Comment by Jun8 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jun8 | Hacker News Reader

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I can't believe the narrow-minded approach a lot of comments here suggest. Most of the people seem to subscribe to the argument, which in simplified form says, (1) the subreddits were full of child pornography (2) the people who frequent these were "pedos" and therefore (3) it's a good thing that these got axed.

The terms CP and pedophilia are being thrown around without much thinking, the same way the general public thinks all who are on torrent sites are pirates and "hackers are baad and steal your CC numbers". This sort of blunt scare mongering demagogy is commonly used to create support from the masses, I am amazed that the HN crowd is also susceptible to it.

Here are the facts as I believe them, please point out the ones you think are wrong:

1) Some of these subreddits may have contained CP, the illegal ones were being actively removed by admins.

2) Calling pictures of 16-year-olds in bikinis CP is not very useful and dilutes the term.

3) What is legal and morally right usually does not overlap 100%. Law may say one thing about CP and people may feel another thing. This is OK. Also different cultures, of course, have different attitudes.

4) In light of (3), to me there's "definitely bad CP" and "tolerable CP". The moral distinction is not clear cut and the law does not differentiate these. The situation is similar to the 55 mph speed limit, people break it everyday (avg speed on I-90 is more like 75mph) but if you do 85 the police will get you. So there's a tolerable zone and to me (2) falls in that category.

5) One has to be very careful with these outcries because they have the effect of ratcheting the law machine ever more tightly. Remember, no politician will put relaxation of sex offense laws on their ticket.

But, please THINK A LITTLE AND RESEARCH before you pick up the pitchfork, e.g. read this (http://www.economist.com/node/14164614).

ADDENDUM: For (2), also consider the widespread use of young girls in advertising and movies, e.g. the Vanity Fair topless photoshoot of Miley Cyrus who was 15 at the time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miley_Cyrus#Controversies). This is just one that came to mind instantly, many more examples can easily be given.

ADDENDUM: For (2), also consider the widespread use of young girls in...

Don't forget child beauty pageants. That stuff is IMHO often borderline pedophilia.

This was the first thing that came to mind when I heard about this.

I've seen a lot of people say "we need to protect the young girls in these pictures". What about the 1-5 year olds who are being dressed up and paraded around by their parents?

Where is the similar outrage over sites like imgur.com (which retain most of the images hosted in a sub-reddit even after its deletion) or TV shows like Toddlers & Tiaras?

I dont get this one. CBP does not reveal anything that would even remotely bring porn/nudity on my mind. I think its more a matter of your point of view. Same way I could say that an old man smiling at a 5 years old child on the subway has something dirty on his mind. There are chances but lets not get paranoid here.

I've come across them on TV from time to time and the children usually dress very provocatively and wear clothes and makeup that are usually considered "sexy" when worn by grown women. Worse still, they seem to often perform dance routines that are very provocative and sexual in nature. (eg see the end of little miss sunshine - real CBP seem to be similar)

This is what gets me. It's not CBP reddit that is a problem, it's the whacked out people (parents in this case) who are creating content that are the 'problem'. If you, as a parent, dress your toddler in provocative clothes and put them in a beauty pagent, then you're being ridiculously naive to think that people will only ever see this in an innocent light.

>What is legal and morally right usually does not overlap 100%.

This is the key issue that almost NO ONE here understands and it's evidenced by high profile HN members calling people they disagree with "disgusting" because they don't understand that morality is relative and that slippery slopes are only absurd until they come true.

I, along with most everyone here it seems, have no desire for peoples' children to be posted online for other people to fap to. That having been said, reddit has historically deferred to the law for making decisions about what IS and IS NOT allowed.

With this decision, they're asserting that their feelings of morality are now grounds for moderating content. HN always surprises me how anti-drug it is. Would HN call those opposed to shutting down other subreddits "repulsive"? What if reddit decides to shutdown /r/drugs where discussion of "hard" drug use occurs. There is a morality argument that can be made.

The problem is that the bright-legal-line has been broken and from now on censorship becomes a question of appealing to the reddit admin's sense of morality.

>morality is relative

I agree with you, but you are going to have a really hard time making that argument with a lot of people. In fact, I believe John Paul II called moral relativism the greatest evil of our time or something like that.

In my opinion this thread is already littered with examples that morality is relative. Sure, if you have an invented set of ideological morality that is blessed with divinity, it's easy to believe in absolute morality. The wide variety of subreddits and topics covered in those subreddits contain a whole plethora of things that I think are unethical but are legal and vice versa.

>1) Some of these subreddits may have contained CP, the illegal ones were being actively removed by admins.

CP was posted in the same subreddits. The admins were tired of spending their time determining if reported images were illegal or not.

>2) Calling pictures of 16-year-olds in bikinis CP is not very useful and dilutes the term.

A 16 year old in their swimsuit at the beach isn't CP. A 16 year old posed in their swimsuit like a porn star in a bedroom is CP. The latter is what was posted in these subreddits.

This isn't an issue with unfair application of sex offender laws or the vilification of accused sex offenders. This is Something Awful forum members forcing reddit admins to finally remove at best objectionable content, at worst illegal material.

Please excuse my ignorance, but what does "like a porn star" mean?

Bent over in an awkward position or in a way that exposes the area of their genitals.

We're not talking about some kids playing in the sand. This was seriously perverse stuff.

I take it you've never seen teenagers at the beach.

I take it you've never seen the photographs in those subreddits.

You must not be describing it very well. Provocative pictures of teenagers in swimsuits hardly seems "seriously perverse". It neither qualifies as child pornography under the law, nor would being attracted to that make somebody a pedophile.

"Provocative pictures of teenagers in swimsuits" is child pornography. It's the "provocative" part that's important. Even if there isn't any nudity, if the focal point is on the child's genitals and framed to elicit a sexual response in the viewer, it's considered pornographic.

These weren't candid shots of the beach. These were posed children. The reason I'm not describing them well is because it's making me uncomfortable to continuously describe them to people who are coming into this discussion with no idea what was posted. You have no idea how queasy I feel typing "child's genitals".

I'll have to take your word for it but I you'll have to understand that I am sceptical, considering child pornography was already banned from reddit.

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