Views sought re UK policing of online CSAM

[AJTR]

As explained elsewhere by Jim Burton - I'm a British journalist currently writing a book about historic and current failures around child protection, with a view to suggesting changes that make systems and policies operate more effectively and humanely, including in the treatment of MAPs.

Having interviewed some people caught up in the current aggressive British policing of online images, I am wondering if anyone has looked at this from a legal and rights perspective. There's obviously issues around "does the punishment fit the crime?", of stigmatisation and of course the conflation of image offences with contact ones, given academic certainty of there being little or no causal relationship between image viewing and IRL actions.

Do please get in touch if you have a view. I am happy to preserve anonymity and confidentiality.

Alex Renton

[BLueRibbon]

[...]I am wondering if anyone has looked at this from a legal and rights perspective.

From a rights perspective, I would say it's a matter of not arresting people unless they've harmed someone.

The UK has instead adopted a position of "thou shalt not think that way", where a sexual attraction to children is the problem, not the infliction of harm. But sexual attraction to children is quite common, and it's not something that can be changed.

While you may not be the best of friends, Tom O'Carroll recently published an article that revealed the UK is increasingly chasing fictional content, rather than focusing on pictures and videos depicting real children. Fictional content could massively reduce the demand for new pornographic content featuring real children, and the arguments against fictional content are not very strong. I've covered this previously.

Even when it comes to pictures and videos of real children, I think there's a lot of work to be done in focusing more on harm prevention. If a person essentially pirates the material, that is not exactly encouraging production. And this is what many people are being arrested for.

For a more detailed rundown of my thoughts, please read Pro-Reform: A logical approach to PIM.

[BLueRibbon]

Members, please note:

I've changed this thread to a global announcement to help promote participation.

Participation here is safe. Contacting the author privately is very much at your own risk.

[bnkywuv]

This initially screams "we want to deprive people so they'll offend so we can arrest them!" thinking. If they're anything akin to toxic types, and if this is indeed put in place BY toxic types, then everything makes sense.

It's not about "reducing harm" but instead driving people to do the very things they say they're against to arrest them. Making people so desperate they'll have no choice but to offend, a classic toxic move.

If it IS for the welfare of the children, they're clearly not educated on how harm reduction actually works or even how to go about it. Blanketing EVERY SINGLE THING with a minor as "harmful" is not harm reduction. It's paranoia and ignorance and actually fuels the market for harmful content.

Banning content where real children are clearly hurt or in distress but allowing consensual content will create less revenue for those who would watch the harmful content because they'd have another safer outlet.

Plus how many antis have been discovered to enjoy the very content they say they hate, real CSAM?

[Jim Burton]

I'm not sure if it's on topic, but this is the page with examples of "anti"-pedophiles who were caught in various states with a sexual interest in teens and children. There is a tendency towards violent and extreme right-wing motivations among these people:

https://wiki.yesmap.net/wiki/Anti