Speaker: Won't Someone Please Not Think of the Children?
100 Responses
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Could a discussion like this one where people oppose censorship controls be "objectionable" - on the grounds that it indirectly advocates proscribed activity?
Kind a like "You are either with us or with the Terrorists/Pornographers/kiddyfiddlers" kind a thing?
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Word o the day - squicky. The things you learn around here..
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You don't feel any particular concern that there are moves afoot to prosecute people for obscenity based on what they write and post on the internet in password-protected groups?
None whatsoever.
No matter what you think of the content - and it would certainly trip my squick-meter - it's the principle that is at stake here.
There is no principle at stake here. The first amendment does not give an absolute right to publish and never did, the obscenity laws are not new, and the idea that text is somehow sacrosanct seems naive at best. There is a fuzzy line and it has moved back an iota or two. But I do not find myself hyperventilating about the "Imminent Death of the Net".
I am struck by the irony of a group of New Zealanders (by and large) worrying about a decision is a distant jurisdiction, when the US has far more liberal laws regarding speech than New Zealand -- with regard to defamation and libel, court reporting, and (so far as I can tell by the existence of an official censor with the power to ban material from New Zealand) with pornography.
If you want to feel outrage about something in the United States, check out stories about banks who have sold unaffordable mortgages to many (relatively low income) Americans, who now stand to lose their houses -- just at the same time as these same institutions have successfully lobbied to tighten the bankruptcy laws. In addition to the perhaps millions of people whose lives have been blighted by this, the resulting US recession stands a good chance of doing real damage to the global economy.
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You don't feel any particular concern that there are moves afoot to prosecute people for obscenity based on what they write and post on the internet in password-protected groups? No matter what you think of the content - and it would certainly trip my squick-meter - it's the principle that is at stake here.
I don't think that's a principle you could argue for. At least the password protected groups. Just because it's only open to a select group of individuals and not openly published, doesn't make it not of concern.
The concern should always be in the content. Actual child pornography doesn't get openly posted around the net (as far as I'm aware), but I hope we crush like a loathsome bug any password protected sites that are involved in moving it around.
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I'm also pretty horrified by the idea of an ex-victim getting an obscenity conviction which results in them being put on a sex offender register with actual paedophiles.
Well, actual pedophiles seem to fairly regularly (and this is not something I have made a careful study of) try to mitigate their own crimes by claiming (honestly or otherwise) that they were themselves abused as children. You are certainly free to argue that this action was not criminal (or even that it was, but to prosecute this one case when so many others slide by is capricious and unjust), but if the "abuse excuse" does not earn pedophiles a free pass, it is hard to see why it should get this woman off the hook.
Likewise, putting material on a for-pay password protected site does not necessarily seem to form a compelling set of mitigating circumstances. If she is charging for access, then one can hardly be blamed for thinking that profit may have been at least part of the motive. Imagine a P-dealer standing before the judge and saying, "Well your honour, it's not like I was giving the stuff away to just anyone -- you had to pay for it!"
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richard from New England...how strange! You're from a nation that has a legal death penalty, espouses legally-protected torture, and actually has much more stringent laws as reguards censorship (speaking as one who served on our Indecency Tribunal for 5 years) than exist here.
And you're advocating for-as I read you- further repressive legislation.
Thank goodness I'm from this wee nation and have little to do with your's-as for your economic woes, they are immense, will affect the global economy but guess what? We find your nation's slither into true moral corruption (like espousing torture) waaay more worrisome. USA used to have a justifiable pre-eminence for at least trying to be a humane nation - not now,
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A friend of mine did a teaching placement at a Christian School, so all the fun and fantasy stuff, witches and the like were off limits. The pages of various books in their library were stapled closed. And then the head staplerer also had a fear of Spiders and stapled all the pages with spiders together as well.
Bring on the Firemen I say.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_%282008_film%29#Future_film
Future film - Mel Gibson
"According to Gibson, there was difficulty in finding a script that would be appropriate for the film, and that with the advent of computers, the concept of book-burning in a futuristic period may no longer work.[8]" -
There is no discussion thread that cannot be improved by the addition of a little Tom Lehrer... NB some images & lyrics mildly NSFW, unless you happen to work at the chief censor's office.
Isn't part of the pleasure of shared smut that it be illicit, private, forbidden, naughty? Certainly that's how it worked for the Victorians. If big government wasn't coming after you, and you weren't having to constantly move the printing presses and hide your product behind virtual red velvet curtains, would it still be fun?
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richard from New England...how strange! You're from a nation that has a legal death penalty, espouses legally-protected torture,
Actually, I am FROM New Zealand but am located in New England. Sorry for the confusion. And I certainly agree that torture is a bad thing, and the death penalty likewise.
and actually has much more stringent laws as reguards censorship (speaking as one who served on our Indecency Tribunal for 5 years) than exist here.
Well, according to the internal affairs website, "Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic & Amphetamine Manufacture" was banned in New Zealand, but can be purchased legally on Amazon.
So far as I can see, the Tribunal might provide a measure of protection, in that you could submit a work for classification, whereas in the US these decisions seem to be largely made by criminal prosecutions, rather than some standing authority. But many Americans (and perhaps rightly) would regard even the existence of an "Official Censor" as being inimical to free speech.
And you're advocating for-as I read you- further repressive legislation.
Far from it. The law in question was already on the books and has been for some time. The argument seems to be entirely about whether textual material gets some special exemption, and as a matter of practice (rather than one of law), most obscenity prosecutions in the US have apparently related to images, rather than words. But neither the US and New Zealand gives text an absolute exemption, although Emma seems to be arguing that it should.
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Just trying to parse the different elements of the argument here, so I can see if I agree, disagree, or feel entirely indifferent about it.
So the Miller test replaces "I know it when I see it" with "We know it when we see it," leading to the inevitable "What do you mean 'we,' kemosabe?" Which is obviously problematic, especially for minority sexual practices. And yet, what do we propose to replace it with? As Richard points out, a centralised censor just ain't gonna fly, in this country anyway.
And OK, so any given interest-based web community doesn't map onto any single identifiable physical location, and may in fact have entirely different community standards from any other randomly selected geographical community. Almost by definition, it's a subcultural utopia. So... any given interest-based web community should not be subject to the laws of any other community than itself? Or what?
And the writer of these texts, which themselves are not what you'd call the idea poster child for freedom of expression, has a sort of an excuse perhaps maybe (and don't we all) -- except for the bit where she has sold access to these stories and has thus crossed some line from expression to commerce? Is/isn't that what she's being punished for, as much as for the content?
Also, I'm trying to understand the nature of the "damage" Emma mentions in her last paragraph. I'm not being thick, I just feel the need for more exposition on this subject. If somebody took down some stories about child rape and murder from the very same web that my children are (for better or for worse) beginning to use, forgive me if I don't exactly feel "damaged."
Yes yes, I know, consenting adults in private, it's all walled off by rules of access and layers of protective verbiage and big flashing signs saying "don't look," etc etc. Hey, I'm not a book burner (or a server burner). I agree wholeheartedly about the idiocy of the facebook/youtube breastfeeding photo ban debacle (and if we want to talk about damage, we could round up a whole bunch of incredibly dodgy stories on the subject and related topics).
But I still just don't feel especially threatened by the outcome of this particular story. Why? And should I?
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Come again, richard. This women isn't a convicted pedophile.
She was writing fictional stories about childhood sexual abuse, for her own personal reasons. Would it make any difference if the story's were factual?I didn't say she was a convicted pedophile. And she has not been charged with writing the stories, but distributing them. And if she had only shared them with other members of an abuse survivors' support group, my guess is that the FBI would not have knocked on her door -- but instead she sold them for money, to anyone who had a valid credit card number.
Personally, I think Emma has jumbled up several different issues. On the one hand there is the question of "where to draw the line", and then there are the "mitigating circumstances" that apply to this particular woman.
On the "where to draw the line" issue I doubt that Emma and I would have significant disagreement. Emma claims "Text has always been treated differently" but that does not amount to "there are no rules at all" (and "always" is a long time) and any line is going to be fuzzy. Emma is of course free to argue that text should not be regulated in any way, but that is not the wording of the current law.
However, given that the current legal tests can find obscenity in purely textual material, does it really make a difference if the person providing that material is themselves a survivor of abuse? My point was not that this woman was a pedophile, but that if the "abuse excuse" works for her, does it also work for any crime committed by a survivor of abuse?
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Emma you may be interested in this.
From UC Dairy 25 July (this Friday)
3:10 pm Philosophy and Religious Studies seminar. Grant Tavinor (Lincoln University) on The moral narratives of videogames.
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Personally, I think Emma has jumbled up several different issues. On the one hand there is the question of "where to draw the line", and then there are the "mitigating circumstances" that apply to this particular woman.
On the other hand, her point is also that the FBI has jumbled up several different issues. Texts that depict sex with children should give any reasonable person pause, but the agency also cited stories about apparently bizarre but adult practices when it raided her home. That's an unnerving precedent.
The fact that Karen Fletcher was charging for access -- $10 monthly to 29 people -- certainly has a bearing, but I can't help but feel that this would have been handled differently in another jurisdiction, given the circumstances.
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3:10 pm Philosophy and Religious Studies seminar. Grant Tavinor (Lincoln University) on The moral narratives of videogames.
Should you decide to attend, make sure you have some form of valid uni ID. I can personally attest that an encounter with certain of the segway-riding goons who may take exception to the cut of your jib can make a visit to the Ilam campus a minor nasty experience.
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the obscenity laws are not new
Of course they're not. They are a little rusty on account of not being used for something like thirty years. The problem is not what the law actually says, but how it's enforced. In Canada it's still illegal to own or distribute a crime comic.
I am struck by the irony of a group of New Zealanders (by and large) worrying about a decision is a distant jurisdiction
Distant, and where my work server is. I belong to an international community, some of whom are Americans who produce this kind of material. I will worry about it, if it's all the same to you.
If you want to feel outrage about something in the United States
I think you under-estimate my ability to be outraged by more than one thing at once.
Actual child pornography doesn't get openly posted around the net (as far as I'm aware), but I hope we crush like a loathsome bug any password protected sites that are involved in moving it around.
I'm with you there. But actual child pornography involves harming actual children, right? I'm under the impression that with text, people were worried about the possibility of harm done by other people accessing it, therefore how easy it is to access is directly relevant. The Chief Censor agrees:
factors such as the publication being made available only to members of a specific group and only accessible through payment would be considered but do not negate the Office’s ability to classify a publication
But neither the US and New Zealand gives text an absolute exemption, although Emma seems to be arguing that it should.
Ah, the taste of words being pushed into my mouth. What I DO believe is that:
- there is a harm difference between text porn, and photographic or filmic porn, both in production and in accidental viewing, and
- it is not possible to effectively police net porn.Richard, can I ask you a couple of questions? Do you think that sending this woman to prison is just? And what would have to get banned for it to bother you, where's your line? I get some sense of where Jolisa's is, but not yours.
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There is another point worth considering.
Text is easily searched. Searching for images is usually done by text tags so if the text tags are "coded" then the images will be harder to find. By looking for text porn the authorities have a tool that is useful in tracking down sites that MAY be worth investigating further. However, there is always the possibility of an over zealous investigation of some sites for many reasons. -
I am struck by the irony of a group of New Zealanders (by and large) worrying about a decision is a distant jurisdiction.
Well, Richard, this might come as something of a shock but down here in Middle Earth people do take an interest in what happens in the Grey Havens beyond the sea -- including some folks I really wish wouldn't. The downside of the Information Superhighway is that some really, really dumb ideas (like importing Britain's utterly discredited ASBOs) can hitch a ride too.
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And OK, so any given interest-based web community doesn't map onto any single identifiable physical location, and may in fact have entirely different community standards from any other randomly selected geographical community. Almost by definition, it's a subcultural utopia. So... any given interest-based web community should not be subject to the laws of any other community than itself? Or what?
I honestly don't know the answer to that question, Jolisa, but it's one I find really interesting, and not easy to dismiss. I do think the 'physical location of the server' rule is patently ridiculous, when the group may not include anyone who lives in that community. I'm also really impressed by the way net communities regulate themselves - they settle around a line of what's acceptable for that group and hold there remarkably well. I'm not saying 'I passionately believe the internet should be unregulated', I am saying "I can't see how you can do that in a way that's both effective and fair".
except for the bit where she has sold access to these stories and has thus crossed some line from expression to commerce? Is/isn't that what she's being punished for, as much as for the content?
As Russell has pointed out, she was hardly getting rich off it. Age verification on the internet is a massive PITA and pretty much impossible to do reliably. Xanga says if you can access a credit card, that makes you eighteen. Erotica at BW was behind a paywall: one of the several reasons we took it down was that it just wasn't working out for us financially. It's a lousy business model, but it did make us feel safer about the material being restricted.
She is being charged with distribution, but that doesn't mean possession isn't a crime. It is here as well.
If somebody took down some stories about child rape and murder from the very same web that my children are (for better or for worse) beginning to use, forgive me if I don't exactly feel "damaged."
Well, except your children couldn't access it. They can't access the erotica at BW, either. I have kids too, and when they started using the net, it seemed to me far more practical to regulate them than the internet. There are probably books you don't want your kids to read in 'the very same library' that your children are using, too.
I agree wholeheartedly about the idiocy of the facebook/youtube breastfeeding photo ban debacle
Okay. What about lj's removal of incest survivor support groups because they had the word 'incest' in their tags?
Also, I'm trying to understand the nature of the "damage" Emma mentions in her last paragraph. I'm not being thick, I just feel the need for more exposition on this subject.
Okay, I personally feel enormous sympathy for Fletcher, for what she's been through in the five years it's taken this to come to trial. I see people I care about really upset - rather than titilated - by the idea that they're perverts, that because they write sexually explicity stories that fall inside those FBI guidelines, they're somehow morally equivalent with people who actually hurt other people. They've grouped the consensual with the non-consensual. The Fletcher case has become something of a cause celebre, and it is having a knock-on effect, even if it's only in fear and self-regulation.
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I do think the 'physical location of the server' rule is patently ridiculous, when the group may not include anyone who lives in that community. I'm also really impressed by the way net communities regulate themselves - they settle around a line of what's acceptable for that group and hold there remarkably well. I'm not saying 'I passionately believe the internet should be unregulated', I am saying "I can't see how you can do that in a way that's both effective and fair".
I can't see another way to deal with it, and I'm not sure if it's unfair at all.
If I have something illegal on my computer, and then upload it to a server in the states, and use that server to distribute it, then the information is being stored both here in NZ (on my computer), and in the USA (on the server).
It may also have passed through a couple of other countries on the way, but that's not so important.
Both my computer, and the server, are in possession of illegal material. I'm responsible for my computer, the illegality of the material on the server is either my problem, or the host of the server, or both. If they made every effort to remove the material as soon as they became aware of it, they probably don't have a problem. NZ laws apply to me, US laws apply to them.
We need to apply laws to the internet and the actions of people on it. It's not at all easy to do, because for hundreds of years our laws have been based on physical location, states, jurisdictions etc.
The fact that it's difficult doesn't mean that we shouldn't try however.
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"segway-riding goons"
When I win lotto I'm so blowing those up and replacing them with bicycles. Segway - the solution looking for a problem.
Joe, security stopped you on campus?
Depending on how much time I had to spare I would have a bit of fun, take their photo, write in a note book (anything doesn't matter what) & say nothing. They have no rights to do shit, whatever they may think.
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That's the 'effective' side of the argument, Kyle. The internet is big (really big, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, etc), and in the time it takes to properly investigate that material and find out if it actually is illegal, a whole bunch more stuff has gone up. It's like playing Whack-a-mole with one hammer and a board the size of Scunthorpe.
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Depending on how much time I had to spare I would have a bit of fun, take their photo, write in a note book (anything doesn't matter what) & say nothing.
I find a clipboard and stopwatch quite effective when dealing with Goons. ;-)
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It's like playing Whack-a-mole with one hammer and a board the size of Scunthorpe.
I don't mind if 'we' stop investigating stuff because we consider it's not harmful, OK, not important etc. Maybe the woman you've written about falls into one of those categories.
But 'big in scope'?
I'd much rather have the NZ police contributing internationally to catching 1/3 of the people making and distributing child pornography (for example), rather than throwing their hands up and saying "the internet is too big".
If they were getting absolutely nowhere, and it was impossible, OK, that's a waste of resources. But I don't think they've found the internet to turn out that way. Difficult, but still important to engage for enforcement.
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It's like playing Whack-a-mole with one hammer and a board the size of Scunthorpe.
Speshly when people use words like Scunthorpe.
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I don't mind if 'we' stop investigating stuff because we consider it's not harmful, OK, not important etc. Maybe the woman you've written about falls into one of those categories.
But 'big in scope'?
So, if we have a big problem and limited resources, would it be acceptable to decide to devote your energies to the higher-harm end of the problem? Genuinely asking here. Because I get the feeling Fletcher was raided on the basis of 'ease of target' rather than 'degree of harm' - which I guess is another way to deal with the problem, to chase after people you think you can nail.
Certainly there are bigger, more active sites out there dealing with material in that squicky things area, and if I know where to find them, surely the FBI do too.
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