5 ms·

The wave of authoritarianism sweeping the world is pretty alarming. This bill (only temporarily sidelined) would treat every single person as a suspect of chil

by jmull 2y ago

The wave of authoritarianism sweeping the world is pretty alarming. This bill (only temporarily sidelined) would treat every single person as a suspect of child porn crimes. Previously, you'd need substantial cause to put someone under heavy surveillance. People talked about how that was due to principles of civil liberty, human rights, and freedom. But apparently it was actually just because it wasn't feasible to watch everything everyone says and does all the time. Now that the technology is here to enable it, our "free democracies" can't rush fast enough to put the boot to everyone's neck all the time. Pretty obviously this is just the first step. CP is a tactical choice of the first step since practically everyone can agree on how horrible it is. (Come to think of it, this is low key exploiting the vulnerability of children -- nice one, government!) Once everything you say or do is sent to the government for review, you can bet it won't be for just that one thing only. BTW, I think the government policy makers blow past all the problems with false positives that will inevitably occur because, when your goal is control of the population not the prevention of child abuse, that's a feature not a bug. You want everyone nervous and afraid. You want the stories of the lives of innocent people ruined to circulate. That helps keeps everyone cowed.

constantcrying 2y ago
>since practically everyone can agree on how horrible it is. I certainly do, but the German government does not. They recently lowered the sentences for it, is now roughly on par with theft. Which makes this whole thing even more disingenuous. Either it is so bad that half a billion people need surveillance or it is a crime where you can get a couple of months in prison. The third option is, of course, that it is just a cynical argument.
- toyg 2y ago
  Tbf, the German government also committed to a No vote on this proposal, so at least they are consistent.
- aktenlage 2y ago
  The government not only lowered the sentence, but the "categorization" (lacking a better word) of it, downranking it from a felony. They did this, because with a felony it is not possible to stop prosecution for "possession of child porn" when common sense would suggest it, e.g. when minors send each other nude pictures of themselves. If you are 16, take a picture of your boobs, you are officially a criminal. According to this official page, those cases made up 41% of the cases: https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilungen/DE/2023/09/dontsendit.html https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilungen/DE/202... And if the possessor of the image is not a minor, as in case of a mother who reported nude pictures from her daughters WhatsApp group to the school principal, they had to be sentenced to at least a year of prison.
  - dinglestepup 2y ago
    I don't understand this argument. How does talking a picture of your own boobs make you a criminal?
    - SpaghettiCthulu 2y ago
      Because according to these laws, it's criminal even if a child takes their own picture, even if they don't distribute it.
      - aktenlage 2y ago
        Yep. It's the possession of "CSAM" that is illegal.
      - dinglestepup 2y ago
        That's pretty absurd. Instead of lowering the classification of this crime they could have introduced reasonable exceptions, like excluding one's own photos.
    - Solololo 2y ago
      Iirc the intent of the past two changes was to make liable for punishment both content of sexual acts done to or by the underage victim, as well as the content where an underage victim is simply in the content in any way, posing or being unwillingly or unknowingly photographed. The latter so as to cover the problem of images (selfies, own content) being spread around, but also to cover cases of abuse that wasn't clear physical sexual abuse in the previous conception. They did this first by adding the new b) and c) under (1.) in both 184b and 184c StBG, for posing. Subsequently they raised the minimum punishment in 2021 to make all liability under 184b a criminal liability due to the one year minimum. The only exception is the clause under ^2 that limits non-factual/non-realistic acts, think writing, art, etc. 184c remained unchanged as far as minimum punishment is concerned. If you observe StGB 184b you'll notice that it makes it so that the liability will be imposed on anyone who distributes or otherwise makes public, obtains, offers, takes with intent or possesses that which is as described under (1.)-1-a/b/c (child content) is liable to prosecution. Caveat here is that children (under 14) are not liable for criminal prosecution, they're Schuldunfähig. This is pretty standard EU-wide, and comes from Roman law originally. In StGB 184c, you will find the operative clause under (1.) and the exception under (4 ), and this article is about the "youth" category, meaning underage but older than 14. As you'll notice there, the minimum punishment is less than a year and there's the possibility of having to pay a fine. No matter the article, in both cases, taking a selfie means you're Strafbar, liable (punishable). However, per article 12 StGB, only 184b is a crime, 184c is a misdemeanor, provided the unlawful act is punished with a sentence under 1 year or a fine, yet leaves the door open for criminal liability of a perpetrator who commits a heinous act against a 16 year old, for example. The child under 14 goes "straflos" and is criminally not liable, even in the scenario where that 14yo is a perpetrator. Those aged 14 until 18 are then subject to juvenile criminal law which focuses on rehabilitation over punishment. More importantly, remember the minimum punishment is under a year, allowing the judge to just throw it out as proportionality is nowhere to be found here, if such a case even sees the court, regardless. So yes, technically you can take a pic of your naked self as a minor and become a criminal because of it, but only in the sense that very mundane, trivial infractions can do the same in any legal system across the world. Almost exclusively limited to it being a criminal act, as opposed to criminal charges by formal accusation from LE. The only odd part is the broad application on self-owned content, but that seems preferable to letting abusers escape due to the previous loose application.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> our "free democracies" can't rush fast enough to put the boot to everyone's neck all the time You're saying this in respect of a bill that has repeatedly failed. Yes, the authoritarian pressure is real. But it only wins if this attitude takes root.
- digging 2y ago
  I think it wins unless this attitude takes root. We cannot trust our "democratic" institutions to survive without constant outward pressure to resist the press of authoritarianism. It is a never-ending fight, and authoritarianism is on the rise because our underfunded history classes tell us it was already won before we were born (among other reasons).
- from-nibly 2y ago
  > But it only wins if this attitude takes root. Or if someone slips up. Or if it gets bundled with something everyone is really afraid of just right (see also the patriot act)
  - avianlyric 2y ago
    Most countries don’t let you bundle legislation together like that. US problem with stuffing everything in giant uber-legislations to work around the congress’s ability to do anything is fairly unique to US, and doesn’t everywhere else. Heck, in the UK there are even rules around the naming of legislation which makes it illegal to give legislation marketing type titles like “The Patriot Act”. The titles have to explicitly outline the purpose and objective of the legislation (which then results in some very long titles).
  - troad 2y ago
    > Or if someone slips up. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Or if someone slips up You're talking about a legislative process. In the EU. This would require months if not years of repeated slipping up.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
marginalia_nu 2y ago
Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous given that parts of the EU has a living memory of living in a system like this. This isn't some imagined hypothetical scenario. The east bloc had this exact type of arbitrary mass surveillance 40 years ago. It wasn't great.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
wait_a_minute 2y ago
Why are EU citizens electing these types of politicians?
- jerojero 2y ago
  This is probably a much more difficult question to answer than you might expect. If you asked me, I think liberal democracies all around the world are going through a legitimacy crisis. People have not been feeling, for a while now, properly represented by their politicians so they are always seeking to vote for someone that seems like the outsider. Right now, that is represented by these sort of authoritarian, big demagogue politicians. I think a lot of the problems of the modern world require much more innovative ways of doing politics and our liberal democracies which are based on this concept of the "vote for your representative" are at the limits of what they can do. The systems we have are slow and inefficient in a world that changes rapidly and requires politics to adapt much more quickly than they can. For this reason, imo, people have grown dejected from politics and the response of the electorate is a sort of self-destruction where they will vote for anyone that can resonate with a message of "i can fix it". Whatever that character might be. It's easy for politicians to play certain cards; say, immigration is the problem and the fix is to stop it. That seems like a simple solution and it's a message that can be understood pretty easily. But what are the real problems of the 21st century, in Europe, in the USA, in the rest of the world? I think a lot of people might hyper-focus on certain problems and offer solutions just for those problems and act as if that could solve a much more systemic failure. Ultimately, it is my opinion that the problem is politicians/politics itself and so it is rather difficult for politicians to solve it. Politicians are quick to say "we've failed you" but they don't really mean it, it's true though. A couple books that have really changed my perspective on how politics should be and why our systems are failing are: Systemic Corruption by Camila Vergara and Open Democracy by Helene Landemore. If you wanna know more.
  - toyg 2y ago
    Part of the problem is just scale. National governments were formed to solve nation-sized issues (trains, taxation rates not changing every 50km, consistent languages and education systems, etc). Modern problems are bigger than that: globalized production chains, tax havens, climate change, migration flows, and superpower conflicts, simply cannot be fixed at the national level. I can guarantee that all the boats in the Mediterranean and the North Sea will be shot on sight by my navy, but people will still get into Europe from somewhere else. I can ensure all the manufacturers in the country respect stringent pollution laws, but people will still buy cheaper and more polluting Chinese goods. And so on and so forth. So we move to a super-national, continent-sized model, and we have a better chance to address these problems - but then we're adding more layers of indirection between citizenry and representatives, and we get an issue of legitimacy. It's a thorny subject.

by jmull 2y ago

constantcrying 2y ago

>since practically everyone can agree on how horrible it is. I certainly do, but the German government does not. They recently lowered the sentences for it, is now roughly on par with theft. Which makes this whole thing even more disingenuous. Either it is so bad that half a billion people need surveillance or it is a crime where you can get a couple of months in prison. The third option is, of course, that it is just a cynical argument.

toyg 2y ago
Tbf, the German government also committed to a No vote on this proposal, so at least they are consistent.
aktenlage 2y ago
The government not only lowered the sentence, but the "categorization" (lacking a better word) of it, downranking it from a felony. They did this, because with a felony it is not possible to stop prosecution for "possession of child porn" when common sense would suggest it, e.g. when minors send each other nude pictures of themselves. If you are 16, take a picture of your boobs, you are officially a criminal. According to this official page, those cases made up 41% of the cases: https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilungen/DE/2023/09/dontsendit.html https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilungen/DE/202... And if the possessor of the image is not a minor, as in case of a mother who reported nude pictures from her daughters WhatsApp group to the school principal, they had to be sentenced to at least a year of prison.
- dinglestepup 2y ago
  I don't understand this argument. How does talking a picture of your own boobs make you a criminal?
  - SpaghettiCthulu 2y ago
    Because according to these laws, it's criminal even if a child takes their own picture, even if they don't distribute it.
    - aktenlage 2y ago
      Yep. It's the possession of "CSAM" that is illegal.
    - dinglestepup 2y ago
      That's pretty absurd. Instead of lowering the classification of this crime they could have introduced reasonable exceptions, like excluding one's own photos.
  - Solololo 2y ago
    Iirc the intent of the past two changes was to make liable for punishment both content of sexual acts done to or by the underage victim, as well as the content where an underage victim is simply in the content in any way, posing or being unwillingly or unknowingly photographed. The latter so as to cover the problem of images (selfies, own content) being spread around, but also to cover cases of abuse that wasn't clear physical sexual abuse in the previous conception. They did this first by adding the new b) and c) under (1.) in both 184b and 184c StBG, for posing. Subsequently they raised the minimum punishment in 2021 to make all liability under 184b a criminal liability due to the one year minimum. The only exception is the clause under ^2 that limits non-factual/non-realistic acts, think writing, art, etc. 184c remained unchanged as far as minimum punishment is concerned. If you observe StGB 184b you'll notice that it makes it so that the liability will be imposed on anyone who distributes or otherwise makes public, obtains, offers, takes with intent or possesses that which is as described under (1.)-1-a/b/c (child content) is liable to prosecution. Caveat here is that children (under 14) are not liable for criminal prosecution, they're Schuldunfähig. This is pretty standard EU-wide, and comes from Roman law originally. In StGB 184c, you will find the operative clause under (1.) and the exception under (4 ), and this article is about the "youth" category, meaning underage but older than 14. As you'll notice there, the minimum punishment is less than a year and there's the possibility of having to pay a fine. No matter the article, in both cases, taking a selfie means you're Strafbar, liable (punishable). However, per article 12 StGB, only 184b is a crime, 184c is a misdemeanor, provided the unlawful act is punished with a sentence under 1 year or a fine, yet leaves the door open for criminal liability of a perpetrator who commits a heinous act against a 16 year old, for example. The child under 14 goes "straflos" and is criminally not liable, even in the scenario where that 14yo is a perpetrator. Those aged 14 until 18 are then subject to juvenile criminal law which focuses on rehabilitation over punishment. More importantly, remember the minimum punishment is under a year, allowing the judge to just throw it out as proportionality is nowhere to be found here, if such a case even sees the court, regardless. So yes, technically you can take a pic of your naked self as a minor and become a criminal because of it, but only in the sense that very mundane, trivial infractions can do the same in any legal system across the world. Almost exclusively limited to it being a criminal act, as opposed to criminal charges by formal accusation from LE. The only odd part is the broad application on self-owned content, but that seems preferable to letting abusers escape due to the previous loose application.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> our "free democracies" can't rush fast enough to put the boot to everyone's neck all the time You're saying this in respect of a bill that has repeatedly failed. Yes, the authoritarian pressure is real. But it only wins if this attitude takes root.

digging 2y ago
I think it wins unless this attitude takes root. We cannot trust our "democratic" institutions to survive without constant outward pressure to resist the press of authoritarianism. It is a never-ending fight, and authoritarianism is on the rise because our underfunded history classes tell us it was already won before we were born (among other reasons).
from-nibly 2y ago
> But it only wins if this attitude takes root. Or if someone slips up. Or if it gets bundled with something everyone is really afraid of just right (see also the patriot act)
- avianlyric 2y ago
  Most countries don’t let you bundle legislation together like that. US problem with stuffing everything in giant uber-legislations to work around the congress’s ability to do anything is fairly unique to US, and doesn’t everywhere else. Heck, in the UK there are even rules around the naming of legislation which makes it illegal to give legislation marketing type titles like “The Patriot Act”. The titles have to explicitly outline the purpose and objective of the legislation (which then results in some very long titles).
- troad 2y ago
  > Or if someone slips up. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Or if someone slips up You're talking about a legislative process. In the EU. This would require months if not years of repeated slipping up.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

marginalia_nu 2y ago

Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous given that parts of the EU has a living memory of living in a system like this. This isn't some imagined hypothetical scenario. The east bloc had this exact type of arbitrary mass surveillance 40 years ago. It wasn't great.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

wait_a_minute 2y ago

Why are EU citizens electing these types of politicians?

jerojero 2y ago
This is probably a much more difficult question to answer than you might expect. If you asked me, I think liberal democracies all around the world are going through a legitimacy crisis. People have not been feeling, for a while now, properly represented by their politicians so they are always seeking to vote for someone that seems like the outsider. Right now, that is represented by these sort of authoritarian, big demagogue politicians. I think a lot of the problems of the modern world require much more innovative ways of doing politics and our liberal democracies which are based on this concept of the "vote for your representative" are at the limits of what they can do. The systems we have are slow and inefficient in a world that changes rapidly and requires politics to adapt much more quickly than they can. For this reason, imo, people have grown dejected from politics and the response of the electorate is a sort of self-destruction where they will vote for anyone that can resonate with a message of "i can fix it". Whatever that character might be. It's easy for politicians to play certain cards; say, immigration is the problem and the fix is to stop it. That seems like a simple solution and it's a message that can be understood pretty easily. But what are the real problems of the 21st century, in Europe, in the USA, in the rest of the world? I think a lot of people might hyper-focus on certain problems and offer solutions just for those problems and act as if that could solve a much more systemic failure. Ultimately, it is my opinion that the problem is politicians/politics itself and so it is rather difficult for politicians to solve it. Politicians are quick to say "we've failed you" but they don't really mean it, it's true though. A couple books that have really changed my perspective on how politics should be and why our systems are failing are: Systemic Corruption by Camila Vergara and Open Democracy by Helene Landemore. If you wanna know more.
- toyg 2y ago
  Part of the problem is just scale. National governments were formed to solve nation-sized issues (trains, taxation rates not changing every 50km, consistent languages and education systems, etc). Modern problems are bigger than that: globalized production chains, tax havens, climate change, migration flows, and superpower conflicts, simply cannot be fixed at the national level. I can guarantee that all the boats in the Mediterranean and the North Sea will be shot on sight by my navy, but people will still get into Europe from somewhere else. I can ensure all the manufacturers in the country respect stringent pollution laws, but people will still buy cheaper and more polluting Chinese goods. And so on and so forth. So we move to a super-national, continent-sized model, and we have a better chance to address these problems - but then we're adding more layers of indirection between citizenry and representatives, and we get an issue of legitimacy. It's a thorny subject.