Reddit: No More Suggestive Content Featuring Minors 722
First time accepted submitter say_hwat writes "Today Reddit announced that it has banned subreddits dedicated to posting sexualized imagery of people under the age of 18. Last year, the site came under fire for r/jailbait, a subreddit dedicated to posting images of people under 18. The subreddit was shut down, but many others, such as r/gaolbait and r/bustybait, continued existing or sprung up afterwards. The policy change today came hours after a thread on Something Awful called for a public campaign against Reddit's lax attitude towards the sexualization of children. The Something Awful thread creator claims that Reddit's administrators know about child pornography being traded, but refuse to act. Among others, the thread creator cites r/preteen_girls as being particularly egregious."
Touchy subject... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/05/09/nearly-onethird-of-childrens-clothes-sexy-study [torontosun.com]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/16/children-clothing-survey-bikini-heels [guardian.co.uk]
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/08/19/french-line-offers-lingerie-for-girls-as-young-as-four/ [time.com]
http://www.playpink.com/games-for-girls/sexy-dress-up.html [playpink.com]
This was just 5 minutes with google.
Re:Sexualization of busty teens?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you get your kicks from looking at sexually and emotionally immature girls then you need to see someone.
I agree. These teenage girls with big firm perky breasts are obviously sexually immature and it is "creepy" for any human male to look at them in a sexual context.
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:2, Interesting)
So you categorically state that children (here assumed to be under the legal age) cannot legally (true in many countries) or emotionally (true in... wait, what???) consent to sex...
When did it become established beyond doubt that children can't consent to sex? What is this magical "switch" that gets flipped the day they turn 16 or 28 years old. Please provide some links to research that shows this change happening from one day to the next.
I Left Today (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm one of the many who deleted their accounts at Reddit today, not just over the admins' lax "oh-noes-censorship!" policy, but due to the sheer number of Redditors there actively defending pedophiles and their crimes under the guise of "free speech". I had over 10,000 karma there, as well, which means really nothing other than to say I wasn't just a random lurker on the site.
The front page stories at the moment don't even begin to tell the story of the stuff that goes in in the nether regions of that site, and the fact that so many members there not just defend, but seemingly embrace, those who perpetrate it - look up a guy named violentacrez if you don't believe me - is beyond disgusting. The number of members there who seem to base their morals on whether something is legal or not (unless the matter relates to pot, prostitution, or any of the other activities they like) is disturbing, as well, and I'd finally had enough.
Reddit didn't care at all about any of this stuff until suddenly they were at risk of a major media campaign against them - organized by Something Awful - then suddenly they went into full defensive mode, not out of a sudden concern for the actual children being exploited, but for their own reputations for allowing it. A good move overall, but hardly noble. It's the same tactic they eventually were forced to use when the r/jailbait scandal hit the mainstream news.
The bottom line is that Reddit has been, and can be, an interesting site full of interesting content. But the willingness of the admins there to allow such abhorrent (and clearly illegal) content until publicity won't allow them to continue to do so is a glaring flaw in the organization of the site, and I'd rather not be associated with such a wild west approach to such things, especially when their morals seem to be dictated more on whether something will affect their reputation than whether or not it's right.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sexualization of busty teens?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Picture it being your daughter, and some creepy motherfucker eyeing her up. Put yourself in someone else's shoes.
Males looking at my fully clothed daughters? The horror! This is why all my daughters must wear burkas in public until the day they reach 18. Once they're 18 though, it's fair game for pervs to check them out.
meanwhile "soft" child porn is mainstream (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe I have a dirty mind, but when I watched cable/broadcast TV, every single advertisement that has a child in I found could be considered soft pornography. I find it particularly obvious and offensive when children are used in the "Got Milk?" campaign. Child pornography, in a soft form (no nudity) is really mainstream in the US right now... and I'm not sure who is to blame... ad executives, directors, parents... I just don't know.
I'm sure there are going to be others that disagree that can't see it. But its there... it absolutely is everywhere... and I would expect it is also in most programming that has child actors. I suppose if it isn't explicit, then its perfectly fine with censors because many will not even notice. But I imagine these images, that are seemingly innocuously depicting children being children, stuffing something into their mouths, are like pinups for pedophiles.
Suffice to say, I grew tired of getting angry at every commercial, and removed my TV last year. Ironically enough, using tpb to watch programs I want to see actually forces less (no) soft child porn into my bleeding eyes.
Hey networks and advertisers, I'm talking to you: Stop pimping out images of children depicting adult choreography. No one wants to see it.
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:3, Interesting)
And when most people hear the word, "teen," 18-19 are not the ages which first come to mind.
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:5, Interesting)
And if you are beating off to pictures of 14 year olds the definition is "fucking sick"
Uh.. what if you are 14?
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:1, Interesting)
What if you're 14 yourself?
There's a huge gap... (Score:3, Interesting)
Between a 13-year-old having consentual sex with a 14- or 15-year old and having sex with a 18-year old. Yes, during adolescence, many behavioral structures change deeply. 13-year-old children can just be stupid or horny and get sex with somebody with a similar maturity level than theirs, and that's not a crime. However, a five year gap *is* too much at that time, and yes, 18-year-old people (regardless of their gender) should know they should not seek sex with a person unable to do that judgement that five years of maturity gave them.
18-and-13 is clearly illegal. I would *not* see 18-and-16 in the same scale.
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:4, Interesting)
Not if you're in your teens, in which case I'd call it normal and healthy. In psychological terms pedophilia is sexual attraction by adults to those up to roughly 10 years of age, hebephilia for the 11-14 or so pubescents, and ephebophilia for late teens. That's a scale from abomination to legal but discouraged by society. I think we'd agree that when I was an 18 year old senior dating a 15 year old freshman that's one thing, but when the 70 year old former strip club owner I once had to work with drooled over the same that's another.
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:0, Interesting)
The subreddit was called /r/preteen_girls.
If you think this wasn't an avenue for pedophilia, I leave you with this post from a self-admitted pedophile on Reddit [imgur.com], admitting that he masturbated to pictures on /r/jailbait and other "outlets" on Reddit that are now banned.
Your mind, not everyone else. (Score:2, Interesting)
And when most people hear the word, "teen," 18-19 are not the ages which first come to mind.
Well... 18-19 are the ages that first come to my mind. Guess it has to do with how your mind is wired up -- from genetics and experiences.
You could easily to a cognitive experiment (IAT, or a proactive interference measure) to discover empirically if your statement is true; however, I would suggest that it has something more to do with the very personal nature of your mind, and you are projecting it onto everybody else.
Note that homophobia is *positively* correlated with arousal by homoerotica... and some people get confused by this, and then think it is terribly important for everybody to be down on gay people. They are projecting their own cognitive barriers, just as you may be now.
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:2, Interesting)
Agreed. I guess that's just the types we get around here.
Re:The subreddit was called /r/preteen_girls (Score:4, Interesting)
A major reason for that may be that most don't consider much of the content in question to constitute 'child' or 'porn', let alone both. Also, given the amount of bullshit that has been forced upon by the 'think of the children' mentality, many people, especially techies, might want horrible things to happen to children just because of all the trouble they have caused.
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:2, Interesting)
So what? Pedophilia is not a crime, nor should it be one. Sexually abusing kids (including taking pornographic photos) is wrong and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But people should be free to have whatever desires they like, so long as they don't improperly act upon them. And I wouldn't consider masturbating in the privacy of one's own home to be improper no matter who the object of your fantasy is.
I guess you think somebody ought to shut down YouTube, which is an "avenue for pedophilia" as well. Here's some people admitting they jack off to Chloe Grace Moretz. [youtube.com]
[Smafti]
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:5, Interesting)
... If they can consent to having sex with another child around their own age, then why not with an adult? ...
Two words: mind games. The drama in high school is all prep for the adult mating dance: "how do I get his/her attention without coming off as clingy/desperate?", "is he/she really interested in me or just planning to use me as a status symbol?", "but he/she isn't mature/hot enough, if I settle for him/her it means I'm less of a person because Hollywood tells me so". Adolescence is the phase where we take all the crap society has crammed into our skulls about love/sex/romance and sort out fact from fiction.
Adults already know and play the mind games; whether we treat them as friendly Canasta or as winner-take-all Russian Roulette, we DO play them, constantly. For example, info-dumping your life's backstory on the first date is (a) narcissistic, (b) clingy/desperate, and (c) ammunition for a poorly chosen partner to shove a knife in your heart and manipulate you like a puppet in your future relationship. Therefore even the kindest, most genuine form of the adult mating dance involves concealing information and strategically revealing your cards at the right time, to protect yourself from awful people if nothing else. But teenagers don't have any practice with this; not knowing any better, they think it's romantic to trust someone fully and unconditionally, which lasts until they put that in practice precisely enough times to get burned. During this phase, it's important that the participants in the mating game be at roughly the same skill level (viz. xkcd.com/314 [xkcd.com]), as it limits the potential for damage. A teenager is wide open to the manipulation of information that adults do 100% automatically and subconsciously.
Oh, and then there's the whole "adults are the authority, you must obey them" thing. Even rebellious teenagers still recognize adults as authority figures — if the adults were seen as equals, they wouldn't be seen as authority figures to rebel against.
(It probably doesn't hurt to mention that I was molested by my stepfather from ages 16 to 18, so I've got a fair bit of firsthand personal experience on the matter. It took me years to spot the web of manipulation that he laid in my mind and unwind past his lies. What were his lies? That I chose it of my own free will; that I should feel guilty for "making" him cheat on my mother; that he was doing me a favor by giving me "pity sex" because I was too shy to get laid in high school. Nevermind that he pinned me in a corner, bullied me into coming out gay to him when I didn't trust him with that information, brought up the idea of sex with him and wouldn't drop it, and made me feel too physically and emotionally threatened to defy his rage-laden authority. For the next two years, he had me wrapped around his little finger until I left for college, and I blamed myself the whole way.)
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually it originated in the UK as a way to prevent parents forcing their daughters into prostitution. That is why it only used to apply to men having sex with underage girls. They thought that by age 16 a girl could defy her parents or decide willingly to do that sort of thing (and be arrested/imprisoned for it of course).
The simple fact is that the age at which a person is ready to have sex varies a great deal from individual to individual so trying to set a fixed limit for everyone is never going to work very well.
Re:Lax attitudes toward child pornography (Score:4, Interesting)
? Does the fact that someone, somewhere looks at the picture sexually change that? Does it even matter in the least?
Legally, it does: one of the criteria for the Dost test [wikipedia.org] is " whether the visual depiction is intended or designed to elicit a sexual response in the viewer."
Which is awfully subjective, of course.
"intended or designed" implies to me that it is based on what the photographer was doing. If the photographer takes a completely innocent picture, then it wasn't *not* "intended or designed" to elicit a sexual response, whether or not it actually does for a vanishingly tiny number of people.
I struggle to believe that anyone is harmed by these pictures, and to my mind it falls into the same category as banning cartoons of underage acts - no children were harmed in the process of producing an animation, so what possible justification is there for banning it? If someone wants to get off to this stuff then I'd rather they do that than go find actual kids to molest...