Japan Moves Toward Blocking Online Child Porn 374
crimeandpunishment writes "In the wake of increased international demands that it do something about its legal lenience toward child pornography, Japan is beginning to take action, albeit slowly. Thursday a government task force recommended that kiddie porn sites be blocked as soon as they're discovered, instead of waiting for an investigation or arrests. Making or distributing child porn is illegal in Japan, but possession is not ... and critics have called that a legal loophole making Japan an international hub for child porn."
They listen only when they want to? (Score:2, Insightful)
If only they listened to the world about whaling too.
Re:They listen only when they want to? (Score:1, Insightful)
Why? What's so special about whales?
Age of consent in Japan (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember reading it is like twelve years old. That might not be true, but even if it is, who the fuck is the USA to tell Japan what constitutes child pornography?
If kids can make porn legally in Japan, who's fucking business is it really other than the Japanese?
Cencorship, etc (Score:5, Insightful)
the rest of the world should conform to japan. (Score:5, Insightful)
simply keeping child porn around on your HDD should not be illegal and what the rest of the world should be doing instead of criticizing japan.
just because 235235235235.jpg on the porn site you visited happens to be of a 17 year old girl instead of 18 and is stored in your browser cache DOES NOT MAKE YOU A PEDO.
GO JAPAN!
A few years ago (Score:4, Insightful)
some European countries (at least The Netherlands) had legal possession of this stuff. So calling one of the last countries to not make it illegal "an international hub" is a bit over the top. I'd be more worried about countries that have high child prostitution.
I agree with shutting websites that distribute child pornography as soon as they are discovered, but on the news in The Netherlands today was the message that police and justice were too occupied with their (witch)hunt of child porn possessors to effectively go after the PRODUCERS and DISTRIBUTORS of it. A damn shame and a testament to how the police/justice need to prioritize their efforts.
Re:the rest of the world should conform to japan. (Score:2, Insightful)
If I were molested as a child, I would certainly feel harmed by distribution of the images. But who is hurt by drawings? Or the photoshopping of older girls to look younger (I think Law & Order once had an episode about how reprehensible that is...)?
Re:Age of consent in Japan (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember reading it is like twelve years old. That might not be true, but even if it is, who the fuck is the USA to tell Japan what constitutes child pornography?
If kids can make porn legally in Japan, who's fucking business is it really other than the Japanese?
I don't know if you have noticed this but the US has been known to tell all sorts of sovereign states what they should and shouldn't do on quite a number of topics. Its the type of action that causes all sorts of people to yell and complain about imperialism by the US.
WWhat took them so long? (Score:5, Insightful)
Child prostitution should be illegal everywhere. Child porn is evidence of child prostitution in some cases and child abuse in others. It shouldn't be difficult to block websites from selling it.
To stop people from viewing it is a different matter entirely and in my opinion is technically impossible and unconstitutional because its relying on thought crime legislation. As long as no children are being victimized and nobody is profiting from it, it's not a problem.
Re:Age of consent in Japan (Score:2, Insightful)
If they had stronger militaries then they wouldn't get told what to do by the US. The US would suggest things instead.
Like the US and Russia, if Iran had invaded Kuwait like Russia invaded Georgia do you think the US would have sat on the sidelines?
Or China and Vietnam, if Vietnam had honked off Japan the way they did China in 1979 the US would have had planes across the border in minutes to bomb Vietnam.
Re:Cencorship, etc (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should the GP back up an argument he/she never made?
Note: "preventing spread of CP" != "protecting actual victims"
Re:They listen only when they want to? (Score:1, Insightful)
They're endangered.
And they're smarter than you are.
Outlawing possession is naive and pointless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, CP is bad.
However, I personally commend the Japanese for being slow in attempting a censorship sweep that will cost resources and, ultimately, do between little and nothing to actually protect the actual victims.
Obviously, CP is bad.
However, I personally commend the Japanese for being slow in attempting a censorship sweep that will cost resources and, ultimately, do between little and nothing to actually protect the actual victims.
"We're making an appeal today to build a society without child pornography," said Anges Chan, a UNICEF ambassador and well-known media personality in Japan. "We're trying to build a national movement to appeal to the government to outlaw the possession of child pornography."
Unless they can statistically prove that possession of evidence of the crime leads to
future crimes against children, having laws against possession is a law that is a problem in search of a solution. If police need search warrants they can find other ways to get them but having a search warrant which only leads to digital copies of evidence of the crime does not actually solve or prevent the crime.
So what is the purpose of tracking every copy? The only purpose I see in doing this is to track down the distributors. This would be fine but lets be serious, all they have to do is offer a bounty. "If you have information which leads to the arrest or conviction of a distributor of child porn you will be rewarded 500,000 yen."
Re:2chan (Score:4, Insightful)
Lies. I browse that site very often and you only find the lolicon on weekends in themed threads, and the CP is shunned like in other countries.
Even so the porn is relegated to three (four now) general boards, the rest being themed areas such as animal/insect photography, robots, mechanics, idols, general anime, 3D stuff, etc.
You are just trying to blow it out of proportion. Read the text on the boards too and you'd understand.
The boy who cried "child porn" (Score:5, Insightful)
Independent of the age at which something becomes "child porn", this expression is way too much overused. There was a time when someone saying "child porn" was sounding an alarm, today it's like background noise.
I admit I've seen lots and lots of porn on the web, but never anything that could be remotely called "child porn", unless you call adult women with small breasts and shaved pubic hair "children". If this "child porn" thing actually exists, which I doubt, it's so well hidden that any measures about blocking it are useless. Better try to block the Illuminati instead.
Sadly, the politicians have learned to use "child porn" like they use "terrorism", a convenient handle by which they are able to manipulate the masses.
Re:hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cencorship, etc (Score:3, Insightful)
If he had said 'current victims' you would be correct, but he said actual children. More CP = more victims.
I thought basic logic was in place, apparently not and I will need to spell everything out using small words and simple sentence.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the rest of the world should conform to japan. (Score:3, Insightful)
Way ti really, really oversimplify. If CP was just 17 year olds that you had no reason to believe they where below legal age, you would have a point.
No take 10 years off that age.
Whole new ballgame. While someone will occasional be busted for the reason you described, there are rare and a result of forcing judges to not think about the context of the situation.
really, you're being stupid with that argument. Stupid about how law enforcement is done, stupid about the legal system and stupid about the total spectrum of who this involves.
It's already too late. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are so many cameras and surveillance, with camera phones and facebook that its just too late to be concerned about childrens privacy. Nobody has privacy anymore.
The monster in this situation is the individual who molests the child and then tape records it. The recording is evidence and in my opinion has to be analyzed, the individuals who like watching the evidence might not be actual child molesters and the utilitarian thing to do would be to pay these individuals to find and download child pornography and act as informants to help track down the source.
I don't really think it's a good idea to put people in prison for having illegal bits on their computer. But I do understand that in order to get informants you have to have at least the threat of putting them in prison. That being said I don't think anyone put in prison for having illegal bits should be treated like a sex offender, I think the concept of sex offender now includes anyone convicted of any sort of sex cirme for any reason and in my opinion we need to separate the sex addicts from the violent sex offenders.
Violent sex offenders will use any means including violence, these are rapists, child molesters, the people we believe should be locked in prison for life.
Non-violent sex offenders who are actually sex addicts are in general addicted to a specific substance whether it be bits, a certain pattern of thinking, or a series of behaviors. These individuals get convicted because they have a picture of a 16 year old naked, or they are 21 and had sex with their 17 year old gf. These individuals don't belong in the same category as true violent sex offenders.
The solution in my opinion is to separate the categories so that individuals who are non violent don't get their lives ruined over something dumb. These individuals can help take down the actual violent sex offenders who rape and murder.
Re:Outlawing possession is naive and pointless. (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you have information which leads to the arrest or conviction of a distributor of child porn you will be rewarded 500,000 yen."
Good god is that ever ripe for abuse. I don't even consider myself a hacker and I'm pretty sure I could frame up the neighbor in less than a week with a couple hours research online. It would be all too easy to do, and at $5000 a pop I could make several hundred thousand dollars a year framing up people I don't like all the while being called a hero by those who don't understand how ludicrously full of holes modern computer security is.
Re:I was curious... (Score:5, Insightful)
And somehow teenagers across the world search out pictures of all the things you listed just to see what they're all about. Hell, there were a few kids in my old hometown who got arrested for possession of child pornography after they had a sort of "competition" to see which of them could find the most disgusting thing online, luckily for them it was obvious that this wasn't a gang of "teenage child rapists" or anything of the sort but rather just a few kids who were trying to gross each other out and ended up overstepping that invisible line in the sand (Murder videos? Ok. Videos of sex with animals? Perfectly legal. Various people hurting themselves in horrible ways? Sure, why not. Naked children? CUFF 'EM BOYS!)
Re:I was curious... (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems like you answered your own question.
Anyways, just to be sure: curious means just what it means. Curious as in, does it really exist on the internet. Curious as in, is it really just a couple clicks away.
However, implicit in your post is the assumption that acting on the curiosity of cp, as opposed to acting on, say, the curiosity of the other subjects you listed, indicates a distinct psychological flaw.
I disagree, and in fact believe the opposite: that a near or total suppression of curiosity indicates an unhealthy psyche. I would say my psychological flaw here is pathological-naivete.
--
Show us the evidence or shut up. (Score:5, Insightful)
Kiddie porn pictures are not a substitute for "the real thing". If anything, there is considerable evidence that kiddie porn pictures incent the possessor to go and get the real thing.
Also, in most cases these pictures are sold, not given away freely. If there is a demand and a marketplace there will be folks that will supply it. All you need is a camera and a child or two. And children are pretty easy to get. If a child isn't interested in cooperating, they will be after a few slaps.
Just having such a marketplace is incredibly destructive to children. If it was all about just passing pictures around for free and children freely taking them for people's enjoyment that would be a completely different matter.
So you believe it's a statistic fact beyond the margin of error that people do what they watch on TV? People watch horror movies because they secretly want to kill people? People watch gross videos on the internet because they secretly want to do it? This is basically saying that anything a person thinks about for a long enough time, they will be compelled to do it.
This is not true. I'm sure the majority of us have thought about killing people but how many of us are actually murderers? Less than 1% probably. How many individuals who look at child porn or who have been convicted of possession of child pornography are violent enough to actually go molest a child?
The majority of adult individuals know the difference between fantasy and reality. Fantasy is stuff people imagine doing because they'll never be able to do it. People enter fantasy worlds to escape from the mundane real world. Then you have sick monsters who hear voices and have to obey the voices in their head, or who are without conscience and empathy and can rape and torture a child without remorse.
Lets be realistic, the majority of human beings aren't that. And if the majority aren't crazy like that it makes no sense to create laws expecting people to act like that. Lets put it simple, if you saw someone murdered on tape you wouldn't go and murder somebody would you? Because you have a conscience right?
exactly as it should be (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly as it should be. That focuses police resources on cutting roots (creators/distributors) instead of branches (consumers). Blocking it online is fine, too, but they need to try to trace it.
Re:HAVE YOU ALL FUCKING LOST IT? (Score:1, Insightful)
You watch violent films yes? You play video games? You read comic books?
You're now a murder. Good day sir. I'll see you prison.
Same. Fucking. Thing. It's no different than reading hentai manga that depicts 'children'. Fiction is fiction damnit.
Re:They listen only when they want to? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's kill both sides and feed them to the whales.
Re:Show us the evidence or shut up. (Score:4, Insightful)
It has been shown, in multiple studies, that pornography leads to sexual deviancy and inconsistent expectations of sex
All studies completed by family first and christian groups I'm sure. Do you realize that sex crimes in general have gone down in the last twenty years? Do you know what went up in the last twenty years? Pornography consumption, thanks to the internet. A lot.
Re:Cencorship, etc (Score:3, Insightful)
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/An_insight_into_child_porn [wikileaks.org]
Re:Cencorship, etc (Score:3, Insightful)
What an idiot. No, seriously, what an idiotic statement that was.
Lack of CP on the internet isn't going to do a god damn thing about child porn.
Child porn lasted on tapes for longer than the internet has been around.
What makes you think any of this shit will stop CP at all?
A little thing to remember is the internet is not the only place that exists. I know it is hard to forget that fact sometimes, but it is true.
CD copying still happens massively despite peer-to-peer.
God forbid you don't know what child trafficking is. Thousands of children go missing each day, and barely any of them are ever found.
There is a MASSIVE market for shit like this in all those poor countries.
So, no, no, blocking child porn on the internet won't do a damn thing at all for any victims.
All of the CP you see online (or hopefully don't see and only hear about) was almost certainly produced offline and is already on thousands of videos and optical discs, and almost certainly every other sort of storage you can imagine.
Re:HAVE YOU ALL FUCKING LOST IT? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I just don't like to watch people tell me that child pornography is a victimless crime. Maybe I don't like that Slashdot has so suddenely entrenched itself with ADVOCATES of child pornography
Wait... so you want to physically harm people just for making a simple argument on a text-based web site? That's pretty fucked up. You should seek counseling.
And also: I assume since you're sooo anti-child porn that you also support prosecuting teenagers who possess and distribute pictures of themselves. Because it's black and white right? Right and wrong? And child pornography, as everyone has told you... err I mean as everyone knows, is horrible terrible stuff. So we should lock those teens away for victimizing themselves. Right? Right?!?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The boy who cried "child porn" (Score:2, Insightful)
I doubt that.
When I was a teenager and got access to dial-up Internets. I was naturally attracted to girls my own age and the whole CP scare hadn't started in my country(at least for teenagers) so I looked for "teenagers this" "teenagers that" not even knowing it was *wrong*.
All I could find were old ladies(20s) in sailor suits and a few "Naturist" photographs that probably would get you busted these days, and thus not available, but were nothing like porn even if they were intended as that.
It made me realize I liked Japanese old ladies better than Western(multicolored) old ladies, though. Which is the reason I now eat rotten soybeans for breakfast. And like it!
Re:HAVE YOU ALL FUCKING LOST IT? (Score:3, Insightful)
You were implicitly referring to people in this thread who were saying the possession of those images should be legal. Whether they like the pictures or not is irrelevant.
If you don't care what people think, why bother posting?
Re:Age of consent in Japan (Score:5, Insightful)
Pornography and Sex are not the same thing.
Would you describe a 17 year old fucking her older boyfriend in a country where this is fully legal as child sex? And if not, how can it be child pornography? The meaning of "child" is in question here, not the difference between sex and pornography.
Re:HAVE YOU ALL FUCKING LOST IT? (Score:4, Insightful)
And yes, your desire to break bones and report to the FBI anyone that dares even discuss whether child porn laws are appropriate speaks volumes about your common sense.
Re:Define Child (Score:5, Insightful)
All of these are actually addressed in the letter of the law or certain rulings, at least, here in the United States.
Any pornography that includes someone under the age of 18 is illegal. This includes those pictures where baby is fully clothed and asleep in the same room in their crib while their parents take dirty pictures of their sexy time. So, pornography of someone 17 years and 364 days is child pornography. Note that there are additional penalties for possessing child pornography of someone especially young (like under ten), but that's up to the prosecutor. Believe me, they'll go for all they can get.
Images without known sources are generally shown to people specially trained in age recognition. There are, of course, false positives. Non-watermarked pictures from those websites that hire people that look young but are over 18 have gotten people tossed in jail before because the actors and actresses might have only been as developed as a young teenager for whatever reasons, and the experts identified them as children. Look at the recent fiasco involving a fan of Little Lupe. The FBI also has a database of known child pornography pictures that they can check against.
I don't know if it has changed, but pornography is anything designed to get someone sexually aroused. Suggestive poses, excessive display of the genitals, etc. That's why you can sometimes find photography books involving naked children that aren't illegal. However, all of this is subjective. Good luck arguing that those pictures you downloaded aren't pornography if there's even a hint of genital in the picture.
Trampling over people's rights is easy. As soon as someone speaks up in the defense of someone, simply accuse them of supporting child molestation and accuse them of being a pedophile. Hint that their public show of support might lead to an investigation and visit from social services to take their children away.
Re:Show us the evidence or shut up. (Score:2, Insightful)
"It has been shown, in multiple studies, that pornography leads to sexual deviancy and inconsistent expectations of sex -- and that individuals will seek out to attempt these acts."
That depends on which kinds of acts were examined. I could imagine someone would, as is indicated in another reply, for example try having sex in the shower or something as a result of a porn movie. But what if it was a movie with rape? Would the watcher now suddenly go out and rape someone? There is a BIG difference between changing your sexual habits and committing a violent crime.
There has in fact been absolutely no evidence to support a connection between pornography and violent crime and rape.
"One year ago, you probably considered even the CONCEPT of having child pornography as something despicable. Now, if you bother to look, you're advocating the filth. It's not the world that's changed -- you've probably even degraded to the point where you'll tell me that there's not even such a thing as "right" and "wrong" because those are oh so relative!"
But indeed right and wrong ARE relative. For example it was at one point extremely wrong to be a witch, as you would then be burned at the stake. Most people thought that was right. After all, "she's just a witch."
My own opinion is as follows: Drawings of any nature should be legal to possess. No exceptions. Child pornographic photographies should be focused on with the intent of tracking down the main distributors and producers.
Re:Age of consent in Japan (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt. By the time the a-bombs were dropped Japan was already retreating. Tokyo was firebombed (which was worse than the nuke).
A-Bomb or not, the end would have not changed.
Yes, obviously (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, obviously child porn is bad... that this is already a horrible piece of dogmatic reasoning, is not even the worsed of it. What is next?
Read up on "The people vs Harry Flint". Why did so many people come to the defence of a porn peddler? A crude porn peddler at that? Why defend a guy selling smuts with a few crude and insulting attackings on decent public people thrown in? (Some child porn addicts call this parody/satire) Because of this:
First they came... [wikipedia.org]
It might be one of the most paraphrased quotes in history but it remains extremely valid. Remember, the guy who said it was a nazi symphatizer. Or to put it in this context, the anti-porn peddler hit by anti-depravity laws.
"obviously child porn is bad". I call this dogmatic because it leaves no room for argument, this is the classic tactic of the dictator. "Obviously X is bad" has been used countless times. Put communism in place for X and you got the McCarthy trials. Put independent woman and you got the witch hunts. And you can't argue against it, because it is obvious. You get to the point that just arguing against it becomes a crime by itself.
Child porn is the moralists dream. Nobody can argue that sex with a toddler should be allowed, so you have won the entire argument and then it becomes just a matter of constantly increasing the definition of child and eventually porn. Different countries have different ages of consent. Do you REALLY want the entire world to have to accept the age of consent of the most puritan nation on earth? Plenty of arguments to raise the age to 21. Say bye bye to any porn and once you accepted that to any nudity. Venus the Milo? Could be under 21, FORBIDDEN!
One of the indicators that the people who want to introduce these bans have not so hidden agenda's is that they talk bull shit. Japan is introducing censorship because of international pressure. Funny, Japan goes on whaling despite international pressure. It keep denying its warcrimes despite international pressure. But the one thing that could benefit the Japanese content industry like Sony, that they act upon. Oh, you don't see how censorhip of CP can benefit Sony?
Simple, file sharing networks are filled with CP and copyrighted content. Ban them for the CP and the copyrighted content follows. Freedom of exchange information means CP. Can't be helped, just asked the people behind Freenet. By its very nature the founders of freenet support CP because that has become the ultimate test of free anonymous speech. If you support that people have the right, the need, to be able to share any document without fear of reprisal, then you support the exchange of CP in practice.
It is simple really, freedom is the freedom to do really bad things. If you are free to drink, then you are free to drink yourself to death. If you are free to buy a rope, then you are free to hang yourself (remember that one of the first things they do when you freedom is removed in a jail, you are stopped from having the means to commit suicide).
Freedom is not some limited concept. You can't say: "well you can't do these things because a lot of people find them disgusting" because there will always be someone somewhere who finds something disgusting. You might not like 2 girls 1 cup but you would like it even less if all the content of the world had to pass through the approval of some Utah citizen.
But because of Dogma, if you want to protect freedom, you are defending the CP peddlers. It is almost impossible to fight this and I am fairly certain we will come to regret this. "Daddy, where were you when they took freedom away". "Why, I was thinking of you my dear, I killed your freedom to protect you."
Re:Cencorship, etc (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Outlawing possession is naive and pointless. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Age of consent in Japan (Score:3, Insightful)
>A lot of 30-something Japanese girls still look like teenagers... and behave accordingly
You can say the same about a great many 30-something Western girls, especially the second part. I think it's WORSE to keep acting (and dressing) like a teenager when you DON'T have the looks for it anymore.