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

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

#71

Post by barik »

Falling3 wrote: post #69
barik wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, absolutely. It is not something that a regular person would ever need to worry about, since statistically the odds of this ever happening to any one person are extremely low (and even if it did, the person may not even know it because of procedures such as the above). But it's important enough at a national level that security officials are interested in tackling the problem.

So yes, it's possible that drugs have been mailed to you without you knowing it. In rare circumstances (especially if you just moved into that address, for example), you might be arrested to figure out what's going on. But it becomes hyperbole to suggest that you will automatically be charged and put in jail because of a random drop shipment (though I'm sure some HN person will find a counterexample just for the sake of doing so).

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

#72

Post by bediger4000 »

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.

> the law adjusts

Not according to at least two of the US Supreme Court Justices. The US Constitution is not a "living document" to them, not interpretable according to the norms of the time.

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

#73

Post by logn »

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…

(Regarding the US) I had a friend who went streaking on campus and was picked up by police. He got off of the charges on a technicality but almost was convicted. Had he been, he would have had to register as a sex offender. Same goes for public urination. We have a pretty insane system.

I'm not sure the general public could ever follow a nuanced argument like this to understand it though. We usually legislate like fundamentalist mothers with an IQ of 80.

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

#74

Post by birdcircle »

drcube wrote: post #63
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?

I challenge anyone to find actual foundation for the claim that unwittingly recording a child rape in the park is a crime even if the witness reports it and provides the video evidence. Seems to me that this is the "slippery slope" argument taken to unreasonable extremes.

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

#75

Post by yk »

droob wrote: post #2

I find these edge cases extremely implausible, and counter to the way crimes are investigated and prosecuted. "Possessing cocaine is illegal but IMAGINE IF SOMEONE THREW A COCAINE BRICK AT YOU AND YOU CAUGHT IT!!!"

It may be a edge case, but we use edge cases to map the territory. To illustrate in the case of the cocaine throwing madman, the lesson is that there are ways to come into possession of cocaine which should not be prosecuted. If we therefore ban the possession of drugs in every case, then it is possibly that innocent people will be prosecuted.

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

#76

Post by HarryHirsch »

logn wrote: post #73
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…

(Regarding the US) I had a friend who went streaking on campus and was picked up by police. He got off of the charges on a technicality but almost was convicted. Had he been, he would have had to register as a sex offender. Same goes for public urination. We have a pretty insane system. I'm not sure the general public could ever follow a nuanced argument like this to understand it though. We usually legislate like fu…

Indeed. In a functional society the district attorney would decline to prosecute as there is no benefit to society in going after a public urinator, streaker, or sexting teenage couple. But here in the US a politician has to be "tough on crime" or work for the "benefit of the children".

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

#77

Post by guard-of-terra »

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…

Okay, but then why criminalize shots for which it can be proven that no child were harmed along the way? Talking mostly about children filming themself and the like.

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

#78

Post by guard-of-terra »

ThePherocity wrote: post #15

I hope he gets hit by a truck today. I really do. There isn't, nor will there ever be an argument where the enablement of child molestation and rape is acceptable. And if there is collateral damage, then so be it. I'd rather 100 go to jail wrongfully accused than to enable 1 child to be rape. This guy make me sick. Seriously Rick, please kill yourself.

But what if you have 100 people wrongfully accused while still not saving that one child? "Well, it was worth a shot anyway?"

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

#79

Post by dllthomas »

Cushman wrote: post #37
prunebeads wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Right. It's insanely hard to find copyrighted material posted without the author's consent on any of those sites, and I never hear stories about legitimate content being removed due to fraudulent complaints.

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

#80

Post by ot86 »

I used to work at the abuse department for a large web host and domain registrar. We once received a complaint about an Egyptian forum that was supposedly hosting child pornography. The site was not hosted with us, but we were the domain registrar.

The complainant said that the forum had a secret board where users swapped child porn. They sent several links that did indeed show that child pornography was on the site and domain. However, since we only provided the domain registration, our response to the complainant was to contact the web host.

The complainant replied back with more links. That is when my boss became involved. She had very little experience with dealing with abuse issues, however, she was very vocal about the fact that our company was 'allowing' child pornography. She had us put the domain on "Client hold", which effectively disables the domain, removing the name servers from the registry. Afterwards, she scolded me and my two other colleagues for not taking the correct action (even though we were following our SOP based on our terms of service). Even the owners of the company heard about the situation and were glad that the site was shut down.

A week after, the complainant emailed us to thank us for taking down his competitors forum.

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