10 ms·

> Some of this is welcome – the statement about making it a criminal offence to possess images depicting rape sounds a good idea on the face of it, for example,

by Camillo 13y ago

> Some of this is welcome – the statement about making it a criminal offence to possess images depicting rape sounds a good idea on the face of it, for example, for such material is deeply offensive Are you fucking kidding me? What's with this pseudo-shamanistic idea that viewing a picture of an act makes you a participant in it? Has everybody lost their mind? A criminal offence. Stop making up thought crimes, you authoritarian zealots!

scrabble 13y ago
But we must protect people from being offended!
mattstocum 13y ago
If the law made it illegal to posses images or video of an ACTUAL rape, I'd agree with it 100% (I hope this already is illegal). If it's a simulation made by two consenting adults, where's the harm? I find Justin Bieber to be "deeply offensive", why can't he be outlawed?
- GeneralMayhem 13y ago
  Even that opens up a lot of troubling possibilities when you get computers involved. Does scrolling /b/ and having the thumbnail of a picture that turns out to be an actual rape in your cache count as "possession?" If I email a bunch of rape porn to David Cameron, is he in "possession" of it? What if he downloads the attachment before realizing what it is? Ridiculous, sure - but what if it's not him but a suspect for other crimes or a political nuisance?
- hahainternet 13y ago
  The harm is in convincing people that this is normal or reasonable. It's extremely easy online to find an echo chamber where virtually every post will agree with you. These exist for mens rights groups, anorexics, conspiracy theorists, practically every topic. Rape porn is one of those areas where the lines between reality and fiction are blurred. It's highly unlikely someone accessing rape porn is doing it because they are aroused by the idea of simulated rape. By providing or permitting a similar echo chamber it is much easier for people to convince themselves their actions are perfectly acceptable. That is the danger of almost any media that depicts this sort of behaviour. It's not exclusive to the Internet, but it's the diversity and complete freedom on the Internet which permits these echo chambers to form.
  - king_jester 13y ago
    > The harm is in convincing people that this is normal or reasonable. It's extremely easy online to find an echo chamber where virtually every post will agree with you. These exist for mens rights groups, anorexics, conspiracy theorists, practically every topic. This is true as you say for a wide of variety of topics, but criminalizing those kinds of echo chambers is absolutely useless. Giving a person or agency the ability to criminalize those echo chambers in general creates a method of censorship backed by the law for any group of people. > Rape porn is one of those areas where the lines between reality and fiction are blurred. It's highly unlikely someone accessing rape porn is doing it because they are aroused by the idea of simulated rape. By providing or permitting a similar echo chamber it is much easier for people to convince themselves their actions are perfectly acceptable. This flies in the face of all statistical evidence we have. Violent crime rates are generally lowering even as violent media, including rape porn, is more accessible. > That is the danger of almost any media that depicts this sort of behaviour. It's not exclusive to the Internet, but it's the diversity and complete freedom on the Internet which permits these echo chambers to form. I don't disagree. The media we watch and consume affects us as a society, but banning media because of the fact that it does so isn't a solution. Stopping rape won't happen just because you banned legal depictions of it.
    - hahainternet 13y ago
      > This is true as you say for a wide of variety of topics, but criminalizing those kinds of echo chambers is absolutely useless. Giving a person or agency the ability to criminalize those echo chambers in general creates a method of censorship backed by the law for any group of people. In this case it's not the echo chambers that would be criminalised, but the intention is to block the media that may influence people to seek out these echo chambers. I'm not convinced it will work but that is at least the logic used. > This flies in the face of all statistical evidence we have. Violent crime rates are generally lowering even as violent media, including rape porn, is more accessible. There are many theories on this but I am aware of no well controlled study into violent pornography. If the research exists I would love to read it. > I don't disagree. The media we watch and consume affects us as a society, but banning media because of the fact that it does so isn't a solution. Stopping rape won't happen just because you banned legal depictions of it. I don't claim that it's a complete solution, but to deny it could solve problems at all requires evidence. I can understand the logic behind prohibiting it, and have seen some (relatively weak) evidence to support the idea that pornography can alter a young person's behaviour significantly based on them trying to emulate what they see as desirable.
- DuskStar 13y ago
  And I'd disagree with it 100%. Think of this scenario - you own a warehouse, and have a security system installed, with cameras on all sides of the building. A couple of nights later, you get a call from the police - a rape was reported outside your building from the night before. Your security footage would be useful evidence, they say - so you hand it over, not bothering to consult a lawyer first. The next week, you accidentally cut off the county prosecutor driving to work, and he files charges for "possession of rape video", based on the footage you handed over to police. The law has no provision for Mens Rea, so you are quickly convicted and are now labelled a felon and sex offender. And that's just one of the reasons you shouldn't ban the possession of images/videos of an illegal act.
  - mattstocum 13y ago
    I agree there's clearly room for nuance, but there always is. No law should ever be treated as black or white, that's why we have prosecutorial discretion, judges, and juries.
    - jwatte 13y ago
      It would be great if the world actually worked like that even when someone's promotion or political career was on the line. Selective enforcement leads to cronyism and arbitrariness.
  - rmc 13y ago
    Almost certainly the law will be written so that it's images of rape that are designed/published/created for sexual goals. This isn't really hard to do, as you say, you can just include a "mens rea" bit. Laws include "intent" all the time.
- rmc 13y ago
  I find Justin Bieber to be "deeply offensive", why can't he be outlawed? Because you cannot show you were harmed to anywhere the same degree that being a rape victim could,
glesica 13y ago
Agree completely, this jumped out and slapped me in the face. Even images of actual rape should not be illegal. For one thing, that would mean that, for instance, documenting a rape-in-progress that you are unable to stop would be a crime. But even aside from that, why on earth should imagery of something be illegal? Producing rape images, sure, rape is already illegal (though sadly not always prosecuted as vigorously as it should be). But possessing an image of an illegal act is not the same as committing that act. Possessing images of a bank robbery, murder or other crime is not in any way akin to committing those crimes, and the Internet is full of videos of crimes being committed (many of which are hosted by large news organizations).
- withad 13y ago
  If you were a rape victim, how would you feel knowing that images of your rape were being distributed around the internet and used as porn? In a situation like that, there's a clear victim protection argument for making distribution of such images illegal. Now, that's a very different situation to either someone recording a crime for evidence which should obviously be legal (and I doubt anyone would want to hang on to the images/footage after providing it to the police anyway) or to actors enacting a fictional fantasy scene, which I feel should be legal with reasonable parental controls in place to stop minors accessing it. The law should be capable of differentiating between these situations, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
  - glesica 13y ago
    I agree that protecting victims is a noble goal, but I still don't think it is a criminal matter. If anything, victims should be able to sue people for distributing such materials, but even that brings up a troubling slippery slope. The problem is that you end up censoring material because it offends someone. Never mind that in this case the offense is truly terrible and unquestionably legitimate, the principle is still the same. And if we censor something because one person is offended, how can we really say "no" to the next, gravely offended person who comes along? Where will it end?
    - 13y ago
hahainternet 13y ago
> A criminal offence. Stop making up thought crimes, you authoritarian zealots! So there is no difference between a murder and a manslaughter in your eyes?
- StavrosK 13y ago
  What? He said that viewing a picture of a crime doesn't make you complicit. Viewing a picture of a murder doesn't make you a murderer, no.
  - hahainternet 13y ago
    The difference between murder and manslaughter is primarily intent. I'm asking if the contents of the offenders mind mean nothing to him, what is the difference between murder and manslaughter? If you kill someone by accident when you were negligent is that the same as actively plotting and killing that person intentionally?
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      It's pretty clear to me that by "thought crime" he means "thinking about a crime without actually committing it (or even intending to)". Viewing a rape video doesn't mean you will rape, or even that you want to rape someone.
    - DuskStar 13y ago
      As far as I can tell, the "A criminal offence. Stop making up thought crimes, you authoritarian zealots!" comment didn't mean "don't include intent, that would be thoughtcrime" it meant "don't make viewing/possessing pictures illegal, because you can't do so without either making thoughtcrime or making every /b/ (or imgur roulette, omegle, etc) user a felon"
      - hahainternet 13y ago
        I appreciate that. My issue is with the term 'thought crime' as indeed the thoughts in your mind can determine whether or not you are charged with a crime at all. I don't see a problem with that and only the narrower definition of 'acts purely comprised of thought unconnected to physical actions' really holds up.
mcintyre1994 13y ago
Completely agree. I can't think of a legal precedent, but if the images are illegal I think it's safe to assume a video that includes that image is also, I'd argue worse but again I don't have a precedent to back that up. And there's plenty of legitimate art that can be described as video that includes rape, which isn't remotely reasonable to be banned. He points one out himself, The Accused which I haven't seen. Obvious other examples are The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Game of Thrones and the BBC's own The White Queen. The BBC censored that programme compared to the Starz cut, and we still see a young girl get raped. None of them should be opt in as far as I'm concerned. I don't understand what wording can be used here to avoid banning legitimate stuff and can't easily be worked around.
- rquantz 13y ago
  There will probably be something like a "reasonable person" test for obscenity. However, there is pornography that depicts rape without being actual rape. If the intention is to ban fetish porn, then it is a clear violation of freedom of speech. Whether that is constitutional in Britain is beyond me, since they seem to be much less absolute about free speech than in the U.S., but clearly have some protections as well. In the U.S., there was a recent Supreme Court decision [1] throwing out a law intended to ban crush porn, in which a woman crushes a small animal to death with her feet. They ruled that it was over-broad and could outlaw, for instance, hunting videos. A new law was passed immediately after the decision that had more specific language, and it has not, to my knowledge, been tested in court yet. Meanwhile, the court has upheld bans on child porn. It seems to me that there is no need to ban possession of images depicting actions that are already illegal, but courts seem to think it's OK in the U.S. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Stevens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Stevens
rmc 13y ago
What's with this pseudo-shamanistic idea that viewing a picture of an act makes you a participant in it? Has everybody lost their mind? A criminal offence. Stop making up thought crimes, you authoritarian zealots! This is Europe. When it comes to "right to free speech" versus other rights, we don't have the dial set as far towards "free speech" as the USA.

by Camillo 13y ago

scrabble 13y ago

But we must protect people from being offended!

mattstocum 13y ago

If the law made it illegal to posses images or video of an ACTUAL rape, I'd agree with it 100% (I hope this already is illegal). If it's a simulation made by two consenting adults, where's the harm? I find Justin Bieber to be "deeply offensive", why can't he be outlawed?

GeneralMayhem 13y ago
Even that opens up a lot of troubling possibilities when you get computers involved. Does scrolling /b/ and having the thumbnail of a picture that turns out to be an actual rape in your cache count as "possession?" If I email a bunch of rape porn to David Cameron, is he in "possession" of it? What if he downloads the attachment before realizing what it is? Ridiculous, sure - but what if it's not him but a suspect for other crimes or a political nuisance?
hahainternet 13y ago
The harm is in convincing people that this is normal or reasonable. It's extremely easy online to find an echo chamber where virtually every post will agree with you. These exist for mens rights groups, anorexics, conspiracy theorists, practically every topic. Rape porn is one of those areas where the lines between reality and fiction are blurred. It's highly unlikely someone accessing rape porn is doing it because they are aroused by the idea of simulated rape. By providing or permitting a similar echo chamber it is much easier for people to convince themselves their actions are perfectly acceptable. That is the danger of almost any media that depicts this sort of behaviour. It's not exclusive to the Internet, but it's the diversity and complete freedom on the Internet which permits these echo chambers to form.
- king_jester 13y ago
  > The harm is in convincing people that this is normal or reasonable. It's extremely easy online to find an echo chamber where virtually every post will agree with you. These exist for mens rights groups, anorexics, conspiracy theorists, practically every topic. This is true as you say for a wide of variety of topics, but criminalizing those kinds of echo chambers is absolutely useless. Giving a person or agency the ability to criminalize those echo chambers in general creates a method of censorship backed by the law for any group of people. > Rape porn is one of those areas where the lines between reality and fiction are blurred. It's highly unlikely someone accessing rape porn is doing it because they are aroused by the idea of simulated rape. By providing or permitting a similar echo chamber it is much easier for people to convince themselves their actions are perfectly acceptable. This flies in the face of all statistical evidence we have. Violent crime rates are generally lowering even as violent media, including rape porn, is more accessible. > That is the danger of almost any media that depicts this sort of behaviour. It's not exclusive to the Internet, but it's the diversity and complete freedom on the Internet which permits these echo chambers to form. I don't disagree. The media we watch and consume affects us as a society, but banning media because of the fact that it does so isn't a solution. Stopping rape won't happen just because you banned legal depictions of it.
  - hahainternet 13y ago
    > This is true as you say for a wide of variety of topics, but criminalizing those kinds of echo chambers is absolutely useless. Giving a person or agency the ability to criminalize those echo chambers in general creates a method of censorship backed by the law for any group of people. In this case it's not the echo chambers that would be criminalised, but the intention is to block the media that may influence people to seek out these echo chambers. I'm not convinced it will work but that is at least the logic used. > This flies in the face of all statistical evidence we have. Violent crime rates are generally lowering even as violent media, including rape porn, is more accessible. There are many theories on this but I am aware of no well controlled study into violent pornography. If the research exists I would love to read it. > I don't disagree. The media we watch and consume affects us as a society, but banning media because of the fact that it does so isn't a solution. Stopping rape won't happen just because you banned legal depictions of it. I don't claim that it's a complete solution, but to deny it could solve problems at all requires evidence. I can understand the logic behind prohibiting it, and have seen some (relatively weak) evidence to support the idea that pornography can alter a young person's behaviour significantly based on them trying to emulate what they see as desirable.
DuskStar 13y ago
And I'd disagree with it 100%. Think of this scenario - you own a warehouse, and have a security system installed, with cameras on all sides of the building. A couple of nights later, you get a call from the police - a rape was reported outside your building from the night before. Your security footage would be useful evidence, they say - so you hand it over, not bothering to consult a lawyer first. The next week, you accidentally cut off the county prosecutor driving to work, and he files charges for "possession of rape video", based on the footage you handed over to police. The law has no provision for Mens Rea, so you are quickly convicted and are now labelled a felon and sex offender. And that's just one of the reasons you shouldn't ban the possession of images/videos of an illegal act.
- mattstocum 13y ago
  I agree there's clearly room for nuance, but there always is. No law should ever be treated as black or white, that's why we have prosecutorial discretion, judges, and juries.
  - jwatte 13y ago
    It would be great if the world actually worked like that even when someone's promotion or political career was on the line. Selective enforcement leads to cronyism and arbitrariness.
- rmc 13y ago
  Almost certainly the law will be written so that it's images of rape that are designed/published/created for sexual goals. This isn't really hard to do, as you say, you can just include a "mens rea" bit. Laws include "intent" all the time.
rmc 13y ago
I find Justin Bieber to be "deeply offensive", why can't he be outlawed? Because you cannot show you were harmed to anywhere the same degree that being a rape victim could,

glesica 13y ago

Agree completely, this jumped out and slapped me in the face. Even images of actual rape should not be illegal. For one thing, that would mean that, for instance, documenting a rape-in-progress that you are unable to stop would be a crime. But even aside from that, why on earth should imagery of something be illegal? Producing rape images, sure, rape is already illegal (though sadly not always prosecuted as vigorously as it should be). But possessing an image of an illegal act is not the same as committing that act. Possessing images of a bank robbery, murder or other crime is not in any way akin to committing those crimes, and the Internet is full of videos of crimes being committed (many of which are hosted by large news organizations).

withad 13y ago
If you were a rape victim, how would you feel knowing that images of your rape were being distributed around the internet and used as porn? In a situation like that, there's a clear victim protection argument for making distribution of such images illegal. Now, that's a very different situation to either someone recording a crime for evidence which should obviously be legal (and I doubt anyone would want to hang on to the images/footage after providing it to the police anyway) or to actors enacting a fictional fantasy scene, which I feel should be legal with reasonable parental controls in place to stop minors accessing it. The law should be capable of differentiating between these situations, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
- glesica 13y ago
  I agree that protecting victims is a noble goal, but I still don't think it is a criminal matter. If anything, victims should be able to sue people for distributing such materials, but even that brings up a troubling slippery slope. The problem is that you end up censoring material because it offends someone. Never mind that in this case the offense is truly terrible and unquestionably legitimate, the principle is still the same. And if we censor something because one person is offended, how can we really say "no" to the next, gravely offended person who comes along? Where will it end?
  - 13y ago

hahainternet 13y ago

> A criminal offence. Stop making up thought crimes, you authoritarian zealots! So there is no difference between a murder and a manslaughter in your eyes?

StavrosK 13y ago
What? He said that viewing a picture of a crime doesn't make you complicit. Viewing a picture of a murder doesn't make you a murderer, no.
- hahainternet 13y ago
  The difference between murder and manslaughter is primarily intent. I'm asking if the contents of the offenders mind mean nothing to him, what is the difference between murder and manslaughter? If you kill someone by accident when you were negligent is that the same as actively plotting and killing that person intentionally?
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    It's pretty clear to me that by "thought crime" he means "thinking about a crime without actually committing it (or even intending to)". Viewing a rape video doesn't mean you will rape, or even that you want to rape someone.
  - DuskStar 13y ago
    As far as I can tell, the "A criminal offence. Stop making up thought crimes, you authoritarian zealots!" comment didn't mean "don't include intent, that would be thoughtcrime" it meant "don't make viewing/possessing pictures illegal, because you can't do so without either making thoughtcrime or making every /b/ (or imgur roulette, omegle, etc) user a felon"
    - hahainternet 13y ago
      I appreciate that. My issue is with the term 'thought crime' as indeed the thoughts in your mind can determine whether or not you are charged with a crime at all. I don't see a problem with that and only the narrower definition of 'acts purely comprised of thought unconnected to physical actions' really holds up.

mcintyre1994 13y ago

Completely agree. I can't think of a legal precedent, but if the images are illegal I think it's safe to assume a video that includes that image is also, I'd argue worse but again I don't have a precedent to back that up. And there's plenty of legitimate art that can be described as video that includes rape, which isn't remotely reasonable to be banned. He points one out himself, The Accused which I haven't seen. Obvious other examples are The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Game of Thrones and the BBC's own The White Queen. The BBC censored that programme compared to the Starz cut, and we still see a young girl get raped. None of them should be opt in as far as I'm concerned. I don't understand what wording can be used here to avoid banning legitimate stuff and can't easily be worked around.

rquantz 13y ago
There will probably be something like a "reasonable person" test for obscenity. However, there is pornography that depicts rape without being actual rape. If the intention is to ban fetish porn, then it is a clear violation of freedom of speech. Whether that is constitutional in Britain is beyond me, since they seem to be much less absolute about free speech than in the U.S., but clearly have some protections as well. In the U.S., there was a recent Supreme Court decision [1] throwing out a law intended to ban crush porn, in which a woman crushes a small animal to death with her feet. They ruled that it was over-broad and could outlaw, for instance, hunting videos. A new law was passed immediately after the decision that had more specific language, and it has not, to my knowledge, been tested in court yet. Meanwhile, the court has upheld bans on child porn. It seems to me that there is no need to ban possession of images depicting actions that are already illegal, but courts seem to think it's OK in the U.S. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Stevens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Stevens

rmc 13y ago

What's with this pseudo-shamanistic idea that viewing a picture of an act makes you a participant in it? Has everybody lost their mind? A criminal offence. Stop making up thought crimes, you authoritarian zealots! This is Europe. When it comes to "right to free speech" versus other rights, we don't have the dial set as far towards "free speech" as the USA.