexual images - that is, images that are inherently sexual. There are images that, when viewed by someone, trigger arousal. Since turn-ons are so wide and varied, there's unlikely to be any image that wouldn't do that for someone. This, in turn, means that whether something should be considered pornography depends entirely on who's viewing it, or perhaps on who produced it; in other words, it's a classical thought crime.

Re:tired of this crap

[a whoabot]

I'll probably just be mainly repeating myself, and you, for example:

I could say that there are no such things as threatening letters, that is, letters that are inherently threating. There are letters that, when read by someone, trigger fear, dread or terror. Since fears are wide and varied, there's unlikely to be any letter that wouldn't do that for someone. This, in turn, means that whether something should be considered a threat...etc.

How do you know that the author of the letter was joking or was writing fiction? It may be hard, but you use the facts nonetheless. You can question him about his intent, you can look for inconsistencies in that account. You can do the same thing for child pornography.

Text need not be generated by the author. He could generate text randomly and then select the text he wants to send as a letter. But mainly he will configure words (words which he does not make up himself) to express what he wants. Similarly a photographer can go around selecting the images he wants. But he can also get models and have them pose by his intentions and set the lighting by his intentions and set focal lengths and exposure times and angles to his intentions.

And understood by whom? By anyone with a reasonable interpretation. If I walk to a gas bar with a jerrycan and say to the attendant to "Fill it up, please", a reasonable interpretation on the part of the attendant is that I'm asking him to fill the jerrycan with gasoline. An unreasonable interpretation is to think that I'm asking him to fill my mouth with gasoline. Someone who has never seen a gas bar, a jerrycan nor gasoline would have probably no idea what I meant, and think: "He could mean anything!" Just because someone might think that does not mean that my words weren't an actual request for the jerrycan to be filled up.

Similarly for child pornography. If someone gets a young girl to pose nude with her legs spread open while men ejaculate on her and then takes a picture of this and then sells the image over the internet, a reasonable interpretation is that he intends the image to be sexually arousing. Someone who does not know what ejaculation is, does not know what sex is, does know the difference between adulthood and adolescence, etc., would have no idea what the image was intended for and think "It could have been intended for anything!" Again, that does not make it so.

       

Re:Wikipedia is ran by a cabal

[Dunbal]

If you still insist this would not happen, why don't you read slashdot at -1 for a while.

      I _do_ read slashdot at -1. The garbage is very easy to ignore. I would simply rather have the chance to make up my own mind than have someone decide for me what is worth reading and what isn't. Of course it takes more time to sort through the pile of crap - but then again anything worthwhile always has some form of cost associated with it.

Is there no end to Wikipedia's love of pederasty?

[devloop]

I have found that Wikipedia conveniently has a list of States
where these sick bastards can indulge in *LEGAL SEX WITH UNDERAGE* girls.

Despicable backwater places were pederasts can *legally* own
their own *CHILD* brides / sex slaves.

In most of these places 16!, in some as young as 14, 13!

Is there no end to this evil?

Why does Wikipedia hate America and our Christian way of life so much ???!!!!
Here's the link as if more proof were required:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age#North_America

Re:Is there no end to Wikipedia's love of pederast

[Arancaytar]

In spite of the sarcasm, it should be added that going abroad to have sex with someone who would be underage where you live opens you up to prosecution in your own country. Sex tourism and all that.

No kiddy porn there...

[darkonc]

Is there a stack of explicit sexual images of cartoon characters depicted as under 18?

I looked on the lollicon page, and there's a picture there that's pretty tame in my books ((essentially, a bunch of girls at a slumber party )). There's nothing in it that I'd call overtly sexual, although they are in somewhat skimpy pajamas.

Nobody's made notable changes to the page in the last couple of days, so -- unless somebody changed the actual image (didn't check that), then this whole thing's been something of a tempest in a teapot.

Maybe the offending picture's elsewhere and/or perhaps Sanger hoped that people would go on a witch hunt.
There's nothing like a bit if innuendo to stir up a hornet's nest of controversy.

General reply

[Larry Sanger]

Larry Sanger here--let me clarify a few things.

First of all, what very few of the commenters (at least the first commenters) noticed was that the statute I cited, 18 U.S.C. 1466A, has the following title: "Obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children." It specifically states: "Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly produces, distributes, receives, or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that..."

That's drawings, cartoons, sculptures, and paintings. "Visual depictions of any kind." Many people who criticized my message to the FBI really seem to have a problem with the law, which I find interesting.

Anyway, I now realize with regret that "child pornography" was probably the wrong word to use. I didn't realize that it would be so misleading. I thought that "obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children" (the title of the statute) was just what we mean when we say "child pornography." It didn't occur to me until afterward that many people restrict "child pornography" to mean photographs of real children. If I had realized this sooner, I would have used "depictions of child sexual abuse" instead.

So, why did I report Wikimedia to the FBI? First some background. I am broadly a libertarian, but I am also a sincere moralist (as opposed to a cynical amoralist). Libertarianism and moralism are not--of course--contradictory. Being a libertarian, I think we have the right to do a lot of things, including a lot of things that broadly coarsen society; that's the price we pay for freedom. But, just as the law provides for, I do draw one line when it comes to photographs, or even merely realistic depictions, of child sexual abuse. Most sane libertarians recognize that some speech should be restricted by the force of law--the hackneyed examples are shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, perjury, and libel. But for me, depictions of child sexual abuse are another. I respect the opinion of those who have a principled disagreement with me when it comes to depictions of child sexual abuse. But pretending that it's just obvious, even for libertarians, that we have a right to publish such depictions is simply wrong, in my opinion.

Regarding my motives, yes, I thought I was doing my civic duty, one that I didn't really want to do, but which I felt I ought to do. Partly this was because the statute in question required me to make the report if I thought the statute applied (and it seems to me it does--those drawings sure look like obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children to me). But partly also it was because I think that this sort of thing--including some pictures of children being out-and-out raped--is completely wrong, and should not be allowed in a civilized society. Call this censorship if you like, but I don't really think you have a constitutional right to publish and consume realistic drawings of child rape and molestation.

But what outcome am I aiming at? Contrary to the insinuations of some, I have no interest in trying to get Wikimedia shut down; that would be unnecessary, and I doubt it would happen as a result of the violation of the statute. But I think and hope it may cause pressure on Wikimedia from law enforcement, politicians, and the general public to eliminate this sort of content. I also hope that Wikimedia will be persuaded, or if necessary forced, to label its "adult" content as such in a consistent and reliable way, so that it can be easily filtered by school system filters. This would be a win-win, because then Wikipedia would be used in more schools--something I don't at all oppose, except for all the grossly inappropriate material for school children--and, when used in schools, children would be less likely to find content that their parents and teachers regard as grossly inappropriate for their age.

I know that in our cynical world, a lot of people will have trouble believing t

Re:General reply

[Dragoness Eclectic]

Self-righteous much?

Seriously, dude, carrying that big of a martyr complex around must be hard on your back. Set the load down, have a beer, enjoy the sunset. You'll enjoy life more.

You will not be persecuted for being moral and ethical in today's society. Really, you won't. I've never taken any abuse for being honest, compassionate, polite, generous, loving, or charitable of mind and deed. What you will take abuse for is being intolerant, proud, judgmental, abrasive, abusive and insulting. It is not a moral victory to take abuse for being a jerk, so don't mix that up with the righteous being persecuted by the evil of this world.

My personal take on this? You're being a judgmental ass. You suggest that people who have different opinions than you (or even request rational clarification on the matter) on what "freedom of expression" means are somehow unworthy to be allowed to participate in the public arena of ideas. So people should have freedom of expression as long as it's freedom to agree with you?

I got some great kiddy porn here

[akayani]

It was taken of me by my mother when I was a kid. If I post that to my Facebook page am I committing an act of paedophilia? What if a put in through Photoshop and give myself a sex change at 2 yo? Will that make me a sex change doctor? And what if I take a current photo of me and Photoshop me screwing myself at age 4, OMG what will I be then, a rapist?

Hell you better filter me off the Internet, I'm clearly dangerous to my own young mind.

The issue here is about harm and intent as if anything along those lines would stand up to censorship in wikipedia, it just doesn't happen. This is clearly about the thought police. It's just a pity they can't devote all their energy to removing guns from society, that would actually be useful.

Awe-inspiring

[tyciol]

Larry Sanger is an interesting guy, way to get TOW V&

Fly Fatass Fly!!!

[cyclomedia]

Does this mean that Mallrats is illegal in AUS?

Re:Fly Fatass Fly!!!

[Philip_the_physicist]

/me hits himself.

I should have said *sexual* pictures, although that does also include pictures of a sexual scene which incidentally has a person who appears underage in it.

Reading it funny

[hesaigo999ca]

It sounded quite worse from the heading of the article, seriously thought the FBI had done something stupid like link the url of the child p0rn sites or something, they have been know to do stuff like this before, I just thought it happened again from the heading.

Why the tax break for porn?

[thekohser]

Here's what most of the comments seem to be missing. If you look at the top 25 most-viewed images on Wikimedia Commons, they are not "made-up drawings", and many of them are themed as such:

5 Category:Shaved genitalia (female) 231062 views

6 Category:Vulva 204043

11 Penis 129794

12 Category:Female genitalia 115613

13 Category:Ejaculation 107525

14 Category:Sex positions 107061

16 Category:Vagina 98422

17 Category:Erotic 95543

18 Category:Oral sex 92525

19 Category:Masturbation 92416

21 Category:Penis 90955

22 Category:Female masturbation 85930

23 Category:Sex 84217

25 Category:Male masturbation 77042

The evidence clearly indicates that what Commons is, is a porn gallery server. Why is it that my government allows Google, Omidyar Network, Hewlett Foundation, Stanton Foundation, and Sloan Foundation to ENJOY A TAX BREAK when they donate huge sums of money to this particular porn gallery? The fact that the Wikimedia Foundation is allowed to operate as a 501-c-3 "charity" makes me puke a little in my mouth.

Re:tired of this crap

[geschild]

"Oh gimme a break, I've spent *hours* today thinking of the children, my wrist is too sore to do it any longer."

Ah, you must be Catholic! Just a quick tip: use a rod to spare your wrists, when hitting children. I believe it's mentioned in your operating manual as well. Somewhere under "Proverbs" although I do understand you wouldn't know the manual by heart as you're so busy thinking of the children. I have the same with man pages and watching many systems ;).

(I fail to see how physical abuse of children is any better than sexual abuse, and it seems that the Catholic church has come to the same conclusion. At last we have something in common...)

Re:tired of this crap

[geschild]

"Oh gimme a break, I've spent *hours* today thinking of the children, my wrist is too sore to do it any longer."

You must be Catholic!

A quick tip: use a rod to hit children so as to spare your wrists. IIRC it's somewhere in the Catholic manual, too. Chapter "Proverbs" I believe. I quite understand if you can't keep track of everything in the book, though. Thinking of the children is hard work. It's the same for me an Unix man pages. So many systems to look after, so little time. Oh well, we do the best we can I guess.

(I'm happy to have found at least one area of common ground with Catholics. We both fail to see the difference between physical and sexual abuse of children...)

Re:Bad Argumentation

[thekohser]

Obviously, you're not well-versed in Erik Moeller's groundbreaking off-Wikipedia research, "Kinder sind Pornos":

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/4/4158/1.html

"Nonviolent pornography does no harm"

"I would also reiterate that there is no empirical support for the hypothesis that pornography promotes harmful behavior in adolescents or adults."

He's clearly an expert.

You are not a libertarian!

[clarkie.mg]

In reply to this :

Call this censorship if you like, but I don't really think you have a constitutional right to publish and consume realistic drawings of child rape and molestation.

Apart from repeatedly saying it's wrong, you didn't give any reason behind this opinion.

So i'd like to know what are the criteria that you would use to decide what *fictional* material should be allowed or not ?

Surely it can't be that the situation depicted is illegal or most fictions would be banned.

Surely it can't be that the situation depicted is illegal and shocking as the sensibilty varies from one person to another. I can't stand the movie "Natural born killers" but that doesn't mean i want it banned. If you don't like one type of fiction, just don't look at it. You would have a point if sensitive fiction would be pushed on national TV. I personally think there is too much violence on tv but i don't care if someone rents a very violent movie on dvd.

Is it that the situation depicted must be illegal, shocking and involve children ? Then we surely must ban "Anne Frank's journal", "Schindler's list", "Pan's labyrinth" (murder of a child at the end), "law abiding citizen" (murder of a child at the beginning)
On what grounds would you assume that it's right to show violence, murder, rape or torture on an adult in a fiction but not on a child ? If you ban fictional situations involving children on the basis that it's "wrong" in reality then it looks like the same horrible situations are "right" in reality if they concern an adult. Of course that is not the case ! A rape is criminal and horrible in reality whether on a child or an adult. And in fiction, it's still horrible but like many other fictional depictions, it's FICTION, if you don't like it, just ignore it ! [NB: Anne Frank is not fiction]

Is it that the situation depicted must be illegal, shocking, involve children and depict sexuality or nudity ? Then, i am sorry but you have strange moral values. I see no reason why you would be offended by the cartoon of an underage having sex and not be offended by the murder of a child in a movie.

Is it that the situation depicted must be illegal, involve children and depict sexuality or nudity and look apologetic ? When you see a murder in a movie, you instantly know it's wrong, whether the movie is apologetic or not. That should be the same with depiction of illegal sexual activities involving minors. There is no reason to ban it, you should be able to use your moral judgment whatever fiction you see.

The bottomline is, if it's fiction and there is no victim, it's not a matter of legality but morality. And morality is in the eye of the beholder. It's not the role of a governement to decide what is moral or not. If you don't agree with that, then you surely are not a libertarian.

Definitely not libertarian or even democrat!

[clarkie.mg]

I have just one last comment, in response to a few Slashdot comments. Some of those comments were written by people who sound like complete creeps to me, [...] Such people should not be making policy for the seventh most popular website in the world.

So now, in your opinion, anyone who defends freedom of expression or freedom of thinking is automatically classified as having the lowest moral standards among those who can use that freedom ?

Never heard of the quote "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." by Voltaire ?

Besides, you make a succession of small and subtle deviations in your reasoning :

first, we start with the subject of fictional representations of sexual characters that might be minors;

second, we are on the subject of those who are sexually stimulated by such depictions. It's not the same ! Watching such cartoons *does not* automatically translate in being sexually stimulated for a massively large part of the population. It even is disgusting for many people. [For me, I am more disgusted when i see a baby about to die of malnutrition in Africa or children being shot by an helicopter in Irak or Gaza, than by a stupid cartoon.]

third, we are now talking about those who make a comment acknowedging that people get stimulated by that kind of fiction, or simply moderate the comment. It doesn't necessarily mean they are "creeps" but you put them in the same league;

fourth, you make a whole paragraph about those who advocate a pedosociety : "Such people should not be making policy for the seventh most popular website in the world."

What it leads to think is that watching cartoons about sex equals being sexually stimulated by it equals morally approving it equals advocating for legal sex with minors in the society.

I don't think that kind of reasoning is fair or valid.

Democrat in the sense of for democracy.

[clarkie.mg]

I wrote democrat in the sense of being for democracy, not in the sense of being for the democrats of USA.

Let's Legislate Personal Taste!

[caibbor]

the people who want to put joe shmoe behind bars because he jerked off to a drawn picture of a fictional child do not feel that way because they are concerned with the safety of children. they feel that way because they find joe shmoe's fetishes personally distateful. This is not an issue of safety or right vs wrong, but merely an issue of social acceptance. this is a nissue of their bigotry. These people legislate based on mere personal taste. Their invasive ideology protects nobody, and causes real legal problems good, ethical people.

What Sanger really went for

[tyciol]

I believe is the 'obscenity' charge. The problem is since you determine that on a local level and Wikipedia is not only all over the state, but the country and the continent and the world at large, where do you get the jury to determine what obscenity is for all of that? This is pretty much the same statute pressed against Christopher Handley. Neil Gaiman, creator of Coraline, stands with the lolicons.