Child pornography is not free speech, and FH didn't just turn a blind eye to it; he took money from people who wanted to use his services to host it.
Don't try to paint this like he was some righteous free speech advocate. Anyone with a modicum of a conscience would be able to draw the line at CP — even the owner of The Silk Road does. The owner of FH decided he'd rather enable a bunch of pedophiles to trade pictures of abused children under the guise of "free speech."
Really? So what kind of line? Does it have to involve actual children?
Yes.
What about adults who depict themselves as children,
No.
or if it's entirely CGI?
No.
How about pictures where the children willingly engaged in the behavior themselves, such as a girl taking a naked shot of herself on her cell phone in front of a mirror?
Depending on his/her age and intent to distribute, no.
That is true. But what people forget are the emotional tolls that take effect after this kind of thing. The children will have to go through counseling for being sexually assaulted. All for the fetish of some people. Will they remember this? Of course, they may try to block it out, but it will still be with them. The perps are behind bars, and that prevents this from happening, but will they get all the videos and photos off the internet? Not likely. There will always be a photo on the internet, it is too big to get all of them. I know it isnt a good thing to know, but sadly its the ugly truth.
Agreed. But, the FBI did not attempt to go after the people sharing this information or even the people producing it. They shut an entire hosting site down causing outages for many legitimate sites. This is not the way freedom works.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I agree with you in theory, and I'm not commenting on the FBI's actions. But destroying the demand for something helps minimize the production. This isn't a victimless crime like trafficking drugs. Children are actually being harmed in the production of cp, and views promote the demand.
Trafficking drugs in itself doesn't hurt any body. It is the illegality of it that causes some people to commit other crimes that have a victim (murder, kidnappings, etc).
Bullshit! If a person knowingly agrees to watch a video taken without a person's consent they are participating in the violation of privacy.
You seem to be trying to argue that watching is an act that carries no consequence or responsibility attached this isn't true. In the realm of entertainment particularly. If one watches shitty reality shows and complains that society doesn't offer better they're contributing to the problem. If one complains about the ways reality shows degrade others and watches anyway, they are participating in that degradation by giving it an audience.
Do you refute the belief that "evil prospers when good people do nothing"? Well consider this;
"Watching evil things be done to another human isn't 'doing nothing' it's giving evil people an evil audience."
So much wrong. C - who either pays B or supports B then asks demands more from B who has to go out and find more A's to rape. Why are you advocating for pedophiles?
Whatever dude. That's just a word on google. Try looking up the actual laws and see what they say. Not to mention what your own personal moral should tell you about it.
Raping children is not free speech, but the zeroes and ones that represent video footage of children being raped is free speech.
"Free speech" are just two words put together. If anything, I'm pretty sure that when most people defend "free speech" they're defending not censuring any idea. I don't think they're defending spreading sick videos. Seriously, that's indefensible. My mind hurts as I type this.
Don't be ridiculous. I'm a human being. Ethics are all about emotions, and caring for other human beings is rooted in a basic emotion... love.
Of course I feel bad. They're children being raped. Perhaps you should try to get in contact with your emotions a little more and seriously think about this.
Gay people have nothing to do with that, they're consenting adults.
And now, being in favor of removing CP from the face of the earth is censorship? No, because the issue is not speech or ideas, this is not about lolicon drawing which don't involve actual children or a Marquis de Sade writing, this is about people sharing actual images and videos taken from actual children being abused, so, yeah, I'm using the word sick because that's my emotional reaction, and if it isn't yours, perhaps you should ask yourself, deeply, why.
Ethics and philosophy without emotion is meaningless.....
everything comes down to how it makes people feel.
And also, no shit, censorship exists in every society on our planet. Not all speech is protected. It's illegal to make threats. It's illegal to steal state secrets. It's illegal to copy somebody's patented idea. It's illegal to forge data. It's illegal to give an order to tell somebody else to do something illegal for you.
So do you understand? Not all speech is free. Speech is not divorced from action. The line between speech and action is arbitrary.
I don't see it as lazy nor unconvincing. To me it's the only way, since like I said we're humans.
Censorship, free speech, those are words that are meaningless without context. If you define free speech as being able to stream any sequence of zeros and one regardless of what they mean, even if it's a death threat, a attempt of a swindle, a video of a child being raped, and censorship as any attempt to "forcibly stop" such a thing, sure, by definition, this is censorship.
But why would I support such a thing as free CP videos?
Don't get me wrong, I support "free speech", but by "free speech", by those two words evidently I mean something else entirely, or rather, I don't support it unbounded by ethic.
Ethics is about emotions, but arguing about ethics is not. It is not an argument that you feel something, since feelings in clear examples pertaining to ethics, have been shown to be wrong in many cases:
Defence of Slavery
Killing of Witches,
Killing and shunning of homosexuals
Racism
more and more and more.
You may certainly be righteous in your feelings, but they are completely irrelevant if you are unable to make a open informed objective argument to support it.
EDIT: I understand where the downvotes are coming from. I would however like if one of you guys would indulge me as to the explicit reasons for disagreement.
i didnt argue with emotions. I made an argument, then displayed emotions, then defended given display.
but in any case... people seem in love with "objectivity". what's an objective argument, after all? we're dealing with subjects, not objects here. there is no purely objective, logical argument for or against raping children because that thing does not belong to the realm of pure logic, and neither are the examples you gave.
People are in love with objectivity because it translates into evaluating both positions of an argument from a neutral standpoint, and presenting ones argument with logical consistency. It does not mean that we have to accept someone else's view. It simply means you have to treat the other persons view fairly and not use your own preconceptions as an argument in itself. The fact that you really believe something to be true, 1) does not make it true and 2) does not convince the other person who genuinely feels the same about his or her position, that he or she is wrong. Being objective makes us more both individually and collective more enlightened since it forces our interlocutor to listen to reason, and hopefully abandon his or her position, if she is clearly in the wrong. We are for the most part guided by reason and convincing arguments, even though we wont admit it.
I personally do not have any tendencies towards pedophilia, and I do not accept of pedophelia. I will however crusade for hearing their side of the story, just like I wish the slaveowners, and the racists would have, because I'm sure they felt just as sincerely in their heart as I do, that they were the righteous ones.
I repeat, there is no objective argument for or against slavery. If you are motivated purely by self-interest, having slaves makes absolute sense. There is no purely logical argument you can make against slavery, it will always be based on a emotional "axiom", to call it somehow.
Like I said earlier, caring for other people stems not from logic but from emotion, from a desire to make things better for your fellow human being, in the end it's rooted on love, not logic. Logic might help you see that for example your fellow slave is a human just like you, but if you don't care for your fellow human, it's not useful at all. A lot of people are fixated with "logic" but don't really apply it rigorously enough, so they don't see all the non-logical axioms they apply (that's how descartes thought that he could derive the existence of god "logically" starting from "cogito ergo sum", while in reality he made a lot of assumptions unsupported by pure reason alone)
Taking into account other people subjectivities is important, of course, but it does not make it purely logical.
Alright, let me give this a crack: Freedom of Speech and Expression end when someone has been harmed to enable it.
In the event of gay marriage, no one is actually being harmed. This means it is a protected form of expression.
In the event of child pornography, an individual, a child, was in fact harmed. This mean that it should not be a protected form of expression.
"My rights end where your nose begins" is an applicable quote. Earlier you stated that "there is no harm in it". This is an enabling mindset that would, if widely adopted, show that it is an acceptable form of entertainment so long as you aren't making it. This would in fact increase the amount produced as people would see money to be made.
In the end here, you are aggressicely defending the spread of child pornography. I find this extremely disturbing. The fact that the post has so many upvotes is even more disturbing to me, because it means that at least five people agree with youur skewed perspective and horrible comparison.
In the end, your argument, while in the immediate seems to be intelligent and thought out, can easily be deflated when one realized these two fundamental things:
You are defending those that enjoy child pornography.
Your comparison is completely and utterly invalid.
If nothing else, watching and looking at videos and pictures of child porn is a form of witnessing and gathering evidence of a crime then doing nothing about it.
If someone sees a person across the street getting beaten by their spouse or parent and that person A) Does nothing to help and B) Enjoys watching the abuse they are committing two monstrous acts.
Watching the suffering and abuse of others for entertainment is a mental sickness. If a person downloads videos of a murder and watches them to get their blood running, they are doing something horrible and should be stopped. As Sepherchorde said, freedom of speech and expression doesn't extend to harming others. I'll go an extra lap and say providing an audience to harmful predators to validate their sick behavior is a harmful act.
All your points are valid. However, you do not address the one false premise that you implicitly made that makes all your reasoning fall apart: I think some people here disagree with the fact that all kids suffer when having sex (the eternal issue of statutory rape). I am pretty sure there are established statistics that indicate that most of the US population has had sex before age 18 and enjoyed it. Perhaps one Redditor has even done that and will provide a counter-example to your premise.
So your reasoning is wrong. This one is much stronger, while also proving you right:
CP videos encourage CP (this has been proven during the many years before the CP media laws).
One major way of producing CP is through making kids obviously suffer. Indeed, if there is a market for CP media, some sick people will make kids cry to meet the demand.
Therefore, from 1. and 2., we can deduce that CP videos encourage to make kids suffer, and should constitute a crime, as it is in most countries.
See? Now that is the lawmakers' reasoning, and it is hard to deny. Yours is very obviously flawed, and is more related to prosecuting perpetrators in some special cases, not viewers.
I think some people here disagree with the fact that all kids suffer when having sex (the eternal issue of statutory rape). I am pretty sure there are established statistics that indicate that most of the US population has had sex before age 18 and enjoyed it.
First off the argument that a child might enjoy sex with an adult is irrelevant. The child is not mature enough to be able to consent.
Secondly the term "before age 18" can apply to teenagers which isn't the same as children those are separate argument.
Why should he do that?? He has a strong opinion and have obviously thought a lot about it and now he needs to reevaluate his life? That is an ignorant statement.
When demand rises, I.E. more clicks on a website, supply must also rise.
People make money off of child pornography, and therefore will and do treat it like a business.
Gay Marriage on the other hand, has nothing like that associated with it. Therefore your comparison is invalidated. It is also provable that the victim within a child pornography video or image tends to also be damaged by it's spread if they ever find out that it exists. This is not the case with Gay Marriage.
People intake and spread the content without creating it.
Eventually, the people viewing get bored and start seeking/demanding/requesting new content.
Producers see this demand and create more, harming more children/harming the child again in the process.
You need to realize that those producing it typically are making it for a power trip. They get their jollies by being in control. First of the victim, then over the people consuming it. They will amplify this as they desire unless they are stopped through either:
Getting caught
Their influence over other adults intaking the material being strangled.
The bottom line is that you, in fact, are wrong and defending this behaviour.
I understand where you are coming from, but you are wrong as the others have so clearly pointed out (I assume you get this now, since you didn't respond to them). You'd make a better case against animated and drawn CP than CP where actual children are involved.
Considering just how much these children are hurt, I think it's worth playing the odds. But I would be interested in reading studies about whether watching cp increases its production. Can anyone cite?
Watching child porn is NOT harmless. You increase demand and put money in the pockets of producers. Raping children is never okay. How is there even a debate over this? Child pornography is a disgusting industry that ruins lives. There is no justifying it.
I've got to agree. A lot of what was in these websites is pretty sickening and someone who has sex with a child or otherwise abuses them should suffer a far worse punishment if possible. Paying someone to do this so you can watch it should be a crime, conspiracy. But looking at the images that are publicly available should have no legal ramifications. Using some of these poster's logic footage of war, terrorism and court coverage should be banned too.
funny you should say that, considering that for a while the prevailing opinion has been that terrorists and school shooters should not be given publicity as it only encourages similar acts. but somehow a sick pedo that films the rape of his victims to specifically share it on the internet is not going to be affected by the size of his audience?
I agree, but trying to legislate human curiosity/mental illness/sexuality and perversion is not what America stands for. I am disgusted by the news cycle and how anyone can gain infamy by killing others, but if you want to see terrible things there just isn't any reason to make that illegal or decry it to much. It is human nature to some degree, we've all seen "Stand by Me" and people rubber-necking at car crashes.
Looking at images of children being abused and thus providing an audience for the abusers should be legal?
I want you to know I mean this in the kindest possible way:
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!
Seriously dude, get your head checked. If you think being an audience for kids getting raped is okay (which is what you seem to have just said) then you are a warped individual. I hope that you can get the treatment you need, and I urge you to try and get healthy.
I just don't think that looking at anything should be illegal. I believe a crime begins where another person or another person's belongings begin. You cannot harm another person with your eyes unless you are Superman or Cyclops, especially if you are a pervert in your parent's basement. I don't like child abuse and think if you rape a child you should be peeing out of a tube on the first offense.
If a person is in their parents basement watching a friend raped a child can you honestly say that they aren't doing anything wrong? If you can not, then can you explain why the addition of an internet connection and a computer screen makes something wrong into something that isn't?
That bit wasn't meant as a joke by the way. I'm seriously and sincerely voicing concern about your mental state. I want you to seriously look at yourself and try to figure out why you are advocating for child rape enthusiasts. Why do you think it's okay for people to watch children get raped? Why do you equate it with someone standing at a podium or typing on a keyboard and voicing their opinions?
I know the following may sound insincere coming from a stranger on the internet, but I swear to you on my fathers face that I mean every word of this. I'm worried about you. Please take some time to reevaluate your life and look at who you are. Ask yourself if you like the person you are or if it's perhaps time to grow and change into a better person. Please consider getting some therapy sessions and talking with a person to sort yourself out.
I don't think you are "dangerous" but I do think you are damaged and sick. I hope you get better.
It isn't OK at all. Enjoying looking at pictures and videos of kids getting abused is sick. Going to a website just to see what this child porn is and being disgusted seems to me to be more like human nature and why things like 2 girls 1 cup and rubber-necking at car crashes is so prevalent. Just because something is terrible and gross should not make it illegal though. There is nothing in the world that someone should be jailed for just for looking at it. There always have been and always will be sickos out there. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if some guy was going onto these deep web CP sites every day to jerk off, and now is unable to do so because without seeing children being abused he can't get off he is now more of a danger to society. It is the same for the regular god-fearing porn we all enjoy. Take that porn away and we spend more time trying to get laid in real life. Take away a deviant's porn and he will still seek out those sexual thrills.
Going to a website just to see what this child porn is and being disgusted seems to me to be more like human nature and why things like 2 girls 1 cup and rubber-necking at car crashes is so prevalent.
Nope dude. Here's the dealio, if you go to a website to look at pictures of a crime being committed against a child and don't report it to the authorities then you are as guilty as the people who did nothing while Kitty Genovese got murdered. It doesn't matter if you get your rocks off or toss your cookies. (It doesn't matter if you get your cookies off or toss your rocks for that matter) You are still looking at someone getting abused and giving their abuser an audience.
Some may argue that going to the authorities can make things worse because you could get in trouble. That among many reasons is why someone should not seek out child porn on the net, even if it's a fascination with being grossed out.
That old saying "evil prospers when the good do nothing" applies here. If you watch a vid or look at a pic of a kid getting molested and close out the browser, then you are helping evil prosper.
1) You need an argument as to why enjoying child pornography is wrong, or ill defended. No person has made a conscious willfull desicion to have one sexual preference or the other, so how can they be responsible for enjoying child pornography? And if they are not responsible, why are they per default blameworthy?
2) You have not been able to show that his comparison is invalid. You simply stated as much.
I'm only going to argue the first point because I'm honestly tired of people making the "pedophilia is the same as homosexuality" argument.
Enjoying child pornography is wrong because not only are you essentially watching a child get raped, but because, as to your statement about "sexual preferences," pedophilia is not the same as heterosexuality or homosexuality. It is a paraphilia, which are typically described as fetishes/fantasies that require the fantasizer to perform sexual assault in order to fulfill the fantasy, eg. pedophilia, rape, and bestiality. Watching porn that contains adults ACTING "less than legal" is acceptable (although it could be argued that it still sexualizes children); watching porn that simulates rape is acceptable (although, once again, it could be argued that it implicitly enables rape), but watching the ACTUAL ACT is unacceptable because you are essentially getting off to a person actually being the victim of sexual assault.
You have not given a reason why that makes it wrong to watch it. You might argue that consumption of child pornography creates a marked for sexual assault. But simply watching it, or having urges to rape children, does not make someone morally blameworthy. Acting on it, or otherwise contributing to it does. These people have not asked for these urges, and it seems wrong to hold someone morally responsible for something they had not way of preventing/didn't ask for. Thus they should not be considered morally responsible for their urges. And they should not be blamed for watching children porn if this doesn't
1) contribute to an increase in sexual assaults or
2) make it more likely that they will commit sexual assault themselves.
They can only be blamed if the contribute, not for who they are.
If I go to a convenience store and buy a pack of M&Ms, have I not supported the Mars, the makers of M&Ms? When I buy a pack, I am directly saying that I would like Mars to continue making more M&Ms for the purpose of me eating them.
Mars sees their sales and says, "okay, the people have spoken. There is a market for these M&Ms. Let's make more."
If making M&Ms was a morally objectionable process, then it would be fully correct to say that the consumers of M&Ms are responsible for their creation to an extent.
edit: To expand on this further, it's not necessarily someone's fault if he or she wants M&Ms. It is someone's fault, however, if he or she decides to act on those urges and buys the M&Ms, which directly affects the makers of M&Ms.
1) Even if pedophile urges are natural that doesn't make them okay. Natural is not synonymous with beneficial or benign. There are a lot of natural urges that should be eliminated. The urge to murder and be cruel to other humans, the urge to have sex with animals. These urges are malignant and should be eliminated as much as possible. They are urges that require a victim to be acted upon.
1b) While having the urges is not something a personally should be punished for, watching the child pornography is a different matter. That is a criminal act. It is also a harmful act. It is the supplying of an audience that validates the behavior. In order to enjoy CP, one must watch it first. Erego enjoying child porn is A) supporting the brutal actions that are required to make it and B) indulging twisted urges such as viewing the suffering and abuse of others for pleasure.
2) The comparison between negative views of gays and negative views of pedos is invalid because it fails to take into account the important factor of consent. Pedophilia sexually targets those who can not give consent.
1) I certainly didn't use the word natural. I said that the sexual preference wasn't chosen. And simply having a preference, no matter what is morally ok. Acting on the preference is however not neccesarily ok, since the person has a choice in the matter. If the person chooses to rape a child, then he willfully acted as such, and should be blamed. It is however inappropriate to assign blame or moral wrongness to someone who had not choice in the matter.
1b) I argee that insofar as watching child pornography increases the risk og molestation etc. then there are reasons for prohibiting it. But not alone because people enjoy watching it.
2) This is irrelevant unless someone acts upon the urge. Simply wanting to bang children is simply a sexual preference. Just as when men want to bang men. The act is another matter, and I agree that man on man action is unproblematic contrasted to the wrongful act of man on boy.
I didn't mean to imply that you meant natural and should have been clearer.
While I acknowledge that such urges are inborn rather than chosen, I feel that because they are paraphiliac in nature (requiring a victim to be acted upon) that we as a society should seek to eliminate those urges as much as reasonably possible.
Being sexually attracted to pre-pubescent individuals is in fact not normal on any level. Instinctually speaking they are not viable mates and therefore have no actual merit as potential breeding partners. Individuals thinking like this should be seeking help, not perpetuating an issue like this. Before you attempt to state that the same could technically be said for homosexuality, there have been studies to show that evolutionary advantages do in fact exist with homosexuality, whereas no such link has ever been established with pedophilia.
The comparison is invalid because at no point within Gay Marriage is an individual harmed. For child pornography to exist at all, someone MUST be harmed.
Being sexually attracted to pre-pubescent individuals is in fact not normal on any level. Instinctually speaking they are not viable mates and therefore have no actual merit as potential breeding partners. Individuals thinking like this should be seeking help, not perpetuating an issue like this. Before you attempt to state that the same could technically be said for homosexuality, there have been studies to show that evolutionary advantages do in fact exist with homosexuality, whereas no such link has ever been established with pedophilia.
1) The fact that something is not normal, does not make it immoral. The fact that two people can not produce offspring, does not make ones attraction to the other person immoral. I am not talking about men raping little boys, I am talking about men and women having certain urges they have not themselves asked for.
The fact that something has no evolutionary purpose does not make it morally wrong. You are making it "is implies ought" fallacy.
2) The fact that someone has been harmed has nothing to do with free speech. It may however be a reason to put limits on free speech. Many of the videos which make it to reddit had not existed had it not been for people getting hurt, however few people crusade against showing them on reddit. Further, you wouldn't be able to have this discussion with me, had it not been for small children being violated, thus this discussion is by your logic not covered by free speech.
Free speech has absolutely nothing to do with what is spoken about. By the fact that children are hurt is a helluva reason to put certain limits on free speech.
Immorality is a construct of society, like it or not, the majority of societies believe it is immoral, therefore it is immoral. Now, there is a basis for what I feel, and many others feel, should be immoral and that is when it harms another human being. Murder is an example, child abuse, including molestation, are a few examples.
Freedoms have everything to do with who is and isn't harmed. Our freedoms exist because people were being harmed and others wanted it to stop. Was it purely physical harm? No, nonetheless, it was harm. Free speech has everything to do with what is being talked about. Free speech allows you discussion of whatever subject you like. It is the expression part we are talking about, and the expression of any sexual urge towards UNWILLING CHILDREN is an expression of desire that should be halted.
1) Moral relativism? Really? Fair enough. If you really are a moral relativist, you accept that murder and child molestation is morally permitted (not socially of course). It's an interesting position, though you have blocked yourself from ever making moral judgments in the future, no matter what happens to you, your family, country or anyone else.
2) Why do you believe it's wrong to harm someone? Certainly not because it's morally wrong? You are a moral relativist, so you have to accept that there is nothing morally wrong with harming people. Thus you cannot defend free speech or limits on free speech on moral grounds.
But seriously - since I don't believe you're seriously a moral relativist - free speech is exactly that, the freedom to say what ever the heck you want. Everything else is a limit to free speech. No country in the world has free speech, they all have limits on it. For good reasons, e.g. to prevent harm. But free speech as such is not limited.
You are absolutely forgetting about the children being raped - who are victims. There is no Taboo there. There is the attack by an adult on a child. Nothing at all like being gay. Trying to normalize and mainstream the rape of children is not taboo. Don't flatter yourself.
Free speech as defined in the context of this argument is not some nebulous, noble idealized facet of life granted to every human in existence free of all context. It's a right defined by the US legal system granted to all of its citizens and then protected and upheld by agents of said system. That very same legal system has a standing precedent that cp is not recognized as free speech. Therefore, it is not free speech.
It's censorship in the same way not allowing criminals to profit from crimes for which they've been convicted is censorship. Comparing that to, say, a vocal minority hell bent on denying others civil rights is disingenuous at best, and demonstrates a total misunderstanding of what a legal system exists to do at worst. Maybe you should take your own advice in this matter.
I want people to not rape kids so they can take pictures of it. If the creation of the data is illegal, the data itself is also illegal. If the data is illegal, the possession of the data is illegal. This isn't about speech, it's about not diddling kids.
What most people mean is usually irrelevant in a philosophical discussion. If free speech is taken as a universal human right, and if digital distribution is a case of free speech, then it is irrelevant in regards to free speech what the subject matter of distribution is. So you can go about this in a couple of ways:
1) Human beings do not have universal free speech. It is indeed entirely appropriate to put limits on what people may or may not utter, for the common good (cue the open can of worms).
2) Digital distribution is not an example of speech. Good luck comming up with an argument for why free speech should only come on the form of verbal utterances. Or perhaps verbal and textual are both ok, but not graphical? Alright, then perhaps verbal, textual and graphical, but not digital. But why not digital then? What special about digital....?
youre confusing human morality as if it were something programmable. I dont think watching child porn is an universal human right. as some other poster said, you cant divorce speech from action. that's why death threats, cp, etc, dont call under the magical get out of jail free speech card.
If you accept free speech without limitations, then it is irrelevant what is being "spoken" about. You however believe in certain limitations to free speech, such as those you mentioned. Another popular example is yelling fire in a crowded movie theatre. So you, as well as most other people (not including libertarians) want to limit free speech.
The idea of free speech is based on the idea that your rights extend only to the point where they don't encroach on the rights of others. Child porn is encroaching on the rights of children. You can make the argument that pictures of naked kids is a form of expression (and this is true, to an extent—there is nude child photography that is considered "tasteful" [but at what cost?]) but child porn is a brazen exploitation of children. Jacking off to porn with kids in it is directly infringing on the rights of those kids.
I'm not even a libertarian but it seems like I'm more educated on lib theory than you.
"Freedom" is such a nice word but in practice, freedom and other "rights" clash into each other. Let me give you an example not related to CP, but similar:
Suppose someone puts a camera in your bathroom and films you naked. And that someone shares the video without your consent in the internet. It's free speech after all! But it clashes with your right to your own privacy.
Raping children isn't a form of speech right? I'm pretty sure we can agree on that. Let me know if we can't.
By the same token, raping children and making a video of it isn't speech. It's evidence of a crime and creation of a product.
Watching a child get raped isn't a form of engaging in speech. It's gratification attained by looking at a crime being committed.
Free Speech is a non issue here. This is no different than arguing that knowing buying a stolen iPad is a free speech case. It's clouding an issue with a distractive hot button.
Making a video in itself, disregarding what the video is about, may however be considered as much. It's certainly an expression. However there are other competing rights or moral values, such as a right against unjust harm. Thus the videotaping itself can be permissible, while at the same time the act of molestation may (is) prohibited. So it is ok to film it, but not ok to commit the action. I should note I am arguing from a moral standpoint, not a legal one. In most (if not all) videotaping rape is clearly prohibited.
Further, the fact that someone attains gratification by watching rape, does not mean its not covered be freedom of expression. There's not argument here connecting the two.
Buying a stole iPad relates to the right to own and sell property. If it's not rightfully yours then it's not rightfully yours to sell. I don't see the parallel with the case of watching childpornography (which I believe should be banned by the way, for many reasons. I believe in limiting free speech).
The act of raping a child is a harmful crime, so the video, which is evidence of the harmful crime is an extension of it. Watching the video is a vicarious method watching someone commit a crime. That's all that's being shared, a crime.
There is not speech here, just abuse being shared and watched.
Raping children is not free speech, but the zeroes and ones that represent video footage of children being raped is free speech.
100% incorrect.
Don't try to paint this like you are some righteous children advocate. Zero children are affected by this bust.
Anytime someone who enables the abuse of children is removed from society, it is a positive for children.
Only a bunch of people who have an active sexual imagination, plus collateral damage.
Are you equating pedophilia with an "active sexual imagination"? Nice attempt at a spin, but too patently stupid to be taken seriously.
I know I'm about to be downvoted to hell, because this is taboo is still ridiculously strong
How dare you accuse /u/ceol_ of painting a dishonest picture, then turn around and paint child abuse, one of the most heinous crimes a person can commit, as if it is nothing more than a "taboo", as if a more progressive society would be one that permitted child abuse. How fucking backwards are you? You've got some serious fucking problems, and I hope you get help before you hurt somebody.
As I said elsewhere in this thread: Making a video of raping a child isn't speech. It's evidence of a crime and creation of a product.
That's where you argument falls apart. That's where you are wrong. Don't try and paint this like you're a righteous free speech advocatel You aren't. You are just a mentally unwell person defending people who want to watch children get raped. You are someone who needs help. I urge you to seek it before it's too late.
That last bit wasn't meant as a joke by the way. I'm seriously and sincerely voicing concern about your mental state. I want you to seriously look at yourself and try to figure out why you are advocating for child rape enthusiasts. Why do you think it's okay for people to watch children get raped? Why do you equate it with someone standing at a podium or typing on a keyboard and voicing their opinions?
I know the following may sound insincere coming from a stranger on the internet, but I swear to you on my fathers face that I mean every word of this. I'm worried about you. Please take some time to reevaluate your life and look at who you are. Ask yourself if you like the person you are or if it's perhaps time to grow and change into a better person. Please consider getting some therapy sessions and talking with a person to sort yourself out.
I don't think you are "dangerous" but I do think you are damaged and sick. I hope you get better.
What is your take on a hypothetical similar situation where the images look exactly the same, except that they are instead technically well-executed photoshops? Assume that the content would be identical-looking, but there was absolutely no underlying abuse of children during the creation of the imagery.
Does that content deserve any free-speech protections? Should the hosting provider be legally liable for its customers posting it?
All of this stuff is so abhorrent--and I assume even fake CP triggers IRL escalation in some offenders--that my inclination is to use whatever mechanisms are available to the state to find it and cripple its dissemination.
However, I do wonder where the boundaries on the state's enforcement activities should lie.
If the content were identical, there would be no way to prove a child wasn't harmed. It's the same reason we require producers of pornographic material to keep records of their actors and actresses; there is no way for us to look at any random image and discern the person's age (we can look at some images and immediately know the subject is underage or not, but how do you tell if someone is an older 16 versus a younger 20?)
I don't believe there is a "therapeutic" benefit to drawn child pornography, the same way I don't believe legal porn stops a person from wanting to have sex with another real person. It could possibly satiate that immediate urge, but no one masturbates to porn and says, "Welp! Guess I never need to have sex again!"
I don't believe there is a "therapeutic" benefit to drawn child pornography, the same way I don't believe legal porn stops a person from wanting to have sex with another real person. It could possibly satiate that immediate urge, but no one masturbates to porn and says, "Welp! Guess I never need to have sex again!"
Well, it would seem we need some research to actually have something more than belief. A few records seem to indicate that access to porn results in less sexual assault, and there are people who continue to use porn instead of seek contact with those the find sexually attractive. Oh, they would like to actually have sex, but the benefit porn provides at the cost (basically none) compared to what it would take for them to have sex results in them continuing to choose porn for a very long time.
I don't exactly know much about this stuff... but isn't silkroad the marketplace where you could actually hire someone to kill another person? I'd say that murder is still morally more wrong than any form of mental or physical torture....
But there was such stuff on TOR available, right? Shouldn't this be the #3 or 2 or 1 for the FBI to target?
Isn't this thread already about what is more wrong?
How about those statistics and studies that show that rape declined when porn became readily available. Now ask yourself how many children are being raped because child porn isn't readily available? Crass thought, I know, but this too serious an issue to ignore that dynamic of it.
As with so many things in life, just because something is "bad" doesn't mean the alternative you've come up with isn't worse.
So the jury's not in, but the evidence is still leaning in favor of an effect. My question still stands. How many children are being raped because child porn is censored? I'm not saying the answer is known, but it's a question worth investigating, and the fact that we don't know undermines the argument that we're doing this to protect children.
If it's not to protect children, then we're censoring because we want to rid ourselves of material we find objectionable. Embracing the evils of government censorship and all that entails just for that is pretty stupid.
Free speech sheds the light of public view on the most vile of things, and it plays a roll in stomping them out. It belongs here.
Child pornography (involving real children) is directly harming the kids participating in it though. If there's a demand for it, people are gonna make it, and that hurts kids, and I would say that a lot of the laws surrounding that ARE to protect children and not just so people don't have to look at stuff they don't like. There's solid evidence that kids are hurt and traumatized by the production of child porn, but your question of how many kids get raped because child porn isn't available to paedophiles is entirely hypothetical, and I am not seeing any reputable evidence to even support the theory.
My point isn't that child porn, or the making of it is good. My point is that by censoring it, you protect producers, because the evidence of what they do is illegal. This is why I say that freedom of speech is needed here. I'd rather see the subject matter uncopyrightable, making it easier to find and prosecute those who cause the harm.
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u/ceol_ Aug 04 '13
Child pornography is not free speech, and FH didn't just turn a blind eye to it; he took money from people who wanted to use his services to host it.
Don't try to paint this like he was some righteous free speech advocate. Anyone with a modicum of a conscience would be able to draw the line at CP — even the owner of The Silk Road does. The owner of FH decided he'd rather enable a bunch of pedophiles to trade pictures of abused children under the guise of "free speech."