If the webmaster is a minor, does it count as kiddie porn?
January 31, 2002 1:02 PM Subscribe
there was a very similar case here recently (michigan) involving a minor. as with this, the details were very sketchy. the reports here used 'chat room' and 'web site' interchangeably, and seemed to infer that the minor was running the 'chat room' or 'web site' from his home computer. all i got trying to figure it out was confused. the reports were VERY short on information and VERY big on fearmongering.
posted by quonsar at 1:22 PM on January 31, 2002
posted by quonsar at 1:22 PM on January 31, 2002
what if the pictures he had were of himself only? what happens then?
posted by tomplus2 at 1:37 PM on January 31, 2002
posted by tomplus2 at 1:37 PM on January 31, 2002
all the links are work safe. they are just documents about court rulings on different cases and the passing of different laws. no actual examples in them.
posted by chrisroberts at 2:17 PM on January 31, 2002
posted by chrisroberts at 2:17 PM on January 31, 2002
My guess is that being underage is what constitutes child porn, and the age refers to what is displayed rather than who is posting or running the site display such materials. The site would get in trouble and the poster because he is working with child porn, but then the parents might be put into a time out corner as punishment.
If such stuff persists, we will encounter this down the road:
The End
posted by Postroad at 2:33 PM on January 31, 2002
If such stuff persists, we will encounter this down the road:
The End
posted by Postroad at 2:33 PM on January 31, 2002
Thousands of high school camgirls must be breaking the law then. It's legal for teens to have sex; they just can't take pics of it or write about it or create their own legal erotica.
posted by tranquileye at 3:01 PM on January 31, 2002
posted by tranquileye at 3:01 PM on January 31, 2002
a warning about that link would have been nice, tranquileye.
NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!!
posted by jpoulos at 3:29 PM on January 31, 2002
NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!!
posted by jpoulos at 3:29 PM on January 31, 2002
>jpoulos
are you serious? did you not check read it before clicking? you can safely assume any link with the word "whore" in it will be nsfw.
i don't really have a comment about the dude running the site b/c he's a moron and shouldn't have been dealing in kp in the 1st place. my comment is on the thought-police-type of legislation in the US. drawings!? come on now. the fbi has better things to do with their time than crack down on some guy doodling in his notebook. i also can't believe it could apply to nabokov.... can you persecute someone for their ideas? not in my book of freedom.
posted by drgonzo at 4:04 PM on January 31, 2002
are you serious? did you not check read it before clicking? you can safely assume any link with the word "whore" in it will be nsfw.
i don't really have a comment about the dude running the site b/c he's a moron and shouldn't have been dealing in kp in the 1st place. my comment is on the thought-police-type of legislation in the US. drawings!? come on now. the fbi has better things to do with their time than crack down on some guy doodling in his notebook. i also can't believe it could apply to nabokov.... can you persecute someone for their ideas? not in my book of freedom.
posted by drgonzo at 4:04 PM on January 31, 2002
I can see how any of the documents linked above might fail the business-related test for practically anyone but a lawyer -- but not a single one of them is, in itself, obscene.
The legal answer is, certainly, that child pornography is fairly well defined, and that its possession is strictly illegal for anyone of any age. (Even for those who might quibble about age of consent for this sort of thing, the article says some of the subjects were "very young" -- indicating at least pre-teens.)
Ideally the Supreme Court will demur supporting an expansion of the definition to include what's been labeled 'virtual' child pornography, meaning everything from photoshopped mix-and-match to drawings to animation. The definition as it stands -- and as the USSC has ruled in the past -- is only so strict because of the great harm done to individual minors. Expanding the law under the COPA would change that to a possible harm justification, which is orders of magnitude weaker.
posted by dhartung at 4:17 PM on January 31, 2002
The legal answer is, certainly, that child pornography is fairly well defined, and that its possession is strictly illegal for anyone of any age. (Even for those who might quibble about age of consent for this sort of thing, the article says some of the subjects were "very young" -- indicating at least pre-teens.)
Ideally the Supreme Court will demur supporting an expansion of the definition to include what's been labeled 'virtual' child pornography, meaning everything from photoshopped mix-and-match to drawings to animation. The definition as it stands -- and as the USSC has ruled in the past -- is only so strict because of the great harm done to individual minors. Expanding the law under the COPA would change that to a possible harm justification, which is orders of magnitude weaker.
posted by dhartung at 4:17 PM on January 31, 2002
jpoulos, I suggest you take responsibility for your own link-clicking, for god's sake. Why are you reading Metafilter at work anyway? Regardless, a lot depends on where you put your monitor in your office :-)
posted by tranquileye at 6:17 PM on January 31, 2002
posted by tranquileye at 6:17 PM on January 31, 2002
i'll have to go with jpoulos on this one, as it's just common courtesy to put a warning, despite how obvious the address may be.. as for viewing it at work? please, it's safe to say that a sizeable amount of people here come to mefi while at work- ah... crap... your post was sarcastic. well, that was a waste. might as well hit post.
posted by lotsofno at 7:51 PM on January 31, 2002
posted by lotsofno at 7:51 PM on January 31, 2002
This is sort of off-topic but...we had a great self-policing system at my old employer (very large automotive manufacturer in SoCal) where the web server proxy logs were open to everyone; Anyone could see where anyone else was surfing to. Incidents of inappropriate work surfing dropped to almost nil after that was instituted (whereas before there was a lot of inappropriate usage.)
People still got fired for surfing to "nsfw" sites on a regular basis, but they deserved to lose their job, imo.
posted by gen at 9:24 PM on January 31, 2002
People still got fired for surfing to "nsfw" sites on a regular basis, but they deserved to lose their job, imo.
posted by gen at 9:24 PM on January 31, 2002
jpoulos, I apologize if the link caused you a problem. I assumed that given the topic and the phrase "high school camgirls" that one might be wary of clicking it at work. I wasn't trying to mislead anyone.
posted by tranquileye at 6:40 AM on February 1, 2002
posted by tranquileye at 6:40 AM on February 1, 2002
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posted by chrisroberts at 1:20 PM on January 31, 2002