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

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

falkvinge.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 332 posts

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

#61

Post by dllthomas »

parfe wrote: post #46
sudonim wrote: post #24

When I lived in Houston and was buying a house I used a website to look up sex offenders in the neighborhood. I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when he was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old. It made me feel a little uncomfortable. It struck me because I was in my mid 20s and I think we were around the same age at the time. Something is amiss in a system that punishes him for life…

> I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when he was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old. The age of consent in Texas is 17 with a 3 year Romeo and Juliet exception.

The incident could have happened in another jurisdiction.

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

#62

Post by ineedtosleep »

sudonim wrote: post #24

When I lived in Houston and was buying a house I used a website to look up sex offenders in the neighborhood. I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when he was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old. It made me feel a little uncomfortable. It struck me because I was in my mid 20s and I think we were around the same age at the time. Something is amiss in a system that punishes him for life…

The Economist had an article about this a while back. Pretty eye opening when I first read it: http://www.economist.com/node/14164614

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

#63

Post by drcube »

birdcircle wrote: post #55

"So imagine a scenario ten years down the road, as you’re taking a stroll in the park." .... "WHAM. You are now a criminal, guilty of recording, distributing, and possessing child pornography." I find this highly implausible. Hypotheticals like this damage the argument. Crimes are caught on camera everyday. Seems to me the crime here (aside form the rape) is to knowingly destroy evidence of the crime, which the innoc…

In this case both destroying the evidence and possessing the evidence are crimes. What are you supposed to do?

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

#64

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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…

Do you realize you've just suggested banning 90% of all tv shows, films, books, plays?

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

#65

Post by 3amOpsGuy »

toddmorey wrote: post #23

I don't agree that the only way to address these edge cases is to entirely repeal the laws rather than reform them. Technology changes, society changes, and the law adjusts. Sure I can imagine myself as an activist working against imprisonment of consensual (but teenage) couples as he describes, but never for outright acceptance of all child porn content.

I personally feel the parent of my comment is the most balanced view on the page currently.

For all I am liberal, or at least centre left, and a free speech advocate, I cannot see any benefit to the existance of child porn.

I would however like to see a reclassification (reduced scope) of what is and is not child pornography, and also introduce a requirement to prove willingness on the possessors part.

I can happily skip the strict black and white view of the world promoted in some of the top comments in this case. I am completely at ease with the idea of promoting free speech whilst going against free speech in the event of something which is harmful (I am referring to real child pornography not what the law currently classifies) and with no merit, not even the wildest interpretations of educational or artistic merit can redeem the need for child pornography to exist.

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

#66

Post by SoftwareMaven »

I don't agree with all of his assertions nor all of his reasoning, primarily because I think he completely glosses over any reasonable opinion that is contrary to the viewpoint he wants to present (for example, the relationship between child pornography and child molestation[1]). I think completely glossing over these items is disingenuous and hurts his cause.

This is a difference in degree, only, though, because, even if everything else he said was wrong, this part was not:

Child pornography is horrible and awful from every angle and in every aspect. But it is not dangerous to the fabric of society. Censorship and electronic book burning, however, is.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_por...

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

#67

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

crazygringo wrote: post #56

There's a lot of food for thought here, and important points. But in one area, the author completely glosses over a crucial distinction: > why is it only documentation of sex crimes against minors that are being banned in this way? The lawmen are perfectly fine with a video documenting how a teenager is being stabbed with a screwdriver in both eyes, then murdered. ... why is the ban just related to anything sexual, a…

>But then there's another argument, that having child porn around is actually better than the alternative -- because potential molesters/rapists are able to satisfy their desire with existing videos.

In Japan, "lolicon" and "shotacon" (referring to (sometimes animated) pornography of underage (often pre-pubescent) females and males respectively) seem to be widely available, so that would be interesting to look into. I don't know if rates of child molestation are higher or lower, there.

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

#68

Post by todayiamme »

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…

>>> Did you even read the article? Not everything that would be called child pornography in court is molestation of prepubescent children. One of the main points of the article is that it might be consensual sex between, say, two sixteen year olds. Or it could be kids putting it online themselves (remember Jessi Slaughter?). Yes, I did and I was talking about the specific kind of pornography these laws were trying to ban. I wanted to raise the point that there are other concerns over here as well including the fact that it isn't a victimless crime.

>>> Not to mention that you imply there's a causal link between people watching child pornography and people making more. That seems very far fetched. I doubt child molesters molest because they want more viewers on whatever site they're on, I'd think they take pleasure in molesting children. Arousal and sexuality is quite a complex thing. It's not as clear cut as we would like to believe. I've tried to find case papers and references for this and failed, but I recall reading a fascinating account by a neuro-psychiatrist on how sex offenders often get aroused while reciting their tales. In some cases documentation and distribution of the act was a part of their ritual and it aroused them as well, so it's not as far fetched as you think.

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

#69

Post by Falling3 »

barik wrote: post #44
Falling3 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I worked for the Department of Homeland security as a contractor in 2009 to develop software for exactly such a use case. The operation for such merchandise is to ship products to basically an arbitrary address (sometimes knowing that the actual resident is on vacation, I suppose), and then have someone on the delivery end intercept the package. In these cases, the only realistic option for officials is to intercept…

I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm saying that the risk-reward ratio is way too skewed for me to give it a second thought.

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

#70

Post by SoftwareMaven »

parfe wrote: post #46
sudonim wrote: post #24

When I lived in Houston and was buying a house I used a website to look up sex offenders in the neighborhood. I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when he was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old. It made me feel a little uncomfortable. It struck me because I was in my mid 20s and I think we were around the same age at the time. Something is amiss in a system that punishes him for life…

> I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when he was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old. The age of consent in Texas is 17 with a 3 year Romeo and Juliet exception.

Interesting that Texas, arguably one of the most rigidly Christian states in the country with evidence of moral legislation, is actually reasonable in this regard.

Rich makes a lot of assertions about fundamental Christians, but provides little evidence to back them up.

Post reply on HN