In UK a 39-year-old man has been convicted of possessing illegal cartoon drawings of young girls exposing themselves in school uniforms and engaging in sex acts. The case is believed to be the UK's first prosecution of illegal manga and anime images. Local media said that Robul Hoque was sentenced last week to 9-months' imprisonment, though the sentence is suspended so long as the defendant does not break the law again. Police seized Hoque's computer in 2012 and said they found nearly 400 such images on it, none of which depicted real people but were illegal nonetheless because of their similarity to child pornography. Hoque was initially charged with 20 counts of illegal possession but eventually pled guilty to just 10 counts.
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A Code Of Conduct is a contentious issue but has become common within some of the more progressive software projects (Gnome, Ruby On Rails) and some computer conferences. While some people see it as an essential method to combat casual discrimination, others see it as a trap to oust developers of successful projects. Some of our regulars would regard a Code Of Conduct as somewhere between frivolous and detrimental. But, really, what's wrong with "Don't be a dick" (or, admittedly, something more polite and inclusive) as popularized by Wil Wheaton?
Well, one group of victims of child sexual abuse are boycotting a UK inquiry because participation requires agreement to a Code Of Conduct. I can appreciate this is a very emotive issue even for people not directly affected by abuse and that making allegations publicly can be detrimental to the common law concept of innocent until proven guilty. However, the CoC is the latest incident in an ongoing shambles. The inquiry is currently on its fourth publicly named chairperson, more junior people have quit due to allegations of abuse between staff and £1.5 million has been spent on implementing a case management system. The inquiry has been running for more two years and is likely to cost more than £100 million. The first hearings begin in Feb 2017.
Maybe they're being really careful with conflicts of interests and victim privacy? A quick browse around the website finds that it is aimed at the legal eagles and that victims are most relegated to one subdirectory. Did I mention privacy? Well, the site's privacy is dubious. The homepage currently has an embedded YouTube video, so anyone showing an interest in the matter, for whatever reason, may have their name, email address, postal address and telephone number(s) collated by a Premiere PRISM Partner.
Despite the boycott, the inquiry has 2000 participants and this could grow significantly. One UK celebrity is believed to have sexually abused more than 650 victims; ranging from eight year old boys to 80 year old women plus rumours of necrophilia. A senior politician abused residents of the boys home that he'd founded and dossiers covering broader allegations disappeared. One town with a population of 110,000 people is believed to have 1400 girls who were sexually abused over 16 years. In this case, five abusers went to trial and were convicted. However, The Times of London found that much abuse in Rotherham was ignored and evidence was destroyed for political expediency.
Disclosure: Previous comment about child privacy. Previous comment about adult privacy. "Think of the children!" "Think of the imaginary children!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 20 2014, @11:57PM
Distribution of CP hurts real children! → Distribution of loli+shota hurts imaginary children!
(Score: 4, Funny) by cafebabe on Tuesday October 21 2014, @12:02AM
Think of the imaginary children! (Or maybe not.)
1702845791×2
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @12:06AM
Think long and hard of the imaginary children.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday October 21 2014, @02:29AM
Imagine the crime you will commit by imagine imaginary children doing imaginary acts. That would be a thought crime!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @12:07AM
> Distribution of CP hurts real children! → Distribution of loli+shota hurts imaginary children!
The argument isn't that pervy cartoons hurt children, it is that they are tools to entice children into cooperating with abusers.
Whether you agree with that analysis or not, the least you can do is stay away from the strawmen, you won't convince anyone in favor of these laws (and we have essentially the same laws here in the US [wikipedia.org]) to change their mind if you don't address their beliefs.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 21 2014, @12:12AM
Fucking puritans. What happened with the liberal [wikipedia.org] "live and let live"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday October 21 2014, @12:15AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @12:33AM
What country has city-specific porn laws?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @12:40AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday October 21 2014, @05:16AM
Also there is the fact that Japan, where most of the seriously twisted Hentai comes from has a very low sex crime rate when compared to the more restrictive counties like the US and UK. Some of that is going to be under reporting but I don't think the margin is that big.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rape_rate_per_100,000_-_country_comparison_-_United_Nations_2012.png [wikipedia.org]
And some other links relating to this subject that I've come across
http://mjd.id.au/node/1016 [mjd.id.au]
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/06/1023282/-The-Story-of-Christopher-Handley-Defending-the-Indefensible [dailykos.com]
and I know of many more that I can't find the links for at the moment.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:46AM
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday October 22 2014, @08:44PM
Scrambling genitalia before depicting them sounds like an unusually cruel act.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Thursday October 23 2014, @09:10AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @03:14PM
Obviously, when you have readily available porn beyond your wildest fantasies, boring old real sex won't get anyone's willy up.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday October 21 2014, @05:18PM
I don't know about that, but some while back it occurred to me to compare the rate of violent sex crimes to the rise of readily-distributable digital porn.
And behold, there was a marked drop in sex crimes concurrent with the rise of the BBS (late 1980s), and a much sharper drop with the advent of a ubiquitous internet (mid-1990s).
Correlation may not be causation, but it looks like a pretty good match to me.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @03:05AM
Except none of them are marketed to children and have explicit "Adults Only!" warnings on them.
This is entering very dangerous territory. What if I have pictures of my girlfriend who is 30+ but looks like a minor? What if I have drawings of her? This is the kind of intentionally vague law thats used to punish anyone, where the reason is literally "because I said so" since the facts don't matter, only the interpretation or perception of them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cafebabe on Tuesday October 21 2014, @04:03AM
I believe this was covered in Chris Morris' Brass Eye Paedophilia Special [wikipedia.org]. He asked members of the public a question of the form "Is it alright to have a picture of a 21 year old woman who used to be a three year old girl?" to which most people said no.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by dublet on Tuesday October 21 2014, @11:22AM
One particular thing to highlight from the reaction to the show is this:
The Daily Star decried Morris and the show, and the Daily Mail ran a headline describing Brass Eye as "Unspeakably Sick". The Observer noted that the Star 's article was positioned next to a separate article about the 15-year-old singer Charlotte Church's appearance (under the headline "She's a big girl now", featuring the phrases "how quickly she's grown up" and "looking chest swell"), and that the Mail 's was preceded by "close-ups" of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, who were 13 and 11 at the time.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 21 2014, @04:30PM
I do recall a /. article awhile back about Australia passing some law that makes it illegal for legal-age women to produce porn if they have childlike-looking chests.
That's right. You can be prohibited from making porn if your boobs aren't big enough.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Tuesday October 21 2014, @04:14AM
But that's arguing the wrong point. If you try and argue with someone on that level, you've already conceded that "harmful" speech should be censored. The notion of speech being "harmful" is a dangerous one because the definition is constantly changing. A classic example is Schenck v. United States in which the supreme court ruled that distributing anti-draft flyers during World War I was illegal because congress "has a right to prevent" the "substantive evils" the flyers would supposedly cause. This is also where the familiar phrase "Shouting fire in a crowded theater" comes from.
Obviously, the UK has rather different laws when it comes to speech. However, I firmly believe that if you want to censor distasteful or obscene speech, you can't claim that you support freedom of expression.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 21 2014, @12:07AM
No wander: a (good) while back, celebrating Christmas and Easter, theatre and gambling were banned [wikipedia.org]. Seems like a bad idea to allow the deported-to-colonies come back to influence the morals of the today society, but maybe is inevitable
(yes, I have a prejudice against the "righteousness" pushed into secular life by radical protestants. Seems that even the Catholics are now less virulent [theguardian.com] - or, at least, considering it
No, I don't condone any child abuse, sexual or not. I have however huge reservations about "thought and other victimless crimes").
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by skullz on Tuesday October 21 2014, @05:43AM
Your impure thoughts about thoughts have been noted and logged.
(Score: 1) by lizardloop on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:48AM
The bit that troubles me is that in most circles any discussion of free speech in relation to the possession of pornography is completely frozen. If you aren't one hundred percent screaming for a witch hunt then you might as well be a paedophile yourself.
What is it about sex and crime and the combination of the two that gets people so bent out of shape? If I have hundreds of DVDs of people being shot, maimed and killed in horrible ways I'm a quite respectable "action movie fanatic". Throw some sex in there and suddenly I become a horrible deviant apparently.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday October 21 2014, @08:02AM
The sad part is we have had thoughtcrime convictions here in the USA for years, yet last i checked neither the ACLU or the EFF said boo about 'em. there was the guy who wrote the supposedly "pro pedo" book which were his thoughts on the subject...let me underline that for clarity, the book only contained his thoughts on the subject, not so much as a stick figure drawing, there was the guy busted for manga, and finally the guy busted for a dirty Simpsons cartoon which...you are gonna love the irony here, they busted him for drawings of a character that would be in their mid 30s if they were real but of course with their twisted logic they ARE real enough to get a CP charge but NOT real enough to have actual ages...WTF?!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @03:13PM
Because all anglophone countries are women's democracies.
The Old Testament of the Bible allows men to rape unbetrothed female children.
(Deuteronomy 22 28-29 in hebrew). He pays the father and marries her and doesn't send her away.
In men's countries men have young girls if they wish.
In women's cuntries you'd dare not even think of it.
Women need to be overthrown, their governments executed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Open4D on Tuesday October 21 2014, @08:44AM
I know this story is about drawings, but it reminds me of the stance of the (supposedly neutral) BBC with regards to written descriptions of underage sex.
In their own words, they describe [bbc.co.uk] the fact that there was* no law against it as a "loophole"
* - This link is from 2012. I don't know whether there has been any 'progress' since then.
Welcome to the world of the thought crime.
I believe this is also relevant: Over the last few years, researchers have made significant strides in decoding our thoughts based on brain activity. [cnn.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 21 2014, @11:25AM
The guy is lucky he only had pix of kids getting him a couple month suspended sentence.
From what I read of UK gun control laws, if he had a hand drawn picture of a gun, he'd be in prison for decades.
I can't get a straight answer on UK attitudes toward weed, so I'm very unclear on how long his prison term would be for a drawing of a marijuana leaf.
I know people have gotten very serious convictions for sharing music, so if the guy drew a picture of a specific 8-track tape he'd probably get the death penalty.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @12:48PM
Sorry for the late reply, but I think I can shed some light on the area of governmental attitudes to marijuana in the UK.
The classification of marijuana as a controlled substance has been something of a political football that's been kicked about for quite some time - wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_classification_in_the_United_Kingdom [wikipedia.org]
The scientific research mentioned but not cited in the article was the discovery of a link between cannabis use and psychosis. The first study with these findings showed that cannabis use could trigger episodes of powerful psychosis that landed the affected users, predominantly people aged 16-20, in mental hospital for residential treatment. It also found that once these episodes had started, any further use of cannabis would bring about an immediate relapse. While initially very alarming, a statistical study on the mental health of the population of Holland before and after the legalization of marijuana showed that rates of psychosis diagnosis had actually been trending slightly downwards, but the average age of psychosis patients had dropped from 35 to 22 (IIRC). A third study then discovered a genetically carried predisposition to psychosis later in life that was being triggered early by marijuana use. Effectively, marijuana was merely causing episodes of psychosis to appear earlier in people who would have developed them anyway.
The first study was all over the papers and the government started a new initiative to educate young people on the dangers of marijuana through television adverts, web sites, leaflet campaigns and school visits by the anti-drug folks. The only mention of the second study I ever saw was on a BBC documentary (can't remember if it was Horizon or Panorama) exploring the state of drug enforcement and how usage patterns were being changed towards legal highs that were becoming increasingly dangerous as legislation against them saw them being progressively added to the controlled substance list. The third study I saw in an article, I believe, posted on The Register, although I can't find it right now.
The UK attitude to marijuana is markedly different if you look around. The police are sick to death of fighting an expensive and expansive war on drugs that's been an abject failure from start to finish. Getting caught in possession of small amounts of weed will generally get you a slap on the wrist and your stash confiscated, but what with austerity economics and all biting into police budgets, they don't usually have the inclination to take it any further. The politicians used the classification of marijuana as a political football, often ignoring their scientific advisers (causing more than one resignation of an advisory post) for the sake of scoring points with middle-income voters by taking the tried-and-tired "hard line against drugs". The papers violently disagreed with each other and only mentioned the follow-up studies quietly to avoid embarrassing too many people.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to skin up.... ;)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Tuesday October 21 2014, @05:27PM
"Effectively, marijuana was merely causing episodes of psychosis to appear earlier in people who would have developed them anyway."
Methinks if psychosis is diagnosed earlier, one has a better chance at effective treatment, before negative associated habits are entrenched...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Tuesday October 21 2014, @03:01PM
I do remember a story about a picture of a gun causing some police involvement. But wasn't that in the USA? Whereas in the UK, guns are generally much less of a problem so such a scenario doesn't seem so likely.
How did we end up on the topic of guns though? You wouldn't happen to be strongly opposed to gun control would you?
Today's topic is that the UK is now prosecuting what are effectively thought crimes. Just before posting this message, I drew 2 stick figures [wikipedia.org] in a compromising position. That's fine, but if I now write "age 15" above one of those figures, it makes me a paedophile who can be sent to jail.
(I don't see any parallel with the UK's weapons control laws, which generally balance the scope for legitimate use against the scope for serious & irreversible misuse, and arrive at what I consider to be fairly reasonable answers in most cases, whether that concerns knives / guns / high explosives / poison gas / whatever.)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 21 2014, @03:20PM
"How did we end up on the topic of guns though?"
I thought it would be a fun thought crime to consider.
I came up with another. Hand drawn stick figures dumping hand drawn barrels labeled "toxic waste" into rivers without permits. Theres something that'll get you into a lot of legal trouble.
Another one I recently came up with is drawing pictures of stick figures stealing public mail out of old fashioned mail boxes.