UK Child porn ban. 6th April.

I don't disagree with some of those points; Many people are irrational and gullible. Does this mean the world should cater for them at the expense of the people who are more rational and intelligent? No. We should all be made responsible for ourselves and our own actions and no-one else's, except those we personally choose to take responsibility for. Responsibility to society is a hindrance to the individual.

HdE said:
People - yes, even adults - can absolutely be influenced by outside suggestion, even from fiction. It accounts for a good number of abusive acts, believe it or not. That was a factor and had some bearing on the cases I know of, in fact.
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I'm afraid I do find that very hard to believe without anything to back it up. I'm not dismissing it as a factor in cases you know of personally, but I've never seen fiction presented as a major factor in people causing harm to others from anyone more credible than agents of moral panic like Jack Thompson or Keith Vaz.
 
incidently, 2 weeks and posting from prision is fun

i get all the anime i want, still no restrictions on hentai sites and i'm free to do as i wish


wait, what do you mean Argos isn't prison?
 
Ayase - you raise some good points and discuss them, if I may say, very intelligently!

On the subject of folks who are susceptible to suggestion:

ayase said:
Does this mean the world should cater for them at the expense of the people who are more rational and intelligent? No. We should all be made responsible for ourselves and our own actions and no-one else's, except those we personally choose to take responsibility for. Responsibility to society is a hindrance to the individual.
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My gut reaction to this is to agree. Simply because it naturally seems unfair that the responsible element in society should be penalised as a result of the actions of those who are either willfully irresponsible, criminal or incapable of taking responsibility for their actions due to, for example, mental illness.

However...

ayase said:
HdE said:
People - yes, even adults - can absolutely be influenced by outside suggestion, even from fiction. It accounts for a good number of abusive acts, believe it or not. That was a factor and had some bearing on the cases I know of, in fact.
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I'm afraid I do find that very hard to believe without anything to back it up. I'm not dismissing it as a factor in cases you know of personally, but I've never seen fiction presented as a major factor in people causing harm to others from anyone more credible than agents of moral panic like Jack Thompson or Keith Vaz.
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I fully appreciate what you're saying here - and I commend your attitude. We should never, ever blindly accept something just because 'somebody said so.' You're basically saying 'Can you prove it?' - and I think that's great.

Sadly, I can't (partly because it would be a breach of confidences) state anything about the unfortunate cases I am personally aware of. All I can do is use them to underscore the fact that, yes, it does happen. Maybe not all the time, or with the frequency the tabloid press might have us believe, but it does. People I know or knew were victimised as a result of their abusers wishing to act out things they had read or seen. And we're talking about stuff that was freely available off the shelf, not necessarily anything illegal or pornographic.

I believe that part of that 'responsibilty toward society' lies with our governments and the regulatory agencies they employ. They have a duty to safeguard their citizens. They also have a responsibility to do so in a fair, sane and balanced fashion.

So... we'll just have to see how they measure up to that in light of this new legislation.

I'm neither pro nor anti-censorship. But it seems to me that the motivation behind the new laws is, in essence, to prevent people from being hurt. I applaud that.
 
Allow me to add that I agree that the "rational intellegent" should not be penalised for the actions of a few that are of the opposite end of that, but if there is no government authorised restriction in place these few would feel no risk at doing what ever they pleased and would use the situation of no law against it as licence to continue, in short, it would be anarchy. Laws are created to deter, as well as protect. Now as gross as I find the idea of a desire to look at drawings depicting child porn, if someone wants to do this, that's fine with me as long as it stays secret to only that person, and never publishes it in anyway to anyone. In other words; keep it your dirty little secret, don't even boost about it on the internet, because now you can be done if they so much as suspect you have it in your possession. :wink:
 
Just to mention that suggestible people picking up criminal behaviour through exposure to media is just one thread of a bigger problem. There are many other criminals who offend without ever accessing the Internet, picking up a manga, or watching an anime. There are other factors that may provoke their criminality, such as being victims of abuse themselves in the past, or just being 'wired' differently.

The sensible thing would be to commission a study that would see whether removing possibly 'suggestible' media from the public domain would make a big diffference to offender rates, or whether it would be a drop in the ocean.

Of course we come back to cynical motives on the part of the legislators, a.k.a. winning votes from Joe 'Daily Mail Reading Decent Honest Hard Working Bloody Immigration Hard Working Decent' Public
 
Just Passing Through said:
Just to mention that suggestible people picking up criminal behaviour through exposure to media is just one thread of a bigger problem. There are many other criminals who offend without ever accessing the Internet, picking up a manga, or watching an anime. There are other factors that may provoke their criminality, such as being victims of abuse themselves in the past, or just being 'wired' differently.
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ABSOLUTELY.

This is why I have some concern about the new legislation, and the way it will be enforced. It shows that there's a need for balance and wise judgement.

On a slight tangent - could I suggest that maybe somebody re-titles this thread? I find coming back to the 'UK Child Porn ban' thread a little unsettling... maybe we could refer to this legislation by its correct designation?
 
We could call it "The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 which revises The Protection Of Children Act 1978, Chapter 37" which is the exact prepose of the legislation. In that 1978 Act Chapter 37 subsection 4
4 Entry, search and seizure (1)The following applies where a justice of the peace is satisfied by information on oath, laid by or on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions or by a constable, that there is reasonable ground for suspecting that, in any premises in the petty sessions area for which he acts, there [F1is an indecent photograph [F2or pseudo-photograph]of a child].
(2)The justice may issue a warrant under his hand authorising any constable to enter (if need be by force) and search the premises F3. . ., and to seize and remove any articles which he believes (with reasonable cause) to be or include indecent photographs [F4or pseudo-photographs]of children . . . F5.
(3)Articles seized under the authority of the warrant, and not returned to the occupier of the premises, shall be brought before a justice of the peace acting for the same petty sessions area as the justice who issued the warrant.
(4)This section and section 5 below apply in relation to any stall or vehicle, as they apply in relation to premises, with the necessary modifications of references to premises and the substitution of references to use for references to occupation.
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Full Act here
 
Bit of a mouthfull, that! :wink:

Just seems like a good idea to me, as the current thread title seems... off beam. I mean, child porn has ALWAYS been illegal in this country, right? And having that particular title hanging over the top of some quite intelligent discussion here seems a bit... alarming!
 
Always nice to have a rational debate with intelligent people. ;)

I understand the idea that it makes sense to protect more vulnerable people both from harm by others and from being subject to influence by others. But my point still stands that this happens anyway in lots of perfectly legal ways. Biased media is allowed and that makes easily influenced people adhere to all sorts of ridiculous, harmful beliefs. I saw an advert just the other night for what is basically legal loan sharking, charging something like two and a half thousand percent APR on lending someone £50 for two weeks.

The government and lawmakers are entirely hypocritical. If we're to protect vulnerable people we should be banning these things too, but then the rest of us would feel massively restricted in what we could do (and they would presumably lose a lot of tax revenue). Yes, this is just one thing and something most people find abhorrent, so it's an easy first target. But where do we go from here? It sets a dangerous precedent for restricting people's freedom in the name of protecting them. For example, I hear they are trialling a system of numberplate recognition which checks numberplates against the distances they have travelled since they were last checked, averages the speed and so can tell over large distances if someone has broken the speed limit. Oh, and it means they would also know where anyone with a car is at any point in time.

This is what this is really all about; Not protecting people, at all, but those in power consolidating their control over every little aspect of people's lives based on how they think people should behave. There'll be no room to do what you think is best - You'll jolly well do what those with the power to make the laws tell you. And I think that this is something which has to be stopped; Put in reverse even, not allowed to slowly continue to steamroller people's rights. Really, I think those looking out for the vulnerable should be their family and friends, not the state.
 
Project-2501 said:
So it would be OK to control and censor the media? Keep people in the dark, what they don't know won't harm them?
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Seeing as it's been going on in one form, or another since the concept of media was invented, yeah! However control and censorship has only been able to work when governments had more control over it, but with the internet so-far that's all gone, so now they have to threaten you with prosecution of mere possession which now includes simple fictional drawings. But lets not get too carried away with the they're-coming-to-get-me paranoia. I don't expect to hear about too many dawn raids on someone's home suspected of having virtual child porn any time soon, if at all. Like I highlighted, they have got to suspect you have it in the first place. How they find that out is the scarey bit. :wink:
 
Mohawk, I've been saying the same all along!

We all know the media has gained FAR too much power over people, but in a 'free' society we can't stop them. They can whip up a storm in a teacup with very little effort and what can the government do, say to the people 'you're all wrong, its all made up, we're going to ignore you' or 'oh all right, we'll do it'.

Either way someone will moan :)
 
Project-2501 said:
Mohawk, I've been saying the same all along!

We all know the media has gained FAR too much power over people, but in a 'free' society we can't stop them. They can whip up a storm in a teacup with very little effort and what can the government do, say to the people 'you're all wrong, its all made up, we're going to ignore you' or 'oh all right, we'll do it'.

Either way someone will moan :)
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:lol: Ain't that the truth? :lol:
 
Project-2501 said:
So it would be OK to control and censor the media? Keep people in the dark, what they don't know won't harm them?
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No. I used biased media as an example of how the state is hypocritical to claim laws are to protect vulnerable people when there are plenty of legal ways to exploit them which they do nothing about.

My argument is that the state shouldn't be involved at all and that individuals should look out for the vulnerable people around them; ie. No censors or ratings boards, parents should actually look after and look out for their kids themselves. The same goes for vulnerable adults. If people can't be bothered to look after those they should care about then they can pay someone else to look after them, not foist the burden off on wider society.
 
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