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

[anarchist of love]

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

i suspect that two things are involved here, and i pray that i'm able to be coherent enough for folks:

One, the nature of the norm of Orwellian Legal Terms (proliferating Western nations and their satellites) and how that has a way of Fooling the Uncomprehending (thus, many MAPs are likely duped into attacking their own comrades!).

And two, the LIMITED FRAMES OF REFERENCE that surround all. In BOTH "Left" and "Right"-wing dominated areas. Usually the City and Rural Areas KEPT hyped-up against each others' norms! Antis, too, find themselves surrounded by one aspect of this (i.e. in rural places), as such systems (in origins, i think) have a way of TOOLING honesty, even the TRICKED honest of antis, into Death Culture traps. Thus, demystified, the "tendency towards" severe forms of alienation.

On the other hand, is it not true that MAPs are often HYPED-UP in reaction? And pushed to allegedly "solve" the problem thru martial means? (The history --did you know?-- of the u.s.a., at least, is one full of peoples and whole movements duped into violence SO THAT they State can come in with overwhelming force and CRUSH everyone)

Ah, i can see i'm not up to taking this on right now, as i have another focus i want to return to. So, a bit incoherent, a bit of a puzzle (!), and take whatever you want out and re-phrase it if y'all like!

[MAPGL917]

I can't speak on the British side of things as I am from the US, but I can share my opinion on the overall topic of "does the punishment fit the crime"

In the US, the laws and punishments are typically determined individually by each state, if prosecuted by that states law enforcement, and if prosecuted federally they have their own rules and punishments themselves.

The most lenient I have seen typically use a tier system. I forget the actual specifics, buts it's something along the lines of Tier1: 1-50 pictures/videos, tier 2: 51-200 pictures tier 3: 201 or more.

The punishment is based on tier. Tier 1: 1-2 years in prison, Tier 2: 3-5 years, tier 3: 10 years+. This differentiates between someone who may have casually browsed, and between someone who may have been doing it for years.

The worst I have seen gave an automatic 10-24 years, mandatory consecutive, PER PICTURE OR VIDEO. This means, depending on the person's age, only one or two pictures would effectively equal a life sentence.

I that same state, kidnapping had a term of something like 5-10 years, with sexual assault of a minor being 13-27 years, but these sentences would be ran concurrently. This means you could kidnape and rape a 10 year old, and serve less time than someone who had only two pictures.

You could take it a step further. The US court system is complicated, and most legal cases are expensive to carry out, on both the sides of the defendants and the government entity doing the prosecuting. So in the us, most cases are resolved through plea deals. The typical plea deal for kidnap and sexual assault of a minor in this particular state, would be 10 years in prison for the rape , followed by probation for the kidnapping. Now, depending on the amount of evidence the prosecuting agency has, a typical plea deal for murder is 20 years. This leads to logic that murdering the victim afterwards effectively put you in a double or nothing scenario. If there is nobody to be a first-hand witness to the assault, you might get away Scott free.

Disregarding my opinion that CP should be legalized with certain regulations, an opinion that is influenced by the accounts of the girls who were featured in pornography magazines that were legal in the 60s and 70s, who all said it was a positive experience and memories they cherish, I believe the tier system is the more fair and just way to prosecute.

I also believe the tier system should also take into account content. I used the term CL earlier instead of CSAM because I believe there is a difference. I believe a lot of pictures and videos online involving minors are from situations in which the miners were groomed or manipulated into that scenario, and I only use those two words at the moment for lack of better words, but in those situations the experience is non-violent nor traumatic for the minors. It falls more in line with the MAP ideology of letting minors be expressive of their sexuality.

CSAM would apply more towards the content that involves violent or unwanted situations or contact. Just as they should be allowed to give consent, they are equally as allowed to say no. Anything categoriezed as CSAM should have harsher punishments.

So the tiers should also be evaluated on the amount as well as the type of content, whether it is CP or CSAM. A few videos of 9-12 year olds smiling and laughing while they play with themselves and masturbate? Light sentence. 100 videos of girls/boys crying and they are being violently assaulted? Yeah that might be deserving of 10 to 15 years. Still not a life sentence ( unless the person was also the Creator of this content) but long enough to give someone time to hopefully have a paradigm shift.

Anywaayysss, I think i should be done ranting. This is what happens when I accidentally double dose my ADD medication too late into the evening, and then encounter a topic I feel strongly about. I would love to hear feedback, but I only hop on here maybe once a month. For those who stayed and read the whole rant, thank you for coming to my Ted talk, and have a good month!