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How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

salon.com

41–50 of 216 posts

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#41

Sounds like the system worked. She was accused of a crime, an investigation was performed, the state realized they had no case and that nothing was wrong, and the charges were dropped. I guess it's kind of a pain to be the target of an investigation, but nobody's life was ruined.

> I guess it's kind of a pain to be the target of an investigation, but nobody's life was ruined.

I'm sure you've met someone who did something stupid, and every time you come across them it springs to mind. How would you like it if that was you, and the something stupid was being accused of was child pornography? Everyone who heard about it didn't necessarily hear the resolution or the circumstances.

... This is the longer and cleaner version of the "you can build a thousand bridges" anecdote.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#42

Sounds like the system worked. She was accused of a crime, an investigation was performed, the state realized they had no case and that nothing was wrong, and the charges were dropped. I guess it's kind of a pain to be the target of an investigation, but nobody's life was ruined.

I disagree with "nobody's life was ruined"

Ruined maybe not, but based on the article and other comments in this thread there is clearly a lasting effect felt after having to go through such horrendous circumstances.

The uncertainty, anger, frustration, guilt, depression etc are all things which do not just stop when the case is dropped.

All these people needed was for the person making the original accusation to think for themselves and make a rational judgment rather than simply "do their jobs".

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#43
I don't think the fact that false leads are investigated is really the problem. But that investigation should be resolved much more quickly and much more transparently.

Really the harm seems to be in they way people are being treated not in trying to prevent child abuse etc...

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#44

This is tremendously disturbing, but according to the article pretty common. It's a tough line. On the one hand, nobody wants children to suffer. If at all possible, every child should be protected from abuse. I think the key, as the author elaborates on, is education. Knowing the difference between a crazy hippy family and pedophiles seems like common sense -- but if you, as an uneducated clerk at a crappy CVS in th…

In practice it just doesn't work very well sometimes. I think it's better to risk letting more child abusers off the hook, than potentially ruining the lives of decent parents like these.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#46
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say we want to live in a world like this. I'm saying this is the world we live in. A reasonable, non-naive person would think twice about taking pictures of a kid naked, if they had any knowledge of the current state of society & laws in the US. This position should not terrify you. If there's no upside to it, but a pretty significant downside, then don't do it. Exercise willpower. To put it another way, it'…

It is deeply terrifying that we should not just self-censor completely innocent acts, but that you think it should be second nature to any "reasonable, non-naive person". Avoiding completely normal behaviour because of a fear of constant surveillance and being turned in by those around you? This does not strike you as completely f*cked up?

What is "normal" is subjective and varies by person and society. Would you agree with that?

Some people don't think it's normal to want to photograph children naked. Others do. Some may not think it's abnormal, but on the other hand think it is not wise. Clearly, you think it's okay to do. Or you just think it is not unwise, or should not be banned. Those are each distinct nuanced states of mind on the matter. That's fine.

I don't see where all this "being terrified" angle is coming from actually. I guess I have a different understanding of the word terror and terrifying.

Having an awareness of the state of one's society is a useful thing. To be aware of possibilities, and make choices accordingly I'd argue is a smart thing. It's not being fucked up, it's being wise and pragmatic. As was shown in the OA, in theory everybody is innocent until proven guilty. But in practice, especially regarding this particular issue, it's effectively the opposite. Clearly we want to change that. But the world is not like that at the moment. Should we try to make it better? Yes. Can we make it better? Possibly not. Should we do the wisest thing in the meantime? You'll probably have a happier life if you do, but it is up to you whether the tradeoff is worth it. From my perspective, there's almost no upside and therefore no tradeoff to consider. YMMV. But do not be "terrified" of my position. Be terrified of a giant flying shark in the night or something. But not something like this. :P

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#47
post #22

I read this story, and it's very sad. But I just feel the need to ask... why is this on Hacker News? Surely this is Reddit type content? I read loads of really interesting and eye-opening posts about all sorts of non-tech subjects... but I don't feel they should be on Hacker News to the detriment of other tech stories that could be on the front page.

Because it's very interesting and very high quality. Also, from the guidelines of this site: Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#48

Thank god for digital cameras. I've avoided film since that Robin Williams movie about the crazy at the 1-hour place.

Not saying this applies to you but a lot of possibly questionable material that is bypassing the eyes of processing at a drug store is now being made available to many more than a couple of people online.

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#49
post #13

I had a similar run in with DCF, not for child pornography but for accusations of child abuse. I helped out a high school friend who had become a heroin addict (I had no idea what I was getting into), by letting his family and himself live with me while he tried to recover. It ended up that this was a common scam with him and his wife and they use a sob story to get friends to help them out and once they wear out the…

[deleted]

Re: How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

#50
post #13

I had a similar run in with DCF, not for child pornography but for accusations of child abuse. I helped out a high school friend who had become a heroin addict (I had no idea what I was getting into), by letting his family and himself live with me while he tried to recover. It ended up that this was a common scam with him and his wife and they use a sob story to get friends to help them out and once they wear out the…

DCF is a really problematic thing. I completely understand where you're coming from and we've had people close to us under false investigation from family services and it's a pretty bad gig. They act like everything you say is such an absurd lie and that you're just waiting for them to walk away so that you can start slamming your children into the floor again. It is really sad that they can't use common sense.

But at the same time, we've had people close to us exhibit a constant pattern of abuse with their children, including using and dealing hard drugs with the children present and leaving things like syringes lying around. We called DCFS and the investigation, as far as I know, has gone nowhere.

The woman still has her children because every time the agents show she happens not to have anything particularly incriminating in plain sight. The woman is a serial liar and manipulator and uses people wherever she can. She has many medical problems incidental of her drug use and the way she has treated her body and uses them to her benefit, playing the persecution card. We believe that she is constantly on the edge of sanity and has issues with schizophrenia. She is regularly beaten by her partners, and the children see this. She is always cracked out on legal prescription drugs, which she has a valid prescription to use, because as above, she has abused her body for years and now has serious problems as a result.

Her son has a disability that requires special attention. If he gets injured, he must be administered a booster immediately or he may die. This child is frequently unsupervised while his mother sleeps until 2pm and he runs around outside with kids who don't speak English, jumping off of balconies and stuff. He frequently misses school for a week or so at a time (she makes sure he appears at least once every 10 days, because the school people don't file a report until 10 consecutive absences). But apparently DCFS can't do anything unless they happen to appear at a time when the mother has drugs in reach or sight of the children, and the story is that heretofore they haven't seen this.

I sympathize that it sucks to be falsely investigated, but if you consider that there are people like those described above, who have become expert manipulators and liars to conceal and feed their habits, and DCFS has to investigate them too, you can understand some skepticism on the part of the agents.

Either way, it's a pretty horrible system. I don't really know the answer, but the current setup obviously doesn't work; this woman still has custody of her children six months later (the last time we had contact with them, her boyfriend, who speaks almost no English, called to say that the woman had been away for two days and asked us to take the children so he could go to work) and innocent people get harassed for years because of pettiness and retaliatory reports. Someone should try to fix this, though obviously it's a pretty intractable problem.

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