Twitter fumes over AI CP vote in Maine

[Jim Burton]

https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/1984213776502010221

https://x.com/OvertonThreads/status/1984231105260585465

Five top Democrats on the Maine Legislative Council voted AGAINST a bill that would ban ai-generated child porn

The vote kills the bill from reaching committee, so it will not even receive public debate

House minority leader Billy Bob Faulkingham can’t believe it… “Well, that was interesting. Just got out of leg council today where I'm in Augusta. We were voting on bills — but the one that really blew my mind was a bill sponsored by a Democrat that would prohibit child pornography created by AI.

And of course, even though a Democrat sponsored that bill, I voted yes for it because I think child pornography is absolutely disgusting no matter how it's created. Unfortunately, that bill failed to get entered into the second session because the majority of Democrats voted against letting that bill in, even though it was sponsored by a Democrat.

I don't understand the reasoning why you would not want to go against child pornography, but that actually happened today”

[Not Forever]

I don’t understand, was it a proposal from the Democrats? Because if it was, overall it seems like a foolish move—to propose something and then sink what they themselves pushed forward. It’s just a way to get bad publicity, both for those in favor and those against.

I won’t comment on the comments, there are really stupid people out there and others wishing for genocide.

In any case, I’m pleasantly surprised that at least for once there’s been some good news on a topic like this, I thought it was impossible, I’m serious.

[BLueRibbon]

I voted yes for it because I think child pornography is absolutely disgusting no matter how it's created.

At least they're not pretending it's about the children any more!

[Bookshelf]

I voted yes for it because I think child pornography is absolutely disgusting no matter how it's created

The rationale behind banning child porn is that it uses real children, and it apparently re-victimized the child every time it's consumed. People also believe consumption contributes to its production, ie putting more children at risk of being victimized.

If you have a way to create realistic child pornography without ever involving real children, you circumvent practically every risk put forward by "experts" in this field. Countless children would be saved (by anti-c / anti-cp standards) and content involving real children would eventually be diluted, reducing how many people consume material involving them.

Should someone claim to genuinely believe in the legal rationale behind prohibiting child porn, there are two possibilities if they therein uphold the opinion in this article:
a) They want a harmful industry to exist for some reason, and they want real children to be the subject of child pornography, or;
b) They don't actually genuinely believe in the legal rationale, and are just using it as an excuse to justify their disgust. They don't care how many children are involved and don't care about the effects. They just find it icky, and if real children need to suffer to satisfy their disgust, then so be it.

Someone that genuinely believes child pornography is inherently harmful would be doing everything they can to find alternatives so that fewer people consume or create it. If your representatives aren't doing this, then they either don't believe it or don't care.

[Kierkegaard]

I voted yes for it because I think child pornography is absolutely disgusting no matter how it's created

The rationale behind banning child porn is that it uses real children, and it apparently re-victimized the child every time it's consumed. People also believe consumption contributes to its production, ie putting more children at risk of being victimized.

If you have a way to create realistic child pornography without ever involving real children, you circumvent practically every risk put forward by "experts" in this field. Countless children would be saved (by anti-c / anti-cp standards) and content involving real children would eventually be diluted, reducing how many people consume material involving them.

Should someone claim to genuinely believe in the legal rationale behind prohibiting child porn, there are two possibilities if they therein uphold the opinion in this article:
a) They want a harmful industry to exist for some reason, and they want real children to be the subject of child pornography, or;
b) They don't actually genuinely believe in the legal rationale, and are just using it as an excuse to justify their disgust. They don't care how many children are involved and don't care about the effects. They just find it icky, and if real children need to suffer to satisfy their disgust, then so be it.

Someone that genuinely believes child pornography is inherently harmful would be doing everything they can to find alternatives so that fewer people consume or create it. If your representatives aren't doing this, then they either don't believe it or don't care.

I see three main arguments used for justifying the criminalization of AI generated CP.

1, it'll increase rates of offense by encouraging pedophiles to indulge their desires rather than suppress them or "normalizing" pedophilia.

2, it'll make it harder for investigators to know/investigate the real CP because they'll have to waste resources sifting through the fake stuff and won't be able to tell if a child is real or not

and 3, AI CP is trained on real naked pictures of children and so it re-victimizes the real children in the original training data somehow

I think these are all god-awful arguments, just to be clear, but these are the justifications I've heard people give. At least, when people bother attempting a justification at all beyond "I think it's icky and gross and we oughta disregard free speech and throw those people into woodchippers" or whatever.