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Facebook Asks Users: Should We Allow Men To Ask Children For Sexual Images? (theguardian.com)
Alex Hern, writing for The Guardian: Facebook has admitted it was a "mistake" to ask users whether paedophiles requesting sexual pictures from children should be allowed on its website. On Sunday, the social network ran a survey for some users asking how they thought the company should handle grooming behaviour. "There are a wide range of topics and behaviours that appear on Facebook," one question began. "In thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebook's policies, how would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures." The options available to respondents ranged from "this content should not be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be able to see it" to "this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it." A second question asked who should decide the rules around whether or not the adult man should be allowed to ask for such pictures on Facebook. Options available included "Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook" and "Facebook decides the rules on its own."
Actual crimes should not be allowed on Facebook.
Is it that hard to get?
I thought this would have already decided by federal law? It doesn't seem like it is even up to Facebook or its userbase.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I disagree, it is a great question. They can more closely monitor the perverts who answered "this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it."
The real path to male liberation
Seriously. How? How did anyone at any level of the company think this was a good idea for long enough that it made it out into public view?
Talk about being asleep at the wheel. How many in management are now going to claim ignorance when confronted with this?
The implicature is that if an adult woman asks for an explicit picture of a boy or a girl it is OK.
And it's sexist. There are plenty of female pedophiles.
Not flamebait! Just look at all the Female Teacher Sleeps With Student articles that are out there.... And it isn't just women sleeping with highschool boys; there have been incidents where women have been sleeping with highschool girls as well.
Why are children allowed on Facebook?
Because marketing to children is profitable.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Americans don't believe the rest of the world exists - you might give them a nasty surprise
Geez, WHERE were all these teachers back when "I" was in school?!?!
I mean, the ones we're seeing on TV are *HOT* too!!!
Frankly, I dunno how they're getting caught....I mean, what boy in his right mind would be turning in his hot chick teacher that he's banging???
Man, if that has been me back in JH or HS....I'd been a hero amongst my peers....
Man...kids don't know how good they have it today....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yes really.
"It's none of your goddamn business what people put in their private messages. Anything else falls under the 4th amendment. Get a court order."
Overall there's no evidence that Christians are more sexually deviant - but inevitably given that we actually take morality seriously and people prefer to avoid the topic, we rightly get accused of hypocrisy when we do get caught. And Rome's insistence of clerical celibacy and their cover up of child abuse has been a disaster. But overall:
'It's far more fun to point your finger than recognise your own failings'...
No, the trolls didn't win.
The fact that they're asking the question means they're trying to cast off legal liabilities associated with gruesome possibilities.
Youth on Facebook are quite impressionable, and youth is very vulnerable to sexual misdeeds of adults. IMHO, everyone under 18 on Facebook should have a mentoring sponsor, who's active and sees everything (including private messages) of the under 18 set. It's called parenting. After 18: you graduate and you're on your own, use condoms.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
It's funny that you condemn non-Christian morality on the basis on ancient Greece having an age of consent equivalent to modern Italy and Germany (14), when it's most likely Mary was likely the same age as marriage and child bearing was back then, i.e. even younger- 12, and often to *much* older men-- Joseph was older by decades-- (in practice, where premarital sex was common there were no restrictions whatsoever regarding age before ~1200AD, where the first laws varied from 6 to 12). Funny, 12 was also the age of consent in Vatican City for quite a while wasn't it? Until 2013 (and it still has exceptions for married males 16-17 and females 14-17). Religion has exactly zero legs to stand on when it comes to discussing modern values regarding consent; argue why your particular number is the absolute truth and all others must be condemned, but your 'Christian values' can't back you up unless you pick a fairly low number that I think you'd find even atheists won't agree on.
"I'd been a hero amongst my peers"... and you don't understand how they're getting caught?
I can't seem to find stats on the percentage of female pedophiles. But I'd argue that the number is likely under reported because the boys don't care/complain.
As for the age, I'd agree that 17 isn't it, but then what age is? I don't think we're discussing statutory rape cases here, but the ages vary from state to state in the US in regards to how old you need to be to legally consent.
Just another day in Paradise
Non-existent?
https://www.theguardian.com/so... disagrees with you, and that doesn't take into account the very high percentage of women that like to play with the penis of male babies when they change a nappy.
Just because the justice system is inherently and excessively sexist doesn't mean that women don't commit crimes.
Of course. A few examples:
- Japan, South Korea, Argentina: 13
- Germany, Italy, Austria, Portugal, much of South America, China: 14
- France, Sweden, Denmark, Greece: 15
Quite often, there are some qualifications to this (e.g. if you are much older, you may still get into trouble), but generally, this at least allows youths to have consensual sex without fear of criminal retribution (e.g. from parents that don't approve of the relationship complaining to the police). What use is it to society to punish a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old that are in a relationship for having consensual sex?
In Israel, where I live, a 14 year old is allowed to have sex with someone less than 19. I am talking about something completely without qualifications. Note that the question was talking about an adult and a 14 year old, not about a teeanger and a 14 year old.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
In any sensible world, that is handled the same way it was handled for the telephone system: communications providers don't listen in on private conversations without a court order. We used to impose severe penalties for that kind of eavesdropping.
And, thank you, Facebook for being at least so open about it. People have a choice in communications platforms and "Communicate on Facebook--We Give You More Surveillance than the Stasi! Now with AI!" is a really catchy sales pitch. Let's see how that works out for you.
Apparently teen girls just post pics of themselves naked without even being asked.
My kid's school even had a whole initiative, if you will, to educate the middle schoolers why it's a bad idea to take pics of themselves naked. Usual reasons..."friends" redistributing, lost or stolen phones, hacked accounts. This was around the time of the Great Fappening.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
32? It was actually 20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In Scandinavia, the rules seem to be 12-14 year olds can do what they like, consensually, with each other, that 15 is the age of consent. France has similar rules, I think. Britain, the age of consent is 16. So she was legal when her first softcore pics came out. Far as I know, the rules haven't changed there.
In America, child brides are reportedly a major problem. Virginia only changed its rules last year so that marrying the victim of an assault doesn't mean the assault didn't happen. (There was nothing in the rules about consent.) Apparently, according to The Grauniad, there are states with similar laws on the book.
America is ultra-puritanical when it comes to women's rights, but not so much when it comes to predator's rights.
I tend to think Europe has a much better grasp of rights than America. They tend to be universal rather than selective, although that's not always the case, and tend to be slightly more modern and slightly less religious. But this does not mean that they should be adopted globally for social media.
This is where child psychologists, psychologists specializing in social media, psychologists specializing in trauma and ethicists from around the globe should be getting together and debating the issue as experts in a relatively calm, relatively neutral atmosphere. They should then, as experts, jointly produce recommendations on different types of consent and the ages they are appropriate at under varying cultural environments if you want optimal mental health for all concerned and least harm.
Right now, people are throwing numbers around as though it's a circus act. These are people's lives, not mass entertainment. A wrong decision in either direction can cause incalculable damage. And the number isn't guaranteed to be fixed. France has a lot of problems, but it doesn't have significantly more than the Bible Belt. Norway isn't perfect, but it's a damn sight better off than Virginia! But if Virginia followed Norway, would it be better? If the Bible Belt copied French laws, would that solve anything? Chances are, no. Different cultures produce different rates of emotional maturity.
We need a model that can tell us, for any given culture, what would be sensible for any given situation. With that, there's still practically no chance anyone (least of all Facebook) would make sensible decisions, but at least we'd have an idea of the impact of a decision and the harm likely done by it.
Obviously no number, however sophisticated, is going to replace consent, but as politicians have no grasp of consent, they can't really do anything useful about it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Britain: The age of consent is sixteen, but with two exceptions.
- If a position of trust or influence exists between the parties (eg, teacher/student) then the age goes up to eighteen.
- We do not have a formal close-in-age exception enshrined in law like some other jurisdictions do, but in there is a published policy from the home office that in such cases prosecution would not generally be considered in the public interest. That is, if a sixteen year old has sex with a fifteen year old, the police will give them a firm telling-off but won't throw them in jail.
VA resident here.
The law used to be that young pregnant girl's parents could consent. Now, you have to be 18, or emancipated and 16 (via court order) or older. According to a Washington Post article, ~4500 girls under 18 were married in VA between 2004 and 2013, and the rule was being abused for forced marriages, statutory rape, and human trafficking. Virginia wasn't the only one. At least four other states introduced similar bills.
Just another day in Paradise
Incoming rant:
Until someone is able to negotiate and establish the boundaries of consent before sexual congress occurs, and is enthusiastic in maintaining those boundaries for all partners, they are mentally and socially unprepared for sex. I think 18 represents an age where a young person is both able to endure the devastating effects of a poorly informed and structured sexual life, and also is able to sign contracts for loans and take financial responsibility for a child if one were to occur. Not that either of these outcomes are optimal, it's just the most convenient age to put the responsibility and consequences strictly on the individual. Before that it is the parent's responsibility. Sadly many children do not achieve sexual escape velocity by that age and repeat the same mistakes, or interrelated aftereffects of their parent's mistakes, until they either learn better (negative reinforcement) or transform themselves.
You cannot maintain a child's innocence though ignorance. Teach the basics, like consent discussion, as early as possible. Of course this means you need to be speaking to someone with near encyclopedic knowledge of sexual anatomy, practices, and sexual health. These are the precursors to the basics of sex education. If your child does not know all about these things from you, backed up by authoritative and 100% factual knowledge, and they are of the age where this is relevant to their experience of life, you are failing your child as their parent and opening the door for them to experience abuse.
In short, if you are not having frank, open, structured, and cogent discussions about human sexuality with your children you are failing them. You will be the reason they get an STD, get raped, or cause a pregnancy. You will be the reason they are confused, shamed, and conflicted. You will be the reason they cannot express themselves sexually, why they are passive and submissive rather than self assured (being passive and submissive AND self assured is a very different thing), and you will open them up to manipulation and subversion.
Be advised, due to many social influences your child will receive a full sex education by the age of 7-9 years old, whether you want them to or not. If you do not provide the proper information, someone else will provide improper information. First in last out rules apply, so be prepared to spend an inordinate amount of time correcting assumptions based on incorrect information that gets there first. Delay is your enemy. Your conflicted thoughts are also dangerous. Your squeamishness and inability to act and deal with the reality of your child's sexual health can have lifelong consequences that are not only physical but emotional and psychological as well.
For your child's sake, and for the sake of the rest of us who have to live in a world with your child, do your goddamned job as a parent. Thanks! /rant
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
How on earth do you know that a "very high percentage of women like to play with the penis of male babies when they change a nappy"??
I mean, I can't even see where you would get this idea, much less where you'd get the evidence from. And I sure as shit ain't searching for *that* online.