Slashdot Mirror
Gore Site Operator Arrested For Posting Video of Murder
theshowmecanuck writes "According to the Montreal Gazette, 'The owner and operator of a well-known 'real gore' website is charged with corrupting morals for posting a video allegedly depicting the murder of student Jun Lin by Luka Magnotta. Magnotta, 30, is currently in custody charged with first-degree murder in the death of the 33-year-old Chinese international student, who was killed in Montreal in May 2012. The victim's severed limbs were then mailed to political parties and elementary schools, and his torso found inside a discarded suitcase.' A news interview with the detective in charge of the case, airing on CTV as I type this, says he believes the web site hosts a lot of racist content and unimaginable violence. You should note that Canada has less free speech than in America (we have 'hate crime laws'), but there will likely be some arguments in this vein. The charge against the operator is quite rare and no-one so far remembers it ever being used before."
Politicians leading mobs
Eric Holder didn't get that memo.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07/17/justice-dept-seeks-public-feedback-on-zimmerman-case/?tid=pm_politics_pop
THL phish sticks
The comment has no less validity if you remove the letters "wo" from the last paragraph. There is no legitimate reason to post something like this. It's disgusting and unnecessary. Anyone who has a desire to look at it is the sort of person who should seek professional help.
I'm Canadian, not a huge fan of the current political climate in Canada, but I can't get outraged over this. Though I will say the guy who's been arrested is a bit of an idiot for saying that Canada is a 'police state' for having confiscated computer equipment directly related to what he's been charged with... Call it a 'police state' for how the G20 was handled, not because you went and got yourself arrested for doing something that is quite likely illegal and definitely disgusting.
It's interesting that the first three replies to this post zoomed in on a one word factual error that isn't really of any consequence with regard to the rest of the three paragraph comment. It's like they think they're going for the win.
There are some things simply beyond the pale in any decent society. Entertaining people through showing a grisly, cruel murder can do nothing but harm the family, friends, and love ones of the victim. It has absolutely no political, educational, moral effect, nor any deterrent to any crime. It has no value whatsoever to shock and delight those deranged enough to view a heinous act.
The Framers had clear reasons for promoting freedom of speech, primarily to serve the political health of the nation by fostering free debate. And yes, they came from a society that still had public executions, some of which were (in England at least) just as brutal as this crime as more. But they did not create freedom of speech to promote sheer depravity. Laws exist in the context of their society, even what we consider natural law, and there are some things that a society has every damn right to ban - child pornography, and yes, showing a murder for fun.
What must be going through the minds of this poor woman's parents? Is that pain worth a shock to an increasingly cynical population? This was beyond the pale, and does corrupt public morals by desensitizing people to murder. The owner of the site deserves these charges.
Fuck censorshp. A lot of stuff on the Internet can torment people for years. It's not like anything else gets deleted from the Internet.
This is about one group of people how another group of people can be allowed to think. If you don't like Gore then don't go to the site.
Here is a case where property rights gives us a reasonable answer. The victim never gave consent to be filmed during his murder, the film was made under duress. Those choosing to propagate the film can be presumed to recognize that. Yet they chose to attempt to profit by selling manifestly stolen property. Throw them in jail.
If this were to occur in the US, would a prosecution under obscenity laws be legal?
The bar is high, but compared with other things subject to the law, (i.e. the "Miller" test applied to pornography) this would seem to cross it.
The burden of proof required on your typical internet message board, much less Slashdot, is pretty low.
You seem to assume a lot. It is up to the readers (including myself) to establish their own threshold for the level of proof.
Or, he could be a sick fuck in it for the lulz.
I dunno.
Even assuming the above is correct:
* did this sick fuck commit murders to fuel his site?
* does anyone have the right to condemn a person on the "potential misuse of the information"?
* even accepting morals into equation (who's morals?)... anyway: should a person be condemned because the society is "too weak in the moral sense"? I mean, what's the conceptual difference between this and prosecuting Galileo because he kept on publicly saying the Earth is moving and endangering the "good faith" of the society of his time?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
there IS a direct correlation between child pornography and child abuse (the first CANNOT exist without the other)
Generally true but not always.
The newly-married under-18 teenagers filming their honeymoon "in detail" are creating child pornography if they do it in America.
Ditto the 13 year old guy playing with himself in front of a mirror with a camera, purely for his own amusement.
Granted, these examples should never justify "making child porn legal" but they do justify creating the "it was my own body, I have a right to record it" absolute defense and an "it was my boy/girlfriend and he/she said yes" mitigation-defense for people close in age that would turn the charge into a non-sex-crime misdemeanor.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.