pedophile material access?

Question

Allow me to editorialize a bit to set the point of my question………..I watched a piece on television pertaining to Internet predators and pedophilia in general. It occurred to me that the actual participants in the creation of material geared towards the pedophile are small in number to those whom have an interest in this material. Most of the material found to be in possession of pedophiles were either obtained from commercial internet sites selling these materials or through file sharing sites providing access to files placed there for download. While I understand there is a fine line between legal and illegal pornography; I can’t understand how nude images of children made available to anyone for viewing pleasure can possibly be deemed legal and acceptable. While I have no problem with adult content for consenting adults; I see the need to stamp out pedophilia. Anyone with a basic knowledge of using a search engine can find pedophilia on-line commercially available; most of these sites are from foreign country’s which protects them from U.S. law enforcement. With representatives such as Mark Folley and those whom would protect him it is no wonder to me that it is hard to enact laws that would stamp this activity out.

My question is; why shouldn’t the credit card company’s that handle the financial transactions for membership to these web sites and the internet providers that sell the owners of these sites bandwidth for the purpose of providing this content be held equally responsible for the distribution and creation of pedophilia material?

Answer 1

One of the problems we have with all of this is who is to decide what is pornographic and what is not? Is a picture of a child who is naked on the beach pornographic, or only if they are facing you? Because I remember a best-selling book called "Free to Be You and Me," I believe it was, that had a picture of a naked kid on the beach for its cover. OK because you were viewing the back.

Pornography is one of those terribly slippery definitions we deal with in American jurisprudence. One judge said, "Well, I know it when I see it," and considered that good enough. It's not, from a free speech perspective, nearly enough. But could we get away with abolishing all laws against pornography, and have the marketplace decide? Perhaps. The lewd pictures of children -- and especially children engaged in lewd acts -- need to be dealt with as a special case. There the big problem is not who looks at them, but who makes them. Is this a parent or grandparent exploiting their child? Is it some stranger that parents have trusted? Those are the ones to go after, not the person who gets pleasure out of looking at the picture. Many studies have shown that pornography does NOT increase the incidence of lewd acts. Apparently many people with "odd tastes," shall we say, are quite content to leave it at the level of fantasy, and pictures serve that purpose. Getting children involved in the pictures is not necessary, however; there are people over 18 who look younger, and can legally consent. And there are also, unfortunately, countries where the children are photographed openly, even by their own parents, because there is no law against it. With a truly World Wide Web, we get that sort of thing.

The important thing, in my opinion, is to separate out such photos -- adults or children -- so that people don't see them who don't want to.

The same is true of horror pictures and the like. For example, I once foolishly followed a link that said I should find the minor differences in two photographs sitting side by side. Of course, I took off my glasses and got very close to the monitor to examine the photos. Suddenly, the photos were replaced by a very lurid devil photo-shop image that was obviously meant to scare the bejesus out of me. Fortunately, not being a Christian, it did not traumatize me too badly, but I hesitate to think what a Christian with a bad ticker might experience under such circumstances.

There are photos of violence and of gory things, and photos of a sexually explicit nature, and it seems proper they should be separated out, with warnings much like those on movies, perhaps. But ultimately, I do believe in free speech (and photos) on the Internet. I just want to be able to avoid what I don't like.

Answer 2

I have never seen such material available commercially. Do you know what you're talking about? The question of how to charge customers is a major problem for selling anything illegal online.

As far as services permitting file-sharing... Hard to bust them for this I think. I'm sure they could be held responsible.

Answer 3

Very good question. Simply, financial instituitions of any kind are usually LLCs--Limited Liability Companies.

It would be an infringement on your privacy if they were to get involved with your credit spendings. However, give it some time they would not be respondible, but rather become more proactive in supporting law enforcement agencies.

It's are ready being talked about.

Answer 4

I agree!Like always go after the money and it will decrease substantially!
Now there is the story that it is impossible to root it out completely but I'm sure if these big companies got hurt more effort would be made.
That's a sick thought but it's how the world works.

Answer 5

I agree with you 100%.