Hacker News Reader

Comment by Houshalter | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how I feel about this. Merely looking at CP doesn't actually hurt anyone, and pedophiles are not necessarily attracted to what they are by choice. But there is an argument that it's existence encourages or can lead to child abuse in the real world, especially the production of more CP.

This seems to be demonstrated by this case. They caught the guy through CP but it turns out he actually abused a kid. Maybe he wouldn't have been caught otherwise.

On the other hand is punishing them and throwing them in jail for years actually helpful? As opposed to a lesser sentence or rehabilitation of some kind maybe?

Another problem is that it's incredibly easy to frame people for. Just put some cp on someone's computer or Google account and you can have them sent off to jail with little effort and no way for them to prove they are innocent.

View on HN

We don't want to see people who do things we don't like as people. We'd rather put a label on them and ship them away.

How does it make any sense for a woman who stops to pee near some bushes at night get on the list just because where she did it happened to be next to a closed park where there were no children at that time but there may have been kids during the day?

Nope, just put her on the sex offender's list and make sure she has to stay xx miles away from children.

Child PORN should not exist for people to look at.

I take great issue with your first sentence.

Who the hell do you think was harmed in the creation of said CP? If you are in any way sympathetic to those that would "harmlessly" watch it, then you are tucking delluded as to the reality of such a situation.

Seriously, take a moment to think about what you said and try to not pretend to be so "academic" about your position.

I'll assume you have no children.

Do you mean that looking at images harms people, or that people choose to be pedophiles?

I take issue with it's creation, but once it exists, looking at it is a victimless crime whether or not you find the act objectionable.

Which is another reason to be skeptical of the laws as they main reason they exist is because people find it objectionable, rather than rational arguments about what actually prevents child abuse.

>looking at it is a victimless crime

It creates a market. Is there no empathy for the subject of the photo? Would you like your 6-year old son or daughter to be looked at with a sexual gaze?

It would only create a market if the recipient paid for the porn or exchanged some other porn for it. I agree that participating in a market for child porn should be a criminal act. However, I don't see how merely possessing an image that you happened to find on the web can create a market (or cause harm to the person depicted in the image).

Victimless crime?

How about you ask those who were abused whether they feel like they are not victimised by people spreading and owning images of their abuse.

The victims are quite obviously real.

For the most part the victims are anonymous and will never know whether the photo is spreading unless they themselves go to the darker places of the internet.

I see your point, but looking at a photo of someone without their permission is vastly different than raping them.

So you think it should only be a crime if the victims know about it? That seems like a weird and unnecessary wrinkle. And I don’t think most victims have to go to “darker places of the internet” to know, given that they were present when the abuse took place and was filmed/photographed.

I would also like to know when I said that raping a child and looking at images of said rape are equivalent crimes.

Also, it’s looking at an image of someone being abused, not just an image of someone.

Are all CP images images of abuse? For instance, if two teenagers film themselves having sex, are they both abusing each other?

Photos of abuse are by definition proof that abuse happened and there's a very strong argument that demand creates supply.

It gets trickier if the images merely misappropriates existing images but there's still something fairly creepy about that.

However - there's also a move to outlaw synthetic images which is more troubling. I recall a case where someone was prosecuted for possessing pornographic representations of "The Simpsons" or something similar

I feel it's certainly problematic if all three categories are treated identically as the amount of direct and indirect harm differs significantly in each case and the tradeoffs we make regarding privacy vs. protecting individuals from hard likewise would be different in each case.

Posession of certain cartoons can already get you kidnapped and imprisoned by the state http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/06/1023282/-The-Story-...

And now go to a library and burn a copy of Lolita. And Song of Fire and Ice while we are at - Deneris was only 12 in the books.

The current legal landscape is that something could be CP even if no real human beings were used in its production. Or were over 18 but looked too young, or they were a 17 year old kid that send someone a picture of his dick/pussy as joke via snapchat.

Saying that something that is so vaguely defined shouldn't exist gives a free victory for censors.

Disclaimer - I suppose that you understand under CP what us normal people understand and what an overzealous DA, but still.

>burn a copy of Lolita.

No children were harmed or molested in the making of literature. That's a different topic to actual, real-life photographic CP.

It is a bit more complicated - IIRC - the legality status is extremely fuzzy especially with works that are not literature - I think there were lawsuits with some hentai and manga in both Sweden and Canada. And it seems it is unclear in US too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_cartoon_pornogr...

> No children were harmed or molested in the making of literature. That's a different topic to actual, real-life photographic CP.

That isn't what the US statutes use to differentiate between legal and illegal, however; rather the Miller test is what applies.

Should videos of terrorist attacks also not exist? People were harmed in the production of said videos.

>I don't know how I feel about this. Merely looking at CP doesn't actually hurt anyone, and pedophiles are not necessarily attracted to what they are by choice. But there is an argument that it's existence encourages or can lead to child abuse in the real world, especially the production of more CP.

That argument applies to virtual cp too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com