Viewing Child Porn now Legal in New York Pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 NEXT | |
What a deliciously biased article. ... And that's all I'm gonna say as a post near the top of a page on paedophilia. No matter my original opinion it'd be quoted back to me more times than I care to read, with countless arguments I don't need. | |
While this may protect a few innocent people who stumble across the internet and find child porn when they were looking for something completely different (to borrow the example from the comments, if you are looking for Dicks Sporting Goods and you type Dicks in your search, you are not going to get sporting goods) I can see this being abused by the not so innocent. | |
It isn't made legal, as Gizmodo suggests, it's just not illegal to look at pics and such. It's only illegal if you're found to be in direct possession of it. Kind of makes sense, watching it isn't as big of a problem as finding the people who actually make the stuff and cause direct damage to the children doing it. Can see it being used as a way to help persuade people to tell where they say said content. Should be interesting to see how it all plays out. | |
Oh because this is a really good idea, isnt it.. | |
That is correct, nowhere on the article does it mention what I found in their source:
In other words, the guy got convicted on CP charges anyway, just not on the strength of the pics saved in his cache alone. It sounds like a technicality he got off on certain charges but to be honest that sort of thing isn't atypical in computer-related crime. For example in most jurisdictions an IP address alone isn't enough for a conviction (as they can be hacked or spoofed), so anyone who looks at CP and then wipes the evidence off their computer is in practical terms conviction-proof as long as someone doesn't catch them in the act, or they didn't leave other evidence such as credit card details. It's not a perfect situation but it's the price we pay for having a justice system that requires evidence beyond reasonable doubt. In the case mentioned in the OP however, I think he should have been convicted of those charges too as there was evidence of his computer having been the one to access the illegal images. | |
**** my state. I'm heading north to Maine | |
I tried to capture that with "viewing it is legal" in the OP. If I've misrepresented it in some way let me know. Not trying to be sensationalist. | |
Oh wait, nope, that was me mixing up your Op with the title of the Gizmodo link, my bad. | |
It's illegal to possess, download, or spread child porn. Pretty much every aspect involved in consuming child porn is illegal, but the act of looking itself is not. | |
Ah beat me to it Guppy! Yeah, this is kind of strange. I suppose they are trying to protect those who accidently stumble onto CP. I kind of figured a safeguard for this already existed... guess I was wrong. | |
This ruling is relatively sensible, as otherwise people who accidentally click http://website-hosting-cp.com could be prosecuted for their actions, despite not actively wanting to download it. There needs to be legislation about viewing CP hundreds of times with relative frequency, but I think this is the right decision as it doesn't create bad legal precedents. | |
Yeah it's the "accidentally viewing it for several hours every day" element of this ruling that seems a little questionable. Obviously there needs to be protection for dullards who blithely click into mysterious links, but I kind of assumed something like that was already in place. This seems...more encompassing. Not that I'm a lawyer, or fully understand the legal implications involved. | |
I'm guessing that there's nothing in the relevant law about the quantity of material viewed, so the ruling decided to protect people who accidentally click on it once or twice over prosecuting people who view many pictures regularly. I doubt it'll be fixed soon either, as US politicians seem to way more interested in killing the internet. | |
So some people here seem to think looking at certain things should be a serious crime. | |
Exactly. It's not like a child gets raped for every picture you look at, I don't condone looking at it but a person shouldn't be punished if they look at it, especially if it's accidental. *flameshield up* *awaits police at door* OT Talk about a biased article. | |
Yes, yes you are. This seems like a biiiiiiiiiiiiiig legal mess. They need to throw out the current law and put through a revamped, reworded law. | |
I agree. Not because it's okay to look at child porn, but just because there's no point prosecuting people who do, you're just wasting time, effort and money. Go after the people who possess it, share it and make it. | |
I hope that was sarcasm. Getting aroused, for whatever reason, cannot be a criminal act. | |
It's always been a bit of a grey area to be honest. Child Pornography is wrong, it's harmful to most children who partake in it's production, and actively supporting it is quite terrible. The fact is though, it's always going to exist, it doesn't matter if there's a huge demand for it or not, people are going to keep making it. Pedophilia is a sickness of a sort, a lot of people really can't help that they have a fetish for such things, and it's preferable that they express that fetish by indirect means such as child pornography than actually harming a child themselves. Once again, child pornography will always exist, people are relieving themselves using a product that would exist with or without their viewings. There's hardly any commercial support by simply viewing child pornography anyway, viewing it is one thing, but hosting it is another, you're not going to be getting any profit by how many people visit your website, you can hardly tie a bunch of corporate ads to your site and just hope oodles and oodles of people visit your site so you can make some money. Furthermore, it's a very hypocritical thing to begin with, to say that it is illegal to watch somebody do something that is illegal. I have watched videos of people stealing, does that make me a thief? I have watched animals be killed in cruel manner, does that make me an animal abuser? I have watched a man get his head cut off with a chainsaw, does that make me a murderer? I have seen all manners of horrific things and I have viewed them willingly, yet if I turned myself in, they would turn me away, for I have committed no crime. If a man looks at some child pornography, is he a child abuser? It just seems to me that for whatever minuscule contribution you could vaguely argue people are making by viewing without downloading, the punishments are quite severe. Sure the guy who actually raped a child is going to get a lot more prison time than you are, but after that, with the sex offenders registry, a foul creation that I am heavily opposed to, you will be listed as one in the same. I applaud New York for such an enlightened decision. | |
Why not link to the MSNBC article that Gizmodo is editorializing about instead? Also, I really don't see anything wrong with this. This quote:
Seems perfectly reasonable for me. As was already mentioned, it would in effect protect people who end up with underage porn staring them in the face through no fault of their own. Now, people can't get jammed up because of their browser cache. That kind of thing is why, when I uh... consume porn... I use a portable browser contained within a truecrypt volume.. I don't really think this'll hurt child porn cases at all. The pedophiles that really are a danger to society will have other evidence in their possession, and the producers of it, well... | |
When I think of child pornography, I think of films/pictures where a child was actually abused to create them, not hand-drawn art or stories or adult actors playing a role. Yes, you've seen people fake being murdered in action films, but it's unlikely you've watched actual snuff films. I agree the whole thing is a huge legal grey area, it just seems like there's some potential for abuse in there.
Laziness? I just posted the article someone sent to me. I'll put the more sensible one in the OP. | |
Welcome to the internet, where it's possible to have watched all of these things just browsing one site. | |
AFAIK drawn/CG child porn isn't actually illegal in the US. Also did you edit in the quote from me? I didn't get a notification. >.> | |
It's hard to browse the internet for long without encountering death or gore. | |
Well, here's the thing. If it's criminal for someone to take said video and download it on to their hard drive for repeat viewing, but NOT criminal to just bookmark the bloody URL for repeat viewing, then I'd say you're officially in a grey area. | |
I did. And it's not, in Canada either. There was quite a hullabaloo when a known pedarist was let off the hook despite having written/posted voluminous amounts of drawn/CG/story based child porn. But realistically, however odious you might find it, you can't make THAT illegal. Slippery slopes, and what not.
Dude, I'm 37 in a little over a month, I've never seen a snuff film. It's not like you're tripping over them when you go to get the sports scores. | |
There are websites for such things, and they are legal. I have seen an actual living person have his head cut off with a chainsaw for real. | |
It's criminal to download a movie, yet not to stream it for free. Please do tell me how this is different and new. | |
That is a misconception. It actually is illegal in the US. | |
That's copyright law. I'm pretty sure copyright law isn't the issue in question in discussions re: child porn. | |
Well that makes sense. Why put somebody in jail for going to a porn site to watch some legal porn but every now and then a CP or two gets by the moderators. Then what? The person who accidentally scrolls by the video gets put in the slammer even though he was there for safe, legal porn? captcha: knock on wood | |
This would appear to be correct. 18 USC sec 1466A (enacted 2003 under Shrub in the PROTECT Act) does indeed appear to make, for example, lolicon hentai illegal to produce, possess, distribute, or receive. According to wiki, it's been tested in court and has resulted in convictions. In which case gelbooru better not be hosted in the US. (heck, even safebooru might have problems) And also the scanlation group SaHa better hope that a judge can see the literary value of Kodomo no Jikan. >.> | |
Really, I can't see the problem with it. The problem is the people who make child pornography and the molesters, if the only thing you do is look at the stuff and that's it, then you really shouldn't be judged as a criminal. | |
Interesting thing to note: It's not illegal to view child porn, but it IS illegal to possess it. Know what counts as possessing it? Posting it online for other people to view. | |
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http://gizmodo.com/5908870/kiddie-porn-is-now-legal-in-new-york
Wut?
This...seems...like...a bad idea.
EDIT: A less sensationalistic take on the subject: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/08/11602955-viewing-child-porn-on-the-web-legal-in-new-york-state-appeals-court-finds?lite