Slashdot Mirror
Japan Moves Toward Blocking Online Child Porn
crimeandpunishment writes "In the wake of increased international demands that it do something about its legal lenience toward child pornography, Japan is beginning to take action, albeit slowly. Thursday a government task force recommended that kiddie porn sites be blocked as soon as they're discovered, instead of waiting for an investigation or arrests. Making or distributing child porn is illegal in Japan, but possession is not ... and critics have called that a legal loophole making Japan an international hub for child porn."
If only they listened to the world about whaling too.
I remember reading it is like twelve years old. That might not be true, but even if it is, who the fuck is the USA to tell Japan what constitutes child pornography?
If kids can make porn legally in Japan, who's fucking business is it really other than the Japanese?
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
Obviously, CP is bad. However, I personally commend the Japanese for being slow in attempting a censorship sweep that will cost resources and, ultimately, do between little and nothing to actually protect the actual victims.
My other sig is clever.
simply keeping child porn around on your HDD should not be illegal and what the rest of the world should be doing instead of criticizing japan.
just because 235235235235.jpg on the porn site you visited happens to be of a 17 year old girl instead of 18 and is stored in your browser cache DOES NOT MAKE YOU A PEDO.
GO JAPAN!
some European countries (at least The Netherlands) had legal possession of this stuff. So calling one of the last countries to not make it illegal "an international hub" is a bit over the top. I'd be more worried about countries that have high child prostitution.
I agree with shutting websites that distribute child pornography as soon as they are discovered, but on the news in The Netherlands today was the message that police and justice were too occupied with their (witch)hunt of child porn possessors to effectively go after the PRODUCERS and DISTRIBUTORS of it. A damn shame and a testament to how the police/justice need to prioritize their efforts.
Child prostitution should be illegal everywhere. Child porn is evidence of child prostitution in some cases and child abuse in others. It shouldn't be difficult to block websites from selling it.
To stop people from viewing it is a different matter entirely and in my opinion is technically impossible and unconstitutional because its relying on thought crime legislation. As long as no children are being victimized and nobody is profiting from it, it's not a problem.
Obviously, CP is bad.
However, I personally commend the Japanese for being slow in attempting a censorship sweep that will cost resources and, ultimately, do between little and nothing to actually protect the actual victims.
Obviously, CP is bad.
However, I personally commend the Japanese for being slow in attempting a censorship sweep that will cost resources and, ultimately, do between little and nothing to actually protect the actual victims.
"We're making an appeal today to build a society without child pornography," said Anges Chan, a UNICEF ambassador and well-known media personality in Japan. "We're trying to build a national movement to appeal to the government to outlaw the possession of child pornography."
Unless they can statistically prove that possession of evidence of the crime leads to
future crimes against children, having laws against possession is a law that is a problem in search of a solution. If police need search warrants they can find other ways to get them but having a search warrant which only leads to digital copies of evidence of the crime does not actually solve or prevent the crime.
So what is the purpose of tracking every copy? The only purpose I see in doing this is to track down the distributors. This would be fine but lets be serious, all they have to do is offer a bounty. "If you have information which leads to the arrest or conviction of a distributor of child porn you will be rewarded 500,000 yen."
Lies. I browse that site very often and you only find the lolicon on weekends in themed threads, and the CP is shunned like in other countries.
Even so the porn is relegated to three (four now) general boards, the rest being themed areas such as animal/insect photography, robots, mechanics, idols, general anime, 3D stuff, etc.
You are just trying to blow it out of proportion. Read the text on the boards too and you'd understand.
Independent of the age at which something becomes "child porn", this expression is way too much overused. There was a time when someone saying "child porn" was sounding an alarm, today it's like background noise.
I admit I've seen lots and lots of porn on the web, but never anything that could be remotely called "child porn", unless you call adult women with small breasts and shaved pubic hair "children". If this "child porn" thing actually exists, which I doubt, it's so well hidden that any measures about blocking it are useless. Better try to block the Illuminati instead.
Sadly, the politicians have learned to use "child porn" like they use "terrorism", a convenient handle by which they are able to manipulate the masses.
While I'll admit I laughed when I read this, I think the debunking to this argument would probably center around the fact that music and movies have legal avenues of purchase/sales that CP doesn't. Perhaps comparing it to going after distributors versus users and the war on drugs might yield some more useful comparisons.
I know I'm not alone in feeling uncomfortable about Western society's view of sex and nudity as something dangerous, mysterious, and generally negative. It varies from country to country, but it feels like we're continuing to regress into a puritanical and uneducated fear of our reproductive systems, even while other parts of our society leverage that fear - churches, MTV, clothing companies, magazines..
I worry that we're sending the wrong message to youth. That they should be denied sexual education, and told that they will be punished for developing sexually before some arbitrary age - typically several years after the onset of puberty.
Now I'm not going to argue that real commercial kiddy porn is a positive thing. But I also wish humanity would take a step back, a deep breath, and view the issue with some amount of rationality. For crying out loud, we're locking up our children for sending nude images of themselves! Talk about psychosis.
Many men are terrified to approach and help a child in need for fear of being caught up in this institutionalized hunt.
We're justifying censorship, Internet filtering, gestapo-state police invasions, horrific prison terms... for pictures. For all we know (and we don't because research on the subject is utterly impossible), pictures help otherwise decent human beings who happen to be attracted to young people to cope with their sexual orientation. By threatening dozens of years in jail for simple possession, we could be encouraging those inclined to go out and find the real thing.
Why not focus our efforts and energy on things we can (probably) all agree are worse for kids than possession of images like ending child hunger and poverty, war, child soldiers, and such things? Japan can sort her own issues.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
There are so many cameras and surveillance, with camera phones and facebook that its just too late to be concerned about childrens privacy. Nobody has privacy anymore.
The monster in this situation is the individual who molests the child and then tape records it. The recording is evidence and in my opinion has to be analyzed, the individuals who like watching the evidence might not be actual child molesters and the utilitarian thing to do would be to pay these individuals to find and download child pornography and act as informants to help track down the source.
I don't really think it's a good idea to put people in prison for having illegal bits on their computer. But I do understand that in order to get informants you have to have at least the threat of putting them in prison. That being said I don't think anyone put in prison for having illegal bits should be treated like a sex offender, I think the concept of sex offender now includes anyone convicted of any sort of sex cirme for any reason and in my opinion we need to separate the sex addicts from the violent sex offenders.
Violent sex offenders will use any means including violence, these are rapists, child molesters, the people we believe should be locked in prison for life.
Non-violent sex offenders who are actually sex addicts are in general addicted to a specific substance whether it be bits, a certain pattern of thinking, or a series of behaviors. These individuals get convicted because they have a picture of a 16 year old naked, or they are 21 and had sex with their 17 year old gf. These individuals don't belong in the same category as true violent sex offenders.
The solution in my opinion is to separate the categories so that individuals who are non violent don't get their lives ruined over something dumb. These individuals can help take down the actual violent sex offenders who rape and murder.
And somehow teenagers across the world search out pictures of all the things you listed just to see what they're all about. Hell, there were a few kids in my old hometown who got arrested for possession of child pornography after they had a sort of "competition" to see which of them could find the most disgusting thing online, luckily for them it was obvious that this wasn't a gang of "teenage child rapists" or anything of the sort but rather just a few kids who were trying to gross each other out and ended up overstepping that invisible line in the sand (Murder videos? Ok. Videos of sex with animals? Perfectly legal. Various people hurting themselves in horrible ways? Sure, why not. Naked children? CUFF 'EM BOYS!)
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Seems like you answered your own question.
Anyways, just to be sure: curious means just what it means. Curious as in, does it really exist on the internet. Curious as in, is it really just a couple clicks away.
However, implicit in your post is the assumption that acting on the curiosity of cp, as opposed to acting on, say, the curiosity of the other subjects you listed, indicates a distinct psychological flaw.
I disagree, and in fact believe the opposite: that a near or total suppression of curiosity indicates an unhealthy psyche. I would say my psychological flaw here is pathological-naivete.
--
Kiddie porn pictures are not a substitute for "the real thing". If anything, there is considerable evidence that kiddie porn pictures incent the possessor to go and get the real thing.
Also, in most cases these pictures are sold, not given away freely. If there is a demand and a marketplace there will be folks that will supply it. All you need is a camera and a child or two. And children are pretty easy to get. If a child isn't interested in cooperating, they will be after a few slaps.
Just having such a marketplace is incredibly destructive to children. If it was all about just passing pictures around for free and children freely taking them for people's enjoyment that would be a completely different matter.
So you believe it's a statistic fact beyond the margin of error that people do what they watch on TV? People watch horror movies because they secretly want to kill people? People watch gross videos on the internet because they secretly want to do it? This is basically saying that anything a person thinks about for a long enough time, they will be compelled to do it.
This is not true. I'm sure the majority of us have thought about killing people but how many of us are actually murderers? Less than 1% probably. How many individuals who look at child porn or who have been convicted of possession of child pornography are violent enough to actually go molest a child?
The majority of adult individuals know the difference between fantasy and reality. Fantasy is stuff people imagine doing because they'll never be able to do it. People enter fantasy worlds to escape from the mundane real world. Then you have sick monsters who hear voices and have to obey the voices in their head, or who are without conscience and empathy and can rape and torture a child without remorse.
Lets be realistic, the majority of human beings aren't that. And if the majority aren't crazy like that it makes no sense to create laws expecting people to act like that. Lets put it simple, if you saw someone murdered on tape you wouldn't go and murder somebody would you? Because you have a conscience right?
Exactly as it should be. That focuses police resources on cutting roots (creators/distributors) instead of branches (consumers). Blocking it online is fine, too, but they need to try to trace it.
Do you have ESP?
You watch violent films yes? You play video games? You read comic books?
You're now a murder. Good day sir. I'll see you prison.
Same. Fucking. Thing. It's no different than reading hentai manga that depicts 'children'. Fiction is fiction damnit.
Maybe I just don't like to watch people tell me that child pornography is a victimless crime. Maybe I don't like that Slashdot has so suddenely entrenched itself with ADVOCATES of child pornography
Wait... so you want to physically harm people just for making a simple argument on a text-based web site? That's pretty fucked up. You should seek counseling.
And also: I assume since you're sooo anti-child porn that you also support prosecuting teenagers who possess and distribute pictures of themselves. Because it's black and white right? Right and wrong? And child pornography, as everyone has told you... err I mean as everyone knows, is horrible terrible stuff. So we should lock those teens away for victimizing themselves. Right? Right?!?
What you are doing (besides drooling on your keyboard) is called an "Appeal to emotion" and is usually done by someone who cannot argue the facts because they aren't on his/her side, hence the emotion. What your rant cannot change is this: Busting someone who has drawn images is a thoughtcrime, nothing less. With real CP a real child got hurt, but with hentai and lolicon someone used ink and paper to draw what they thought. If you can be arrested and lose your freedom for putting your thoughts on paper? pretty much the definition of a thoughtcrime.
So you go ahead with your foaming at the mouth while the rest of us have an intelligent discussion, kay? Have you ever talked to law enforcement and asked what they thought on the subject? I used to have lunch daily with a guy working the state crime lab in charge of CP (He tried to recruit me but....bleech) and you know what he said? The average amount of children abused by those evil CP collectors? Zero. Most were socially retarded losers that would hide in the corner if you offered them a naked anything. One he said even screeched like a wild animal if anyone came into physical contact with him, yet the average term being handed out for these dangerous criminals? 40 years. They would have actually gotten less time if they had actually raped and murdered a teenager than for possessing pictures. Sorry dude, that is seriously fucked up.
So I have to go with my friend here who thought a better use of the resources would have been to get therapy and rehab for sex addiction for those that hadn't actually touched anybody, and instead used the resources they were wasting on their prosecution for hunting down those that made the images in the first place. He also said the witch hunt atmosphere made it nearly impossible to try to "flip" one of the low level consumers to get higher up the chain, because no prosecutor would dare give a deal to anyone caught with CP and looking at 40 years+ they simply had no incentive to turn. So your "sick childfucker" drool drool drool is actually making things worse, as anyone who has experience with law enforcement knows one of the best ways you have to break a criminal org is by snitches, which thanks to the witch hunt we simply don't have because guys like you would vote any prosecutor that cut a deal out of office. Great going there, congrats.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You were implicitly referring to people in this thread who were saying the possession of those images should be legal. Whether they like the pictures or not is irrelevant.
If you don't care what people think, why bother posting?
Dilbert RSS feed
It's not a trap question. You're vehemently against child porn, correct? What I described is child porn. Do you support such prosecution or not. Yes or No.
And yes, your desire to break bones and report to the FBI anyone that dares even discuss whether child porn laws are appropriate speaks volumes about your common sense.
All of these are actually addressed in the letter of the law or certain rulings, at least, here in the United States.
Any pornography that includes someone under the age of 18 is illegal. This includes those pictures where baby is fully clothed and asleep in the same room in their crib while their parents take dirty pictures of their sexy time. So, pornography of someone 17 years and 364 days is child pornography. Note that there are additional penalties for possessing child pornography of someone especially young (like under ten), but that's up to the prosecutor. Believe me, they'll go for all they can get.
Images without known sources are generally shown to people specially trained in age recognition. There are, of course, false positives. Non-watermarked pictures from those websites that hire people that look young but are over 18 have gotten people tossed in jail before because the actors and actresses might have only been as developed as a young teenager for whatever reasons, and the experts identified them as children. Look at the recent fiasco involving a fan of Little Lupe. The FBI also has a database of known child pornography pictures that they can check against.
I don't know if it has changed, but pornography is anything designed to get someone sexually aroused. Suggestive poses, excessive display of the genitals, etc. That's why you can sometimes find photography books involving naked children that aren't illegal. However, all of this is subjective. Good luck arguing that those pictures you downloaded aren't pornography if there's even a hint of genital in the picture.
Trampling over people's rights is easy. As soon as someone speaks up in the defense of someone, simply accuse them of supporting child molestation and accuse them of being a pedophile. Hint that their public show of support might lead to an investigation and visit from social services to take their children away.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Yes, obviously child porn is bad... that this is already a horrible piece of dogmatic reasoning, is not even the worsed of it. What is next?
Read up on "The people vs Harry Flint". Why did so many people come to the defence of a porn peddler? A crude porn peddler at that? Why defend a guy selling smuts with a few crude and insulting attackings on decent public people thrown in? (Some child porn addicts call this parody/satire) Because of this:
First they came...
It might be one of the most paraphrased quotes in history but it remains extremely valid. Remember, the guy who said it was a nazi symphatizer. Or to put it in this context, the anti-porn peddler hit by anti-depravity laws.
"obviously child porn is bad". I call this dogmatic because it leaves no room for argument, this is the classic tactic of the dictator. "Obviously X is bad" has been used countless times. Put communism in place for X and you got the McCarthy trials. Put independent woman and you got the witch hunts. And you can't argue against it, because it is obvious. You get to the point that just arguing against it becomes a crime by itself.
Child porn is the moralists dream. Nobody can argue that sex with a toddler should be allowed, so you have won the entire argument and then it becomes just a matter of constantly increasing the definition of child and eventually porn. Different countries have different ages of consent. Do you REALLY want the entire world to have to accept the age of consent of the most puritan nation on earth? Plenty of arguments to raise the age to 21. Say bye bye to any porn and once you accepted that to any nudity. Venus the Milo? Could be under 21, FORBIDDEN!
One of the indicators that the people who want to introduce these bans have not so hidden agenda's is that they talk bull shit. Japan is introducing censorship because of international pressure. Funny, Japan goes on whaling despite international pressure. It keep denying its warcrimes despite international pressure. But the one thing that could benefit the Japanese content industry like Sony, that they act upon. Oh, you don't see how censorhip of CP can benefit Sony?
Simple, file sharing networks are filled with CP and copyrighted content. Ban them for the CP and the copyrighted content follows. Freedom of exchange information means CP. Can't be helped, just asked the people behind Freenet. By its very nature the founders of freenet support CP because that has become the ultimate test of free anonymous speech. If you support that people have the right, the need, to be able to share any document without fear of reprisal, then you support the exchange of CP in practice.
It is simple really, freedom is the freedom to do really bad things. If you are free to drink, then you are free to drink yourself to death. If you are free to buy a rope, then you are free to hang yourself (remember that one of the first things they do when you freedom is removed in a jail, you are stopped from having the means to commit suicide).
Freedom is not some limited concept. You can't say: "well you can't do these things because a lot of people find them disgusting" because there will always be someone somewhere who finds something disgusting. You might not like 2 girls 1 cup but you would like it even less if all the content of the world had to pass through the approval of some Utah citizen.
But because of Dogma, if you want to protect freedom, you are defending the CP peddlers. It is almost impossible to fight this and I am fairly certain we will come to regret this. "Daddy, where were you when they took freedom away". "Why, I was thinking of you my dear, I killed your freedom to protect you."
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.