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So..... I know this is going to kick off a flamewar (I apologize in advance, dang) but I have a serious question. It looks like the "controversy" was links to

So..... I know this is going to kick off a flamewar (I apologize in advance, dang) but I have a serious question. It looks like the "controversy" was links to a site that included anime child porn (or what some people would call that, regardless of your personal interpretation). I've been to Japan and wandered around some manga stores, and.... what they have on some shelves is, like, really, viscerally, incredibly, disgustingly, way way worse than anything I have ever seen on the internet. And I've been here since the 90s. I guess my question is sort of 2-part: 1) Should linking to any site, which also hosts animated child porn, really be banned as a general rule? I don't actually know the arguments for/against it. I imagine that animated child porn may prevent child predators from having to go out and find real kids, because they can whack it to pictures of pretend kids. (sorry, I don't know a nicer way to say that) But perhaps that's not the case, or there is some other mitigating factor. I just don't think arguments should end at "eww, ick" or some variation thereof. We should have real intellectual discourse and solid arguments for why we censor content, not just "that's what we ban because we just don't like it" (or the much more likely reasoning: "because our advertisers/payment processors don't like it"). 2) What impact should cultural differences have, if any, on enforcement? Like, in Japan, that kind of stuff seems, if not totally normal, at least acceptable enough to be included in stores along with other regular manga. So how should enforcement 'on the internet' reflect cultural values? Should the entire internet just reflect the values of the 'most powerful' countries and cultures? Or, when China eventually becomes the global superpower, are we gonna be OK with the norm then switching to be whatever China deems culturally acceptable?

seanw444 4y ago
Due to how taboo the topic is, I don't think there's any good statistical evidence to prove whether animated (whether AI or human-made) child porn disincentivizes those people from wanting to harm real children, or if it just feeds their desires far enough to want to take it to the real thing.
- gsk22 4y ago
  I doubt (but have no evidence to disprove) that simulated child porn causes viewers to act on those desires in the real world. It's not as if people will be "converted" to child porn by viewing these images; rather, it will be viewed by people who already have a predisposition to such content. My gut says it might reduce real-world incidence if they can get their rocks off to digital content, rather than feeling compelled to do so in reality. But as you pointed out, there is very little credible research on this topic, so it's hard to say conclusively.
bastawhiz 4y ago
You don't even need to engage in that debate at all. Github doesn't allow porn on its platform. It doesn't matter what kind of porn (not the least of which porn that's illegal in the United States, which isn't Github's decision to censor or not). Github says "no porn," so no porn. Why does Github say "no porn?" Because their business model is to be a place where folks can do work, which necessitates it being a place where you can browse documentation without coming across NSFW content. > because our advertisers/payment processors don't like it Or, more simply, because if Github fills up with porn, the business professionals paying money to host their code on github will find a place that's not full of porn to host their code. It's a weird argument to say "Github's ability to make money and stay in business shouldn't matter because I want to host my awesome list of anime nudes." > Like, in Japan, that kind of stuff seems, if not totally normal, at least acceptable enough to be included in stores along with other regular manga. So how should enforcement 'on the internet' reflect cultural values? Github isn't a random store in Japan, it's the equivalent of an office building in Japan (whether you imagine it that way or not). If you brought your porn to work in Japan and hung it in your cubicle, it would almost certainly be frowned upon.
- jacobbudin 4y ago
  > You don't even need to engage in that debate at all. Github doesn't allow porn on its platform. The parent is referring to URLs, not the content itself. e.g., Popular network-filtering blocklists hosted on GitHub do include URLs to porn. That seems sensible.
  - bastawhiz 4y ago
    For one, block lists include hostnames, not links to specific pages. For two, block lists aren't meant to be browsed. Lists of swears and slurs are necessary to provide libraries that can offer content moderation features, but the individual words probably violate some ToS. But if you use some of those slurs in your wiki, you're no longer offering functionality, you're just writing offensive stuff. Intent matters.
numpad0 4y ago
> like, really, viscerally, incredibly, disgustingly, way way worse than anything I have ever seen on the internet > in Japan, that kind of stuff seems, if not totally normal, at least acceptable enough to be included in stores along with other regular manga. This part gets me puzzled often. It seems the problem is child part than porn part, and as a Japanese I don't see that much child content(obviously ignoring defenses like "500-year-old loli" or "blurring makes it not porn"), especially in the low ranges that attract offenders I read about on news. What seems to be the case to me, is that Western gut feeling massively under-report ages for Japanese and/or anime faces, or has a threshold point for adults set decades too high. With a hypothetical that such guessing error exists, Q2 leads to another question: "Assuming there are some visual representations that are universally immoral across societies, should certain groups of people who visually appear immoral by certain cultural norms, be regulated by which standards and why" - it sounds extreme(it is), but I have seen this "visually immoral" class of people and drawings on the internet, and that is kind of a legitimate human rights issue that a class by appearance exists; it's no different from debating whether to tolerate blacks and their pictures.

seanw444 4y ago

Due to how taboo the topic is, I don't think there's any good statistical evidence to prove whether animated (whether AI or human-made) child porn disincentivizes those people from wanting to harm real children, or if it just feeds their desires far enough to want to take it to the real thing.

gsk22 4y ago
I doubt (but have no evidence to disprove) that simulated child porn causes viewers to act on those desires in the real world. It's not as if people will be "converted" to child porn by viewing these images; rather, it will be viewed by people who already have a predisposition to such content. My gut says it might reduce real-world incidence if they can get their rocks off to digital content, rather than feeling compelled to do so in reality. But as you pointed out, there is very little credible research on this topic, so it's hard to say conclusively.

bastawhiz 4y ago

You don't even need to engage in that debate at all. Github doesn't allow porn on its platform. It doesn't matter what kind of porn (not the least of which porn that's illegal in the United States, which isn't Github's decision to censor or not). Github says "no porn," so no porn. Why does Github say "no porn?" Because their business model is to be a place where folks can do work, which necessitates it being a place where you can browse documentation without coming across NSFW content. > because our advertisers/payment processors don't like it Or, more simply, because if Github fills up with porn, the business professionals paying money to host their code on github will find a place that's not full of porn to host their code. It's a weird argument to say "Github's ability to make money and stay in business shouldn't matter because I want to host my awesome list of anime nudes." > Like, in Japan, that kind of stuff seems, if not totally normal, at least acceptable enough to be included in stores along with other regular manga. So how should enforcement 'on the internet' reflect cultural values? Github isn't a random store in Japan, it's the equivalent of an office building in Japan (whether you imagine it that way or not). If you brought your porn to work in Japan and hung it in your cubicle, it would almost certainly be frowned upon.

jacobbudin 4y ago
> You don't even need to engage in that debate at all. Github doesn't allow porn on its platform. The parent is referring to URLs, not the content itself. e.g., Popular network-filtering blocklists hosted on GitHub do include URLs to porn. That seems sensible.
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  For one, block lists include hostnames, not links to specific pages. For two, block lists aren't meant to be browsed. Lists of swears and slurs are necessary to provide libraries that can offer content moderation features, but the individual words probably violate some ToS. But if you use some of those slurs in your wiki, you're no longer offering functionality, you're just writing offensive stuff. Intent matters.

numpad0 4y ago

> like, really, viscerally, incredibly, disgustingly, way way worse than anything I have ever seen on the internet > in Japan, that kind of stuff seems, if not totally normal, at least acceptable enough to be included in stores along with other regular manga. This part gets me puzzled often. It seems the problem is child part than porn part, and as a Japanese I don't see that much child content(obviously ignoring defenses like "500-year-old loli" or "blurring makes it not porn"), especially in the low ranges that attract offenders I read about on news. What seems to be the case to me, is that Western gut feeling massively under-report ages for Japanese and/or anime faces, or has a threshold point for adults set decades too high. With a hypothetical that such guessing error exists, Q2 leads to another question: "Assuming there are some visual representations that are universally immoral across societies, should certain groups of people who visually appear immoral by certain cultural norms, be regulated by which standards and why" - it sounds extreme(it is), but I have seen this "visually immoral" class of people and drawings on the internet, and that is kind of a legitimate human rights issue that a class by appearance exists; it's no different from debating whether to tolerate blacks and their pictures.