On Wed, 18 Apr 2001 23:06:42 +0900 Sam Joseph <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
writes:
> My apologies if this is a already a well-hashed out topic, but I
> don't
> see a FAQ for freenet chat, and I didn't see anything as I skimmed
> some
> of the chat archives so heres goes.
>
> I have recently been looking at Freegle.com and I saw the various
> porn
> and child porn files in the recent additions page. I know that in
> a
> previous philosophy document Ian Clarke talked about how there was
> no
> established link between child porn and people becoming paedophiles,
> but
> I think there is another angle to look at this from.
>
> Perhaps we might be able to agree that child porn requires the abuse
> of
> minors, since we don't consider them able to give consent to take
> part
> in the creation of the pornography. I don't know if everyone
> agrees,
> but isn't child porn the product of child abuse?
Not necessarily abuse, but yes, mostly it does involve some kind of real
abuse. A mother of three has been emprisoned for putting pictures of her
darling babies on her family website. They were like 1 year old or
something and being bathed in a little tub or something. Explain how
that is abusive, other than embarisment for the kids when they get
older?! My mom has done the same thing, only not putting it on the web.
I am probably not remembering that correctly, but I'm pretty it was just
an innocent motherly thing that she did, not an abusive or pornographic
thing.
So, all I am saying is that it may or may not involve physical or mental
abuse.
>
> I am very interested in the Freenet project, distributed search and
> free
> speech, but I get an uncomfortable feeling when I think that my
> Freenet
> node might hold child pornography that will get served up to those
> who
> want it. In the same way that people buying ivory or trafficking
> in
> ivory are not necessarily directly involved in killing elephants,
> aren't
> they providing a framework in which ivory will get shipped around
> and
> provide incentive for elephants to be killed.
This is not a good analogy. The Ivory business survives because of
money, pure and simple. Freenet does not require payment of any kind in
order to access the goods, and, the goods can be freely copied any number
of times and thus are not rare. Ivory is even MORE in demand for these
killers because it is illegal. The more illegal something is, the more
rare it becomes, or the more costly it becomes to get it. That drives up
the market price. And that drives greedy peple to kill the elephants.
The best way to protect the elephants is to make it so that Ivory is no
longer wanted by anyone, or is somehow being produced without killing any
elephants. We now have nanotechnology which will soon give us the
ability to create organs, limbs, cars, and ivory tusks with nothing more
than the basic elements of which these items usualy are made. A diamond
can be created too I imagine.
The distributors of files on freenet get nothing in return for the files
they are inserting, unless someone decides to donate money to them. But
money transfers are traceable, so, if there is a Child porn provider out
there who wants money for the stuff they put out there, they are probably
going to get caught sooner or later.
>
> Perhaps I am not being logical here, but can't child abuse be
> reduced by
> restricting the availability of child porn? Maybe we think that
The restriction of any information exchange is inherently bad. Giving
any government or business the ability to censor information is giving up
the right to free speech.
> this
> can be logically detached from the actions of those running Freenet
> nodes, but it strikes me that in order to promote free speech, we
> could
> have a Freenet system that only held text files, and didn't support
> image or sound files.
This is not possible. Any file can be transformed to and from a text
file. Ever heard of UUE? Ever heard of MIME? Yeah, email uses text for
everything, no binary data files like .mp3. Most email programs
seamlesly transform such files to and from Base-64 text encodeing such as
MIME or UUE.
> Now this might stop people from making videos
> of
> suppression by oppressive regimes available, but it seems to me that
> the
> goal of free speech would still be met. People would still be able
> to
> express their opinions on any subject anonymously (if that is the
> objective of free speech), but child pornographers or distributers
> of
> child pornography would not be supported, and I am presuming that we
> are
> in agreement that we don't want to support them.
>
If you reduce information transaction on any network, like freenet, or
the rest of the internet, to non-encoded text files, that would be
extraordinarily bad. Oh, so very very bad.
If supporting such files means helping the law to find and apprehend
child abusers, I'm all for it. If not, well, it is an acceptable price
to pay for freedom of speech.
> I am keen to have an intelligent discussion on this topic. Please
> let
> me know what you think.
>
> CHEERS> SAM
What does Ad Domini, or whatever A.D. is, mean?
________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
_______________________________________________
Chat mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.freenetproject.org/mailman/listinfo/chat
