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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."
It was used against a special fx pro, for an over realistic gore site, but it failed : http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/12/23/remy-couture_n_2355922.html
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.
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Key point, though, this isn't in the US, and the laws in Canada don't work the same way. Canadians don't necessarily have the exact same values as Americans, and one of those values is that hate speech is criminal rather than protected. These laws (and related ones) are occasionally controversial, but not nearly to the extent they would be in the US.
what is wrong with you? this would be a clear violation of the site owner's rights of freedom of speech in the US. the site owner didnt commit any crimes, he simply uploaded a video of it to his own site, which is protected under free speech.
So the United States has no laws prohibiting the posting of child porn or bestiality images? After all, the web site operator didn't rape the child, bugger the sheep, etc. he or she is simply exercising "free speech." Nonetheless, he or she is still accountable to the law for disseminating the child porn because it encourages the producers. Posting a murder video might be notionally legal in the US under purported "freedom of speech" but that does not remove the possibility that the law would take interest.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
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.
In the case Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition the supreme court struck down a provision in a law as unconstitutional that stated that simulated child pornography was illegal. In other words, CGI child porn is definitely considered free speech.