Interview with a darknet child porn site admin

[BLueRibbon]

A few weeks ago, a person contacted an activist organization with the message that someone had encouraged him to speak with a man named Brian. He stated he was the operator of various darknet sites that allow sharing of criminalized images, but with strong ethical guidelines. My interest very much piqued, I first clarified a few safety guidelines before sending a list of questions.

The interview was conducted fully anonymously, and at no point did I need to access any illicit services. That does of course mean I was not able to verify the person's statements. Nonetheless, this must be the first time such an interview has been attempted. Let's see what the man has to say.

https://www.brianribbon.com/home/interv ... site-admin

[Learning to undeny]

Quite an interesting read, and an unkown but important piece of the puzzle. Goes to show that both faces exist on the darknet: people gaining money from abuse and administrators who want to innovate and offer something more ethical, even though there are still a lot of shades of gray (such as consent for distribution, which can be problematic even for adults).

Of course, I don't have information to judge whether the standards of the interviewee are high enough, but it seems reasonable that something like this could exist. I found it interesting that they were collaborating with researchers to help users who need it.

[ReArm!]

Hats off to you for this article, I really enjoyed it and I think it's a great job you did there!

I would like to ask two questions, tho:

1. In the interview you talk a lot ab how there are sites out there that post violent content where the victim is being raped. I would honestly like to know exactly what do you think about it? Do you think even in a world where pedophilia and it's content is allowed it should be penalized? And I don't mean it's production, of course (We can all agree that raping someone and making a video about it should merit the ful extent of the criminal law), but it's possession and distribution.

Let me make my case clear, in the US (and many other countries), gore and violent imagery are fully legal and under the protection of freedom of speech laws. I have never seen such content, but for what I've heard I think most comes from warzones and/or accidents, and usually serve the purpose of having an account of what's happening there. Even if some edgy teens use it to have fun. It's only when it becomes sexual that it becomes ilegal. I don't fully understand why is that, tbh. I feel like freedom of speech should protect any media, be it violent or not, just because of the fact that it is information.

(Hopefully I won't get banned for having this thought lol, I mean would it be "expressions of support for violent sexual behavior"? To be clear, ofc I'm not advocating for raping someone, same as I'm not advocating for shooting people in the head, but I don't think neither of those contents, when already made, should be illegal. I know mods read messages before approving them, so I would ask that if it's not allowed just don't approve the post instead of banning me, it would be a great favour)

2. You talked briefly ab the Chat control proposal at the end, I know you're not european, but I think it wuld be a great topic to talk about. Do you think you may do it in the future?

[Not Forever]

For example, we received information that zoophilia is linked to a higher rate of sexual sadism. We evaluated the situation and decided that such content does pose a problem in our case, so we decided to ban such content.

I would have liked a bit more in-depth discussion of this issue. I mean, it’s not uncommon to hear about sadists who feel discriminated against even by MAPs, and to read something like that… I don’t know—when you play around with how things are linked, usually no one comes out of it looking good.

Even if some edgy teens use it to have fun.

One could also add to the discussion the true sadists, in the sense of those who feel sexual attraction toward videos or images of this kind.

[ReArm!]

One could also add to the discussion the true sadists, in the sense of those who feel sexual attraction toward videos or images of this kind.

Sure, tho I'd think exactly the same ab it. They have the right to goon to something like that, I think. It should not be criminalized just to have those images

[RocketRack]

This was an interesting read! I dont agree with MAPs like him who 'consume' child porn though... I think thats gross personally

[BLueRibbon]

In the interview you talk a lot ab how there are sites out there that post violent content where the victim is being raped. I would honestly like to know exactly what do you think about it? Do you think even in a world where pedophilia and it's content is allowed it should be penalized? And I don't mean it's production, of course (We can all agree that raping someone and making a video about it should merit the ful extent of the criminal law), but it's possession and distribution.

Distribution of genuinely abusive content is depressing and problematic. I don't agree with it, morally. How to deal with it is a complicated matter, however, because what feels 'right' and what is effective are not always the same thing.

Possession without paying the producer? Try to persuade me that such is actually harmful to children.

You talked briefly ab the Chat control proposal at the end, I know you're not european, but I think it wuld be a great topic to talk about. Do you think you may do it in the future?

https://www.brianribbon.com/home/chat-c ... -for-power

[ReArm!]

Distribution of genuinely abusive content is depressing and problematic. I don't agree with it, morally. How to deal with it is a complicated matter, however, because what feels 'right' and what is effective are not always the same thing.

I mean, we're here precisely because what feels right and what is "depressing" is not a moral standard, aren't we?
However, I think you're completely right. If someone is contributing monetarily to the producer, it should be a crime, but I was talking ab distributing it without monetary exchange, which same as you do I don't think it should be punished.

You talked briefly ab the Chat control proposal at the end, I know you're not european, but I think it wuld be a great topic to talk about. Do you think you may do it in the future?

https://www.brianribbon.com/home/chat-c ... -for-power

And thanks! Didn't see that you had the index with the previous articles below, I'm sorry!

[John_Doe]

For example, we received information that zoophilia is linked to a higher rate of sexual sadism. We evaluated the situation and decided that such content does pose a problem in our case, so we decided to ban such content.

I would have liked a bit more in-depth discussion of this issue. I mean, it’s not uncommon to hear about sadists who feel discriminated against even by MAPs, and to read something like that… I don’t know—when you play around with how things are linked, usually no one comes out of it looking good.

Even if some edgy teens use it to have fun.

One could also add to the discussion the true sadists, in the sense of those who feel sexual attraction toward videos or images of this kind.

I haven't read this interview but having gone through this thread a couple of days ago:

-I don't necessarily oppose prohibiting the distribution of images or videos depicting murder, rape, violence, gore, etc. from a privacy standpoint (because it can be demoralizing to victims or their loved ones to have that material available to the general public. My concern is with the experienced frustration of a desire for privacy, though. I can admire Emmit Till's mother for releasing those photos of her son's body to the public in the understanding that seeing those images could make it viscerally more obvious to caring people how racist and broken southern culture at the time was, and to validate what happened to her son, but considering how unsympathetic many people are and their love for dark humor and knowing how some people might treat those images of her son you can appreciate how hard it must have been for her to make that decision, she was putting herself in a very vulnerable position. It bothers me that you can find autopsy pics/pics of dead bodies online). I don't support free expression/free speech/freedom as an end in itself so I don't think I'm being inconsistent.

-I don't think that sadists should be discriminated against (as in, 'ironically,' I don't think that their suffering and happiness should be given less consideration just because they're sadists) but I think that sadism itself, sexual or otherwise, should be heavily stigmatized. My argument for de-stigmatizing pedophilia and rejecting the idea that AMSC is intrinsically wrong on principle is that sexual happiness as happiness is inherently good and if something causes no emotional distress it is harmless (whether or not AMSC does is circumstantial), so there can't be a slippery slope from accepting pedophilia to accepting sadism for me (or something like necrophilia; if that means the fetishization of death and not just a physical attraction to bodies that happen to be dead, because it inherently devalues happiness).

-I don't think that there is an intrinsic relationship between zoophilia (as much as it might personally bother me) and sadism just because they might correlate (maybe people who are 'deviant' in one way are more likely to be open to other culturally taboo deviancy for reasons that have nothing to do with the nature of those sexual interests).

[Not Forever]

-I don't necessarily oppose prohibiting the distribution of images or videos depicting murder, rape, violence, gore, etc. from a privacy standpoint (because it can be demoralizing to victims or their loved ones to have that material available to the general public. My concern is with the experienced frustration of a desire for privacy, though. I can admire Emmit Till's mother for releasing those photos of her son's body to the public in the understanding that seeing those images could make it viscerally more obvious to caring people how racist and broken southern culture at the time was, and to validate what happened to her son, but considering how unsympathetic many people are and their love for dark humor and knowing how some people might treat those images of her son you can appreciate how hard it must have been for her to make that decision, she was putting herself in a very vulnerable position. It bothers me that you can find autopsy pics/pics of dead bodies online). I don't support free expression/free speech/freedom as an end in itself so I don't think I'm being inconsistent.

-I don't think that sadists should be discriminated against (as in, 'ironically,' I don't think that their suffering and happiness should be given less consideration just because they're sadists) but I think that sadism itself, sexual or otherwise, should be heavily stigmatized. My argument for de-stigmatizing pedophilia and rejecting the idea that AMSC is intrinsically wrong on principle is that sexual happiness as happiness is inherently good and if something causes no emotional distress it is harmless (whether or not AMSC does is circumstantial), so there can't be a slippery slope from accepting pedophilia to accepting sadism for me (or something like necrophilia; if that means the fetishization of death and not just a physical attraction to bodies that happen to be dead, because it inherently devalues happiness).

I believe I have a genuinely different point of view.
I am not against privacy, in the sense that I can agree if a person does not want images of themselves circulating on the internet, but I don’t believe the problem should be what people do with those images, nor do I think people should worry about what others do with their images. That is, this is not a claim about how people should feel, but rather about considering it one’s own responsibility to judge how certain things make us feel, and about the fact that it should not be taken for granted that people necessarily have a problem with this. Because in the end one adapts, and if everyone has a problem with something, we end up convincing ourselves that we too have a problem with that same thing.

Pushed to the extreme, it can even be considered paranoid to feel uncomfortable about how people relate to a representation of one’s own person. And the moment such paranoia is considered normal, we all behave like paranoids. I don’t know if I’m managing to express my point of view well.

This view is further reinforced by the fact that I consider only the will of the individual to be valid: the feelings of a deceased person’s family have no value over the deceased, and the deceased, being dead, does not have… I think I have very unpopular opinions at the moment.

I am also not a fan of discussions about happiness, let alone goodness.
I think good and evil are social and personal constructs, not objective ones, just like individual happiness. It cannot be imposed, and it is not even “pure.” Happiness can also be painful; it can also harm oneself and others. I see it as a feeling without a real, defined form, since everyone interprets it however they like. I am also a relativist on certain things, in the sense that… considering necrophilia to diminish happiness because death is something negative for me is an interpretation, one that is as valid as its opposite. Since death is the conclusion of life, having a negative attitude toward death brings anxiety to the living person, which could, if one wished, be considered something negative. Someone else might interpret it as positive, since it is an anxiety that pushes people to act during life in order to settle their affairs before the inevitable death.

Now, this is not so much to argue back, or to defend necrophilia; rather, it is a discussion about how I find this point of view too subjective to be extended to other people as if it were something obvious and natural. I do not see a clear logical consequence, but rather a series of interpretations that are gradually created as issues arise—interpretations that can be anything and its opposite, depending on one’s interests.

But this is something I would say in general whenever people talk about what is “good” and what is “evil”.
I don’t see anything intrinsic in these concepts—quite the opposite. But here it is really my point of view that follows completely different tracks.

-I don't think that there is an intrinsic relationship between zoophilia (as much as it might personally bother me) and sadism just because they might correlate (maybe people who are 'deviant' in one way are more likely to be open to other culturally taboo deviancy for reasons that have nothing to do with the nature of those sexual interests).

For me, this can be an environmental and community-related issue.

Perhaps, for reasons unknown to us, certain elements came together and a group formed that includes very different fetishes within it. I mean, I am sadistic, I frequent the furry community (which is, in a sense, close to that of zoophilia, even though it seems to me that they don’t particularly appreciate each other). What kind of imagery unites us? All that fetishism connected to the natural, as explained, to the animal (in this case humanoid) as a violent creature that bites, an imagery centered on instinct, and so on… I don’t know whether it’s the same with zoophilia. Also because, thinking about it, there is the whole issue of animal training, which can have violent connotations; there are specific fetishes in which animals are included, even if I have never framed them as zoophilia.

If there are any confusing parts, I apologize—I’m not very good at expressing myself.