6 ms·

>Yet, almost every time some morally righteous politician talks about regulating the Internet, he or she mentions "Child Pornography". I can see how the words w

by scythe 13y ago

>Yet, almost every time some morally righteous politician talks about regulating the Internet, he or she mentions "Child Pornography". I can see how the words would have the desired effect in a political speech, but is it really THAT common a problem? Yes, it is, but no, it isn't. I present, for your consideration, the most depressing number in the world: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2FS0145-2134(96)00180-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2FS0145-2134(96)00180-9 "female and male child sexual abuse prevalence estimates [...] were 14.5% and 7.2%" That's one in seven girls, one in fourteen boys. CSA is quite honestly the most insane and awful aspect of Western society bar none. And decades of crackdowns, teacher-initiated interventions, and, well, spying on every phone call in the country have failed to make a real difference. So we target child pornography. We target child pornography because child sexual abuse is the biggest social problem in the modern era, and we don't know what else to do about it. I don't, honestly, know of any real evidence that there is much to be accomplished this way. Porn isn't correlated with rape and even though in this case there's no way that the porn could be made ethically it's a bit like stomping termites in a sinking boat. The thinking is really that by damaging pedophiles' online support network they will be discouraged from engaging in such repulsive acts. Unfortunately, while I'd like to see it work, it doesn't make sense to me: people were raping children long before fiber optics got involved. I don't really have a good answer. I hope this guy rots in jail. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/NIH_child_sex_abuse_disorders_graph.svg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/NIH_child...

agilebyte 13y ago
I would not just say Western society. The VICE documentary "This is What Winning Looks Like"* seems to show CSA has a tradition in Afghanistan. * http://www.vice.com/vice-news/this-is-what-winning-looks-like-full-length http://www.vice.com/vice-news/this-is-what-winning-looks-lik...
- TheLegace 13y ago
  Ya it's really shocking how accepted in it. One of the higher up police chiefs(I think) said "..what else are they suppose to other than to fuck boys."
throwingaway78 13y ago
Exactly: how to deal with it? Any research on this subject is taboo, any questioning on the status quo is also frowned upon ("Are you defending a pedophile?! You must be one!"), hating pedophiles is common and widespread, with people wishing they rot in their cells. Understand this: you're expected to want someone with desires he did not choose to be physically harmed, deprived of their right to live a normal life. Pedophiles are second-class citizens, much like people of African origin and homosexuals once were. Note that I'll keep the similarities at this level, which no one can contest. This post is coming from a pedophile, obviously. I'm trying to show you, the people who have no idea what happens in those scary darknets, a look from the inside. Yes, there are people who rape children. Yes, there are people selling this stuff (as there have been on the clearnet and before the internet). But the sites hosted on FH? You could find none of that. They were collections of images which, unlike government propaganda, rarely contain rape. It's mostly the kind of images you find on nudism sites, but of course not all of it is happiness. The majority of users in those services frown upon that kind of content. Why should we trust pedophiles commenting on pedophile sites? Because you'd have to be pretty wealthy to astroturf pro-pedophile propaganda at the scale it'd be needed for those users to be so convincing over a 1+ year period. In short, the raid of these sites has done little to prevent children from being harmed. So I've talked about what it is like inside the scary darknets, I hope you believe it (I wish I could say it's there for you to see it for yourself, but it no longer is). I do hope that with time people realize forcibly injecting chemicals on people looking at decoded bits over a computer screen in order to effectively sterilize them will be seen as evil as it is thought today of what was done to homosexuals. No one asks to be a pedophile. It's not cool. It's not fun. It's really not fun to have pretty much the majority of the population talking about how you should rot in a jail, be raped or brutally murdered for something which you can't control (your desires; you can control your actions). You'll question yourself many times "Am I really this monster? I never touched any child, but still should I not be allowed to live?". The effect of criminalization is, in my opinion, the same as the war on drugs or the alcohol ban: you just created a huge market opportunity and now there are going to be even more players at this game, since black markets are usually highly profitable. And I'll end asking you all how do you want this to end? Eradicating pedophilia? Never gonna happen. Sterilization of the whole pedophile population? Thanks for taking away my human rights based on an image I looked at, because something went funny when mom and dad had sex some decades ago. I'm sorry, but just as someone who was born gay and does not want to change that is completely right to have that position, I do believe I'm not wrong when I say I do not want to kill this part of myself (I'm also not advocating legalization though; I want the end of this demonization. Let it be seen simply as ADHD or whatever else, not as scary monsters and a perfect excuse for surveillance) I really hope there's discussion on this in the coming decades. It needs to stop being a taboo. Not every pedophile is a rapist (I'll throw my anecdotal knowledge: most never act on their urges). I hope whoever reads this learns something.
derefr 13y ago
> We target child pornography because child sexual abuse is the biggest social problem in the modern era, and we don't know what else to do about it. In other words, we're executing on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician's_syllogism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician's_syllogism : 1. We must do something 2. This is something 3. Therefore, we must do this.
- threeseed 13y ago
  So your implication is that going after child pornography is a wasted effort ? Because I would argue that sharing of child pornography encourages people to create it. In the same way every other discussion board encourages people to contribute content.
  - mistercow 13y ago
    >Because I would argue that sharing of child pornography encourages people to create it. Suppose that's true. Does that mean that sharing of child pornography increases the incidence of child abuse itself? I would argue probably not, or at least that the increase is fairly small compared to the resources that go into combating it. Public forums do encourage sharing, but that doesn't mean that what's being shared wouldn't have been done in the absence of the forum. It just wouldn't have been shared. The main questions that need to be answered are these: 1. Does viewing child pornography actually encourage child abuse? 2. Does viewing child pornography discourage child abuse by giving pedophiles a sexual outlet that doesn't involve harming additional children. 3. How much more does it cost to catch and prosecute someone who produces CP than someone who merely views it? It seems likely to me that, at best, we're wasting a lot of money reducing a factor that has a small negative impact on actual child welfare (people who view child pornography), when that money would be better directed at a factor that has a much larger negative impact (people who abuse children). At worst, we may be spending money going after a part of the problem which actually mitigates harm. Whether or not it is the latter is unfortunately a very difficult question to answer. Most common wisdom about "sexual repression" and "outlets" is pretty much without scientific basis, as is the opposite wisdom that pornography encourages sexual behavior. The one correlation that can be drawn is that the results of studies on these matters tend to align strongly with the politics of their authors. But in any case, yes I think it's safe to say that the focus specifically on pornography is wasted effort.
sillysaurus 13y ago
throwingaway78's account is banned, but they posted an interesting comment. Here it is for non-showdead readers: http://content.screencast.com/users/shawnpresser/folders/Jing/media/48915ec2-01ed-4bb6-9ea9-d39d375bd9b9/2013-08-04_0250.png http://content.screencast.com/users/shawnpresser/folders/Jin... They are apparently a pedophile, and they give an account of what life is like for a pedophile and on darknets. They also assert that there were little to no rapists / people selling CP on Freedom Hosting. Here's a pastebin of his comment for screen readers: http://pastebin.com/9uuQK4ME http://pastebin.com/9uuQK4ME
mistercow 13y ago
>CSA is quite honestly the most insane and awful aspect of Western society bar none I'm not sure why you're singling out Western society. Erotic child-adult relationships seem to have been fairly common throughout history and throughout the world. Both in ancient Greece and feudal Japan, pederasty was common and accepted. Muhammad's youngest wife was nine years old when he consummated their marriage, and this wasn't really seen as notable until the 20th century. The psychological impact on children notwithstanding, the stigmatization of pedophilia seems to be a pretty modern phenomenon.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  I think he meant that non-Western societies have other problems that compete for most insane and awful.
gngeal 13y ago
"CSA is quite honestly the most insane and awful aspect of Western society bar none." Certaintly you meant the world population. It's not like this is exclusive to us Westerners.
rimantas 13y ago
What percent of US males is the subject of genital mutilation? What percent of childeren in Africa suffer from malnutrition? How many people die simple for the lack of the basic medical help? Somehow I think your view on biggest social problems is distorted. And I am not sure how jailing teens for sending self pics to other teens helps to solve it.
belorn 13y ago
Im not sure if that is the most depressing number in the world, or the fact that double that amount of children are physical abused (beaten) in the US. Sexual abuse declined 62% from 1992 to 2009, while the long-term trend for physical abuse went down by 56% since 1992. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse#Prevalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse#Prevalence)
jonhendry 13y ago
"the most insane and awful aspect of Western society bar none." I assure you it's not limited to "Western society", at all.

by scythe 13y ago

agilebyte 13y ago

I would not just say Western society. The VICE documentary "This is What Winning Looks Like"* seems to show CSA has a tradition in Afghanistan. * http://www.vice.com/vice-news/this-is-what-winning-looks-like-full-length http://www.vice.com/vice-news/this-is-what-winning-looks-lik...

TheLegace 13y ago
Ya it's really shocking how accepted in it. One of the higher up police chiefs(I think) said "..what else are they suppose to other than to fuck boys."

throwingaway78 13y ago

Exactly: how to deal with it? Any research on this subject is taboo, any questioning on the status quo is also frowned upon ("Are you defending a pedophile?! You must be one!"), hating pedophiles is common and widespread, with people wishing they rot in their cells. Understand this: you're expected to want someone with desires he did not choose to be physically harmed, deprived of their right to live a normal life. Pedophiles are second-class citizens, much like people of African origin and homosexuals once were. Note that I'll keep the similarities at this level, which no one can contest. This post is coming from a pedophile, obviously. I'm trying to show you, the people who have no idea what happens in those scary darknets, a look from the inside. Yes, there are people who rape children. Yes, there are people selling this stuff (as there have been on the clearnet and before the internet). But the sites hosted on FH? You could find none of that. They were collections of images which, unlike government propaganda, rarely contain rape. It's mostly the kind of images you find on nudism sites, but of course not all of it is happiness. The majority of users in those services frown upon that kind of content. Why should we trust pedophiles commenting on pedophile sites? Because you'd have to be pretty wealthy to astroturf pro-pedophile propaganda at the scale it'd be needed for those users to be so convincing over a 1+ year period. In short, the raid of these sites has done little to prevent children from being harmed. So I've talked about what it is like inside the scary darknets, I hope you believe it (I wish I could say it's there for you to see it for yourself, but it no longer is). I do hope that with time people realize forcibly injecting chemicals on people looking at decoded bits over a computer screen in order to effectively sterilize them will be seen as evil as it is thought today of what was done to homosexuals. No one asks to be a pedophile. It's not cool. It's not fun. It's really not fun to have pretty much the majority of the population talking about how you should rot in a jail, be raped or brutally murdered for something which you can't control (your desires; you can control your actions). You'll question yourself many times "Am I really this monster? I never touched any child, but still should I not be allowed to live?". The effect of criminalization is, in my opinion, the same as the war on drugs or the alcohol ban: you just created a huge market opportunity and now there are going to be even more players at this game, since black markets are usually highly profitable. And I'll end asking you all how do you want this to end? Eradicating pedophilia? Never gonna happen. Sterilization of the whole pedophile population? Thanks for taking away my human rights based on an image I looked at, because something went funny when mom and dad had sex some decades ago. I'm sorry, but just as someone who was born gay and does not want to change that is completely right to have that position, I do believe I'm not wrong when I say I do not want to kill this part of myself (I'm also not advocating legalization though; I want the end of this demonization. Let it be seen simply as ADHD or whatever else, not as scary monsters and a perfect excuse for surveillance) I really hope there's discussion on this in the coming decades. It needs to stop being a taboo. Not every pedophile is a rapist (I'll throw my anecdotal knowledge: most never act on their urges). I hope whoever reads this learns something.

derefr 13y ago

> We target child pornography because child sexual abuse is the biggest social problem in the modern era, and we don't know what else to do about it. In other words, we're executing on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician's_syllogism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician's_syllogism : 1. We must do something 2. This is something 3. Therefore, we must do this.

threeseed 13y ago
So your implication is that going after child pornography is a wasted effort ? Because I would argue that sharing of child pornography encourages people to create it. In the same way every other discussion board encourages people to contribute content.
- mistercow 13y ago
  >Because I would argue that sharing of child pornography encourages people to create it. Suppose that's true. Does that mean that sharing of child pornography increases the incidence of child abuse itself? I would argue probably not, or at least that the increase is fairly small compared to the resources that go into combating it. Public forums do encourage sharing, but that doesn't mean that what's being shared wouldn't have been done in the absence of the forum. It just wouldn't have been shared. The main questions that need to be answered are these: 1. Does viewing child pornography actually encourage child abuse? 2. Does viewing child pornography discourage child abuse by giving pedophiles a sexual outlet that doesn't involve harming additional children. 3. How much more does it cost to catch and prosecute someone who produces CP than someone who merely views it? It seems likely to me that, at best, we're wasting a lot of money reducing a factor that has a small negative impact on actual child welfare (people who view child pornography), when that money would be better directed at a factor that has a much larger negative impact (people who abuse children). At worst, we may be spending money going after a part of the problem which actually mitigates harm. Whether or not it is the latter is unfortunately a very difficult question to answer. Most common wisdom about "sexual repression" and "outlets" is pretty much without scientific basis, as is the opposite wisdom that pornography encourages sexual behavior. The one correlation that can be drawn is that the results of studies on these matters tend to align strongly with the politics of their authors. But in any case, yes I think it's safe to say that the focus specifically on pornography is wasted effort.

sillysaurus 13y ago

throwingaway78's account is banned, but they posted an interesting comment. Here it is for non-showdead readers: http://content.screencast.com/users/shawnpresser/folders/Jing/media/48915ec2-01ed-4bb6-9ea9-d39d375bd9b9/2013-08-04_0250.png http://content.screencast.com/users/shawnpresser/folders/Jin... They are apparently a pedophile, and they give an account of what life is like for a pedophile and on darknets. They also assert that there were little to no rapists / people selling CP on Freedom Hosting. Here's a pastebin of his comment for screen readers: http://pastebin.com/9uuQK4ME http://pastebin.com/9uuQK4ME

mistercow 13y ago

>CSA is quite honestly the most insane and awful aspect of Western society bar none I'm not sure why you're singling out Western society. Erotic child-adult relationships seem to have been fairly common throughout history and throughout the world. Both in ancient Greece and feudal Japan, pederasty was common and accepted. Muhammad's youngest wife was nine years old when he consummated their marriage, and this wasn't really seen as notable until the 20th century. The psychological impact on children notwithstanding, the stigmatization of pedophilia seems to be a pretty modern phenomenon.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
I think he meant that non-Western societies have other problems that compete for most insane and awful.

gngeal 13y ago

"CSA is quite honestly the most insane and awful aspect of Western society bar none." Certaintly you meant the world population. It's not like this is exclusive to us Westerners.

rimantas 13y ago

What percent of US males is the subject of genital mutilation? What percent of childeren in Africa suffer from malnutrition? How many people die simple for the lack of the basic medical help? Somehow I think your view on biggest social problems is distorted. And I am not sure how jailing teens for sending self pics to other teens helps to solve it.

belorn 13y ago

Im not sure if that is the most depressing number in the world, or the fact that double that amount of children are physical abused (beaten) in the US. Sexual abuse declined 62% from 1992 to 2009, while the long-term trend for physical abuse went down by 56% since 1992. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse#Prevalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse#Prevalence)

jonhendry 13y ago

"the most insane and awful aspect of Western society bar none." I assure you it's not limited to "Western society", at all.