Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/07/three-reasons-child-porn-must-be-re-legalized-in-the-coming-decade/

by pwg • 14 years ago

344 291 14 years ago

droob3• 14 years ago

I find these edge cases extremely implausible, and counter to the way crimes are investigated and prosecuted. "Possessing cocaine is illegal but IMAGINE IF SOMEONE THREW A COCAINE BRICK AT YOU AND YOU CAUGHT IT!!!"

olalonde2• 14 years ago

I don't thing it's such an edge case. I'd be willing to bet that at least 90% of people on HN have witnessed child pornography at least once on the Internet. That's a lot of criminals. Spend a few minutes on 4chan's /b/ and you will probably see some.

droob3• 14 years ago

But "witnessed" is not the same as "arrested for" or "prosecuted for".

rmc6• 14 years ago

What? When you say "child porn" do you mean a 17 year old in a bikini? Or a 3 year old being raped? There is a massive difference between the 2.

billswift2• 14 years ago

There have been cases where drugs were mailed to an address and the person receiving the package, not knowing what was in it, was arrested. That is one reason why no one who has any sense will accept a package they were not expecting.

Falling310• 14 years ago

Really? I think you're being a bit hyperbolic here as my chances of getting a surprise gift are far better than the odds of me getting set up with cocaine.

pbhjpbhj9• 14 years ago

>There have been cases [...] //

You know what's great about legal cases, particularly this sort, they are so well documented and mentioned in newspapers, etc..

Citations please.

Now there being cases where a crim' claimed that they didn't know the package was drugs, that I can imagine in a heart beat.

guard-of-terra16• 14 years ago

But if you look from another angle - why should cocaine possession be illegal at all?

Cocaine seems (to me) to be somewhat less severe drug than, say, alcohol.

Same applies to child porn. A lot of stuff qualifies as child porn recently, including stuff originally not meant to be any kind of porn neither produced with any harm to kids. Unless child porn prosecution proponents can limit themself with some strict definition of child porn (which they would not do), I say we lose by criminalizing possession of random pics that were considered OK thirty years before.

Symmetry4• 14 years ago

Most of the studies I've seen say that cocaine is roughly as dangerous to the user as cocaine, but that someone using alcohol is much more likely to end up harming others.

rmc6• 14 years ago

Drug prohibition is a different issue.

Yes, there are cases of things which are not child porn in spirit, however its important to remember that there are things that are actual child porn. There are pictures of young children and toddlers and babies being raped. We don't see them in the mass media, because they are disgusting, but they exist. Don't forget that creating this pictures is probably one of the most horrific and harmful crimes in modern society.

yk• 14 years ago

It may be a edge case, but we use edge cases to map the territory. To illustrate in the case of the cocaine throwing madman, the lesson is that there are ways to come into possession of cocaine which should not be prosecuted. If we therefore ban the possession of drugs in every case, then it is possibly that innocent people will be prosecuted.

fiblye• 14 years ago

People in other parts of the world have been arrested for having stepped on marijuana particles: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1884201...

America's CP laws are quite similar to this. If you even have a 32x32 thumbnail cached in your browser history, whether or not you were even looking for it, you'll get arrested and imprisoned in most places. I think New York is the only state to have ruled this out and require you to knowingly save it.

And yes, people quite frequently have drugs planted on them or have a friend leave something behind without their knowledge and get charged with it.

sidcool• 14 years ago

I saw Sergey Brin's pic in that article and flipped. Then upon reading the image description felt relieved.

dsr_• 14 years ago

He has his own counterargument in a note near the beginning:

   But possession of child pornography is a strict liability offense, like possession of cocaine, at least in the entire United States, as well as several other countries. Intent, mens rea, is irrelevant: if you have it, no matter why, you're guilty.

OK, so make mens rea a required element. It's a reasonable reform.

macchina2• 14 years ago

It's actually not a true strict liability offense, at least in the United States.

For example, 18 USC § 2252A(a)(2)(A) criminalizes "knowingly receiv[ing] or distribut[ing] any child pornography." § 2252A(a)(5) requires "knowingly possess[ing], or knowingly access[ing] with intent to view, any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, computer disk, or any other material that contains an image of child pornography."

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2252 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2252A

To be sure, "knowingly" is a lower mens rea standard than something like "willfully" or "intentionally" which require bad intent, but it is not strict liability.

Examples of strict liability crimes which have no mens rea requirement are statutory rape and drunk driving.

Falkvinge3• 14 years ago

Thank you for this additional information about specifics of the United States. The described case with accidentally recording and realizing you accidentally recorded still makes you culpable under the "knowingly", though.

Cheers, Rick

TazeTSchnitzel3• 14 years ago

That would solve half the problems overnight.

Natsu• 14 years ago

I was under the impression that there were some provisions intended to protect those who stumble across CP. As I recall, you have to either destroy it immediately or show it only to the cops (and not to anyone else) and you obviously can't just keep accessing then deleting the same material.

sanxiyn2• 14 years ago

In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coaliti... Supreme Court wrote:

The Child Pornography Prevention Act also prohibits speech having serious redeeming value, proscribing the visual depiction of an idea -- that of teenagers engaging in sexual activity -- that is a fact of modern society and has been a theme in art and literature for centuries.

krakensden2• 14 years ago

He seems to be writing primarily about Sweden.

sanxiyn2• 14 years ago

I think the argument stands. I think even in Sweden, teenagers engaging in sexual activity is a fact of modern society and has been a theme in art and literature for centuries.

jliechti1• 14 years ago

The main points of the article are well-summarized at the end, TL;DR:

"It’s not illegal to film a murder. It’s not illegal to possess a film of a murder. But it’s still illegal to murder people. And it’s illegal to initiate a murder for the purpose of filming it. If you have taken part in a murder and have film of it, the film may be usable as proof against you. I can’t see that Rick suggests anything different here – i.e., I see no suggestions that it should be OK to molest children for the purpose of filming it. That’s good."

Cushman5• 14 years ago

Presented as a reductio at the end of the article:

  It’s not illegal to film a murder.
  It’s not illegal to possess a film of a murder.

But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for "Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and cleared it from your cache? What if people who watched video evidence of a crime and didn't report it to the authorities were treated as just a little bit complicit? What if the media were prevented from broadcasting potentially titillating evidence of crime to the public, but had to leave its analysis up to the professionals?

Can we say categorically that that would be bad for our society?

prunebeads2• 14 years ago

> But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for "Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and cleared it from your cache?

Then you'd probably get police forces overwhelmed with bogus complaints.

Cushman5• 14 years ago

Maybe. They seem to handle copyrighted content pretty well.

jeltz4• 14 years ago

An example of this is the Finish child pornography filter. If you look at the list of blocked sites you will note that most of the sites are regular porn sites (mostly gay porn), and some are not porn at all. Some people seem to be abusing the filter to block what they personally find to be disgusting with little or no investigation from the Finish police. If these porn sites really hosted child pronography should the Finish police not just inform the authorities of the country where the site is hosted?

Wikipedia article about the website of the guy who started research into the child pron filter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapsiporno.info

His website was later blocked by the filter despite the filter only being intended to be used against foreign websites.

tokenizer2• 14 years ago

Yes. Like the author points out. In the case of child pornography, simply having it is illegal regardless of reason, which makes people who come across such content, destroying their evidence.

This would only put more people in jail, the killer (maybe), and the people watching it (maybe). I'd rather it just be the killer. And the molester in the case of the article.

Cushman5• 14 years ago

The author's case in claiming that is hilariously weak. He presents a ludicrously tromped-up stranger-rape scenario where the rapist gets off scott-free because of child porn laws. But wait, he says this isn't some "far-fetched science fiction scenario". He's about to tell us about a case where something very like this happened or almost happened!

This is exactly what will happen as our mobile phones take the next step, which has already started, and we will be there in less than ten years.

Oh. There isn't actually any evidence of anything like that ever happening or almost happening, it's just what he imagines might happen when technology gets a little more advanced. You know, I think that's actually the definition of a "far-fetched science fiction scenario".

im3w1l• 14 years ago

That would make a large part of our current culture illegal (assuming fictional murders are counted)

Cushman5• 14 years ago

Presumably the standard would be, as with pornography, that the media in question must have some literary or cultural value apart from its illegal content.

ZeroGravitas• 14 years ago

Do you realize you've just suggested banning 90% of all tv shows, films, books, plays?

jwatte2• 14 years ago

Most movies in history would be illegal, because most of them depict murders. Note that it being an /actual/ murder or abused child is not a requirement.

rprasad2• 14 years ago

There is a difference between an actual murder and a depiction of a murder. In the former, someone actually dies. In the latter, an actor falls over.

The actual crime is very much an element to the illegality of a snuff film. Snuff films are illegal precisely because someone actually dies. Child porn is illegal because a kid actually gets raped.

There are a few rare situations involving "fake" child porn. Should these be illegal? The Supreme Court has said that virtual child pornography might not be illegal but that either way such content was justification for holding a person in a mental institution as a danger to others. There is an extremely high (as in, greater than 80%) correlation between willing viewership of child pornography and attempts to abuse/molest/rape a child or acquire actual chil porn. With pedophiles, child porn isn't just an abstract media form like a TV show; it's like going to a Ku Klux Klan rally with a snuff film showing a black man get lynched and exhorting the crowd to do the same.

ThePherocity3• 14 years ago

I hope he gets hit by a truck today. I really do. There isn't, nor will there ever be an argument where the enablement of child molestation and rape is acceptable. And if there is collateral damage, then so be it. I'd rather 100 go to jail wrongfully accused than to enable 1 child to be rape. This guy make me sick. Seriously Rick, please kill yourself.

bmelton• 14 years ago

I'm not 100% sure if you read the article, but the _first_ _point_ is that making criminalizing child pornography (therefore causing 100 innocent people to wrongfully go to jail) will, in the future, enable more child rapes.

The possession of child pornography carries harsher penalties than the act of raping the child in the first place, which is I think wrong on a very obvious level, but by your (hopefully knee-jerk) reply, is a position you would agree with.

Daniel_Newby7• 14 years ago

> The possession of child pornography carries harsher penalties than the act of raping the child in the first place, ...

And the rape carries higher penalties than recklessly killing them.

Falkvinge3• 14 years ago

Thank you for addressing me personally and wishing my premature death. However, I have no intention of obliging you in this particular matter.

Cheers and enjoy the Sunday night, Rick

ThePherocity3• 14 years ago

Okay, fine, I'm being an asshole.

olalonde2• 14 years ago

Please read the article before you comment. The author doesn't suggest at anytime that child molestation and rape are acceptable nor that they should be legalized.

ThePherocity3• 14 years ago

I read the article. The author intends to create an environment where a select few take a risk so many can gain access to the material.

mekwall• 14 years ago

Read the article again. Child molestation and rape is obviously never acceptable (except to the most disturbed of minds), but the same should be said about putting innocents in jail. You lower yourself to the most abysmal level to wish Rick upon this fate.

jemfinch• 14 years ago

When I and others say, "The quality of discussion at HN has diminished of late", and others respond, "I don't see it," I will refer them to your comment history and the fact that you have positive karma for it.

guard-of-terra16• 14 years ago

But what if you have 100 people wrongfully accused while still not saving that one child? "Well, it was worth a shot anyway?"

stickfigure4• 14 years ago

I sincerely hope that you someday find yourself one of those 100 wrongfully accused.

jrockway• 14 years ago

I also think you should be able to yell "Fire" in a crowed theater. Not being able to do so might cause someone observing a fire in a crowded theater to keep that information to himself rather than informing others, for fear of prosecution.

(I'm not even sure if I'm being sarcastic or not.)

toddmorey• 14 years ago

I don't agree that the only way to address these edge cases is to entirely repeal the laws rather than reform them. Technology changes, society changes, and the law adjusts. Sure I can imagine myself as an activist working against imprisonment of consensual (but teenage) couples as he describes, but never for outright acceptance of all child porn content.

3amOpsGuy• 14 years ago

I personally feel the parent of my comment is the most balanced view on the page currently.

For all I am liberal, or at least centre left, and a free speech advocate, I cannot see any benefit to the existance of child porn.

I would however like to see a reclassification (reduced scope) of what is and is not child pornography, and also introduce a requirement to prove willingness on the possessors part.

I can happily skip the strict black and white view of the world promoted in some of the top comments in this case. I am completely at ease with the idea of promoting free speech whilst going against free speech in the event of something which is harmful (I am referring to real child pornography not what the law currently classifies) and with no merit, not even the wildest interpretations of educational or artistic merit can redeem the need for child pornography to exist.

bediger40002• 14 years ago

> the law adjusts

Not according to at least two of the US Supreme Court Justices. The US Constitution is not a "living document" to them, not interpretable according to the norms of the time.

erichocean2• 14 years ago

I'm may be going out on a limb here, but the last time I read the US Constitution, I don't recall it saying anything for or against child pornography, so I don't think it'll be necessary to re-interpret the Constitution to update child porn laws.

sudonim2• 14 years ago

When I lived in Houston and was buying a house I used a website to look up sex offenders in the neighborhood.

I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when he was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old. It made me feel a little uncomfortable. It struck me because I was in my mid 20s and I think we were around the same age at the time.

Something is amiss in a system that punishes him for life and places him alongside men in their 40s convicted for touching toddlers.

nhebb• 14 years ago

The same situation happened to a family member of mine. He was 19 and his girlfriend was 17. Her dad got mad at him one night, called the cops, and had him arrested for statutory rape. He is now a registered sex offender.

They went on dating and several years later got engaged. The relationship fell through, and they never did get married. But if they had, he would have been a registered sex offender for having sex with his wife. Granted, there's a timing issue, but it does show how tragically absurd some of these cases are.

cantankerous• 14 years ago

I'm not sure about your locale, but I know in my state you can petition the courts to have yourself removed from the sex offenders registry. It's a case-by-case thing, but it gives some hope to people like your family member, people who got busted for public urination, and other people who probably shouldn't be grouped in the same category as pedophiles.

watty2• 14 years ago

It's not like his crime was hidden, you read it yourself. The only thing the 19 year old and a 40 year old who touches toddlers is that they both committed a sexual crime. Even though they are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum it's still true.

Falling310• 14 years ago

No... one is abhorrent and takes a significant toll on someone too young to know what is even happening.

The other is sex between to consenting, able-minded people.

Conflating the two is dangerous, offensive, and just plain stupid.

sophacles3• 14 years ago

The gp poster is one of a very enlightened few. There was a person in a similar situation in my area for a while. Someone found him on the registry, and he was subsequently banned from several organizations he was previously considered a valuable member of. By this time he was in his late 20s and talking to some of the shriller voices against them, I realized they didn't understand the difference between something he did at 19 and something he wouldn't do at 28. They just assumed he was after their 13 year old daughters and nothing else. Ruined a lot of his ability to participate in society.

Similarly, there are many, many employers who will dismiss any chance for job based on mere presence on the list. No questions, no mitigating circumstance. This is a punishment that is life-long, goes far beyond the crime, and honestly, leaves little recourse for the offender to become a drain on society, or turn to further crimes just to get by. (blast me for being a stupid hippy liberal if you want, but explain how we expect someone to get a job if we deny them the ability to get a job without saying "just get a job").

parfe• 14 years ago

>I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when he was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old.

The age of consent in Texas is 17 with a 3 year Romeo and Juliet exception.

dllthomas2• 14 years ago

The incident could have happened in another jurisdiction.

SoftwareMaven2• 14 years ago

Interesting that Texas, arguably one of the most rigidly Christian states in the country with evidence of moral legislation, is actually reasonable in this regard.

Rich makes a lot of assertions about fundamental Christians, but provides little evidence to back them up.

sudonim2• 14 years ago

Maybe I misremembered the ages? They were very close because my shock at the time is etched in my brain. Could have been 18 - 16.

And I'm guessing this guy was convicted before Romeo & Juliet laws. Looks like Rick Perry also vetoed that law in 2011? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent_reform

Wikipedia is a little unclear on the issue.

nostromo• 14 years ago

Overzealous prosecutors have also charged teens that "sext" other teens with possession of child pornography. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28679588/ns/technology_and_scien...)

We've ended up in the odd place that a teen in possession of pictures of his or her own body is breaking an incredibly grim law.

vacri2• 14 years ago

Ironically in some jurisdictions prostitution is illegal but making porn is legal, so in a reverse of your comment, an illegal act can become legal by simply filming it.

darkarmani2• 14 years ago

How is that overzealous? That's exactly why the CP laws are crazy.

vasco• 14 years ago

I've heard a similar story about a guy who was drunk and pissed in a playground in the middle of the night.

ineedtosleep• 14 years ago

The Economist had an article about this a while back. Pretty eye opening when I first read it: http://www.economist.com/node/14164614

logn• 14 years ago

(Regarding the US) I had a friend who went streaking on campus and was picked up by police. He got off of the charges on a technicality but almost was convicted. Had he been, he would have had to register as a sex offender. Same goes for public urination. We have a pretty insane system.

I'm not sure the general public could ever follow a nuanced argument like this to understand it though. We usually legislate like fundamentalist mothers with an IQ of 80.

HarryHirsch• 14 years ago

Indeed. In a functional society the district attorney would decline to prosecute as there is no benefit to society in going after a public urinator, streaker, or sexting teenage couple. But here in the US a politician has to be "tough on crime" or work for the "benefit of the children".

darklajid2• 14 years ago

Excuse me, I don't mean to accuse or judge.

Why are you checking that database in the first place? In my world your access to this information is the reason for its right to exist in your social context. I doubt that it's possible to check these lists and criticize them at the same time. What lead you to check it out?

lotharbot3• 14 years ago

> "I doubt that it's possible to check these lists and criticize them at the same time."

It's quite reasonable to find value in the lists of dangerous sex offenders, while criticizing the inclusion of people for trivial offenses.

Klinky2• 14 years ago

It is not strange for someone moving to an area to check out the sex offender registry here in the US, especially if someone has children. Anyone can check the registry out at anytime @ http://www.nsopw.gov as well as other websites. There are legitimately dangerous people on the sex offender registry. There are also people who are on there due to dubious reasons, e.g. being drunk and peeing in public or having sex with their girlfriend while under a certain age.

Falling310• 14 years ago

How is someone to know how problematic the database is without looking at it first? His criticism would be much less warranted if he'd never look at the registry.

alaaibrahim2• 14 years ago

I'm sorry, I don't live in the US so maybe I don't really understand, but why do these websites even exist.

If someone is a dangerous sex offender, he shouldn't even be in the streets. If not, then he committed the crime, did the time, why does he need to be punished for life?

erichocean2• 14 years ago

If not, then he committed the crime, did the time, why does he need to be punished for life?

In fact, he didn't "do the time", because part of the punishiment is a life-long listing in the sex offender registries.

If you'd rather, you can think of it this way: sexual offenses in the US carry a mandatory life-sentence, with some of that sentence being time spent in jail.

tzs• 14 years ago

Texas changed that law last year. Now if one partner is under 17 and one over, but they are four years or less apart in age, and the younger partner is at least 15, then consensual sex between the two is legal.

People convicted under the old law can petition a court to be removed from the offender list.

Daniel_Newby7• 14 years ago

> People convicted under the old law can petition a court to be removed from the offender list.

No, listing is permanent. The background check companies never remove anything from their databases. In fact having a court purge an old conviction may make your life worse, since there is no longer an official record of the insignificance of the crime, just a private database that says CRIMINAL, CRIMINAL!

Monotoko• 14 years ago

There are also various countries who have different laws on this kind of thing. It reminds me of an album cover by the Scorpians back in 1976, the original cover is on the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer (great album btw) but it was banned in the USA.

In other words, anyone from the USA who clicks that wikipedia page may be committing a federal offence of possessing child porn on their computers (because media is downloaded into the cache from the site.) - crazy right?

stratosvoukel• 14 years ago

The article raises a lot of valid points. Not all imagery of non-adults having sex are made under non-consensual circumstances, or consumed as means of sexual pleasure. The law doesnt take this under account.

Big tech and media organisations (eg Google or any image or video hosting service provider), process and filter a huge amount of illegal child porn everyday. They even have employees doing this, watching and censoring child porn that is. Isnt watching it, even in order to censor it, according to such laws, illegal? Also while the material remains in the servers, isnt the company liable for possession ?

In Greece for example, the law is rather simple and doesnt cover such cases.

Falling310• 14 years ago

As sudonim pointed out, there are some really gross abuses of the whole sex offender system. I've heard of a lot of people that are in there for terrible reasons.

I definitely agree with the author to some extent. We do seem to be inordinately concerned with child pornography. The term pedophile has moved from a psychological disorder to a synonym for child molester. I am fully against real child pornography but there is no good reason to treat the virtual version the same way. I think a good part of it stems from the false assumption that watching X pornography will cause the viewer to wish to engage in X. As usual, fear and ignorance are the favorite legal foundations.

birdcircle3• 14 years ago

"So imagine a scenario ten years down the road, as you’re taking a stroll in the park." .... "WHAM. You are now a criminal, guilty of recording, distributing, and possessing child pornography."

I find this highly implausible. Hypotheticals like this damage the argument. Crimes are caught on camera everyday. Seems to me the crime here (aside form the rape) is to knowingly destroy evidence of the crime, which the innocent strollers in this scenario are supposedly encouraged to do out fear for themselves. I have not thought about this enough to have a strong opinion other than simple gut reaction, but it seems more evidence to support this idea in particular is needed.

drcube• 14 years ago

In this case both destroying the evidence and possessing the evidence are crimes. What are you supposed to do?

birdcircle3• 14 years ago

I challenge anyone to find actual foundation for the claim that unwittingly recording a child rape in the park is a crime even if the witness reports it and provides the video evidence. Seems to me that this is the "slippery slope" argument taken to unreasonable extremes.

lotharbot3• 14 years ago

possessing the evidence is a crime, unless you can make an "affirmative defense" (I've commented about it elsewhere on this page.)

One form of "affirmative defense" is "contact law enforcement and turn over the recording". This is what you are supposed to do (standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)

Symmetry4• 14 years ago

They're both crimes, but you're much less likely to get arrested if you don't go to the police.

crazygringo• 14 years ago

There's a lot of food for thought here, and important points. But in one area, the author completely glosses over a crucial distinction:

> why is it only documentation of sex crimes against minors that are being banned in this way? The lawmen are perfectly fine with a video documenting how a teenager is being stabbed with a screwdriver in both eyes, then murdered. ... why is the ban just related to anything sexual, and not to the bodily harm itself...?

There's a very important reason only documentation of sex crimes against minors is banned -- there isn't a big market for watching videos of murders. Virtually no one is going to go out and film themselves murdering people in order to satisfy a market for those videos.

But the reasoning goes that if child porn is legal, then this will actively encourage more child rape, etc., so that it can be filmed and distributed. Plus, even if we're really good against preventing the actual acts in the US, we're still creating markets for it in other countries, especially third-world ones. So children suffer.

But then there's another argument, that having child porn around is actually better than the alternative -- because potential molesters/rapists are able to satisfy their desire with existing videos. If they don't have the videos, then they go out and commit horrible acts. So, better to stick to the videos.

There are no easy answers.

TazeTSchnitzel3• 14 years ago

>But then there's another argument, that having child porn around is actually better than the alternative -- because potential molesters/rapists are able to satisfy their desire with existing videos.

In Japan, "lolicon" and "shotacon" (referring to (sometimes animated) pornography of underage (often pre-pubescent) females and males respectively) seem to be widely available, so that would be interesting to look into. I don't know if rates of child molestation are higher or lower, there.

evoxed• 14 years ago

Actually possession of child pornography isn't illegal here either, and for that specific reason IIRC. Buying/selling or attempting to distribute are crimes though– basically it's like weed in Massachusetts. That being said I don't know the statistics on underage molestation but I don't think it would provide a very helpful model for the US.

guard-of-terra16• 14 years ago

Okay, but then why criminalize shots for which it can be proven that no child were harmed along the way? Talking mostly about children filming themself and the like.

jwatte2• 14 years ago

In the US (and Sweden) it's apparently illegal to possess /drawings/ of child porn. No child harm needed, only the potential for impure thoughts.

Fundamentalists of any kind trying to impose thought crime is the real problem here. Fix that, and the rest will follow.

sophacles3• 14 years ago

Shock video sites that feature murders, dismemberment and other forms of crime on video for voyeuristic pleasure are a pretty big business. Perhaps not as big as child pornography woud be/is, but big enough that your distinction is a bit questionable.

Further, videos of people getting murdered raise enough of an outcry that they get investigated/prosecuted much harder. Instances of child molestation are hidden, so there can only be public outcry in the abstract, leading to crazy laws that resemble witch hunts more than legal proceedings.

Falling310• 14 years ago

I almost commented about this... but then I realize I had no evidence whatsoever for any of those claims.

Do you?

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/snuff.asp

jlgreco3• 14 years ago

Not just shock videos, but propaganda videos of things like IED or sniper attacks in certain warzones as well. The ability to distribute those videos plays a non-trivial role in why those attacks are carried out. Blowing up a car or two for the sake of the act itself isn't worth much, but the propaganda value of those videos shouldn't be underestimated.

If I were inclined to think that banning those videos would actually do anything to prevent people who wanted to see them from seeing them (I do not), I would assert that banning those videos would disincentivize the acts.

PaperclipTaken• 14 years ago

As other people have pointed out, this isn't so much true as popular belief might suggest. There are people out there who enjoy watching death, but most of the content comes from pre-existing stuff (security cameras, and deaths that were filmed for reasons other than making a snuff video).

However, I think that the same thing would apply to child porn. If murder was a misdemeanor, and if it were easier to get away with, I'm sure there would be a lot more 'snuff' videos, or videos filmed with the sole purpose of filming someone being killed. Child rape and abuse would still be a highly offensive crime, and especially if a video became popular, it would attract legal attention. And child porn distributors don't want that. Instead, they would most likely do exactly what the snuff distributors do -> compile existing videos of child rape and nudity and porn and whatever twisted fetish.

But there's an even stronger upside. Now, the content is public! Currently, the best place for a pedophile to get child porn is Tor, where several guides and communities exist regarding the legal-consequence-free production of child porn. Why? Because child porn is so tightly regulated that the only way for some pedophiles to get what they want is to produce it themselves.

There was one study (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-11/s-lcp113010.p...) that suggested that legalizing child porn in an area actually reduced rates of child sex abuse. Isn't that the end goal?

Child porn is like the video of the person getting stabbed in the eyes by a screw driver. It happened, and there are probably people in the world who derive pleasure from watching the video. Be we shouldn't censor it. That act is something that happened, and banning the video doesn't change the fact that some people do terrible things.

The ban on child pornography is primarily our society trying to make a problem disappear by trying to hide it from consciousness. Child pornography is particularly special because it combines three things that are particularly touchy in our society (at the very least, midwest US society). 1. Sexuality. As a culture, we don't like being open about sexuality. We are very much "sexuality is beautiful - in marriage. Otherwise keep it away from me. Also keep it away from yourself, because it's not good for you." 2. Children. Watching an 80 year old man get murdered is pretty bad. Watching a 25 year old young adult getting murdered is harder to watch, especially if he had a bright future. Watching a 10 year old boy get murdered is terrible. What could a 10 year old boy have done that was so unforgivable? Rape is no different. 3. A strong historical stigma. I mention child pornography and you don't even have to picture child pornography. You already have a reaction, something that either you've programmed into yourself or that has been programmed into you (probably more the latter though).

That makes child pornography particularly hard to confront and justify. "Free speech is good, and I'm all for free speech, but child pornography is soooo awful, and it already exists as an exception. Do we really need to legalize something as awful child pornography for the sake of free speech? Are there even examples of legitimate child pornography? And what will people think if I start supporting the legalization of child pornography?"

There's a lot of momentum against the legalization of child pornography. But there's a lot of difficult-to-face logic that supports the legalization of child pornography. And again, legalizing child pornography does NOT mean legalizing production, does NOT mean legalizing abuse, does NOT mean supporting the act. It just means supporting the documentation of the act.

If none of the most horrible crimes against humanity were legal to be documented, journalism would die. We would lose historical records of the Holocaust. (Mountains of bodies? Is there a legitimate reason to have pictures lying around of mountains of dead naked bodies? Of course there's a good reason to legalize the possession of the horrible images that came out of the Holocaust. And the same reason applies to child pornography.)

goggles996• 14 years ago

No they aren't.

ScottBurson3• 14 years ago

Here's a proposal. Mere possession should be legal, as Falkvinge argues. What should be illegal is purchasing child porn.

You might reply that it might be difficult to prove that money changed hands, particularly in this brave new Bitcoin world. Fine. Let's say that possession of images that are known to have been sold to anyone at any time constitutes prima facie circumstantial evidence that the person possessing the images paid for them.

Another objection might be that this law might not suffice for catching cabals of child pornographers who create and share images, but without money changing hands. Fine -- let's generalize the criterion to include any exchange of value, including in-kind exchanges. So trading images without monetary payment would still be illegal. (Of course, creating the images would remain highly illegal.)

The outcome would be that the provenance of the image would matter. Possessing an image taken by oneself, or by a friend, possibly by the subject -- all these would be legal, so long as no other crime was committed in the creation of the image or in obtaining it. But downloading material that was being circulated on the Net would still be very dangerous -- the probability of picking up an image that someone had paid for (or bartered for) sometime would soon approach 100%.

Let's call such images "tainted images". The provision that possession of a tainted image constitutes prima facie (i.e., rebuttable) evidence is important. It means that if you visit a Web site that pops up images of child porn, you haven't thereby committed a crime, so long as forensic examination of your computer supports your contention that this was accidental and not part of a pattern of behavior (e.g. there are only a couple of such images and they're only in your browser cache). Well, IANAL and I probably don't know exactly how the law should be phrased, but I think it should be along these lines.

mseebach2• 14 years ago

> let's generalize the criterion to include any exchange of value, including in-kind exchanges

> Possessing an image taken by oneself, or by a friend, possibly by the subject -- all these would be legal

If you're a prosecutor and you can't find anything in an average teenage text-exchange that constitues a quid-pro-quo ("I'll show you mine if you show me yours"), you simply aren't fit to do your job. And then we're back to square zero.

How about this: it's an indisputable fact that exchanging bits online (with the copyright holder's permission, of course) has no victims, don't make it illegal. Producing child pornography very much has victims, and should be illegal with the full force of the law. Managing money originating from illegal activities is also illegal, so paying for the production, or acting as any kind of middleman, would be too.

jonhendry2• 14 years ago

"Here's a proposal. Mere possession should be legal, as Falkvinge argues. What should be illegal is purchasing child porn."

Really? Why focus on purchase, when sharing is just as bad as far as incentivizing people producing new material to satisfy demand?

People will scan and distribute books, or crack software and distribute it, purely for whuffie or reputation. They'll do the same with child porn.

anonymous• 14 years ago

Why not criminalise only selling? If you criminalise buying, less people will buy it, therefore the sellers will be less visible. And you do want to catch the sellers, not the buyers.

I'm pretty sure peer pressure alone can regulate against people looking at child porn, no need to involve the police in it.

Falling310• 14 years ago

Isn't the easy answer virtual child porn? I really see no reason why this is also illegal except it makes people feel icky.

This allows potential rapists to satisfy their desires without harming any actual children.

ricardobeat3• 14 years ago

Why should everyone be "satisfied"? What if a similar percentage of the population has a knack for fresh brains?

Maybe that is what all those zombie movies are about: crime prevention.

anonymoushn• 14 years ago

We should probably work on legalizing that, then. Right now we're putting people in jail for importing comic books.

Akemi_Mokoto• 14 years ago

Virtual Child Porn is not illegal(in America) but obscene material is. Obscenity charges are rare and would only apply to hardcore porn if someone ever is brought up on such charges. They are a hard sell so it's not really perused by law enforcement. There is nothing wrong with it. If VCP was to be made illegal, violent video games should be made illegal too. America should follow Finland's footsteps and not makes laws on anything that does not harm someone physically or psychologically.

Falkvinge3• 14 years ago

> There's a very important reason only documentation of sex crimes against minors is banned -- there isn't a big market for watching videos of murders.

Ahem.

Fox News, CNN, al-Jazeera, BBC, ...

The market for videos of murders (wartime or criminal) is IMMENSE.

jeltz4• 14 years ago

And despite there being a huge market for depictions of murder thee has as far as I know never been anyone producing a snuff video for the money. People like Luka Magnotta either keep the videos for themselves or upload them for free.

lywald• 14 years ago

The abused kid has a right to privacy...

A moral right. Legally, I don't know.

But it is morally wrong to override that right.

Even if it means saving more kids (and I don't believe it does).

Just... Find another solution.

zerostar07• 14 years ago

But child porn is already relatively easily accessible for free via anonymous networks, maybe we could find stats whether this lead to increase or reduction of the volume that is circulating.

One thing that then legal ban does is it adds to the taboo factor that makes this stuff more desirable.

I think the bigger issue is that people still don't have frank discussions about sexual matters even in the west.

unconed5• 14 years ago

Falkvinge makes an excellent rebuttal to your point.

There IS a huge market for videos of violence. It's called the evening news, and they are all over that shit.

rimantas• 14 years ago

  > there isn't a big market for watching videos of murders.

This market is already saturated. Just count how many murders you see on TV every day.

tyciol4• 14 years ago

This links into his 'follow the money' theory. If people were doing this, you find out who is earning money from doing the abuse, and you jail them. Same with those who are funding it.

People who download music for free on pirating sites aren't supporting the music industry. So I don't see how people who simply receive the data (or even send it free) are supporting it.

Flooding the 'market' with free information saturates it to the point where people would not want to pay money for it. Or if they did, the amount they'd want to pay would be so low that it would decrease incentive for people to offend for purely monetary reasons.

People who would offend for non-monetary reasons would do so anyway, and legalizing the material would aid in tracking down the distribution network to patient 0.

SoftwareMaven2• 14 years ago

I don't agree with all of his assertions nor all of his reasoning, primarily because I think he completely glosses over any reasonable opinion that is contrary to the viewpoint he wants to present (for example, the relationship between child pornography and child molestation[1]). I think completely glossing over these items is disingenuous and hurts his cause.

This is a difference in degree, only, though, because, even if everything else he said was wrong, this part was not:

Child pornography is horrible and awful from every angle and in every aspect. But it is not dangerous to the fabric of society. Censorship and electronic book burning, however, is.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_por...

ot86• 14 years ago

I used to work at the abuse department for a large web host and domain registrar. We once received a complaint about an Egyptian forum that was supposedly hosting child pornography. The site was not hosted with us, but we were the domain registrar.

The complainant said that the forum had a secret board where users swapped child porn. They sent several links that did indeed show that child pornography was on the site and domain. However, since we only provided the domain registration, our response to the complainant was to contact the web host.

The complainant replied back with more links. That is when my boss became involved. She had very little experience with dealing with abuse issues, however, she was very vocal about the fact that our company was 'allowing' child pornography. She had us put the domain on "Client hold", which effectively disables the domain, removing the name servers from the registry. Afterwards, she scolded me and my two other colleagues for not taking the correct action (even though we were following our SOP based on our terms of service). Even the owners of the company heard about the situation and were glad that the site was shut down.

A week after, the complainant emailed us to thank us for taking down his competitors forum.

guard-of-terra16• 14 years ago

The real problem is not the child porn.

The real problem is "morals", "christianity" and "religion". Only by slaying these you can fix the problem in the long run. So:

- If you happen to be religious, quit it right now please.

- Press everybody to do that.

- If you find yourself pressing your "moral values" on somebody over, quit.

- Press everybody to do that.

It's pointless anyway since gods aren't real. And your moral values likely aren't very moral in the end.

(The main problem - most of people who is affected by this issue aren't on HN; most of people on HN aren't affected)

mrkurt• 14 years ago

"Protect the children" is a much, much broader issue than oppression for religious regions.

guard-of-terra16• 14 years ago

It is a symptom. The cause is religions - people who think they've got to impose their interpretation of morality (to which they themselves do not conform) on wide public.

It is made clearly in the article that bad laws are lobbied by religious fundamentalists. Since religions have no value, I say clean it up.

objclxt2• 14 years ago

This is a really terrible argument. You say "if you find yourself pressing your "moral values" on somebody over, quit", but then impose your own moral values upon everyone else.

I'm an atheist, but I also accept that religion isn't necessarily the cause of all moral problems, but merely a conduit through which they flow. Find me a Catholic who's against abortion and I'll find you an atheist who feels the same way.

A wholly atheistic society would still have many of the moral and ethical problems we face today - the arguments for and against them would merely manifest themselves differently.

guard-of-terra16• 14 years ago

The problem with Catholics lies not in the fact that they are against abortion, but in the fact that they are against somebody else's abortion.

They somehow got the idea that instead of helping poor raise their children, talking to pregnant girls, all the good stuff - they can just take a big stick and make things illegal. As if it helps anybody.

This is where we have a problem, as you can see. Mentoring people to not have sex because Jesus didn't is one thing. Throwing people in jails is a kind of mortal sin, but for religion. They did it so now they aren't saved.

mseebach2• 14 years ago

Never mind the irony of your crusade to end the pressing of moral values onto others itself constituting pressing of values onto others, you seem to completely misunderstand the concepts of morality and religion. Please read The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt if you care to broaden your horizon a little.

guard-of-terra16• 14 years ago

Care to highlight the "correct" understanding in 140 characters or less?

Derbasti• 14 years ago

One: This stuff should be called "documented abuse of children" and nothing else.

Two: Documented abuse of children is a MacGuffin, not an end.

ricardobeat3• 14 years ago

> two seventeen-year-olds who have eyes for nothing in the world but each other making consensual passionate love [...] trying to see it makes your eyes well up with tears from joy

That's way more creepy than I expected. I don't think I want to hear this guy defending CP any longer...

Also, comparing "rape and CP" to "murder and jaywalking" is inane. He is implying that CP is a petty crime.

lmm4• 14 years ago

Some things that fall under current child porn laws (e.g. the aforementioned teenagers sending pictures to each other) really are petty crimes.

erikpukinskis• 14 years ago

This essay is a great example of sapping an argument of its power through dilution. At various points he argues all of the following:

1) the law is too broad (innocent teenagers)

2) the law is not broad enough (should cover murder too)

3) the wrong judicial standard is applied (strict liability)

4) abridging free speech is fundamentally destructive

These are four totally distinct elements of our legal structure, each with vastly different potential solutions. They are bound only by the fact that they are critiques of the current legal system.

To try and take in all four at once leads to a combinatorial explosion of possible solutions.

If he believes no. 4 then nos. 1-3 are immaterial. And even if he sells you on 1-3, none of those are good arguments for abolishing the law. In the end, the essay loses its power because he is not presenting a coherent critique.

MartinCron3• 14 years ago

And, if one of the arguments is weak or preposterous, your opponent can tear that one apart and ignore the merits of the position. It is a persuasive pet peeve of mine.

xwowsersx• 14 years ago

Some reasonable points here, but I think there is one very solid argument in favor of making possesion of child porn illegal (and also explains the sense of applying strict liability here): if mere possession is illegal then demand is reduced. Effectively, the legislation aims to destroy the market for child porn thereby preventing abuse/exploitation of children.

There's definitely room to debate whether illegalizing possession will actually curb demand, but assuming that it does, it seems to me to be a pretty strong argument.

henrikschroder• 14 years ago

> if mere possession is illegal then demand is reduced.

Except that's not true. Previously in Sweden, production and distribution of child porn was illegal, while possession was legal. But ten years ago or so, through lobbying and some shrill "think of the children!" campaigns, our politicians decided to change it and make possession illegal. This actually required constitutional change, since the basic freedom of the press had to be changed.

And the change was made, even though a lot of professionals objected to it. Lawyers were upset, because they generally thought you shouldn't tamper with the constitution unless you had really good reasons to. The police were negative, because they couldn't see how it would help them catch more actual criminals. The prosecutors were negative since distribution and production are enough to catch the criminals you want to catch. And the journalists were against it for the reasons linked to in the article. But think of the children! And so the law was changed.

Now, 10 years afterwards, the result of the change is exactly as the professionals predicted: The law change hasn't done anything. There's no great reduction is child porn cases. The people they do catch are all guilty of distribution or production, possession is irrelevant. Journalists are pissed and more cautious of the subject. And there's been a few idiotic cases where people have been convicted even though its obvious they shouldn't have been. Like a manga critic who was reported by his pissed ex-wife, and when the police searched his place they could kinda see how two books (out of a huge collection) maybe depicted underage people, so they had to arrest him. I think he got acquitted after appealing though, it seems higher courts have a more sane view of the matter.

And then you have more common worries, for example what about digitizing old photo albums? I have photos of myself, one year old, bathing, naked. Maybe I should just burn that photo to be sure? What about taking digital pictures or movies of your own children, and they happen to be naked somewhere. Post to Facebook? Or oh shit, delete as fast as you can?

So, making possession illegal did not in any way change the situation for actual pedophiles distributing actual child porn. They're still as guilty as before, and still breaking the law as before, but regular people are affected by it, journalists are affected by it, and the copyright maximalists are using it to push their agenda. And that's a pretty strong argument for making possession legal again.

SageRaven2• 14 years ago

One of the big arguments for banning child porn is that having the material "out there" causes continual anguish to the victim. In fact, victims have been awarded financial damages from those convicted of possession. (Can't find the source now, but I recall reading about the case in the "cybercrime blog").

In my opinion, this whole argument is specious at best. One could argue that making the "Star Wars Kid" viral video (among so many others) illegal would have saved that poor dude some major suffering. Why are things of a sexual nature so special?

One argument for decriminalizing simple possession is the fact that crowd-analyzed investigation at the citizen level is severely hampered. I recall reading an amazing account of the investigation and rescue of the then-8-year-old girl in the "Tara series". A relatively small group of people analyzed the photos, identified paintings and drapes in a motel, which allowed law enforcement to home in on the victim and her captor.

Can you imagine the scope of such investigations if these pics were allowed to be viewed and discussed in a public forum? The power of anon and /b/ could be used for so much greater good than hunting down kids who torture cats.

sunnysunday2• 14 years ago

Some time ago, thanks to a tip on HN, I was listening to a interview with Stanley Kubrick recorded in the 1960's in New York. He's a genius in the opinion of many, myself included, so I was happy for the tip. This is what makes HN worth reading.

In the interview, one of the films that was mentioned a few times was Lolita (1962). This is one Kubrick film I have never seen. So I did a little research on it.

It's based on a novel from 1955 by Vladmir Nabokov. It just so happens this is one of best-selling novels of all-time, in the "50-100 million copies sold" bracket, according to Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books.html

It's also listed as one of the best novels of all-time on the Random House web site. Top 5 I think. I believe it was also selected as on of the best books of all-time in a survey of a book club in Norway, if my memory is correct. But don't take my word as fact. Check these sources yourself; they are linked from Wikipedia.

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html

What is the subject of the book? That's left for the curious reader to discover. You might be surprised. I certainly was.

Remember, this book was published in 1955.

Also, though I might not thnk highly of the "messenger", the message in this thread about the "market" for videos of murder was thought-provoking. There was a terrible film about five years ago about this subject, starring Diane Lane. The film is centered around the Hollywood's version of the internet, so it's a little painful to watch. But the whole premise of the film was the most disturbing. Why was this film even made? And why the heck does Diane Lane want to star in it?

Then there's the recent story of a young person who worked as an independent contractor reviewing uploaded content for Google (Picasa, YouTube, etc.). From the sort of things he was exposed to, he ended up needing psychological treatment.

No one should have to watch this stuff. But even more important, no one should _want_ to watch this stuff. The question is: Why do people want to watch violence and murder?

Maybe we should as Arnold whatever his name is, the Terminator.

Hypocrisy abounds.

aes2563• 14 years ago

> No one should have to watch this stuff. But even more important, no one should _want_ to watch this stuff. The question is: Why do people want to watch violence and murder?

People are morbid. People are curious. People want to see things that push the boundaries, that are rare, that few others have seen.

I think there's a really important analogy to be drawn between videos of this nature and child pornography. It shows that having the urge to watch an act occurring, and an urge to perform such an act in real life, are two wholly separate things.

It's not as though we consider everyone who has ever seen a depiction of someone being murdered — almost every single member of Western civilization if we include Hollywood depictions — as someone likely to murder people.

sunnysunday2• 14 years ago

I think you are making an assumption that I am suggesting there's a link between what people watch and what they do. I would expect that such assumptions would be made. It is an issue that is debated ad nauseum. No surprise you brought it up.

But I am not suggesting that, nor am I contemplating that issue. I am merely suggesting there indeed appears to be strong "market" for watching violence and murder, whether it is Hollywood or whether it is for real. And I might hope that the reader would question why that market exists. Issues of whether or how it should be "regulated" are besides the point. The question I'm asking is: Why do people want to watch such things to begin with?

And maybe this leads to thinking about the idea of "Hollywood" versus real life. What is "reality TV"? Why would "reality TV" be marketable?

goggles996• 14 years ago

This makes me sick. It has been conclusively proven that pornography can be harmful to families and relationships. Would child port be better somehow. This is only the first part of why this is so sick. The second being that there would be a legal market for kidde porn? How could this help kids in any way?

lmm4• 14 years ago

>It has been conclusively proven that pornography can be harmful to families and relationships.

Citation needed. I've seen studies which suggest that specific kinds of pornography (e.g. rape fantasy) can be damaging, but nothing to support a general statement with that kind of certainty.

>The second being that there would be a legal market for kidde porn? How could this help kids in any way?

How about if it lead to fewer kids being, you know, actually abused. Both by discouraging the production of new kiddie porn (because the market would already be flooded), and by giving those with unfortunate urges a safe outlet.

yason• 14 years ago

I bumped into this a while ago and it was an interesting read:

  http://wikileaks.org/wiki/An_insight_into_child_porn

Everyone take it with a grain of salt according to your personal taste, but IMHO it does more than adequately illustrate the point that the concept of child porn, starting from its definition is anything but black-and-white.

goggles996• 14 years ago

Please delete this garbage troll article from HackerNews. My children use more logic and intelligence when trying to convince me of something. This is the weakest bunch of BS I have ever read. I think that my 8 year old could poke holes in every single one of the arguments presented. Do intelligent humans really buy a single word of his three reasons why child porn should be legalized. He is clearly into child porn himself. let me say that I started watching porn at age ten, as did most of my friends, and I enjoyed it. I actively sought it out and kept seeking it out (as I still do).

Let me sum up (for those of you who could not stay awake through all the waste of bandwidth you just spent pulling up that article).

Here are his reasons.

1. The ban prevents catching/jailing child molesters. He claims that everyone will be wearing Google glass type devices in the future and recording everything so if they see a kid being raped in the park that the rapist will just laugh knowing that they cannot go to the cops because they now posses child porn.

Is he really serious? Yeah cause this happens all the time. I can see my grandma brought before a jury and convicted on possession of kidde porn cause she had her Google glass on during her stroll in the park.

Discretion is used by any DA or investigator. I could never see this happening in a modern society. Even if the prosecutor was a complete buffoon and arrested my grandma for this, no jury would ever convict her and that prosecutor would soon be out of work after the media got a hold of the story. I am sure that (worse case) this would take about one time and the law would be changed slightly to protect my grandma (similar to the now infamous "stand your ground" law). Funny that the author wants to make kidde porn legal and not change the law to be more discretionary (quite an insight into his morives).

2. The laws brand a whole generation as sex offenders. His argument is that teenagers who have consensual sex sometimes record it and they will be arrested as sex offenders and prosecuted. If this is the case they why has there not ever been a single case of this happening? He is again trying to invent an imaginary problem as an argument for legalizing kidde porn.

3. The free speech war is won/lost at the battle of child porn. Another joke of an invented reason. Abe Lincoln once said "Your Liberty To Swing Your Fist Ends Just Where My Nose Begins". This is true for the freedom of speech also. Our freedom of speech ends where someone else is violated or their rights infringed on. This has been the pattern throughout the history of our country. This is nothing new. He tries to make a point that we are losing our rights and if we don't make kidde porn legal, we will lose more and more rights.

Clearly a logical and convincing argument by the upright and honorable MR. Rick Falkvinge... hahaha

I actually am really disappointing to find such tripe floating around here, I really am.

maked00• 14 years ago

Sorry but the pro arguments are rather silly and far fetched. The last time I checked witnessing a crime is not a crime. Child Porn is just wrong. There is no legitimate reason for it to exist. It is taboo for a number of reasons, not the least of which is is perpetrated against defenseless children.

roguecoder• 14 years ago

If this is the case, maybe the problem is free speech. Perhaps we should stop valuing free speech over individual safety.

hcarvalhoalves• 14 years ago

    So, on your lovely stroll in the park, you turn a corner, and to your shock, see a 12-year-old being brutally raped right in front of you.
    WHAM. You are now a criminal, guilty of recording, distributing, and possessing child pornography.

That makes no sense whatsoever. The author is completely stretching it to make his point valid. It's unlikely you would be charged by handling proofs to authorities in the first place; and if you do for any reason, a judge can obviously distinguish between possession of pornography and the proof of a crime.

goggles996• 14 years ago

Please explain to me how legalizing kidde porn would reduce the amount of kidde porn?

Using this same (genius) logic. We should allow the willful purchase, transfer and use of counterfeit bills, but keep the actual counterfeiting illegal. THAT should fix the problem right???

How could any government implement a law to not allow creation of something, but allow it's sale, possession and use? This is not logical.

Anyone who supports this article is too self diluted by a twisted ideology to see the plain logic of why this whole argument is ridiculous.

Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

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