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Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

falkvinge.net

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Re: Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

#31

Post by stratosvoukel »

The article raises a lot of valid points. Not all imagery of non-adults having sex are made under non-consensual circumstances, or consumed as means of sexual pleasure. The law doesnt take this under account.

Big tech and media organisations (eg Google or any image or video hosting service provider), process and filter a huge amount of illegal child porn everyday. They even have employees doing this, watching and censoring child porn that is. Isnt watching it, even in order to censor it, according to such laws, illegal? Also while the material remains in the servers, isnt the company liable for possession ?

In Greece for example, the law is rather simple and doesnt cover such cases.

Re: Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

#32

Post by Falling3 »

As sudonim pointed out, there are some really gross abuses of the whole sex offender system. I've heard of a lot of people that are in there for terrible reasons.

I definitely agree with the author to some extent. We do seem to be inordinately concerned with child pornography. The term pedophile has moved from a psychological disorder to a synonym for child molester. I am fully against real child pornography but there is no good reason to treat the virtual version the same way. I think a good part of it stems from the false assumption that watching X pornography will cause the viewer to wish to engage in X. As usual, fear and ignorance are the favorite legal foundations.

Re: Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

#33

Post by jeltz »

kmm wrote: post #26
[deleted] wrote: post #13

[deleted]

> On the other hand for child pornography there is always a victim. Some child, somewhere, had to go through an ordeal that will destroy and shape the rest of his/her life to produce that series of images or videos. Some child somewhere had to be damaged for the pleasure of people watching that video. Absolutely not. Did you even read the article? Not everything that would be called child pornography in court is mole…

Additionally in many countries, including Sweden, even entirely fictional pornographic drawings with children are banned. There was recently a quite well known case against a Swedish managa translator for possession of child pornography. He was convicted at the first two levels of court but he was freed by the supreme court.

Organization who fight child pornography in Sweden (ECPAT for example) support the ban on entirely fictional depictions.

Information about the case in Swedish: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangam%C3%A5let

Re: Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

#34

Post by dougp »

Falling3 wrote: post #28
billswift wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been cases where drugs were mailed to an address and the person receiving the package, not knowing what was in it, was arrested. That is one reason why no one who has any sense will accept a package they were not expecting.

Really? I think you're being a bit hyperbolic here as my chances of getting a surprise gift are far better than the odds of me getting set up with cocaine.

It may be rare but it happened to the mayor of a town in maryland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayors...

Re: Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

#35

Post by prunebeads »

Cushman wrote: post #12

Presented as a reductio at the end of the article: It’s not illegal to film a murder. It’s not illegal to possess a film of a murder. But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for "Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and cleared it from your cache? What if people who watched video evidence of a crime and didn't report it to the authorities were treated as ju…

> But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for "Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and cleared it from your cache?

Then you'd probably get police forces overwhelmed with bogus complaints.

Re: Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

#37

Post by Cushman »

prunebeads wrote: post #35
Cushman wrote: post #12

Presented as a reductio at the end of the article: It’s not illegal to film a murder. It’s not illegal to possess a film of a murder. But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for "Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and cleared it from your cache? What if people who watched video evidence of a crime and didn't report it to the authorities were treated as ju…

> But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for "Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and cleared it from your cache? Then you'd probably get police forces overwhelmed with bogus complaints.

Maybe. They seem to handle copyrighted content pretty well.

Re: Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

#38

Post by tokenizer »

Cushman wrote: post #12

Presented as a reductio at the end of the article: It’s not illegal to film a murder. It’s not illegal to possess a film of a murder. But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for "Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and cleared it from your cache? What if people who watched video evidence of a crime and didn't report it to the authorities were treated as ju…

Yes. Like the author points out. In the case of child pornography, simply having it is illegal regardless of reason, which makes people who come across such content, destroying their evidence.

This would only put more people in jail, the killer (maybe), and the people watching it (maybe). I'd rather it just be the killer. And the molester in the case of the article.

Re: Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

#39

Post by im3w1l »

Cushman wrote: post #12

Presented as a reductio at the end of the article: It’s not illegal to film a murder. It’s not illegal to possess a film of a murder. But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for "Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and cleared it from your cache? What if people who watched video evidence of a crime and didn't report it to the authorities were treated as ju…

That would make a large part of our current culture illegal (assuming fictional murders are counted)

Re: Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

#40

Post by macchina »

dsr_ wrote: post #4

He has his own counterargument in a note near the beginning: But possession of child pornography is a strict liability offense, like possession of cocaine, at least in the entire United States, as well as several other countries. Intent, mens rea, is irrelevant: if you have it, no matter why, you're guilty. OK, so make mens rea a required element. It's a reasonable reform.

It's actually not a true strict liability offense, at least in the United States.

For example, 18 USC § 2252A(a)(2)(A) criminalizes "knowingly receiv[ing] or distribut[ing] any child pornography." § 2252A(a)(5) requires "knowingly possess[ing], or knowingly access[ing] with intent to view, any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, computer disk, or any other material that contains an image of child pornography."

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2252 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2252A

To be sure, "knowingly" is a lower mens rea standard than something like "willfully" or "intentionally" which require bad intent, but it is not strict liability.

Examples of strict liability crimes which have no mens rea requirement are statutory rape and drunk driving.

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