MEGA-THREAD: Hysterical Lawmaking and Online overreach

[Jim Burton]

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterpr ... rveillance

https://cybernews.com/security/chat-con ... -messages/

https://www.nst.com.my/news/crime-court ... ital-world

[Jim Burton]

Illinois cracks down on AI-generated child porn: 'Obscene is obscene'

https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/illin ... child-porn

llinois law now makes AI-created child porn as illegal as real images, giving police clearer tools to prosecute.

Reports of AI-generated child exploitation have skyrocketed, with hundreds of thousands flagged nationwide and cases already tied to Illinois victims.

[Jim Burton]

Half a million, but they are only active for 1/10th of the day? This is not very dedicated if you ask me...

https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/20 ... -campaign/

LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - The Michigan State Police (MSP) and Michigan Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force are launching a new campaign called “Opening the Door” to bring awareness to online sexual predators.

The Child Crime Prevention and Safety Center estimates there are half a million online predators active each day, targeting children between the ages of 12 and 15.

The Michigan State Police see this issue every day.

“In 2024, our Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, they actually executed over 300 search warrants on homes, computers, flash drives, resulting in about 147 arrests. We’ve had them local here in the Lansing area,” said MSP Lt. Rene Gonzalez.

If your child has access to the online world, a predator may have access to your child.

“At any given time, there are 50,000 child predators out there, looking to groom, exploit, or ask for sexual photos that could lead to sextortion. It can happen to any kid,” MSP’s ‘Opening the Door’ campaign video.

[Jim Burton]

https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/ ... aedophiles

“Starmer is a paedo,” chanted a group of bald men outside Waterloo station, on their way to the “Unite the Kingdom” march organised by the far right in Westminster. On Whitehall, amid a sea of union flags and Stone Island, a fashion label beloved by a certain type of football fan, a sign appeared: “Boycott groomers & PAEDO’S businesses, be loyal to our kids”. Outside Downing Street, a banner read “KEEP OUR GIRLS SAFE” above a picture of a man in a keffiyeh, riding off with a teen on a moped.

[...]

Westminster has turned paedophilia into a dividing line, with politicians of all colours trying to shove their opponents across it. Peter Kyle, the recently promoted business secretary, suggested that without the Online Safety Act paedophiles such as Jimmy Savile, once a national treasure who turned out to be a child abuser, would have free rein. If anyone missed the subtext, Mr Kyle made it text: “Nigel Farage is saying that he’s on their side.”

[...]

It is not just tabloid readers who turn into confused vigilantes when paedophiles are involved. A parliamentary equivalent existed in the 2010s, as Britain digested a steady stream of entertainers such as Savile turning out to be abusers. Tom Watson, then an influential backbencher, accused ageing politicos of being in a paedophile ring and was dubbed the “nonce finder general” by the Daily Mail. It was nonsense. No matter. He later became deputy leader of the Labour Party and now sits in the House of Lords, where he made an apology of sorts. Paedo-hunters thrive at all levels of British society, whether they wear Stone Island or ermine.

[...]

What began as a justified reckoning for decades of failure has morphed into something uglier, permeating every level of society from football terraces to the top of politics. Elon Musk, the owner of X, a platform to which Westminster’s inhabitants are addicted, was able to trigger weeks of rows by highlighting the horror of “grooming gangs”, referring to the abuse of tens of thousands of young girls, often by Asian men, in mostly northern towns in the 1990s and 2000s. British politics exploded into a bout of inquiry-commissioning. Any case of a brown man attacking a young white girl is now leapt on by the far right. And so on September 13th Mr Musk appeared on a jumbotron in Whitehall, calling for the six-figure-strong crowd to overthrow the government to protect “children who are getting gang-raped”.

Faced with such a threat, politicians who once tacked to the centre now look to the fringe. An idea that to stave off populism one must embrace its tactics has taken root in Westminster. The result? Mainstream politicians, from prime ministers down, now label their opponents as evil rather than just wrong. In such an environment, it does not take long before abhorrent accusations become the norm. Since the likes of Mr Musk and friends can go further, it is a game moderate politicians can never win.

[Jim Burton]

https://asianews.network/japans-version ... on-remain/

TOKYO – The government’s new system to protect children from sex crimes is expected to regulate up to 230,000 organizations, including kids cafeterias, talent agencies and schools, according to a draft from the Children and Families Agency.

It remains to be seen how widely the system will be adopted, given concerns about its requirements for strictly managing sensitive information and the risk of lawsuits.

The system — called the Japanese version of Britain’s Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) — allows education-related groups to refer to a Justice Ministry database and check the sex crime history of people working in jobs that involve children.

[Jim Burton]

https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10575729

As deepfake crimes by teenagers continue to increase, data from the National Police Agency showed Monday that the number of sex crimes related to illegal filming committed by teens nearly doubled from 2020 to 2024.

Last year, 1,372 teenagers were accused of committing sex crimes such as filming other people's bodies with cameras and creating or distributing sexually exploitative images and videos using deepfake technology. The number rose each year from 710 in 2020 to 941 in 2021, 1,040 in 2022 and 1,224 in 2023, according to a report compiled by Rep. Kang Kyung-sook of the minor opposition Rebuilding Korea Party, based on figures provided by the NPA.

[Jim Burton]

https://www.courthousenews.com/missouri ... h-circuit/

ST. LOUIS (CN) — An Eighth Circuit judge compared a Missouri law requiring sex offenders to post signs on Halloween saying they don’t have candy to a North Dakota law requiring landowners to post signs warning if there is quicksand on their property during a hearing Tuesday challenging the sign law’s constitutionality.

“In North Dakota, if there is quicksand, we’re required to post it,” U.S. Circuit Judge Ralph R. Erickson, a Donald Trump appointee, said during the 30-minute hearing. “Obviously the cattle don’t understand it’s quicksand. But you know, in theory, somebody wandering up, they see it’s there, and no one has ever asserted that that’s being too compelled (of speech).”

The analogy hit at the heart of the arguments as Missouri attempted to revive the sign requirement after a lower court blocked it last October, stating that it violated the First Amendment guarantee of speech by compelling sex offenders to post the sign on their private property.

[Jim Burton]

https://www.fox10tv.com/2025/09/18/past ... -car-wash/

“We were certainly not trying to do anything wrong,” Potter said. “The thing about a Sunday, schools are not even meeting on Sunday, daycares are not in business on Sunday. There were no kids involved. These are adults, bringing their car up to do a car wash.”

Deputies said they’ve warned Potter about having sex offenders help with the car wash. However, Potter said the sheriff’s office only told him they cannot work full-time in his store, which he says he’s followed.

Potter said he works closely with law enforcement to ensure he’s following the law and has always complied.

“Some of my guys, they’re all facing felony charges over this, and they are clean,” he said. “If you rehabilitate someone, you’re actually improving public safety.”

[Jim Burton]

https://theconversation.com/details-on- ... ear-265323

The Australian government today released regulatory guidance on the social media minimum age law, which comes into effect on December 10. The law will restrict individuals under 16 from holding accounts on many social media platforms.

[Jim Burton]

ICE on Sextortion:

https://www.ice.gov/features/sextortion