Child pornography: A modest proposal (potentially triggering?)
Here I fire off a few brief opinions on the criminal nature of child pornography(CP), and go on to suggest ways of dealing with it. This has been inspired by some recent discussions about the practice of ISPs blocking alleged illegal content.
First assertion; the mere act of enjoying CP should not in itself be a criminal matter, to my mind. Yes, it can be thought of as disgusting and worthy of moral outrage, but the act itself does no tangible harm.
Second assertion; the act of sexually abusing a child should be a criminal matter, and it does do tangible harm. I'm not sure I need to go into this one. It is abuse that needs attention, not CP itself.
Next comes the obvious link between child pornography users and abuse; often, the former pay money to people who commit the latter, thereby encouraging the abuse. This is a simple case for criminalising the purchase of child pornography. There is a great deal of precedent concerning the criminalisation of a person who pays another to commit a crime for them, and paying for CP comes under this; sure, it might average out to each of many subscribers only paying a few pence per act of abuse, but this is hardly an excuse.
So, the first solution to the problem would be effective in my opinion, but could never happen due to public moral outrage; decriminalise possession, criminalise only purchase. This, in theory, will concentrate police resources on the real problem, reducing funding (and therefore incentive) for abusers.
There's a problem though - the UK is just one small islandcountry, the world is full of people willing to fund child abusers through purchase of CP. We can crack down on such people in our own country, we can block the websites, and obviously we can also crack down on actual abuse occurring within our own borders, but it's not enough. Many other countries are effectively lawless and turn a blind eye to this kind of thing, and even those that don't can't catch every offender. So, how does one go about destroying the entire child pornography industry? It's simple - PIRACY.
Our government employs or authorises (as in the memorandum of understanding permitting the IWF to view illegal websites) an organisation to hoard child porn. Find every pay-per-view CP site out there, sign up, suck down all their content, and rehost it for free. Advertise this free content far and wide, make assurances about anonymity, and parts of the child abuse industry will die.
This could work. Except for moral outrage. Also, I'm well aware that children are abused for other reasons, but this ought to take a nice big bite out of the problem.
First assertion; the mere act of enjoying CP should not in itself be a criminal matter, to my mind. Yes, it can be thought of as disgusting and worthy of moral outrage, but the act itself does no tangible harm.
Second assertion; the act of sexually abusing a child should be a criminal matter, and it does do tangible harm. I'm not sure I need to go into this one. It is abuse that needs attention, not CP itself.
Next comes the obvious link between child pornography users and abuse; often, the former pay money to people who commit the latter, thereby encouraging the abuse. This is a simple case for criminalising the purchase of child pornography. There is a great deal of precedent concerning the criminalisation of a person who pays another to commit a crime for them, and paying for CP comes under this; sure, it might average out to each of many subscribers only paying a few pence per act of abuse, but this is hardly an excuse.
So, the first solution to the problem would be effective in my opinion, but could never happen due to public moral outrage; decriminalise possession, criminalise only purchase. This, in theory, will concentrate police resources on the real problem, reducing funding (and therefore incentive) for abusers.
There's a problem though - the UK is just one small islandcountry, the world is full of people willing to fund child abusers through purchase of CP. We can crack down on such people in our own country, we can block the websites, and obviously we can also crack down on actual abuse occurring within our own borders, but it's not enough. Many other countries are effectively lawless and turn a blind eye to this kind of thing, and even those that don't can't catch every offender. So, how does one go about destroying the entire child pornography industry? It's simple - PIRACY.
Our government employs or authorises (as in the memorandum of understanding permitting the IWF to view illegal websites) an organisation to hoard child porn. Find every pay-per-view CP site out there, sign up, suck down all their content, and rehost it for free. Advertise this free content far and wide, make assurances about anonymity, and parts of the child abuse industry will die.
This could work. Except for moral outrage. Also, I'm well aware that children are abused for other reasons, but this ought to take a nice big bite out of the problem.