Why ISP's 'Stand' Against Child Porn Is Actually Not A Stand Against Child Porn
from the let's-try-this-again,-shall-we? dept
Following NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's success in getting ISPs to turn off Usenet access and pretend it was a victory against child porn, a bunch of cable providers under the umbrella of the NCTA have announced an agreement with 45 attorneys general, claiming that they, too, are taking a "stand against child porn." This "stand" is the same as what Cuomo pressured ISPs to do: officially it's to block any newsgroup or website that is "known to host child pornography." Taking a stand against child pornography would be a good thing -- but this is not actually a stand against child pornography. This is trying to sweep a problem under the rug so that some politicians and some companies can get some good headlines.
Taking a stand against child porn wouldn't be overly aggressively blocking access to internet destinations that may or may not have porn (and there's no review over the list to make sure that they're actually objectionable). Taking a stand against child porn would be hunting down those responsible for the child porn and making sure that they're dealt with appropriately. Blocking access to some websites doesn't solve the problem. Those who still produce and make use of child porn will still get it from other sources -- but it will be more underground, making it more difficult for authorities to track down. Also, this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable without any review. For those folks who support network neutrality, this is highly questionable, because it's clearly going against the basic principles of network neutrality -- but in a way no one will protest because they don't want to be seen as siding with child pornographers. But the truth is this "stand" against child pornography won't do anything to stop child pornographers other than making them harder to track down -- and it sends these ISPs down the slippery slope of getting to decide what they think is objectionable content that should be blocked.
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Usenet is not the problem
I always suspected that child pornography isn't nearly as invasive as people say it is, and now I know for sure that's the case.
I have been involved in Usenet for 10 years, and have at times decoded the entire newsfeed, including all of the alt.pictures.erotica groups. There is no child porn there. Even on the newsgroups that supposedly feature it, there is a very small amount, but most is just ads for porn sites and random legal porn that people are cross-posting.
In truth, Usenet is one of the worst places to put illegal images. There is zero privacy, there is no private clubs where you can make sure your illegal activities are viewed by only a few. And there is little anonymity, because almost all ISPs keep logs of Usenet posting.
One wonders if the anti-piracy people are really behind this somehow. Piracy, unlike child pornography, is rampant on Usenet.
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and soon they block all bittorrent and ftp traffic because someone used it to distribute child porn
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Child pornographers
Although the activity of making child porn is definitely objectionable (unless it is using adults who look like kiddies or is created with software, children are being abused) and should be prosecuted vigorously, I wonder if the viewing of it is, on balance, necessarily more harmful than banning it. Might it turn out that those afflicted with the unacceptable desires, when denied their online fantasies, will turn to real children for satisfaction?
I do not understand what these people can be thinking or feeling, so I can't say what will happen if the material is suppressed but we should learn from the other good intentioned actions that have had unanticipated negative consequences.
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Great
Great post!
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Maybe we should just start blocking the production of children. It would eliminate every bit of child pornography in about 18 years.
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have you seen multichannel? they're out of touch with reality too
The site linked in the techdirt article has some kind of dinosaur-era antispam. try to post a comment that is 100% pc and you'll get a message saying "We're sorry, but we do not allow comments that contain HTML code, expletives, and certain terms common in spam. Please try editing your comment."
Really, comments that contain terms common in spam? Does that mean the entire english vocabulary? I'd send them a message but who knows, I'm sure the people at multichannel don't listen to their viewers anyway.
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Supression is not the key
This is one of the FEW posts that actually admits that by supressing the abuse you do little to prevent the abuse, you only make it more difficult to find and prosecute the perpetrators.
ISP's willing supress UseNet because it consumes huge amount of bandwidth and hardware resources, they have no intentions of trying to prevent child porn or the abuse of kids, they latch onto the excuse as a way of justifying what they are all already trying to do in the first place.
The truth is I would rather ISPs remain nuetral and simply cooperate with Law Enforcement rather than try to get involved in the prevention. ISP's may be able to block the content but it does little to prevent the content from being created or distributed. As someone said in a previous comment, there is little of this content openly being distributed and the content that is openly distributed is more likely to be distributed unknowingly.
Having that content out in the open gives law enforcement a starting point for tracing it to it's source. Supressing it only makes it more difficult for law enforcment to do their jobs.
I emailed the child protective group that suied yahoo a few years ago pointing out the flaw in their actions and their response was that by stopping yahoo from hosting chat groups they were actually protecting the kids. My arguement then and now is that all they accomplished was shutting down a resource for lawenforcement, they did not protect a single child only made it harder for law enforcement to catch the perpetrators which only protected the preditors and exposed more children to being preyed apon.
This action by these ISP's accomplishes the exact same thing.
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Less standing...
Less standing.. more soapboxing
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The easy solution
As usual, politicians (and the like) are taking the easy way out. Which is simpler: tracking down and investigating people who make child porn, putting together a case, getting a search warrant, arresting people, and watch the case unfold in a court... OR... flip a few switches at the ISP level so people can't see "child porn".
As usual, it's "security theater": do something simple that can make a good story, but doesn't do anything to solve the actual problem.
As Mike (and others) have said: if "child porn" is such a big issue as politicians are saying, why don't they go after the creators and arrest them? Or are the politicians basically admitting that the "problem" comes from outside of the US, where they can't prosecute people?
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Re:
But artificial children would then be needed to be protected.
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Re: The easy solution
Because then protectors would be less needed, if the producers were excised.
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But think of the children!!!
I have no problem with the need to prosecute people who make, distribute and view real life child porn. What I have a problem with is groups like this taking away a VALID way for law enforcement to track these scumbags and put them behind bars. Many times law enforcement agencies are patrolling these sites looking for the illegal content themselves.
The group in question not only takes away a valid tool, but also has no accountability to any oversight comittee. The FBI and police have to follow certain rules and regulations while tracking these sites/people to properly get enough evidence to put them away. This "think of the children" group just surfs for child porn on the internet (which they are committing an illegal act BTW) and then sends the information to the ISPs to remove the content. WHY NOT SEND IT TO THE COPS INSTEAD!!! Let the proper authorities take care of this and leave ISPs out of it. If the group wants to help, let them but only with proper law enforcement supervision.
By removing these sites, this group is driving these perverted scum bags further underground, where they are less likely to be found. How bout you think of the children now???
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Re: Child pornographers
I'm not saying anything about what we should do, but there is a correlation (possibly a causality) between the increase in distribution of regular porn and the decrease of adult rape.
Now I'm saying what we need to do. We need to stop banning legitimate tools just because they could potentially be used for possibly illegal action. We need to start using the tools to track down the people that are actually doing these illegal things.
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Let's outlaw cameras
Isn't that really how to stop child pornography? Just outlaw all cameras, and then, voila! No more child porn.
Dumbasses.
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Re: The easy solution
I think the ideal solution here is to zone the internet as suggested in this piece:Zoning the Internet to Protect Children( http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=621&doc_id=151294&F_src=flftwo)
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How about
Making kiddie porn legal or something. Who says it's a bad thing to want to run up into your 16 year old daughter? If half the world is so interested in kiddie porn then how can a few hardlegs say its a bad thing? Kind of like the story where they posted up some speed trap cameras and within the first few hours they had over 1000 speeders caught on tape. Either the camera is busted or they need to raise the speed limit on that road. Now me personally, I don't get into the kiddie porn thing but if so many ppl are interested in it enough that we have to start blocking it at the root level them maybe something else needs to be looked @. Just my off the wall thoughts. And I hope you don't like them.
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Re: Let's outlaw cameras
There was a comics rant about Gun Control that fits this thought very well actually: Humans being humans will always hurt other humans. If you take away guns, they will kill each other with bats. If you take away the bats, they'll do it with pipes, get rid of the pipes and they'll gag each other to death with dildos. Take those away and they'll nibble each other to death. Taking away cameras wont stop anything. they'll just switch to pure CGI. Take away photoshop and the like and they will hand draw it. Take away the pencils and they'll finger paint it. We need to stop treating the symptoms and cure the disease. Find out why these people have the deviant desires they do, and treat them! Cure them if possible. Thats the way to stop it.
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Re: But think of the children!!!
The problem here is that the "think of the children" crowd aren't actually doing it for the children. The politicians and ISPs are doing things to get good headlines (with the bonus for the ISPs that they no longer have the overhead of providing Usenet access). Any civilian groups are usually led by a kind of vigilante mindset - revenge rather than preventative action.
The great example of this is the "To Catch A Predator" series. The show does nothing of the sort, of course. They claim to catch predatory pedophiles, but is actually involved in catching ephobophiles (adults attracted to very young but sexually mature girls) rather than pedophiles (adults attracted to pre-pubescent children). They do this by setting up a fantasy situation that bears no relation to real life. However, they look like they're doing "something" and nobody wants to speak out in favour of the guys they catch.
However, it does more harm than good. The real pedophiles don't go trolling for dates with 14 year olds in chat rooms, they prey on much younger, much more vulnerable children. Sexual abuse and child porn is much more likely to come from a family friend or family member than a stranger. The show, however, hypes the myth that the danger is external, making the general public much more paranoid about an almost non-existent threat (witness the attacks on guys with their own kids) while doing nothing to attack the real threat. But it gets good ratings...
...and so it goes. There are serious problems in society that need to be addressed so we can catch the producers of child pornography. This isn't the way to do it. Pedophiles existed long before the general public had ever heard the word, let alone the internet. As you mentioned, Matt, we should keep all of these channels open to everyone then use the sites to track down the perpetrators. These moves make such real action more difficult, but eventually they'll find another scapegoat. hopefully.
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Re: Re: Let's outlaw cameras
I originally wrote something very similar, then shorted it to cameras. I realized that if you start banning everything that can be used to create/distribute child porn, there would be nothing left. Eventually, you have to ban rocks, because someone might use one rock to draw porn on another rock.
Maybe the government should just poke everyone's eyes out. That should at least stop the viewing of child porn. But then they'll have to cut off our ears, too, because then people will just start verbally describing child porn.
Just the typical grandstanding bullshit from politicians.
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Re: Re: Let's outlaw cameras
"Cure them if possible. Thats the way to stop it."
The only way to "cure" them is to put them into the ground. I used to live next door to a "reformed and cured" child molester. He had sex with a 15 year old and did some jail time. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt since he had gone through all the classes and registered. Not one month after he got out he had raped his 10 year old niece. When asked why he did it? He replied that he was horny and that she was available.
Tell me how you cure that?
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Re: How about
Pedophilia and Ephebophilia are 2 different things.
Pedophilia is strong/intense sexual attraction to prepubescent children where as Ephebophilia is attraction to post-pubescent teenagers, Ie 15/16/17.
Tapping your age-of-consent girlfriend is one thing. Doing her little sister who hasn't even lived a decade yet is quite another.
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Re: Re: Re: Let's outlaw cameras
I don't know how you cure that, but I do know one thing: Banning websites won't cure anything.
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Re: Re: Re: Let's outlaw cameras
Have qualified doctors do real research into the why of it. Is it hormonal imbalance? Brain defect? Learned behavior? Once serious inroads have been made, then perhaps a treatment regimen could be devised.
As things stand now, no one knows the why of it, and therefore you cannot treat it. Just like people aren't sure why some people are gay. Similar treatment programs to 'rehabilitate' homosexuals have a 90% failure rate and a 60% suicide rate for the same reasons, we just don't yet know how to properly treat/cure it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Let's outlaw cameras
Actually, the reason why programs to "cure" homosexuals fail is because they cannot work. Unless someone is actually bisexual, you can't force them to suppress their homosexual tendencies without causing intense psychological damage. Which is why these programs have a high/suicide failure rate, and possibly why the only people participating in them seem to be poorly disguised fronts for religious indoctrination.
Research needs to be done to find out if real "cures" can be found for pedophiles, but you certainly can't use the fact that it's not worked so far as a reason not to try.
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Re: Re: Re: Let's outlaw cameras
Now, is the real problem that he had relations with a 15 year old and a 10 year old, or is it that he thought so highly of himself and so lowly of others that he forced himself upon another person because "he was horny and she was available."
Child rape isn't about the sex. It's about the total control and authority the rapist has -- how the heck can a 10 year old stand up to a grown man?
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*AA influence?
Considering the pressure on ISPs from the content industry, I wonder if that factored into this. But now, I think they could have their common carrier status revoked leaving them open to the content industry to unleash lawsuits on.
Then there are the other groups that could also take advantage of this move.
Because porn could be viewed by minors, I imagine someone like the family research council would love to level their guns at ISPs. It only goes downhill from there.
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Re: Re: Re: Let's outlaw cameras
Oh, yes, you must be right. You cited one example, so that must mean it is automatically true across the board. It is an unfortunate example, to be sure, but that guy obviously had no remorse and should never have been released. Sometimes rehabilitation works, sometimes not. But to use one example as "proof" that execution is the only cure is ridiculous.
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Common carrier status
I guess this pretty much kills off their 'common carrier' argument. If the ISPs can be pressured into closing off some types of traffic they're behaving as content providers, not carriers. So I suspect this is a 'foot in the door' exercise sponsored by a slush fund belonging to the movie industry.
So, think of the children. When they grow up the Internet may have become two networks. One will be the shopping channel, and the other an illegal encrypted net offering copies of Linux to hackers who bypass the security on their PCs.
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lets compare the war on drugs
How useless is this?
We know from the war on drugs how useless it is to go after the consumers and ignore the creators.
40 years later the war on drugs is still a massive cash sink of taxpayer money, and illegal drugs are still a multibillion dollar industry. This demonstrates how well that approach works.
Fuck the news groups, BT, forums, chat rooms, none of it is important. If we want to make any progress at all you need to go after the real criminals, the ones abusing real children. We need to find and shut down the producers of child porn, the adults that appear in it. The ones involved in the crimes that have real victims.
Going after the prevents who hide their porn stash in their basement doesn't solve the problem and it never will. We need to drop the emotional reactions and go after the true scum. The ones actually hurting children, find the man with the video camera, hes the bastard I want behind bars, I could care less about the guy jerking off in his basement.
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Re: Let's outlaw cameras
There actually is a possible "cure" for all sorts of "deviant" behavior. It's just illegal in the US. Even for medical research. It's LSD (when used in a heavily controlled environment; not recreational use).
Normally, I take issue with "deviant" acts (homosexuality, sadomasochistic sex, etc.) needing to be treated or "cured". I begrudgingly am willing to make an exception for child rapists (not the entire "pedophile" class) due to the fact that another human being is harmed if they are not dealt with.
The problem of child rapists stems from two sources.
1) The sexual desire for young girls and/or boys. This, by itself, is not a problem. Many people have this and aren't willing to admit it. Getting sexually excited seeing a young person naked, even when it's your own kids, is perfectly normal.
2) The second key factor is found in many criminals, politicians, heads of corporations, heads of religious institutions and many walks of life. It is the sociopathic disregard for harm being inflicted on another human being.
Everyone focuses on the first item. Usually ignoring the second. Even most treatment tries to treat the "sexually deviant" qualities rather then what turned them from being a voyeur to a criminal.
I'm going to stop here because I could likely write another 20 pages on the subject before I got off my soap box.
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perhaps someone whould enroll hackers?
One possible way of getting rid of many child porn sites proper could be to enlist some hackers to find and destroy the sites... gives everyone something to do.
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Actually, there is, just not in the groups you'd expect (as you noted). Go to http://www.binsearch.info, set it to search the "other" groups, set the date to 200 days and put in the search term "pthc" which stands for "Pre-Teen Hard Core.
As for child porn, I personally don't believe that all of it is as evil as most people claim. If it features very young children, or kids who are obviously forced to participate, then yes it should be stopped. However if the kids are a little older and are willingly participating, then I'm not so sure that it's blatantly wrong.
Pretty much every study ever done on the effects of kids and sex has been done on kids who were molested (actually forced by an adult) or who had adults tell them that what they did was wrong. Children by themselves really have no idea of what's considered "right" and "wrong", they only know what they're taught.
True story; My mother used to babysit a friend's toddler. One day she caught him playing with his penis. He didn't have any idea that he wasn't supposed to be doing that. Of course, following today's line of thinking, she lectured him about not touching himself and how it was "dirty". Naturally he grew up being ashamed of the idea of masturbation.
Contrary to what politicians, church groups, family groups and practically everyone else who's considered "normal", would have you believe there are children who will happily engage in sexual activity with an adult. If they're never told otherwise, they don't feel any shame or guilt over it. That said, I'm not sure that letting adults talk kids into having sex is the best idea, but on the other hand, I don't think it justifies a full-scale witchhunt either.
From what I've read, child porn didn't even used to be illegal until new laws were passed in the early 1980s or so. If it was legal to own back then, wouldn't there have been way more "abuse" going on then, since there were no laws against it, than now when it's completely illegal? Why is it suddenly a world-wide epidemic?
Before anyone accuses me of being a pedophile (which I'm sure someone will), allow me to state that I have never done anything with anyone under the legal age, that could be considered "inappropriate", nor do I have any child pornography of any type in my home. I simply have an open mind.
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I agree, ISPs are using this for PR reasons.
Blocking access to Usenet isn't the answer. I'm not defending child pornographers, in fact, I used to catch them. Most child exploitation takes place in Chat, IM and e-mail. As kids migrate towards the likes of MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, so will the criminals. Criminals who exploit children are smart enough not to distribute illegal material via newsgroups that log their IP and activity. The answer is Moderation (critical review) of material as it happens, not reactive from law enforcement subpoenas. Law enforcement is often notified by a victim and it traverses a lengthy chain to the ISP and it traverses back. I have the rest of my thoughts on the subject on my blog, in addition to current Chat Rooms on AOL that likely are discussing child endangering topics. http://www.joemanna.com/blog/why-blocking-child-porn-is-not-against-child-porn/ ~Joe
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Re: Re: But think of the children!!!
Excellent commentary.
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Don't tip off the politicians
ISPs are going along with the sacrifice of Usenet for business reasons, as well as practical reasons. They know that playing whack-a-mole with pedophiles is not going to make a bit of difference. Let's just hope the politicians don't start listening to folks here too closely, or else they'll have a pretext to crack down on something else. "We listened to teh internets, and we agree; we're not doing enough fer th' childrens", etc.
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Re:
And in about 90 years it would end all piracy and wars and famine and all the problems mankind has ever had
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Perspective
Damage done to society by kiddy porn (statistically, not anecdotally) = almost zero
Damage done to criminal politicians by free internet = almost certain death.
Issue which can drive almost any voter to fevered insanity: Their childrens' safety
Do I need to explain further?
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As a victim, I can say that blocking access to such potential distribution networks will change nothing. The abusers aren't neccessarily the ones who download the pictures.
Personally, I like the idea of banning kids. Great thought. Most of humanity shouldn't be allowed to have them anyhow.
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Most AG's Are Morons
Most AG's, like DA's are the worst of both being lawyers and politicians. Yes, attention grabbing is all they''re doing...if they really wanted to do something, they would get the ISP's to agree to hand over intel when requested for those accessing certain web sites. The actual sites TBD by the state's aggressiveness, and to be reviewed by the ISP that it is related to child porn. In this way it would be up to the state to identify these sites and prosecute, not up to the ISP's to filter. They have wanted to do this forever--if they can make a buck. Always funny to me that they can't/won't block spammers access to their networks but they can block access if they can make money... Must be that they're making too much money on those DS-3's they sell the spam houses....
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Re: Re: Let's outlaw cameras
Taking away cameras wont stop anything. they'll just switch to pure CGI.
OK, so. Usually, child porn involves the exploitation of a child. That's bad. But if they're doing "pure CG" there's no longer a child being exploited, right? So... I fail to see the actual harm here.
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Look at Japan!
Granted, there are other cultural factors in motion, but if you look at modern Japanese culture, they have some of the lowest sex crime numbers in the entire world, yet they allow some of the most extreme fetishes imaginable to be put to paper (and MERE POSSESSION of child pornography is not illegal there, because POSSESSION is a VICTIMLESS CRIME). Look up guro, suitcasegirl, Urotsukidoji, and all kinds of lolicon publications such as Comic LO, and you'll definitely find some stuff that makes at least some Americans crap their pants in fear and disgust, but would surely make others kind of turned on instead.
The theory goes like this: you give someone an outlet for their odd or inappropriate (or illegal) sexual urges, and they can "relieve" those urges themselves. Don't believe it? It appears to work fairly well over there, whereas here in America we continue to panic over the nonexistent "sex predator epidemic" and keep those prisons nice and full.
For all the people out there who think possessing kiddie porn should be illegal, for whatever reason, I ask you this simple question: If you could choose to either hand a pedophile some kiddie porn material to fap to, or your own child to abuse, which would you choose? Human nature is to seek what we desire until we get it.
I won't even go into why possession is a victimless crime; there are all kinds of red herring arguments to the contrary such as "by having it you create a market for it!" that ignore a lot of details, and I don't feel like covering it all.
(Somehow, if we "steal" music on a P2P network, we're destroying the music market, yet if we "steal" child porn the same way, that CREATES the market? I know that prosecutors and parents can be morons, but give me a fucking break already!)
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This is a good idea for many other reasons too, including world overpopulation and food shortage.
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Re: Re: Let's outlaw cameras
Dear Micheal,
Your metaphor of the guns, bats, EtC, was basically right on target and then youwent off on a tangent. There is NO SCIENTIFIC evidence that pedofilia is a disease. More and more competent doctors and psychiatrists see most seual preferences as a life style choice, but some present concepts that suggest that pedofilia is a bad thing in every case without regard to the reality of the case. There are many cases where it is the CHILD that instigates the relationship. Is the child an adultophile? Some the child be locked up and have the key thrown away?
Child pornography is an outlet that has grown in prominence because of the continuingly more restrictive laws that prevent loving, sexual relationships between adults and children. Both have existed since the beginning of time. Remeber that Thomas Jeferson had Lucy as his lover and she was an 11 year old black slave. Should he have been locked up, separated from 'polite' society? Who would have written the doucment that guides the citizens of the US? But, like you say, take away the guns, and they will get bats. Take away the right to a loving relationship and they will turn to illict ones.
Keep in mind that the guy who killed Amber was not a 'child molester' he was a murderer. The guy who kill the Ramsey child was not a child rapist, he was a child murderer. I believe that every child has the right to be safe and secure fro abuse, but it is the child that draws the line about sex; in murder no victim has a choice. Separate the violent, perverts from the true pedophile and thn prosecute them. A true pedophile would never willingly inflict injury on a child. A murderer on the other hand doesn't give a damn about the victm in any way shape or form.
So, you are right, and you are wrong. But at least you have the guts to put your name to your statement. Never let anyone stop you from speaking out; it is you freedom of speech that so many have died to secure for you. When anyone tells you what you can read, the pictures or paintings that you can view, or who you can say 'I love you' to, then it is time to tear up that document that Thomas Jefferson wrote.
Keep commenting, I may not agree with everything you say, but I will die to protect your right to say it.
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