I never quite bought this. It is known that this is even done live, on request. And in those cases, yes, the viewer who made requests or payments to make it happen is definitely complicit.
Where the argument loses me is that I simply don't believe that the demand in any way causes people to become rapists just to produce content. They were gonna become rapists anyway.
The better argument that seeking it out at all should be illegal is that it's a (very severe) privacy violation. And I would agree with that.
But it is hard to get away from the fact that part of this really is thought crime. In some countries, even things like loli manga are illegal even though no children were harmed making them.
And speaking of demand and exploitation of children, should we prosecute people who bought clothes made with child labour? Their demand also caused child exploitation in some sense. Serious question, because I think prosecuting based on vague economic theories of "motivating suppliers" sets an interesting precedent for all sorts of different behaviours normally thought of as perfectly legal.
Yes, as a thought experiment, maybe we should prosecute those who purchase eggs, even free range ones, from so called 'ethical' farms, for animal abuse? Each hen lays 600 eggs in its lifespan [1]. For every hen there was a male chick that was shredded alive in a macerator in the hatchery [2,3].
The link between abuse and consumption is concrete in this case. Buying more eggs requires the farm to raise more hens, which causes more male chicks to be shredded. There is a direct supplier and customer here, and money is clearly transferred.
So the average person consumes 277 eggs per year [4], that means approximately every 2 years, we all shred a male chick alive, by proxy. And by using the same argument as for the illegal pornography, we should be going to jail for animal abuse?
With illegal pornography, which is information, and can be copied effortlessly at zero cost, and when no money is transferred, the link between consumption and abuse is much less clear. In fact most of those images are distributed for free, so I guess it's pirated illegal pornography that people are viewing then? That hardly makes a direct case for increasing the production of such images?
I think in general some externalities should be banned at the source, i.e macerating male chicks en masse should just be illegal(I'm not a huge animal rights person in general, but this one seems clear cut to me). Whereas others that can't just stop overnight(say carbon emissions) should be taxed at the source to phase them out naturally over time. I think prosecuting the consumer directly is too much of a slippery slope to go down. Because like it or not almost everything we do in modern society has some pretty nasty externalities attached that are also so far removed from the consumer that they can't reasonably be expected to factor it into their decisions.
> Where the argument loses me is that I simply don't believe that the demand in any way causes people to become rapists just to produce content.
Consumers trade material with each other, and a high value is placed on original or custom content - which in turn leads them into finding victims so they can become producers.
It is absolutely vile and consumption does lead directly to abuse.
I don't buy your implication that the production of content is somehow the prime motivator for abusers, and not simply the primal desire for sex along with either a complete lack of compassion or a deeply disturbed understanding of human relationships and complete lack of impulse control. I think the main motivation for filming it is probably just the same as most people who make their own sex tapes. To watch again later.
In any case, I already pointed out that there are gradations here, and you didn't address any of those points.
It doesn't. But it does help LE and our elected officials to stand behind these practices and legislation to prove that people are prosecuted for the heinous crime of being part of collateral damage.
I've emailed my senators on the EARN IT Act here in the US. None of them have engaged in the conversation even after multiple times reaching out. What's really annoying to me is that they are elected and paid with my tax dollars, yet the best they can do is send me some precanned non-response and all of them hide behind form contact these days. There's no way to email them directly anymore because they don't want to have to deal with that open line of communication. While I understand that I'm sure there are a lot of horrible things that get sent to them - that's the job. And there's plenty of ways to filter abusers in 2023.
They only serve us on paper, in reality they end up serving the oligarchs in big business and powerful lobbyists and pressure groups. Some of those pressure groups being front organizations for radical feminists and evangelical Christians, having hidden agendas. Who are big proponents of censorship in the name of supposedly protecting our morals. This has been going on for decades, since the 1970s at least. Some of these organizations have even renamed themselves to hide their religious origins, operating under the name of preventing human trafficking and sexual abuse. There's even a name for it: "femi-servatives", a portmantau of feminism and conservatives. Yes, an unusual alliance.
" The focus on sex trafficking, therefore, becomes yet another channel through which Christian institutions are able to carry out their sex-negative agenda, particularly by casting themselves as Rescuer, Redeemer, and even the familiar role of Western male hero saving the passive and helpless female. "
Finally, it's disturbing in how the two-way (transmit/receive) nature of the Internet as a medium, has virtually let all these "morality police" organizations into our homes, to watch over us, through their lobbying efforts to change the law. That wasn't possible with radio and satellite television, which were receive only. Where you could watch or listen to anything you wanted and explore freely, without ever having to worry about the thought police breaking your door down, should you happen to stumble over something deemed "inappropriate" by them. The difference between that and the Internet is stark and highlights the sheer madness and insanity of what the Internet has made possible.
The Internet became like the telescreen in George Orwell's 1984 novel. You can never be sure if it's watching you or not.
In the past, this was the stuff of nightmares, but it's here for real now in the 21st Century, because of widespread Internet usage in society.
And your children are at risk from it, from sexting, from a teenage son coming across this material and viewing it, maybe even intentionally. Perhaps the risk of your children being prosecuted for breaking these laws is greater than the risk of them being physically abused by a pedophile?
We should be scrutinizing these aforementioned pressure groups and if any of their activities are unlawful in any way, they should be reported to the authorities. Many here in the UK are registered charities. It is about time we get together and put a stop to this, using all possible avenues within the law.
I would hope most jurisdictions allow for accidental viewing to not be a criminal act.
In my jurisdiction, firstly it requires knowing possession (i.e. if it was just in your web cache because it was downloaded in a hidden img tag) and you didn't know it was there, then you would technically not be guilty.
My jurisdiction also has a safety valve that allows you to immediately delete the image after viewing it and realizing the nature of the content. As long as the deletion happens within a reasonable time, there is no crime. The problem with this is that it is an affirmative defense, which means you have to prove your innocence, you are assumed guilty. (There are many crimes where you are legally assumed guilty rather than innocent)
