Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 315 posts

Re: Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

#161

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

thanksgiving wrote: post #44

I'll be the bad guy here and say that these laws should all just go away. It is just too convenient to plant "evidence" be it alcohol, drugs, or this. The idea that minors cannot consent is correct. Children are not a scaled small version of adults. They need to develop not just grow physically and children are vulnerable. We need to protect vulnerable members of our society. However, like with so many things in life…

I'm definitely leery of any law that attributes strict liability to mere possession, rather than requiring the authorities to prove that something was obtained with intent or knowingly stored in an unsafe way. It might as well be engineered to enable busting "inconvenient" people by planting evidence.

Re: Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

#162

Post by mirimir »

3131s wrote: post #120
13of40 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy... In half of Mexico the age of consent is 12 .

Just saying, I would have happily had sex with adult women from about age 6 onwards. I did have my first sexual experiences at that age, and have no regrets.

Me too, as I recall :) Maybe not six, however. More like 10 or 11.

Re: Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

#163

Post by yeukhon »

aiyodev wrote: post #154
zaroth wrote: post #42

The idea that it is constitutional to charge someone with a felony for taking a picture of their own body is absurd. The judges were just too chicken to strike the entire statute. Actually, my apologies, that's unfair to the chicken.

It's not the act of taking the photo. It's the act of distributing the photo that's being discussed.

Yet the distribution between two consent minors are not as scary as an adult sending it to a child. Yes, we have to educate children there are other ways to explore sexuality, not enlist them as sex offender for life?

Re: Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

#164

Post by Natsu »

dcow wrote: post #126
Natsu wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I see it that way. We're effectively biological computers that run an unknown, self-modifying program. We know when the body begins to develop (conception), but we're uncertain as to what sensory input is being processed, whether that program is aware of its own state, and such things may vary between individuals. We have bright lines, but none that have sufficient agreement about their use in all cases…

We are indeed biological computers. But this is a social problem. Socially we develop moral and ethical frameworks (codified as laws) in order to navigate the scenarios that come up in this biological thing we call life. It's not innately wrong to lust for someone who is younger than [country.min_adult_years] old; it's actually pretty biologically natural. However we socially agree that children are sexually off limi…

It's not hard to form definitions, it's hard to form ones that people will agree upon because there are many different interests in play and many different values. And it's not really that difficult to know whether a proverbial 'clump of cells' is developing into what everyone normally agrees to be 'human' or not.

The hard part is in forming the laws and deciding whether they should value undeveloped members of the homo sapiens genus for their species, for being intelligent, their capacity to suffer, or other reasons, then balancing whatever rights are assigned against the rights of others.

Re: Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

#165

Post by aiyodev »

waqf wrote: post #153
whipoodle wrote: post #95

We are out of our minds.

I cannot understand why Americans say "we" in statements like this. I'm not out of mine (at least not with respect to this issue) and you're quite likely not out of yours. It's not noble to take responsibility for things when you have no control over them and thus won't be able to fix them.

It's "we" as in "we the people". "We" are doing this because our elected representatives appointed the people who made the decision. "We" collectively bear the responsibility for what our government does. But there's a difference between responsibility and guilt. Unless we voted for someone and knew this would be the consequence, we shouldn't feel guilty.

Re: Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

#166

Post by mirimir »

whipoodle wrote: post #99
21 wrote: post #30

What other things that you can do to yourself are illegal? Suicide. Abortion in some places. What if I cut a piece of my body and eat it, is that cannibalism?

Drugs

Sadly enough.

But hey, having fun is immoral.

Re: Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

#167

Post by Chiba-City »

Why "prosecution" and not "investigation." There's a difference. It depends upon an audience. What about self portraits? That's how photographers learn. I had a Canonet and black and white film as a kid. I loved it. Asking questions doesn't have threaten kids. Good kids will answer good questions. Have I missed something?

Re: Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

#168

Post by huherto »

13of40 wrote: post #43
sgustard wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a map of age of consent per country, ranging from 12 to "must be married." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent "Most jurisdictions have set a fixed age of consent" but also "Some jurisdictions have laws explicitly allowing sexual acts with minors under the age of consent if their partner is close in age to them."

Holy... In half of Mexico the age of consent is 12 .

Not really. It is more complex than that. Keep reading.

Re: Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

#169

Post by pharrington »

"the Court found the prohibition of images that appear to be, but are not actually, minors improper; any harm stemming from those false images “does not necessarily follow from the speech, but depends upon some unquantified potential for subsequent criminal acts.”"

Washington SC: "He claims any potential harm in his case is just as attenuated and vague as Free Speech Coalition. Because no harm was done, he should have the same right as any adult to take voluntary photographs of his own body. We do not find this argument persuasive."

Am I correct in reading this as the court basically saying "The defendant presents a solid argument. We don't care." ??

Re: Court OKs child porn prosecution of minors distributing pictures of themselves

#170

Post by ageofwant »

Iv wrote: post #122
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hard to do in practice. I've heard someone vehemently defend a relationship they had at 14 with an older fellow. They categorized it as a positive experience that helped them discover themselves. It may have even been 13; I forget. Was it a crime? It might. be tempting to say no, but laws do exist as a deterrent.

The idea that informed consent is a characteristic that magically appears in full at 18 or 20 is ridiculous. Obviously some people acquire it earlier. Some much later. Problem is, judges and police have yet to design an objective maturity test, so instead they use an age threshold, easy to test, objective but arbitrary. Like the map is not the territory, the law is not a perfect match to our moral landscape. It works…

Pandora and her friends routinely open their boxes at around 15. Age of puberty has been decreasing rapidly since the advent of industrialization and the increase in nutrition and general health and hyper-abundance of synthetic estrogen in consumables, in western societies at least. In america it is between 9 and 13, for girls. A bit more for boys.

To demand that a horny 13 year old girl not fuck for half a decade to satisfy some arb moral code, is stupid.

Post reply on HN