Talk:Child pornography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Articles for deletion This article was deleted by an administrator and restarted as a stub on 22:07 2007-05-28, due to the presence of a problematic search term. The result of the deletion review was to refer further disputes to ArbCom. Revisions prior to the first that contained the term may be restored.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Child pornography article.
Article policies
Archives: 1, 2


Archive
Archives
  1. 2003 October – 2006 July
  2. 2006 July – 2006 November

Contents

[edit] What's going on here?

This is an area of massive international importance, and yet this entire article is basically unreadable. I'd like to see some ways police around the world are combating this, some famous cases, and maybe some historical perspective.

Can someone please step up to the plate and clean up this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.10.173.234 (talk) 22:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I have just started to contribute to this article with references I know about. It would be good to get an expert to help! I agree that it is an important article. Fremte (talk) 18:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


The first line: "Child pornography refers to pornographic material depicting children being sexually abused" is not the correct "wordage" and/or not even close to how the US law deems it. child porn refers to minors, in lewd behavior, which mean the 'child' doesn't even need to be having sex or touching theyselves, if the camera is zooming in... that make the focus of the picture or video lewd. There was a US case where a man order a japan video of a 13ish girl, dress, but the camera zoomed in to her as she stoof there. it's a major reference case, any lawyer would know it.

a later line, "Operation Cathedral that resulted in multi-national arrests and 7 convictions as well as uncovering 750,000 images with 1,200 unique identifiable faces being distributed over the web" what is never address, is the lack, of "proof" they state how many identifiable faces there are, but they don't state how many unknowns there are. Newspapers never want to cover a store about a person being charged with images of child porn, let there is no child.

Collection by pedophiles, let's make "people who look at picture weird-o's" what lets look at the world, (if wiki is a even playing field) from http://www.coolnurse.com/teen_pregnancy_rates.htm,

Fact: One million teens in the USA will become pregnant over the next twelve months. Ninety-five percent of those pregnancies are unintended. About one third will end in abortion; one third will end in spontaneous miscarriage; and one third will continue their pregnancy to term and keep their baby.

More than half of them are 17 years old or younger when they have their first pregnancy.

that's means while we go after a few 100 people for looking at images, we as america have 500,000 minors getting laid and knocked up. Why don't the police find out who the father is? there are child porn case of teenages, minors who get arrrested and changed with child porn.

MY PERSONAL NOTE: i think child porn(and for sure child having sex) should be illegal! but normally child porn is illegal because the "rights and protection" of the child, yet to me hollywood is no different in the breaking of a childs rights.

Cases: i can get frommy lawyer, many legal issues/cases. I've seen the tanner scale be used, and I know the standard process of how images on your computer are determed to be child porn, and that allow would scare anyone. I've also seen cases of being being changed with child porn, when they had main stream porn. I know a few porn stars who went to court for a person arrested on child porn to prove that they where 18 or older. Yet no one wants to "fix" the legal issues of something like this, because then they seem like pro-child porn. FyiFoff —Preceding comment was added at 22:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] USA Question=

Is computer generated/illustrated/animated work illegal, or is it not because it involves the exploitation of no minors? What about acts that say that an adult is a minor for the work's purpose?

I'm sure illustrated work isn't illegal.--70.17.209.58 23:28, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
It's not illegal in most countries, as it can be classified as artwork. However, in others it is, though it would be difficult to prosecute for.203.59.9.15 10:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
It is illegal if distributed in most places, and varies in terms of legality in others. The purpose of pornography in general is for sexual self-gratification or to encourage someone to do sexual acts they have observed. Written or pictoral depictions of child pornography would be no different, and if shared beyond the privacy of an individual would be considered illegal, as, I might should be the case. Fremte (talk) 20:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notes that need work

Here are some bits that didn't fit anywhere: with a little more work, this could become another section in the main article.

[edit] Random notes

Law-enforcement:

  • Law-enforcement organisations (FBI, Interpol)
  • Methods of tracking child pornography users and finding actual child abusers
  • A discussion of the largest operations (such as Stardust, Blue Orchid, Operation Candyman, Operation Ore)
  • LEO successes in closing first offline and then online BBSes
  • ISPs (such as GeoCities) developed practices for instant reaction to child porn hosters (bandwidth limits, rapid reaction to abuse reports)
  • Monitoring of the Net by law-enforcement and vigilante organisations
  • A survey of psychological research about effects of child pornography
  • A section on political implications of child pornography


[edit] Please explain the removal of links to Friedman & Associates

I have added a relevant link to a relevant site, as well as expert opinion on the simulated porn aspect to the article. See diff. However an anonymous user 69.3.235.56 and user User:Doc Tropics removed these additions, describing them as "spam", "unsourced POV and linkspam". This is clearly and obviously untrue.

The following text was inserted in the "Simulated porn" section:

However, real legal practice, popular sentiment and political positions stray far from this apparently clear-cut decision [1]

User:Doc Tropics says it's unsourced, but it is nonsense, because that text itself is a refernce to a source! He says it's POV, but it's a sourced expert statement and thus doesn't meet the Wikipedia definition of POV. He says it's link spam, but it's a nonsensical claim, because it's a reference to a sourced statement which is directly relevant to the subject under discussion!

I also added a link section "Legal support" and a link to:

  • Ian N. Friedman & Associates works with a nationwide team of lawyers, investigators, computer experts, psychiatrists and expert witnesses to represent defendants who are charged with computer sex crimes in court across the United States.

The description was copied from the linked site. I simply don't see how a law firm working specifically with this type of cases can be irrelevant to the article, considering that they provide links to articles in law journals discussing this subject.

I would like to see the explanations for these deletions, because I simply don't understand the justification and how they may add to the quality of the article... Paranoid 17:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

(this reply is crossposted from my talkpage. Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 19:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC))
Hi Paranoid, I reviewed the recent edit history of Child pornography, and I'll try to address your concerns as best I can. You added the section "Legal Support" which was nothing but an advertisement for a specific lawyer. Next, you inserted two seperate links to the lawyer's webpage, along with a rather POV statement on the subject. The links clearly qualified as "spam" since they linked to a purely commercial, self-promotional site. Trying to use that site as a reference for your POV really isn't acceptable since the attorney can't be considered a reliable source...he clearly has a strong financial interest in presenting his particular POV. In short, I removed your changes because I felt that they reduced the overall quality of the article and called its reliability into question. Please note that two other editors have also reverted your changes with Edit Summaries indicating the content really isn't acceptable. If you honestly feel that your material would strengthen the article we can discuss that on its talkpage, but the way the material was originally presented simply isn't suitable to an encyclopedia. Finally, your reference to my Edit Summary as "blatantly false" seems to indicate a certain lack of good faith. My summary was clear, concise, and honest. There's no need to take a combative approach to this situation...my only personal interest is in maintianing the overall quality and credibility of WP articles, and I certainly hope we share that goal. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 18:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I concur with the good Doctor. Herostratus 14:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
First of all, the link in Legal support was not an advertisement - no more than any other valid link to a company on wikipedia. Why do you think we need 4 web links (and not wiki links) to Law enforcement organizations and 7 links to Other investigating organizations on the page? And why not a single link to a law firm that specialises with this sort of cases? If you are concerned about this particular firm - link to a different company. I don't have any connections with this one. But it is clear to me that a link to Friedman & Associates is as relevant as a link to INHOPE - International Association of Internet Hotlines/Tiplines. Why an encyclopedic article on child porn should have a direct web link to INHOPE? And why not to Friedman & Associates?
Second, the 2 links you are talking about were 1) the link in the Legal support we discuss above and 2) a reference link as is supposed to be done in wikipedia to source a statement. The statement on the subject WAS NOT POV. The NPOV policy states: "assert facts, including facts about opinions". My second edit (which someone also reverted, not edited, also indicating a lack of good faith)
Third, the links aren't qualified as spam and your accusations are false. The site they link to is not purely self-promotional, because, among other things, it contains free original information on the topic, including articles published in professional law journals. It clearly means that the site is at least partially informational. If you feel that the attorney can't be considered a reliable source (when writing for a professional law journal) about specifics of a particular type of legal cases, I don't know who can be. But, as always, feel free to replace the statement I added about simulated porn with a better statement from a better source (official statement by SCOTUS, may be?).
Fourth, there is no reason why someone of the deleters couldn't make the change to my original edit reflecting that it's a statement about lawyer's opinion, just like I did myself. Reverting is not the best approach when editing Wikipedia.
Fifth, it is not up to individual editors to decide what is acceptable and what is not. We have Wikipedia policies and voting mechanisms in place for that. If you disagree, I can easily find two other editors who would say that YOU are unacceptable at wikipedia.
Sixth, I explained in details how your edit summary was false. If you disagree with my words, provide your counter-arguments, not just accuse me of not having good faith. I explained why my edit was sourced, why it wasn't POV and why it wasn't linkspam. Now please respond to my explanations - don't just deny me the right to call falsehood false.
I see that the comment in the article is still kept in its reworded form, which is a good thing. Now I suggest to you all that instead of continuing the bickering about particlar wordings we think whether this article should contain a link to a law firm that specialises on these cases and has information about it. And if not - why not included a law firm, but include 11 investigative organisations? What do they add to the article that a link to F&A wouldn't.
Finally, there is also an unjustified comment by User:DanB DanD in his edit summary. I am not connected to Friedman & Associates - I just found their site and added information from one of its article to this wikipedia article because of the relevance. If you feel that Friedman & Associates is not a valid example of a specialised law firm, add a different company - I don't insist it should be F&A. But seeing how there are 11 links to investigative agencies, I don't see why there shouldn't be at least 1 link to a firm that protects people accused of computer sex crimes. Paranoid 08:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
If you can't find more than two editors to say that I'm unacceptable at Wikipedia, you're just not trying hard enough. I piss people off every time I delete spam. There's got to be hundreds of them that would say I'm unacceptable. But I'm the strong, silent type and I'll nurse my wounded feeling in private. I'll try agan to expalin this: ANY link to a law firm is linkspam unless it is in an article that specifically relates to that firm; this doesn't. If you really feel it's necessary to the article, you could mention that some lawfirms specialize in this field...without linking to any of them.
Uh oh...I wanted to write an extensive and thought provoking commentary that would win your undying respect, but I just stopped caring. Let me put it simply for you:
  • Wikipedia is not going to be used as a clearinghouse to help degenerate scumbags hook up with shyster scumbags trying to keep goddam baby-rapers out of jail. It's not going to happen. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 08:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
It would probably be a good idea for folks to calm down. Paranoid does not seem to fit the profile of a typical linkspammer (first edit Feb 2005). Having said that, I don't think the link to FA is particularly relevant. Rather I think it is too much commercial and too little content. I see no need for an example of a law firm that defends people against computer pornography charges. The second link, to the article by Ian Friedman looks, by its placement in a context of press coverage of the firm/partners, to likewise be advertising. Moreover it is cited to The Vindicator which I have been unable to pin down as a peer-reviewed law journal. From the heavy opinion and light citations, I would guess it is more of a magazine. His opinion really should not be cited as established fact. On those grounds I don't think the links should be included. Paranoid does bring up a good point: the encyclopedic value of the other links. I tend to think they are more relevent, but that should be discussed seperately. --TeaDrinker 09:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
TeaDrinker, thanks for being rational and reasonable when I...wasn't. I did not mean to imply that Paranoid is a linkspammer, I just generically refer to inappropriate links as "linkspam". I also don't mean to imply, in any way, that Paranoid has any ulterior motives. My extremely loud, emphatic statement was directed against a potentially grotesque misuse of wikipedia. I do appreciate both the content and tenor of your response, thank you. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 09:35, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I saw the deletion of Paranoid's material, checked the link, and definitely approved of the deletion. Paranoid, notwithstanding your impassioned argument, I don't find it convincing, and at this juncture you appear to be outnumbered, granted that numbers are not everything. A number of people watch this page, and if your arguments are convincing you may garner support. Note, however, the Wikipedia is WP:NOT intended as a place for people to go for finding assistance in any life situation, it is a scholarly encyclopedia and is intended for reference. There are further steps you can take to appeal, but it is not the time for that yet. Herostratus 17:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Notwithstanding the "encyclopedicnessness" or otherwise of a link to a firm of lawyers, shouldn't self-disclosed bigots be prevented from editing Wikipedia? Lawyers are shyster scumbags? Those accused of child pornography offences are goddam baby-rapers? Wiki-is-truth 10:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Paranoid's right about one thing - many items in the link section are non-encyclopedic. It could use a thorough culling. DanB†DanD 18:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I can agree with thaqt wholeheartedly. I meant to come back and do that, but I'm spread a bit thin right now. If no one else gets to it, I'll eventually try to clean it up when I have more time. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 18:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Avaliablility

I don't think that we will be able to find a reliable source for the claims of availability of child pornography involving amateurs or very young children, since any source that would typically be considered "reliable" would be unwilling to confirm this in the interest of legality. Would it not be better to simply use a phrase such as "It is said that" and remove the citation needed tags? 'Net 02:38, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Those claims could be supported by reports from agencies or even even quotes from newspapers. We don't need to find a pornographer willing to make a statement (yeah, that could be tough), we could use one from the FBI or the New York Times. I haven't looked yet, but I'll bet the cites could be found. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 02:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Is Wikipedia to be a neutral encyclopaedia, or a re-spinner of official propaganda? Wiki-is-truth 10:06, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archive

The archive needs to be kept on top of here. As well as the sigs. A lot of posts here were unsigned and the unsigned ones were quite old. As well a lot of old talk was missed in the last archiving. I've archived up to all but the last couple discussions and some notes I couldn't easily date.--Crossmr 03:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Childsupermodels

I believe this site was taken down as part of some latest operations in the US. I thought it used to have an article here, but I can't find it. The servers are no longer responding and I read a story about a "vague" network of sites that were taken down which contained young girls in sexually suggestive poses but not nude. It was based in Florida. Claim is being made that even without nudity it is child porn. Once more details come out it should be considered adding to the article.--Crossmr 03:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is the story here [1]--Crossmr 18:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Yes. Lily Models, Cheerful Models, such websites have the primary intention to depict children in suggestive poses.--Doktor Illuminasyon 19:21, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

here you go: http://members.cheerful-models.com/ --Doktor Illuminasyon 19:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

that is one of the most fucked up things i have ever seen. god help us. 06:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Question: Would that website be considered illegal or legal I mean it's pretty gross. Does anybody know of those pics on that webstie are illegal or if the website all together is illegal cause if it is we need to get it down. Please respond on what you think. Michael74 02:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Caveat on the Introduction (and on western civilization)

Well you've got this currently:

Child pornography refers to pornographic material depicting children. The production of child pornography is widely regarded as a form of child sexual abuse[1] and as such these images and videos are illegal in most countries. Some outlaw only production, while others also prohibit distributing, possessing, and accessing child pornography[2]. Prohibition generally covers visual representations of sexual behaviour by children under a given age but may also include all images of nude children, unless an artistic or medical justification can be provided.

Maybe that's about as good as you can make it, but what of the rather bizarre peculiarlities of western television advertising? One is tempted to amend the last sentence as follows:

Prohibition generally covers visual representations of sexual behaviour by children under a given age but may also include all images of nude children, unless an artistic or medical justification can be provided, or unless a profitable marketing rationale is involved, such as an opportunity to promote a brand of toilet paper or other disposable paper-based products. (GOVERNMENT WARNING: While single-use paper products may be sold by broadcasting full motion video of unclothed children to all age groups without restriction, similar non-marketing images must NOT be printed ONTO paper products themselves; doing so without intent to advertise may be a crime.)

Why do marketers get this seemingly outrageous exception, and should Wiki articles point it out? Just wondering. Parsiferon 22:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality Dispute

What dispute? Hasn't it been resolved? (I thought?) Colonel Marksman 04:36, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

The whole article is pretty bad -- the argument that was resolved was just the specific back-and-forth about the picture of the Vietnamese girl. I don't know that there's an active "other side" to the dispute at this point, it's just that no one has the energy or the will to clean the article up. I certainly would not support removing the POV tag without a pretty big rewrite. DanB†DanD 07:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
This is not necessarily an offer to do the required cleanup (not sure I know enough about the issue, anymore at least), but what specifically do you find POV? I don't find it obvious that any particular POV is being pushed. It's true that the article doesn't go out of its way to say "CP is evil" every other sentence like most other writing you'll find on the topic (even in academic journals, much of the time), but it doesn't exactly come across as supportive of it either. Letting the reader come to his or her own conclusions seems to be the Wikipedia way of doing things, just as Nazism doesn't say "The Nazis were evil" but lets the reader come to that rather obvious conclusion on his or her own. PurplePlatypus 07:30, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
DanDan, care to comment. I too have read the article, and don't see what specifically you would find POV? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.80.158.72 (talk) 03:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC).

This article is one big POV. It describes in the main the societal opinion about this scourge. A supreme court justice of the United States admitted his inability to define pornography, but said he "knew it when he saw it." This article is a failure, because it fails to define its subject, and doesn't show it either. The visitor from another planet who would seem to be the target audience for this article would go away scratching his head (provided he had one). 69.140.95.53 (talk) 03:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This article needs more pictures

PLEASE NOTE: User Kirbytime who started this section was warned and blocked for repeatedly requesting inappropriate pictures. See: User_talk:Kirbytime#Blocked_for_48_hour PLEASE NOTE: User Kirbytime who started this section is now banned indefinitly. See: User_talk:Kirbytime#Blocked_indefinitly


Of course, given the delicacy of the subject, proper care should be taken. But such a large article should have at least some pictures of examples of child pornography, at least partially obscured. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 09:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

YOU collect the pictures, YOU obscure them, YOU stick them up on the Wikipedia, I will report you to the FBI :-) Cheers Wiki-is-truth 10:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Kirby, You are one sick fucker. May you rot in hell.

Maybe we can ask the FBI to release some pictures, they have huge archives of child pornography. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 22:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
You're proposing putting child porn on Wikipedia. Have fun with that.
Gb2 12chan fgt-- Mudkips 08:42, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HA. I think WP:NOT needs a section about this, how about WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a collection of fetish pornography? In all seriousness though, when I first went to the Lolicon article to find out what it was (after hearing the term somewhere) there was some very dodgey stuff on there that is no longer there. Maybe some of the reasons for getting rid of those pics (that would also apply to here) can be find in the talk archives, though they seem more focused on why pictures of little girls with dildos are better than pictures of little girls without. --Einsidler 08:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Look, I think that the pics on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse article would be much worse than any sanitized kiddie porn in this article, so why not? Do you honestly think that a person who is looking for kiddie porn would search Wikipedia? ...err never mind about that. And actually you're wrong about the collection of fetish pornography. There are many users that have photoalbums hosted on wikimedia that contain many images of pornographic nature. And funny you should mention WP:NOT, when Wikipedia is NOT censored.--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 11:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

"provided they do not violate any of our existing policies (especially Neutral point of view), nor the law of the U.S. state of Florida, where Wikipedia's servers are hosted." and if I recall correctly, CP is illegal according to Child pornography#Legislation, now combine these with Child pornography#United States and any images you could post here are against Wikipedia policy unless it doesn't fit ANY of those dot points. However, if it didn't fit any of those dot points, it wouldn't be relevant to this article and could be considered vandalism. --Einsidler 12:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Wait a sec... "Wikipedia is not a collection of fetish pornography"? I beg to differ (or at any rate someone does)... :P As for including the pix: ah, I think we're being trolled... LOL Herostratus 03:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you are misinterpreting what I'm asking for. I'm not asking for blatant penetration of a little girl or something. I mean a picture of a girl, with he subheading "child pornography includes young children such as this one", or something. Or maybe we can have a non-nude, non-sexual still from a child porn video. I think that a picture of a child is very important for this article, so we can explain what exactly we mean by "child" pornography. For instance, many people consider 17 year old porn to be child pornography, and they may be confused if they don't know that infants getting fucked is also child porn. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 11:33, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

This is either a simple bad idea or trolling. Either way it's not likely to have a good outcome. -Will Beback · † · 07:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Tell me, why is it a bad idea to suggest pictures that represent the main subject of the article? We have penis, syphillis, ejaculation, and other disturbing pictures, so why not have pictures for this article too? --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 11:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Well, on top of everything else, getting appropriate pics that have been released by the creator or copyright holder into the public domain or under the GDFL would be tricky at the least. Herostratus 12:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • NO PICTURES OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY. EVER. Granted, Wikipedia is not censored, but we also aren't too keen on getting into legal issues. This would generate more trouble that it is worth and would, to be perfectly frank, just take the article and "whore" itself out. Thanks but no thanks. Yanksox 01:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Did you read my points? I said we need pictures for this article, not specifically pictures of infants getting fucked. There is nothing wrong with depicting a fully clothed 3 year old with the caption "Children as young as three years old are often depicted performing sexual acts in child pornography" --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 08:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Hell, I'm going to add a picture like that right now. Let's see who reverts it. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 08:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I did. I would direct you to WP:POINT, but I'm not sure you have a point. DanB†DanD 10:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
You're right. I'm not trying to prove a point. I do, however, want to contribute to this article. You reverted my edit; ok. I don't want to edit war. But I ask, why do you feel that the picture is not appropriate for the article? Thanks. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 10:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
The picture adds no information to the article, particularly not any information that can't be just as easily conveyed through text. It may in fact be misleading: there is no reason to think that the child pictured is typical of the children depicted in pornography, in age or otherwise.
DanB†DanD 19:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I concur, there is no reason to add the picture. --TeaDrinker 20:29, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Ditto. -Will Beback · † · 21:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
there is no reason to think that the child pictured is typical of the children depicted in pornography, in age or otherwise. That's exactly why the picture should be there! Because people don't know what child pornography looks like!!!--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 04:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Contrariwise, if nobody knows what it looks like, then logically the possibility must exist that what it looks like is exactly what the article looks like right now. DanB†DanD 04:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
And that is...? Because that's the whole reason I raised this issue in the first place: because there is no depiction of what it looks like. --Ķĩřβȳ♥<;font color="pink">ŤįɱéØ 05:52, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Just a suggestion, but I think as a minimum, we should add some pictures of porn that is attempting to depict child porn.Thoughtbox 07:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia! In future years you'll look back fondly on this, your very first post. DanB†DanD 08:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the encouragement. I figure that would please both sides of the debate. 1. There are would be no victims (all the models are over 18, and we can provide links/names/details etc.). 2. We could show sufficient detail, showing exactly what child porn would physically look like. Perhaps we could provide some examples for specific criminal cases where the charges were dropped because the material in question was found not to be pornography. Anybody have any problems/issues with my suggestion?Thoughtbox 09:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Enough already. It ain't happenen, so just stop it. Good grief. Herostratus 11:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

(moving back left) I would expect that pictures involved would be copyrighted, saving ourselves the inevitably painful arguments about morals, censorship, etc, etc. that have been rehashed to death. If we can find details of such cases then they very much should be included in the article prose. Thryduulf 17:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I don't understand....what exactly "ain't happenen"??Thoughtbox 10:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Thoughtbox actually makes a good point. We don't have to depict actual kiddie porn, all we need is an 18 year old with small tits and a notice saying "This actress is mimicking child pornography. She is legal" or some shit like that. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 03:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

So do we have a consensus, that posting some porn(that appears to be attempting to depict child porn) is acceptable?216.241.228.209 18:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Far from it, most people seem to think that it is unacceptable. I don't see the compelling need for a photograph. The suggestion seems to be to put in a photograph which is not child porn to illustrate what it is. Moreover I think it is in poor taste to imitate or simulate illegal activities. --TeaDrinker 18:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Poor taste? How is it poor taste to follow Wikipedia policy? And it's not just that, it is also a moral matter that I want pictures on this page. There must be examples so that people can understand what child pornography is and be able to identify it to the police. Check out WP:GRAPE. Thanks. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 02:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Hm...user:Thoughtbox, do you agree with user:Kirbytime?
DanB†DanD 03:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Good argument, but totally unnecessary. Anyone who wants to know what porn is can get an excellent understanding over at the porn article. Child porn, then, is simply porn involving children. What possible encyclopedic purpose would a picture serve? It's redundant.
That said, it is possible to have a legal child porn picture on this site, if anyone wants to make a 3D virtual porn picture using the Poser software (see the Poser porn article). It's easy to find legal web sites that offer that stuff, usually depicting acts of incest which, of course, involve children.
Even so, I still think it's unnecessary for this article. You want pictures, go find them elsewhere. =Axlq 03:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
But child pornography is more than just pornography featuring children. Child pornography is a form of sexual abuse, because minors cannot give consent. Pornography, on the other hand, usually has consent involved. Even if someone is over 18, if they do not consent to sexual acts (rape), that form of pornography is illegal. And in the same way, child pornography differs from pornography. That's why we have to illustrate that even if the porn depicts the children "enjoying" or "consenting" to the sexual acts, it is still illegal. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 04:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Specious argument, for the following reasons:
  • Minors can and do give consent all the way up to age 17.999 (just go to any high school and poll the students), but such consent does not enjoy legal recognition. Claiming they can't give consent is a red herring having nothing to do with the necessity of a picture.
  • You were originally arguing for an "obscured" picture or a picture of "an 18 year old with small tits", and now you're going on about the definition of child porn. Stick to the topic of this section. Why is it necessary to have a picture, non-representative of child porn as you proposed?
  • You didn't really address the point that it's unnecessary.
I say again, if you want an actual picture depicting child porn, you can obtain it legally by generating realistic 3D images of virtual children engaged in sex acts. Go ahead; you can make it look as appropriate for this article as you want, and then attempt to gain consensus. Beyond that, I don't see the point of this discussion. =Axlq 04:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  1. Please don't obfuscate. You know I clearly meant legal consent.
  2. I never said to have a picture non-representative of child porn. Also, the picture does not have to be child pornography to be included in this article. It only has to be related to the topic of child pornography.
  3. It is entirely necessary, WP:GRAPE, Abu Ghraib prisoner torture and abuse, etc.
  4. I don't want an actual picture depicting child porn. I'm not interested in that kind of stuff when I have real little girls at my disposal, as well as women of legal age. And I don't mean that for sexuality; it's more of a lolicon eroticism. In any case, my own sexual preferences have NOTHING to do with this article whatsoever. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 06:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  1. I'm not the one obfuscating. You know that the legal age for consent is an arbitrary boundary unrelated to the necessity of having a picture.
  2. If you can come up with a picture "related" to child porn that doesn't explicity show it, go right ahead. However, a picture that doesn't illustrate the idea will be reverted as irrelevant, as it has in the past.
  3. WP:GRAPE isn't official policy. It isn't even a guideline. It's just an essay. It also does not indicate necessity. Furthermore, that article suggests we have a real picture of child porn, not something else that you describe above.
  4. Nobody here mentioned your sexual preferences; they are irrelevant. And a picture depicting child porn isn't needed either. However, I will agree that pictures help articles. A picture (even 3D virtual rendering) of a child in an arguably erotic but otherwise unrevealing pose might serve the purpose. You are welcome to find one. I think anything else would probably be reverted as irrelevant to the article. -Axlq 04:30, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
WTF?!What part of CHILD PORN dont you get.This does not need no pictures. If you dont know what porn is you have a problem.

NEVER WILL I ALLOW A PICTURE OF NAKED KID ON THIS DAMN SITE! I MAY BE NEW BUT I HAVE 0% LIKEING TO CHILD PORN FANS. SO NO PICTURES HERE IF SO MY ORGANIZATION WILL KNOW AND I WILL PERSONALLY TELL THE FBI AND MEDIA! sorry. --saikano 19:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

As much as childporn is one of the few things that can launch me into a murderous rage, I still have to point out that random naked children is not porn, any more than random naked animals is porn. Images of (naked or clad) children in poses intended to arouse, whether they're posed in a way that fetishizes stereotype child traits to a sexual degree (e.g. "innocense") or focuses on body regions seen as sexual in adults, is child porn. Or are you going to argue that images such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kids_skinny_dipping_in_India.jpg , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NRT1_2001.jpg and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NRT6_2001.jpg is childporn? 83.249.236.210 (talk) 18:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
You don't get to disallow anything, because you are an insignificant moron. Read the policies, and come back when you can argue like a reasonable person. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.78.67.153 (talk) 13:21, August 28, 2007 (UTC)
This debate was not about putting pornography with actual children up; just read it and see. Your organisation can relax. Clayboy 19:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
sorry, been away. The key is to put up pictures that are "attempting" to depict child porn, pictures that actually depict child porn are illegal(atleast in Canada). This type of porn is available everywhere. The article can explain, why this particular photo is legal, it can explain numerous other details(popularity of such porn, easy of access, money specifics, % of the porn industry etc). Saikano...I'm sorry your grammar is terrible, I didn't really understand what you were attempting to saying (and by the way, leave your tiny threats at the door). The reason we should want to post such pictures is for the further education of the public(that is what Wikipedia is all about, no?). It is just that simply. Stop the censorship folks, we will find legal pictures, and we will post them, and we will accompany them with reasons why they are legal. Who here has a problem with that?24.80.158.72 03:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Anyone has a problem with that shouldn't be looking at this article in the first place.--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 03:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


Christ what a mess. What about the news, when BBC News has an article about child pornography they obviously don't show naked children but they certainly have pictures. Pictures of police raiding someone's house, closeups of computers when discussing internet porn, wideshots of school playgrounds to remind you it's about children, pictures of whichever peadophile the news report is about. Just because you personally don't want to look at naked children in a sexual manner doesn't mean you should have a massive row about how wrong it is in the talk section of a wikipedia page, go find a forum to rant.Simondrake 03:51, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Some talked about putting 3D pictures, hentai, this sort of things, to illustrate legally the article. I guess it'a allowed in some American states, but it's not in France neither in United Kingdom. Please don't do this or Wikipedia will be banned in some free countries!Barraki 22:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Even if it's a good idea in principle to respect laws outside the US, that's still a bad argument against the inclusion of a picture that would be legal in the US. I understand Japan, Singapore, and other countries ban any depictions of adult genitalia, but that doesn't stop articles like penis and vulva from having pictures. I'm sure plenty of articles on Wikipedia would be illegal in other countries just due to content. So what? The English Wikipedia can only be expected to comply with the laws where its servers reside: the United States and Florida. See the last sentence in the paragraph WP:NOT#CENSOR. =Axlq 23:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

What about this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Virgin_Killer.jpg 24.44.96.29 03:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks good (no pun intended). I'll add it to the article.--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 20:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh wait, it's not allowed. "solely to illustrate the audio recording in question,". Can't use it in this article. --Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 20:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

This whole request of pictures of child pornography from Kirbytime seems trolling to me. This is not a surprise, considering Kirbytime is from Iran and has denied the holocaust. --Matt57 00:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Matt57 (contribs) has never edited this article, has never edited any articles relating to pornography, and most certainly came here through Wikistalking me using my contribs. He has posted the same message to numerous other articles I edit, as well as talk pages of users who edit articles he has never edited. Please ignore him. I don't deny the Holocaust, I have explained this many times, I am entirely against the concept of the Holocaust because of its Christian roots... etc. etc. etc. Matt, go back to editing Islam-related articles. Leave us in peace.--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 19:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

PLEASE NOTE: User Kirbytime who started the above section was warned and blocked for repeatedly requesting inappropriate pictures. See: User_talk:Kirbytime#Blocked_for_48_hour

Comment Notable, legal pictures only. This is one article where examples for examples' sake don't serve any useful purpose. Remember, not only are there issues of criminal law and copyright, there are also issues of privacy and model releases. Be very careful if you put a child's face on an article like this unless the the picture has previously been in the media in a child-pornography-related article or the child or parents give permission. It might be taken down if the OFFICE gets a legal complaint. However, there may be some doctored-up pictures that are notable in their own right. A few years ago the FBI edited the victim out of a motel-room picture and released it to the media, resulting in the identification of the room and the eventual capture of the photographer. The edited picture was a motel room with a bed and a ghostly outline of a person on the bed where the Photoshop artist's work wasn't perfect. It's perfectly reasonable to put that picture on this page. Dfpc 15:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't have like 3 hours to read every statement, but if someone is looking for a picture of this, I may have a LEGAL solution. I remember a while ago, the police discovered a child porn ring, and found a picture of an underage girl whom they needed to identify. They used a company (or someone) to airbursh the girl out of the picture, so that just the background was visible. The image was shown on t.v. and news channels. (they made her become transparent, but you could see the outline of a human figure) ...it turned out to work and somebody recognized the background as a suite at disney world. If someone could find that picture (I don't feel like searching for the words child porn) and post it here, then there could be a LEGAL picture. Or if someone who knew more about this article, they could add it to the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.5.67 (talk) 21:04, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

This thread is useless without pics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.119.166 (talk) 04:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted link?

There is a whole bunch of external links related to and included in the definition. Yesterday I posted a link to the official website of a campaign against child pornography but it was immediately deleted. My entry went as follows:

I decided to browse all editions made by the person who deleted the link and it turns out that he has pedophile inclinations and even doesn't try to hide it. I just can't get over how can Wikipedia tolerate such openly pedophile views and do nothing to block users who openly promote and defend pedophiles... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bravehearted (talk • contribs) 17:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC).

Wikipedia is not in the business of promoting or defending anything. But of course you are right that many of its editors are. Wikipedia policy tells us to treat editors promoting pedophilia in exactly the same way as people promoting their favorite band: delete or correct any biased or non-encyclopedic content, and treat notable, sourced, factual contributions just as if they came from anyone else.
I agree that this policy looks pretty useless when articles like this one are left in a hopelessly messy state for weeks on end, while a link with a genuinely benign purpose is deleted within minutes. But the fact is, the link you posted was not encyclopedic in nature. The fact that other non-encyclopedic links remain in the article is not a good argument for keeping one more.
Please be bold in correcting the imbalance yourself! As part of Wikipedia, you are as qualified as anyone to clear out the crap.
DanB†DanD 21:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd say, that first of all, there are no bad editors, only bad edits. (Well there are exceptions). If possible it's best, when evaluating an edit, not to give too much weight to the editor's history. As to the link, we do allow a fair amount of leeway in external links (as opposed to reference links). It's allowable to have links to advocacy sites; it's up to the reader to make use them as he sees fit, and presumably have the intelligence to take them with a grain of salt. However, the link you provided didn't have any information, biased or not, so it wasn't really a good link. Herostratus 03:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirecting Pthc

I am not sure if anyone knows about this, but pthc is also shorthand for Percutaneous Transhepatic Cholangiogram, a legitimate medical procedure. I duly believe that we need an ambiguity link for pthc, since I was expecting to get one and instead got redirect here. Why on earth does pthc redirect here anyway? TomStar81 (Talk) 23:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It's probably one of those "secret" search terms discussed in this article a while back. The medical procedure is obviously more notable, and the child-porn search term hardly notable at all. We don't need a disambiguation page - just change the redirect. DanB†DanD 00:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It's a reasonable suggestion. Searching effortless through P2P utilities such as Limewire will constantly bring up child pornography downloads with keywords such as "r@ygold", "PTHC", and others. I've noticed that the article was much more extensive several months ago, and it mentioned "r@ygold" specifically and the keyword's connection to Richard Goldberg. This information was at least informative, and improved the article's educational value. Now the article is rather small and rather uninformative as to the nature of the subject, and the psychology of those who create and watch child pornography. Also, there's no more information about CP ring busts. In fact, this article is missing plenty of useful information that the previous article had. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.126.134.57 (talk) 13:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality dispute?

Could someone please say specifically why the neutrality dispute tag is still there? I can't tell, either from either reading the article or the hopelessly vague comments above, what specifically is considered to depart from WP:NPOV. PurplePlatypus 19:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I checked and the tag was added in August of 2006 by an anon IP who only edited Wikipedia in that month. So it's really just an artifact, it appears, and should be removed. It can be re-added if anyone has a specific issue to bring up. Herostratus 04:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The article is inane, and one reason it is so is that is not neutral. It is also unenlightening. Is wikipedia some kind of front for a core group that worships political correctness? Did I type in zeitgeist.org by mistake? 69.140.95.53 (talk) 03:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

Given that wikipedia is not censored, can you post some expamples of 'child porn'. I've noticed this article lacks any pictures, while other 'porn' articles have pictures for example.--158.123.153.254 16:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Woudn't that violate the laws of where the severs is hosted?
no, and by the way if you looked up ^ we already discussed that issue lou.--158.123.153.254 16:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Legal or not I think it's just a very bad idea. JohnCub 17:17, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
HA! There is no reason for an ex. of child porn. What part of "CHILD PORN" dont you get? When we think Child Porn we think...CHILD PORN! so no never ever EVER!!! but if you get a number of people to say yes than i can get an ex.--Lolicon(Down With Child Porn)Saikano 17:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC) but i still say no!
THat's just..wrong. Perhas a psych consult might be of service to you. If Wikipedia did that..that would be illegal (Atleast according to US and UK law, not to mention seveal violations of the accepted UN Childrens Rights)..and immoral. - Tiger. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.114.139.37 (talk) 05:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC).
Personally, I think this picture from the Justin Berry article could be appropriate since he was a child pornography 'actor.' Not really because it adds to the article, but it would add a little colour to break up the text and end this picture debate. --58.165.228.23 13:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
No, it's copyrighted and wouldn't be fair use in this article. Herostratus 16:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

LOL examples...nice excuse buddy :P -SWF —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.21.210.128 (talk) 05:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

This was obviously said for the lulz. spend some time on encylopedia dramatica people.--68.9.193.246 19:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Uploading child porn would ensure that the user who did that was indefinitely blocked and would also spark a police investigation, as such an act would clearly be criominal, SqueakBox 19:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of IRC and other less used mediums.

I think that a section should be added about the known use of child pornography rings of less-mainstream channels, such as IRC. It seems like DalNET and Undernet had big problems with these characters back in the late 90s and early 2000s before they started cracking down with the help of Federal and International authorities, and I think it's worth a note.

It's been well documented by both the FBI and Interpol that this is used commonly, as it is less common and less mainstream now adays than File sharing programs.

- Tiger. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.114.139.37 (talk) 05:31, 18 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Citation Needed?

I added the citation. Read Ashcroft v Free Speech coalition. "The Ninth Circuit held the CPPA invalid on its face, finding it to be substantially overbroad because it bans materials that are neither obscene under Miller nor produced by the exploitation of real children as in Ferber." The supreme court upheld this ruling.

I don't see how you can add a citation needed tag right after the citation! The supreme court has clearly ruled that material that had no minors involved in its creation and is not otherwise "obscene", is protected speech.

Gigs 19:47, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consent in canada

The age of Consent in canada is 14, but you need your parents signiture, aswell if one of the party is below the age of 18, the gap needs to be at most 4 years apart. Look it up, it's true. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.110.31.215 (talk) 04:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

Thanks for the information. Do you have an official governmental website from Canada stating this, so that we can add it to the article? Thank you.--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 05:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I was flicking through here while writing a paper, and figured I'd toss in the answer to your question, Kirby:

http://section15.gc.ca/en/dept/clp/faq.html

I've added it to the article. Really, it took me literally 10 seconds on google, you know. Cheers. Raeft 15:11, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] (Non-pornographic) Images?

PLEASE NOTE: User Kirbytime was warned and blocked for repeatedly requesting inappropriate pictures. See: User_talk:Kirbytime#Blocked_for_48_hour

yeah yeah, I saw the above discussion -- I'm not proposing images of child pornography, obviously, but it seems to me that it would certainly be possible to post some type of graphic. I don't know if photos of convicted child pornographers would be allowable/relevent/appropriate; but how about charts? Any ideas for a relevent chart? Or, someone could post a map of the world, with colors indicated the severity of punishment for pornographers, or the legal age of consent, or something along those lines. I have some Photoshop ability -- if someone has a list of of this information I could create such a map.

I'm very visually-oriented, I think a lot of people are; any type of (non-pornographic) graphic on this page would be a good addition. Any other ideas? --70.17.209.58 23:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Or maybe we can borrow some pictures from pederasty.--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 21:32, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see anything there which would improve the article; most seemed like they would confuse the issue by providing a misleading example. --TeaDrinker 05:47, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

TeaDrinker, what would be a good example then?--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 21:45, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

As perhaps we have discussed before, there may be no good (that is both illustrative and legal) examples to include. I am struggling to think of the context which would allow inclusion of a image which is not porn which is still illustrative of the topic, however I think it would be ill advised, for all the reasons laid out previously on the talk page, to include pictures which are actually porn. I honestly don't see a solution which involves pictures. --TeaDrinker 22:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
No pictures? Perhaps drawings then? The article needs something visual. A graph even.--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 23:19, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I support the inclusion of a graph showing the number of times you have trolled this way, and the length of the resulting thread each time. DanB†DanD 23:35, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:NPA. I'm trying to improve the article per:

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

And also

3. It has images where they are appropriate to the subject, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Fair use images must meet the criteria for fair use images and be labeled accordingly..

The end. Just because some pictures are offensive doesn't mean that they shouldn't be displayed. Florida's laws permit Wikipedia to host pictures of simulated child pornography.--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 23:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I seem to recall reading an article last year about the US government releasing images of child pornography from which the child had been digitally removed, leaving only the room and its furnishings in the image. IIRC, they did so in an effort to track down the location in which the pornography was produced, and thus possibly generate leads on the identities of the children in the pictures. These would be works of the federal government (and thus public domain), they'd be relevant to the topic, and best of all, they'd include no traces of children (real or fictional) and thus arouse no prurient interest from any parties viewing the article with bad intentions. The only problem is that I can't find the article I'd read with a casual search, and since I'm editing at work I don't want to put six thousand queries for "child pornography" in my browser history. Does any of this ring any bells with anyone else, and if so, does it seem like a possible solution? -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!)<;/sup> 23:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

You are thinking about Masha Allen, and one of the pictures can be seen here. Don't really know if that would be appropriate, but there you go. J Milburn 00:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that seems like what I'm remembering (though it was Canada and not the US). Anybody have any opinions on this? I don't want to add it unilaterally, since this is kind of a touchy subject. The only other thing I could think of, image-wise, would be a cover scan or poster from one of the Color Climax films mentioned in the "Commercial production and distribution" section, though those would potentially be unsuitable if the cover includes any explicit images (and a scan might be hard to track down anyway, since they're now illegal to own privately). -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 00:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

PLEASE NOTE: User Kirbytime who started the above section was warned and blocked for repeatedly requesting inappropriate pictures. See: User_talk:Kirbytime#Blocked_for_48_hour

I noted that, thanks. The notice on ANI is actually how I found this talk page in the first place. When I saw the circumstances, I figured that if we found and added an acceptable image of some sort while he was blocked, it might help prevent any future trolling along the same lines. -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 13:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks but if he trolls again, he will be blocked for a longer time. Probably no one except him wants to see any graphics for child porn. He should have been blocked indefinitely but maybe that will come later if he keeps repeating these requests. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 17:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Probably not the kind of images he's talking about, anyway. "Florida's laws permit Wikipedia to host pictures of simulated child pornography" is not a statement that's very conducive to A(ing)GF. -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 00:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

For now, I believe the article needs much more information rather than images. Perhaps just mentioning Jock Sturges will give people something to look at. [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.126.134.57 (talk) 14:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

How come people like you are allowed to edit wikipedia? Sacharin (talk) 17:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CCC?

Why is there no available historical investigative material concerning the Colour Climax Corporation's production of Child Porn? Technically from a legal point of view CCC had the legal ability to produce Child porn in other countries and then distribute and sell it in Denmark without prosecution between 1969 up to 1980 before the introduction of Section 235 of the Danish Criminal Code. So in effect the Danish establishment allowed Child Porn to exist for almost 11 years. Why is there no books or historical studies on this shocking fact? Also the fact that section 235 did not become law until 1985 odds. So in effect there is almost 16 years of history that needs investigation here. Why has no one tracked down the founding members of Colour Climax to confront them with these points and issues? A lot of work needs done here.

Sounds like a project for you. Be bold. 76.186.98.67 19:41, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Child Pornography on the Internet Guide No.401 (2006) - New link with lots of references - go to it guys

I just added

to the Further Reading section. If anyone has time please dig through this and use it to improve the main article. This link may also be relevant to other child-sexual-abuse Wikipedia articles. 76.186.98.67 19:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

  • It MIGHT be a useful document, or it might be a highly skewed representation of the subject. Is Wikipedia simply to toe the party line on any sensitive subject area now? lmno 03:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Is the www.zeitgeist.org address free? I think wiki needs to spin off articles such as this one, they detract from the scholarly tone maintained in most of the site.69.140.95.53 (talk) 04:10, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] UK law

The UK section mentions the increased age limit that the Sexual Offences Act 2003 brought in, but it's worth noting that there's an exception for married couples, to avoid the situation of married 17-year-olds not being able to take photos of each other. 86.132.142.181 00:32, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

  • If child pornography is inherently harmful, why does this exception exist? lmno 03:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Added "expert" tag - request to verify illegal-to-verify-first-hand statements

Statements such as "The age of the children being photographed or filmed and then made available for sharing or trading has become younger and younger to where videos and picture series of toddlers are more often encountered now." are all but impossible to directly verify without running afoul of the law and/or making the editor physically ill. Such statements need either a citation or a statement from a subject matter expert such as a police officer or scholar saying "this is true." A citation is of course preferred. Dfpc 19:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure law enforcement agencies can provide such information, no illegality needed.--Kirby♥time 18:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

  • In some circles there is a view that the police "sex up" this subject area with such claims as are mentioned above in a less than non-partisan way. lmno 03:25, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. However, they won't unless someone in law enforcement sees it. "Expert" should raise the odds. Dfpc 03:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] revamp in progress??

The user User:Voice of Britain blanked the article without providing replacement content. If there is no good new article in a short period of time, the article should be reverted. In the meantime, I put up some notices and a link to the last full version. Dfpc 19:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The current form is very accurate, lets slowly build it up from scratch. I will add material today or tomorrow, I have plenty of studies regarding child pornopgraphy. There is no rush here, the article is atleast factually correct, which is more than we can say of the old version. Voice of Britain 19:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and reverted the blanking. That's not how things are done in Wikipedia. If you think the existing article needs repairs please specify where you see problems. -Will Beback · † · 19:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
The whole article is a mess and scares away any serious contributors. It may not be the intention, but its the effect. Voice of Britain 19:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Use your user page as a sandbox. Some users create new user pages with a name like User:Voice_of_Britain/Sandbox, others like me just use their main user space. See User:Dfpc for an example of a proposed replacement for Nudity and children. See Talk:Nudity and children for the announcement and discussion. Once I get a quality article written and there is consensus to replace the old one, or at least lack of an objection, I will replace the article. Consider doing the same on any other article you do extensive changes to. Not doing so leads to hurt feelings and edit wars. Dfpc 19:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't recommend that approach to this article. If you have a specific problem with specific text then please raise that issue so that we can edit this article collaboratively. Saying that the article is a mess and blanking it is not an acceptable approach in this type of article. -Will Beback · † · 20:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Social Perception

There has recently been some activity in this section, most of it revolving around the following text:

  • The arrest was criticised in forum communities with some people saying that her constitutional right to express herself was violated and that child pornography laws were never intended to include such situations. One forum user claimed it was exploitation by police in order to find out who she distributed the photos to.[citation needed] There were some speculative allegations as to how police found out about the photos.[citation needed]

While this article is not as sensitve as a BLP would be, these additions have not been properly verified and cited. I'd suggest that it would be appropriate to remove them until such time as they are cited. Such unverified (and probably unverifiable) information is highly suspect and doesn't really belong with the factual entries. Doc Tropics 19:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't see what there is to verify. It's plastered all over. -PromX1 00:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It's plastered all over what? Where is it plastered? I've never seen this info before. If it can't be cited properly, it should be removed. Doc Tropics 15:52, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Note: I didn't initially realize that the text had only been in place a few days. It's relatively standard to allow about a month for citing before any text would be removed. So, no rush yet, but it really does need proper cites. Doc Tropics 16:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Umm, would any of the various comments qualify as a proper citation? :/ -PromX1 17:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I reviewed the first 30 (of 81), and couldn't find anything that related directly to this. Given those negative results, I'm not really hot to explore the other 51 in depth. Even a single cite would be sufficient, if it mentions this specifically and can be considered reliable (most forums and blogs aren't reliable sources though). Doc Tropics 18:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] The main article page here is the one that I've not even considered reading, for some reason

Just because it seems wrong, somehow.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 00:02, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Please edit. There are pro pedophile issues on wikipedia and any hands on deck would be very useful, SqueakBox 00:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not going to edit this article (I edit articles on many other topics), but I don't see why anyone would want to even be seen being associated with this topic on the Internet in any way whatsoever. Remember what happened to Pete Townshend a couple of years back?-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 00:09, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Because if someone doesnt stick their neck out the consequences for wikipedia are inevitable. Editing with a strong NPOV on these issues will not bring the type of troubles Townshend (for whom I have no sympathy) faced, if Esther Rantzen can do it so can we all but I hear what you are saying. Take a look at my contribs, SqueakBox 00:13, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Taken a look at your contributions. I suppose the thing with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit on the topics that they're interested in, but to some extent I'd avoid extremely controversial topics such as this one. I mean, I probably wouldn't edit articles about terrorists either (ironically a university lecturer of mine, a few years ago, once said that the most hated individuals in the UK press were probably pedophiles and terrorists, and I can see where he was coming from...)-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 00:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh so can I. I find this subject both tedious and distatsteful but after more than 2 and a half years as an editor here I have learny that editing what is important is more useful than editing topics we find interesting, SqueakBox 00:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Good point. By the way, I shouldn't have said "years ago" that my university lecturer told me that because it was only in 2004, and that implies I'm old, which I'm not.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 00:27, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Me neither (lol), SqueakBox 00:28, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Thing is, I would not even Google the title of this article in attempting to research the topic. I doubt this article is going to get to a good state because of the controversy surrounding searching for information on it online.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 00:39, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

The hardest thing about editing this page (and related) topics is keeping your cool when someone comes along to "defend" the behaviour and insists that it be treated "fairly". Gah!!! Doc Tropics 22:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Well that is how it is! I would recommend that anyone who does get involved makes sure they have a good contribs track record as there is clearly no shame in promoting NPOV re these articles. But a cool head is a good idea as well, SqueakBox 22:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
"I suppose the thing with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit on the topics that they're interested in..." HisSpaceResearch
One of the most precious things on Wikipedia is an editor willing to work on articles that he isn't interested in. Disinterested editors are always in demand. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 02:54, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
The important thing is to distinguish disinterested editors from uninterested editors. An editor has to be interested enough to want to meaningfully contribute to an article (for anything beyond reverting or copyediting), while still being disinterested enough to avoid a conflict of interest and maintain the article's neutral point of view. Regardless of how wrong the vast majority of Wikipedians see the pedophiles' position as, it's going to be part of any neutral report on this topic. Similarly, other heterodox views on the subject should be included, but none given undue weight. This will only happen if the article is in the hands of disinterested editors.
We can write about murder, rape, or genocide without becoming tainted by our subject. Surely, we can do the same here. I look forward to the day when this article can describe child pornography as a historical anomaly that's been eradicated like an infectious disease. Until then, child pornography's moral evil does not negate its existence, and its existence requires that we cover it. --Ssbohio 03:37, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I am TRULY fascinated to know that you don't even want to read the article. I now consider myself better informed about the world.lmno 23:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restarted

I have nuked and restarted this article. Several hundred versions contained a keyword used to search for child pornography, labeled as such. This is obviously unacceptable. Because of the GFDL's requirement for article history, I could not keep a current version with that line deleted and just selectively nuke months of edits. So there's now a stub, and this article will have to be restarted.

The moral of this story is to edit with a sense of ethics and when you see idiocy like that immediately remove it and contact an arbitrator or steward to delete that edit. Phil Sandifer 22:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

And you couldn't have cut & pasted the source of a good version before nuking it? Andy Mabbett 22:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Nope. That would have violated the GFDL. If I used any old article text I would have had to preserve the history of the page that led to that text. Phil Sandifer 22:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
We are doing our best Phil, and thanks. I'll keep you in mind in the futuire and yes the arbcom are aware of the general issues re this subject, SqueakBox 22:20, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah. I mean, I'd like to note, I'm sorry to see any good material in this article get trashed because of this. But, well, it had to be done. And editors on topics this contentious and potentially harmful need to be careful in the extreme not to hurt people. Phil Sandifer 22:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Need to be careful full stop, SqueakBox 22:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I am still fairly inexperienced with Wikipedia, thus please forgive my ignorance. Is it possible to lock this article so that only certain users could modify it since it is so sensitive and there have been serious problems? Also, can the discussion page be re-started as well? It's difficult for me to know where to begin with so much text already in the discussion area. Has work already begun to re-write the article? Thanks. XOHottie 20:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
It could be locked to stop new editors editing but I dont think it is necessary right now, SqueakBox 20:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not especially familiar with the oversight function, but couldn't the inclusion of that information and every subsequent edit have been oversighted, instead of destroying everything before that edit too? Atropos 06:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Would this so-called keyword have been "PTHC"? Or "Ray Gold"? They are the only ones I remember from previous incarnations of this benighted article, and they have become so widely known that they are probably about as useful to anyone searching out child porn as "lolita" or "schoolgirl". Further, they have been reported in news articles the world over (http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=629047). Please stop being such pitiable prudes and show some objectivity. lmno 23:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

No matter how much the editor in question would like to decide for the rest of the world what is acceptable knowledge and what is not, that knowledge is still there somewhere. I ran upon that sad story while reviewing an unrelated dispute on ArbCom... Being curious I immediately wondered what would justify this extreme display of mass censorship - what on earth was the knowledge that Phil Sandifer saw fit for him to be aware off, but not for me or the rest of the world. What on earth was this 'forbidden word' that justified nuking untold number of edits.... It took me few minutes, and the way back machine to the rescue (http://web.archive.org/web/20061012143702/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography), I was surprised and sadden that all this fuss was about 'lolita' (not that any single word could possibly have justified it anyway...). Was it really worth to conduct the electronic equivalent of 'burning book' (yes, nuking 3 and 1/2 years worth of edits is a book burning-like operation) ? Shmget 00:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Well that is yopur opinion but it certainly doesn't move me to change my mind nor does it fit with Phil's edit summary when deleting. We dont support pedophile activist viewpoints here on wikipedia, SqueakBox 00:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
"nor does it fit with Phil's edit summary when deleting.", why don't you read the first sentence of this thread: "I have nuked and restarted this article. Several hundred versions contained a keyword used to search for child pornography, labeled as such. This is obviously unacceptable."
How exactly 'does it not fit' ?? By phil's own adminsiion he had 'nuked' an article, destroying 'several hundred versions', on the sole ground that they contained a word he did not condone.
"We dont support pedophile activist viewpoints here on wikipedia": Nice Strawman. Shmget 14:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Please do remember, YOU ARE NOT WIKIPEDIA. You can't just say "we don't condone so-and-so viewpoint here on wikipedia" just because you disagree with it. 219.78.90.142 (talk) 13:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there a legal issue here, or is this guy just blatantly violating WP:NOT?219.78.90.142 (talk) 13:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC) Any update on what's happened? Did someone overturn Phil Sandifer's wantonly arrogant actions yet, or is the system uterly broken? 219.78.67.100 (talk) 17:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Images?

Is child pornography just images or does it include video? Gaz 00:03, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

IMO vidoe too, we could link to video clips, SqueakBox 00:04, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


Depends on country. In some countries you can go to jail for cartoons or wood carvings. Nandaba Naota 00:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

The current version is an abomination in terms of NPOV, written entirely with information denying the damage of child pornography. Phil Sandifer 00:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The article doesn't even talk about effects at all. Nandaba Naota 00:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Currently it mostly stresses that children often aren't coerced and that child pornographers are secretly good and upstanding folks. Phil Sandifer 00:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Do you think that? The article does not state that so is this your personal opinion? Nandaba Naota 00:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Riegel 2004

It has since been removed, but just to salt the earth about its return, the Riegel 2004 reference is a letter to the editor about a internet survey. It is highly marginal as a source, and in its previous use streched what even that work attempted to quantify. --TeaDrinker 01:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

This has been discussed many times on the talk page, generally with the consensus that images are inappropriate. Well, I guess it is that time again; they're back to being added and reverted. eg. [3] (There are two images, a painting of nude children and a photo by Lewis Caroll of Alice in Wonderland fame.) My objection: if these were examples of porn, well then we should not include them if only to keep on the right side of the law. If they're not porn, then they don't belong in the article. My view, no pictures which may be construed by some as porn should be in the article. Additionally, as is the standard for controversial edits, I suggest we reach consensus before making the change. Thoughts? --TeaDrinker 07:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The images were added by a new user, and one of the edit notes was "One more for User:Kirbytime". Now trying to add Alice to Lolita pornography. Nuff said. -Jmh123 07:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

If you really want pictures of nude children there's enough of them floating around on smtp and NO most of them are not cp. For something to be considered child pornography it has to be sexual in nature and posed so candid shots are automatically not cp. Not against the placing of nude children even if ones nudity is someone else's pornography but if it's not cp then I don't really see the point considering it won't have anything to do with the subject unless you want to illustrate what is not cp. Just my thoughts. Btw Lewis Carol is one of the forerunners if not the father of child pornography. -196.207.32.38 21:07, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

  • TeaDrinker is correct. If they're not porn, they're irrelevant, and if they ARE porn, then there's no reason to use them at all (for any reason, period). I've thought about what would work in this article if someone wanted to add an image, and I think that the following are the only reasonable options: a) An image of a historical figure involved in some way with child pornography. This might be a politician responsible for drafting significant child pornography laws, or a notorious child pornographer (such as Richard Steve Goldberg), or even someone like Traci Lords who has spoken about their involvement in the industry after the fact. b) A pornographic image that has been edited by law enforcement bodies to remove all pornographic content, such as the Masha Allen "empty room" images discussed earlier on this page. c) A logo or example of promotional material from one of the companies that legally produced child pornography prior to the enactment of the relevant statutes, provided that said image includes no nudity or pornographic content (I cannot stress that last point strongly enough). -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 02:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CP Investigation

Just a thought - I looked on this page to get some information on the investigation of child pornography. Unfortunately, there's no info on this, but don't you think it would be a worthwhile heading, perhaps highlighting some efforts to investigate and prosecute perpetrators and rescue victims, as well as discussing some of the difficulties in doing so? 83.71.89.135 14:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - thought I was signed in. Above comment is by me, Blaise Joshua 14:29, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

At least some of it is covered in Category:Child pornography crackdowns. Lectonar 15:13, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the term "depictions" needs to be defined with regards to legal and illegal child pornography. In the United States, written depictions are protected. Lolita has not been banned yet! Illegal child pornography involves the exploitation and abuse of real children, not fantasy ones. No real children are harmed by print in a book, no matter how crass the descriptions. Rory Helm 06:46, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Legal status internationally

I was astonished to find out that child pornography is apparently legal in Japan, or at least it was in 1997:

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/japan.htm

There is no law prohibiting child pornography in Japan. 5000 pornographic films are approved each year by an ethics commission composed of major representatives of studios. Japan's obscenity laws require pornographers to blur out pubic hair and genitals. 1,000 illegal pornographic, that do not blur the genital regional, are produced in Japan each month - 35 new titles a day. Media Jack Productions makes 500 approved pornographic videos a year and makes US$31.7 million ("An industry seen through the eyes of one pornographer," Christian Science Monitor, Cameron W. Barr, 2 April 1997) & (Director Mitsuhiro Shimamura, "Pornography Easy To Find in Japan," Joseph Coleman, Associated Press, October 1997)

I don't know whether to trust the source (even to the degree of getting the quote or primary source correct) and I have no idea where to look to check this fact myself (and don't know Japanese) and Wikipedia has let me down here. This article needs a section on the legal status of child pornography. Or if there already is such an article, it needs to be put in [[Caregory:Child pornography]] or named something better (or both.)

I'll try to add something on this myself if I can, but would like to perhaps request help from those more knowledgeable, first. --Sapphic 01:06, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

You'll have to get a better source than uri.edu as it could just be a student. A ggood source and we'll add it but a not good source will be deleted as such, SqueakBox 23:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Are we actually doubting that the legal status of child pornography varies in different jurisdictions or are we merely doing the tired old "well, I'm ignorant about this fact, so I have to have a footnote"-tirade for the umpteenth time?
Peter Isotalo 07:03, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
* we are doing the tired old "well, I'm ignorant about this fact, so I have to have a footnote"-tirade. Anyone who is not aware that Japanese sexual morays are more liberal than those of the United States should not be opining on this subject. Do I need a footnote to point out that Manga and Hentai came from Japan?69.140.95.53 (talk) 05:00, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Child Pornography is illegal in Japan. For full disclosure, I work for an NGO that deals with fighting child abduction and child sexual exploitation. We have a report on this matter(if you are interested) online. The report is entitled Child Pornography: Model Legislation and Global Review. However, please note it gets very complicated trying to discuss this matter in legal terms. Some countries may ban all pornography. Others may have certain key words that make it illegal under a Child Protection Act. If you want to include a section on laws it will be difficult and time consuming to say the least. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.194.208.5 (talk) 18:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus

Please bring any massive or major changes here before implementing them, adding 46,000 bit changes without getting consensus fiorst is not reasonable, SqueakBox 00:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It is. I have removed none of the previous material. Stop removing sourced material from articles. ●Farenhorst 00:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding 46,000 bits of material is not consensus, doing it on your own with no support and definite opposition. The article you are creating is much worse. Material being sourced doesnt mean we have to accept it merely because of that, SqueakBox 02:08, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

You do not require consensus to add material, and the amount of material bears nothing on whether you have consensus or not. Saying that the amount of material plays a part in its validity (to incorporate without asking) devalues or overvalues that material. I am far more concerned with editors who seem hell bent on ripping the guts out of articles that they don't like. And as you can see, I have been supported by one other editor at the time of writing.
Also, sourced material doesn't have to be accepted, but it should at least stand, until it has been argued out on a talk page. In this sense, you are not God or Jimbo Wales. ●Farenhorst 15:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
What your sock? That isnt another user. And given that you have been banned on so many occasions but not only keep coming back but doing so in a highly aggressive and unpleasant manner this issue clearly isnt going to be resolved just because you can use sock or meatpuppets, etc, SqueakBox 17:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The new version is appalling, the shorter version doesn't defend child pornography as something good and therefore while some material like the legal material could be re-added overall the newer version is appalling. Why was it changed, the shorter version has been there ages.Pol64 18:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Your complaint is far too vague. If you feel a particular sentence or section is opinionated, point it out and we can discuss it. Dyskolos 02:51, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

It was changed because apparently a pro-pedophilia group is working to insert their propoganda into articles. --YellowTapedR 05:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Dyskolo, your complaint is far too vague. Can you please justify any inclusions of material into this article.Pol64 03:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Serious violation of GFDL

OK people we have a problem. Re-adding a large quantity of text from a deleted article means that there is no attribution for those who contributed the content. That means the text does not meet the GFDL (under which Wikipedia is licensed) and is a copyright violation. There was a reason why the whole article had to be deleted and started again from scratch. I have protected the page to prevent further copyright violations but I am now unsure how to proceed. The revisions with the problematic content need to go but it may be best for that to be done with oversight. As ArbCom are reviewing this matter, I am going to refer the issue to them. Until this is settled however I think the page had better remain protected. WjBscribe 03:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: User:Farenhorst has been confirmed to be the latest sockpuppet of a banned user. WjBscribe 03:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll try rewriting it. Here's the first section to add: Dyskolos 04:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Definitions

The definition of "child pornography" varies by jurisdiction. In addition to photographic depictions of sexual activity involving legal minors, the term is also sometimes extended to cover all child nudity or lascivious portrayals of children. In some countries, drawings, paintings, written works and other depictions manufactured without actual children are included.[2]

Works deemed to have artistic, educational, or scientific merit may be excepted from prosecution in certain countries,[3] though they are still often challenged legally. The Tin Drum, a 1978 which which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, contains scenes of a child actor simulating sex and was banned in Ontario and unsuccessfully[4] prosecuted in Oklahoma City. Several well-known photographers, including Sally Mann, Jock Sturges, David Hamilton, and Will McBride, have been accused of producing child pornography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dyskolos (talk • contribs) 04:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page unprotected

OK - I've removed the revisions that violated the GFDL - the page is now unprotected. Please do not readd the deleted content. You can write additions to the article based on the references used previously - must it must be substantially different from the old content. WjBscribe 04:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Improving the section on Child Pornography as Child Abuse

This section is obviously very weak at present, containing no academic sources. Continuing on from the paragraph: "The children's charity NCH has claimed that demand for child pornography on the Internet has led to an increase in sex abuse cases.[5]" I propose to add the following lines:

..."However, the consensus amongst academics seems to be that there is no causal link between viewing child pornography and subsequent sexual crimes.[6] Further, academics have also stressed that the availability of pornography leads to a decrease in sexual crimes.[7]”

Footnote [6] would be to the following references:-
In the UK House of Lords, on 11th March 2004, after a question was tabled by Lord Hylton: “What correlations have they found between individuals with access to child pornography and offences of sexual abuse of children, whether in the United Kingdom or overseas.” Baroness Scotland of Asthal replied: “we are not currently aware of any evidence to support a direct causal link between access to child pornography and the commission of sexual offences against children.”; see also:
UK Home Office ‘Consultation On The Possession of Non-Photographic Visual Depictions of Child Sexual Abuse’ (2007);
Dr Rachel O’Connell and Dr Jo Bryce, ‘Young people, well-being and risk on-line’ (Media Division, Directorate General of Human Rights Council of Europe, 2006): “many researchers have concluded that exposure to harmful content in the absence of other predisposing characteristics (e.g., physiological, psychological, developmental, environmental) is unlikely to have a significant impact on the attitudes and behaviour of individuals.”
Dr Kirby, Detective Chief Superintendent with Lancashire Police, speaking at the International Investigative Psychology Conference held on December 12th 2005: "When you look at all the research that has been done nationally, the consensus is that there has not proven to be a link between the viewing of pornography and the committing of hands-on offences.”
‘Child Pornography Law: Does it Protect Children?’ Katherine S. Williams, Department of Law, University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 26(3) 2004: 245-261;
Ayako Uchiyama from the National Research Institute of Police Science Juvenile Crime Study Section 6, Sanban-cho, Chiyoda-ku in Tokyo (1999);
Professor B Kutchinsky, ‘Pornography, Sex Crime and Public Policy’ ( Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Science at the University of Copenhagen) (1970; 1985; 1987; 1991)
Howitt, D (1995) British Journal of Medical Psychology, 68, 15-27: “a simple direct causal effect [of pornography] on offending is not supported by the case studies”; and
UK Home Office Research Report, ‘Pornography: Impacts and Influences’ (Dr Guy Cumberbatch and Dr Dennis Howlitt, 1990).
Footnote [7] would be to the following references:
Ayako Uchiyama from the National Research Institute of Police Science Juvenile Crime Study Section 6, Sanban-cho, Chiyoda-ku in Tokyo (published in 1999) concluded that “It is certainly clear from our data and analysis that a massive increase in available pornography in Japan has been correlated with a dramatic decrease in sexual crimes and most so among youngsters as perpetrators or victims.”
Professor B Kutchinsky, ‘Pornography, Sex Crime and Public Policy’ (1970; 1985; 1987; 1991): “The aggregate data on rape and other violent or sexual offences from four countries where pornography, including aggressive varieties, has become widely and easily available during the period we have dealt with would seem to exclude, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this availability has had any detrimental effects in the form of increased sexual violence.”

Does anyone have any additional academic sources that they think should be included? Strichmann 11:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minors viewing child pornography

How well known a fact is it that some types child pornography is sometimes viewed by minors, simply because the participants are of similar age to them and their peers? Can it really be considered unnatural, and the viewer a "pedophile" and a "monster" for watching it? What about the morality behind this and the actual reasons for the law existing in the first place? Not all CP involves rape or little kids, and (surprisingly to some) a proportion of it is produced by "children" themselves (if you consider 15 yeat olds to be children).

*comment removed for "protection" of user*. To make clear what I mean by that, I'm talking about self-taken pics and self-made videos of girls my own age (15-17), effectively anything non-professionally produced that would be perfectly legal if the girl was 18; I don't go searching for "r@ygold", rape or disgusting shit like that. Surely there has to be some moral distinction between the two categories, it's clear to me at least that one is utterly despicable and involves abuse of a much weaker individual by an adult, while the other is utterlu benign, at worst embarassing. - Anonymous

Any precedant that should be cited in the article? The current laws imply this is certainly illegal, but the reasons behind the law don't seem to agree. What have judges/lawyers said on the matter? -88.72.254.34 (talk) 19:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
So a law would victimise the very people it's trying to protect? 200.105.82.81 (talk) 00:35, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
There has been a recent debate on this subject at Talk:Adult-child sex as this is an issue that concerns all types of adult-child sex, ie the difference between a 17 year old (in many jurisdictions) and an 11 year old are very obvious. If you want to introduce this subject inot the article you will need to use reliable sources, eg secondary sources for what judges and others have said on the matter; but do take a look at the ACS talk page thread on this matter. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:35, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
In the United States it is illegal. Self made CP by young people does exist and is still considered illegal. I just want to state also that I work for an NGO dealing with these and other children's rights issues. If you go to www.missingkids.com you can check various reports on statistics related to CP. I believe US Department of Justice has a few reports as well. The report Child-Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings from the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study vii, n.1 (Janis Wolak et al.) state that 83% of arrested cp possessors had images of children 6 to 12; 39% had images of children 3 to 5 and 19% had images of infants and toddlers under age 3. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.194.208.5 (talk) 18:59, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
If you're referring to what I believe you are referring to, then yes, it is technically illegal, although there's so much far worse material available out there that authorities don't usually have time (or really care) to deal with it, at least not as a matter of priority. --91.65.167.42 (talk) 18:33, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] restoring nuked information

I came across this article and discovered that the reasonably good article that used to be here had been nuked to purge the edit history, and started over. So be it. I do understand that the old article's text can't be copy/pasted into the current one, for attribution reasons. But that restriction doesn't apply to the information in the old article, much of which was (IMHO) pretty valuable and worth recovering. So I'd like to use an archive.org copy of the old article as a source of ideas ("What topics did it cover?") and references ("What facts did it present?"), and use that to build this article into something more than the current stub. I'd put it all in my own words, so there'd be no copyright/attribution violation. Any sound reason I shouldn't do this? - JAQ (talk) 23:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The old article's text was removed entirely due to its containing a search term for child pornography for over a year and a half. We should not link to any version of the article that has that term. That said, if there is good information that you want to rephrase and re-integrate, go for it, but I'd still caution you from using the old versions, as it could be viewed as simply being a derivative work and thus a copyright issue. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Maybe the reason it contained that term for over a year and a half is because it's not actually a problem.
I'm pretty shocked to discover that you are an administrator when you have clearly failed to grasp on of the key points on which Wikipedia is based. Read WP:NOT. Then read it again. And then read it again, and continue doing so until the fact finally sinks in that Wikipedia is not, has not been, and will never be censored. I do not care what your personal views are on this topic, indeed, if they interfere with your decisions to this extent then I would say you are clearly not fit to be an administrator of a place like this. The great thing about a wiki is that if you think something should be in an article, you can remove it. If someone disagrees, they can revert with a reason, and if necessary, it's discussed on the talk page. But no. You weren't satisfied with that. Aside from the fact that you thought it was your right you delete material considered objectionable, sensitive or harmful, as determined by you (that is word-for-word the definitions given on Wikipedia's own page on censorship, which brings us back to WP:NOT...), but you also abused your power to make absolutely certain that it was permanently and irrecoverably removed, along with "over 700 edits" containing valuable information. How in heaven's name you're still an admin after that, I don't know, that's an issue for people above me. But when I hear people increasingly talking about Wikipedia admins being incompetent, I now have a very good example of exactly what they mean. --78.47.224.150 (talk) 19:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't there be a notice at the top of this page saying "This articles was deleted on XYZ because of XYZ"? I don't really follow what happened. Richard001 (talk) 03:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

There wasn't a template that I could find to handle this particular case, so I copied the deletion template format and wrote a notice at the top of this page. The boldface link goes to the deletion review discussion.

I'll note here also that the most recent version on the waybackmachine's archives prior to the deletion of this article is from October 2006, about 7 months prior to the deletion of this article in May 2007. The 10/2006 archive is available here. That version has more information about legislation in other countries, but frankly, that version needs work. I see a lot of text that shouldn't be restored because it's unsourced. If you want to restore anything, I recommend restoring only material having citations from verifiable and reliable sources. I see one source in that archive is a blog, which isn't acceptable. =Axlq (talk) 16:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Is there some sort of voting procedure whereby we can vote on this? I read the 10/2006 archive. In my opinion the current article is very far inferior. It seems to me that Wikipedia is based on the theory that the wisdom of the masses of people often surpasses that of the single expert. But the current article is a veiled opinion piece, in my opinion. The pragmatic message I receive from the article as it stands is, "most people agree child pornography is a terrible scourge, and that is why you will have look elsewhere to find out what it actually Is, we wouldn't dare put a specimen of such hideous filth here."69.140.95.53 (talk) 04:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The fundamental problem with the current version is that it contains only a few random factoids, and that incomplete coverage introduces a bias. I've been busy with my job, but I do still intend to go forward with a rewrite based on the old version. I'll be the first to acknowledge that it had problems, and I'll try to fix some of them. But it beats the pants off the current crippled stub. If the rewritten article contains unsourced statements requiring citations (it probably will, as I'm only human, and I have an admitted bias toward restoring information in this case) then I encourage others to scrupulously correct that... like any other WP article. If my version happens to contain Phil's unspeakable, intrinsically evil search term... well, I hope he can figure out a constructive way to respond to that. - JAQ (talk) 02:39, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

If you deliberately introduce a child pornography search term to Wikipedia, I know and you should be able to guess exactly how I will respond to that. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually, Wikipedia's official policy states that Wikipedia is not censored. I would expect you as an admin to know that (and I would question why you would have been made an admin if you cannot stick to such a simple rule). --124.217.231.227 (talk) 03:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Which version is more NPOV compliant?

I recently saw this passage in the article:

Whether or not artificially created erotic or pornographic material (e.g., lolicon, some pornographic dōjinshi, etc.) constitutes "child pornography" remains debatable, as no actual children are harmed during the production.

This seemed to me to imply that children being harmed during the production is nessecarily a part of child pornography, which I thought was quite POV. I changed it, then, to:

Whether or not artificially created erotic or pornographic material (e.g., lolicon, some pornographic dōjinshi, etc.) constitutes "child pornography" remains debatable, as no actual children are necessarily involved in the production.

This was then changed back by another editor, who said in the edit commentary:

What's wrong with that sentence? It's sourced and seems incontravertible, just reporting the facts

There is no source that I can see in that editor's revision, and the sentence does not seem incontravertible to me, so here I am, trying to get a consensus. Which version should be included? 219.78.90.142 (talk) 13:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The presumption of harm is taken as a given by both sides in the debate, that is why artificial porn is at issue and not child porn in general. Leave it. Herostratus (talk) 18:14, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for replying, but can you clarify what the 'debate' is and which are the 'two sides'? Also, a reliable source for your statement would help the article if the sentence is to be kept, I think. Just trying to be rigourous. 219.78.90.142 (talk) 04:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I think the POV tag needs to remain. The section on child abuse has terminology that are clearly not POV such as "ignoring the fact that" and "despite this". CopaceticThought (talk) 05:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the section is a POV nightmare. Definitely keep the tag. I'm just trying to improve this one particular sentence.219.78.90.142 (talk) 05:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Clearly we view it as having an opposite POV. CopaceticThought (talk) 05:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
How so? I think parts of the article are skewed in different ways, but I think that what everyone wants is the most objective article possible. What is your opinion regarding the relative objectivity of the two versions of the passage I posted above? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.78.90.142 (talk) 06:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
What you changed it to is probably a better, more technical way to word it and thus better for Wikipedia, though I strongly feel that the article goes out its way elsewhere to imply that child pornography is not necessarily a bad thing. CopaceticThought (talk) 06:40, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll chnge it back then, at least until someone has an objection, I guess. Regarding your views on the article, I hope you can find a way to improve it, and make it more useful and NPOV for everyone :) 07:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC) 219.78.90.142 (talk) 07:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Done. I also removed that whole "ignoring the fact that" chunk, as it was unsubstantiated in the article, and also because of the weasel words. Additionally, I tweaked the second sentence in the into, because its citation did not establish what it used to say, but does establish what I changed it to, imo. EDIT: I also got rid of "despite this" and just had it go straight into the bit about NCH. It sounds a bit clunky, but at least it's more NPOV.219.78.90.142 (talk) 07:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Good tweaks; I think that this version is much improved. CopaceticThought (talk) 00:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Editor SqueakBox reverted part of my edit, specifically changing "It is considered by some to be a form of child sexual abuse" to "It is considered to be a form of child sexual abuse". The editor cited WP:FRINGE as the reason for doing so. I went through the policy document, but I can't see how it applies here. The viewpoint that child pornography is a form of sexual abuse seems more like a widely accepted, mainstream viewpoint than a fringe theory. If that editor could explain in greater detail how WP:FRINGE applies to this, it would be helpful. Also, if anyone knows what action should be taken in the case that the editor does not respond, any advice would be appreciated. 219.78.91.141 (talk) 18:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The fringe issue is the inclusion of the word "some", implying that others consider it is not a form of child sexual abuse. That implication is a fringe theory that is not supported by any reliable sources. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 20:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Ugh, I can't believe I missed the ";and some" part. That does NOT belong. CopaceticThought (talk) 21:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
As it stands, it implies that all (or an overwhelming majority) consider it to be a form of child sexual abuse, which, regardless of its validity, there is no citation to support. What we do have a citation for is that some child protection agencies and "internet experts" don't like a British ruling on downloading child pornography, and that Margaret McKay considers it to be a form of child sexual abuse. Stretching that source to account for "It is considered" is misleading to the reader, and heavily biased, in my opinion. "Some consider it to be" accurately describes the information actually backed up by the cited source, and also makes no claim about whether others do or do not consider it to be a form of child sexual abuse. While it could be true that the overwhelming majority consider it a form of child sexual abuse, us saying so is not good enough. There would need to be reliable sources (hard statistics from independent, reliable parties would be good) to support a statement as strong as "It is considered..." As there are no reliable sources to indicate that either an overwhelming majority consider ot child sexual abuse, or that some minority do not, I feel that taking the weaker statement that implies none of these is the most correct move to make, until further information is availible. I can't see how inflating one particular viewpoint to beyond what is cited can be anything but biased. 219.78.184.155 (talk) 03:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Another reference has been added. It would be possible to add hundreds of references to support that completely mainstream point of view as stated in the current version of the text. This is not about logic, it's about WP:Verifiability. If you have some reliable sources that introduce doubt about the statement, you are welcome to present them. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:33, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
While I think that having it as it is now is ridiculous, it's your article, not mine, so I'll leave it alone. 219.78.184.155 (talk) 06:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I haven't edited since I last posted here, but it sits at 'widely considered' right now, due to someone else, which I think is a good compromise. 219.77.142.24 (talk) 16:29, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Demand

  • In contrast, in the United Kingdom Children's charity NCH have stated that (commercial) demand for child pornography on the Internet has led to an increase in sex abuse cases. [4]

I removed the word "commercial" because the source doesn't limit "demand" to commercial demand. A user added the word with the comment:

  • Common sense tells you that non-commercial "demand" for pornography can't encourage further abuse, as increased demand will not be evident to the producer

However the article makes it clear that there are non-commercial sources as well. We don't have any evidence that production of child pornography is motivated solely by profit. Regardless, the source seems to addres collecting of pornography more than demand for it. It's more about consumption than production. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Quotes such as this; "The increased demand has made child pornography into big business and the consequences for children in all parts of the world are horrifying", are clearly referring to commercial production, however I accept that other parts of the article discuss the collection of child pornography from file-sharing networks, rather than commercial sources.
I believe that the original author of the disputed sentence was referring to this statement; "Children's charity NCH - formerly National Children's Homes - said there was evidence that the 1,500% rise in child pornography cases since 1988 would be reflected in more children being abused to produce the pictures." We are clearly mis-quoting the article, as NCH didn't claim that "demand for child pornography on the Internet has led to an increase in sex abuse cases.", they claimed that there was evidence to say that demand will, in the future, lead to an increase in children being abused to produce images.
I'm also concerned about the reliability of the source of the statement, NCH. They are a coalition of children's charities, and as such, they will be motivated by inciting fear in order to encourage people to donate to them. They also don't provide any information as to the supposed "evidence" for their claim.
In my opinion, this is one of Wikipedia's weaker articles. It needs to be improved. Barry Jameson (talk) 04:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Barry, as someone who has worked, often right at the heart of a major UK childrens charity, your argument certianly rings bells. You are right in that any charity is effectively a buisness which can only stay alive by inciting and tapping the monies of public sentiment. This does indeed lead to some controversial campaigning efforts that even the charities sometimes admit that they would rather not have to go through. For example, just look at SCF and even the NSPCC who continue to advertise with a boy actor who has claimed to become highly distressed by the production process and exposure.
So you are right when you suggest that the research may not be too reliable due to the partiality of its source. We should make sure that such sources are properly attributed and have counterclaims available within the articles in which they are included. I think that the current situation is indeed satisfactory. GrooV (talk) 20:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
FYI, the source in this case is the Guardian, who are simply quoting the NCH. We attribute the assertion to the NCH. I don't see a sourcing problem. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Indeed not. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] children? or minors?

A change was made in a couple of places, of "children" to "minors", for instance in the opening sentence "Child pornography or child porn refers to pornographic material depicting children" was changed to "Child pornography or child porn refers to pornographic material depicting minors". Basically, using the most usual definition of "child", that is (roughly) changing "infancy through about 12 years old" to "infancy through 17 years old". That's a huge difference.

I'm not an expert on this article, but my basic take is that child porn means the former (children, rather than minors). There could be a separate article about teen porn, maybe. So I changed it back, I hope this is seen as correct.Herostratus (talk) 03:05, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Are the laws governing this topic significantly different for various ages under 18? This site [5] indicates that in the U.S. child pornography includes depictions of minors. Is there any source that says child porn only refers to pre-pubescent people? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
In that source, this quote appears;

How Old Were the Children Found in These Images? According to investigators who handled the cases of estimated arrestees, most had images of children who had not yet reached puberty. Specifically 83% had images of children between ages 6 and 12; 39% had images of 3- to 5-year-old children; and 19% had images of toddlers or infants younger than age 3.

That's the proper focus on this article. More sources can be found, and will be. Changing this article to refer to minors instead of children is a way of defusing the essence of the topic and making it seem like something else. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Children may be defined as under eighteen. Anyway, that is how this article needs to be defined. GrooV (talk) 18:46, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
"Child" is defined in various ways; the most common definition is "pre-pubescent person" (see WP:PAW#Terminology.) "Child" might be defined as "minor" for narrow legal purposes, but this is an encyclopedia not a law commentary, and most common everyday discourse does not generally treat the terms "child" and "minor" as synonyms. Again, what does the term "child pornography" mean generally? Not pictures of 17-year-olds. Again, perhaps there should be a separate article Teen pornograph assuming that this is a notable phenomena. Another solution would be a rename to "Child and teen pornography" or perhaps "Minor pornography", with perhaps separate sections, although this would be kind of like having an article "Nepal and Malaysia". The basic problem is the term "child" which is vague. But "Child pornography" is the common term; a rename to "Minor pornography" would lose this accesibility. Herostratus (talk) 21:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I concur that child pornography is certainly and specifically about pre-pubescent children and not about "minors". There is no need to discuss teens in this article, it would be an off-topic distraction. There was an article on Teen pornography that was deleted via AfD because it was non-notable and there were no references. Most teen pornography is adult women made up to look younger, and no WP:V sources were found. Underage models (ie, minors) in regular pornography is not a separate category of pornography, it's just illegal activity used to create the porn, so that could be addressed in a section of the Pornography article, but it should not be in this article. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:09, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested outline for improving article.

Below is a suggested outline for improving the article. As the article is there is a lack of sufficient info on definitions, legal status, etc. Also I want to point out that at in the US and UK that the term "Child pornography" is used as a synonym for underage pornography (i.e. under 18). Thus I feel that this article should include discussion of underage teen porn too. I have some info on some issues relating to CP especially from the US legal perspective that I had added to the original article that was nuked. I will locate it and add it back once their the sections to be included in the article are fully sorted out.

Note: CP = Child pornography

Suggested Main Sections: Definition of child porn, prevalence of CP, legal status, Current methods of distribution, How CP is often viewed in western societies, Effect of CP on percipients and it's viewers respectively.

Section 1 - Definitions of CP:

  • Age limits vary from country to country with regard to CP. For example, 18 in US & UK and 16 in Australia. In other words, definition of “Child” in “child pornography” varies.
  • Kinds of depictions that qualify as CP varies. While all sexual acts are generally covered, nudity involving minors may or may not qualify depending a various countries definition of prohibited child nudity. Many western countries specify that poses must be sexual nature making non-sexualized child nudity not legally CP in those countries. Some countries exempt certain normally CP material if one can justify for artistic or scientific purposes.
  • Text and/or paintings/drawings covered under CP laws in some countries (example: Canada but not U.S.).
  • Virtual/simulated CP illegal in UK. Status in US unclear due to previous supreme court ruling declaring 1st virtual CP law unconstitutional, while a revised virtual CP law since enacted has not yet been tested by the Supreme Court.

Section 2 - Prevalence of Child Porn:

  • Problems of defining CP due to variances in CP Law from country to country and thus the problem of determining prevalence.
  • Accusations of exaggerations of CP prevalence in the past and presence, especially regarding commercial CP.


Section 3 - Legal Status:

  • A few countries do not specifically outlaw CP directly. They use child sexual abuse laws to go after CP producers.
  • In U.S., under federal law, Dost test used by many courts to determine if child nudity qualifies as illegal under CP law (i.e. Does a piece of alleged CP depict a sexual pose that is illegal under CP law?)
  • Different U.S. states also have their own CP laws, some more restrictive then federal law.
  • There are various international anti-CP legal efforts underway.
  • Several previous U.S. supreme court rulings apply to CP including one declaring CP not protected speech due to the sexual abuse of minors involved in it's production. Another ruling declared virtual CP protected under 1st amendment unlike real CP.

Section 4 - Current methods of distribution:

  • Commercial vs. non-commercial distribution.
  • Internet as the current major distribution channel via web, email, usenet newsgroups, and file sharing networks.
  • Many CP websites are in reality law enforcement sting operations.

Section 5 - How CP is often viewed in western societies:

  • Social attitudes towards CP, it's producers, and viewers.

Section 6 - Effect of CP on percipients and it's viewers respectively.

  • Debate exists over what forms of CP involves sexual abuse. Example, some types of child nudity depictions may qualify as CP in some countries/states/provinces/etc. but not be universally agreed upon as depiction sexual abuse.
  • A debate exits as to whether CP encourages pedophiles/molesters to molest or whether it serves as an outlet for sexual urges possible reducing likelihood of molesting again.

--Cab88 (talk) 13:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization and possible split?

I think there is some reorg of the openning of the article req'd. The controversial British case should go under response - though I wonder if these responses might go better in seperate articles and we might retain this one as a definitional one only. I have added some detail and references in a few recent edits. Comments please. Fremte (talk) 01:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Disregard my edit summary, I misread. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 02:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where is child porn illegal?

One editor claims child porn is NOT illegal in Nepal, Mozambique, Mexico, Mongolia, and Dominica and claims that the book reference from 2003 is unreliable. According to Interpol it is illegal in Dominica, legislation is pending in Mexico and Mozambique, and there are no specific national laws in Mongolia and Nepal. The Nepal information is current as of Spring 2006. The Mongolia information is undated but is presumably post-2003. Does anyone have any authoritative post-2003 information on laws from Mongolia and Nepal, so we can put this one to rest before an edit war ensues? Information on the current, as of April 2008, laws in Mexico and Mozambique would be helpful also.

I have not done research on what treaties these countries are to what degree treaties have the force of domestic law in these countries. In other words, a particular country may be a member of a treaty that does outlaws child pornography, but if its legislature hasn't passed enabling legislation then child pornography may still be legal in that country. Likewise, the constitution of a particular country may give local areas autonomy that supercede national laws, including laws prohibiting child pornography. You see this with other issues in tribal and indigenous territories in some countries. I do not have the resources to research this properly either, but it needs to be done to improve the article.

I recommend that the current wording restored by SqeakBox remain for 1 week unless authoritative information on these 4 countries can be found sooner. If no such information appears within a week, then the text should be changed to match the Interpol web site information. I also strongly recommend that anyone changing information regarding what is and is not illegal include reliable citations to avoid such reversions in the future. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dubious

The citation Bantekas, Ilias; Susan Nash (2003). International Criminal Law 2/E. Routledge Cavendish, p91. ISBN 1859417760 is dubious for the claim that production of [child pornography] is legally prohibited as child sexual abuse in all countries for the following reasons:

  • The text says Although child pornography constitutes a serious offense under the laws of all nations211
  • Footnote 211 is See, eg, Osborne v Ohio, 495 US 103(1990).

This US Supreme Court case, 495 U.S. 103 (1990), dealt with US law and does not support the claim that production is legally prohibited in all countries. The Interpol web site mentioned above directly supports this claim for most countries but it does not support direct prohibition of child porn in Mongolia and Nepal. Now, does Interpol or another source support the book's claim that "child porn constitutes a serious offense under the laws of all countries?" Interpol does not. Other sources may. Does it support the current article's claim that "production of child pornography is legally prohibited as child sexual abuse in all countries?" This requires further digging. In the cases of Mongolia and Nepal, the age of marriage is 18 so child porn produced by lawful sex acts between a husband and underage wife aren't an issue. My recommendation: The book citation be removed and replaced with an Interpol or other equally strong citation. Also, unless an exhaustive list can be made to show that there is no circumstance in any nation on earth where child pornography can be legally produced, the words "all countries" be replaced with "almost all countries" OR that the words "legally prohibited" be replaced with "generally prohibited by law." Both allow for the occasional exception without becoming false statements.

Is there discussion? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NCH quote; text reinserted by sockpuppet

The quote from the NCH was that "more children would be abused to produce the pictures," not that "more children would be abused." It is not known either way what relationship porn has to the overall abuse rate, but the decline of the abuse rate is multifactorial, and not attributable to the increase of porn.-PetraSchelm (talk) 23:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

The chunk of text below, reintroduced in the sockpuppet disruption yesterday, is a rebuttal to a false straw men set up by a misreading of the NCH quote, as noted above. None of the below is relevant to this article (except perhaps the NCH quote).-PetraSchelm (talk) 21:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Substantiated cases of child sexual abuse in the US declined dramatically in number between 1992 and (at least) 1998.[5] A substantial decline also appears to have occurred in Australia.[6] In contrast, the United Kingdom Children's charity NCH have stated that demand for child pornography on the Internet has led to an increase in sex abuse cases,[7] though this conflicts with the Office for National Statistics's 2007 report on Child Protection Registers, which shows a decrease of approximately 27% in the number of sexually abused children between 2003 and 2007 on the register.[8]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Pre-trial preparation in computer child pornography cases: combating the watering down of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition in state prosecutions, Ian Friedman, The Vindicator, 12.09.2005
  2. ^ See, e.g., R. v. Sharpe
  3. ^ What's obscene in Canada?
  4. ^ US judge rules The Tin Drum is not child pornography, David Walsh, 23 October 1998, downloaded 22 April 2007
  5. ^ Jones, L., and Finkelhor, D. (2001). The Decline in Child Sexual Abuse Cases. Bulletin. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
  6. ^ Dunne, Purdie, Cook, Boyle, & Najman (2003). "Is Child Sexual Abuse Declining? Evidence from a Population-Based Survey of Men and Women in Australia," Child Abuse & Neglect: The International Journal, 27(2):141-52
  7. ^ "Internet porn 'increasing child abuse'", Guardian Unlimited, Guardian News and Media Limited, 2004-01-12. Retrieved on 2007-06-01. (English) "Demand for child pornography on the internet has led to an increase in sex abuse cases," 
  8. ^ DCSF: Referrals, Assessments and Children and Young People who are the subject of a Child Protection Plan or are on Child Protection Registers, England - Year ending 31 March 2007

[edit] "thought crime" reference

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/india_knight/article2461236.ece

The piece above makes exactly the opposite point--that merely thinking about something is a "thought crime," but downloading porn in which children have been hurt is an act.

"You don’t need me to spell out to you the misery that innocent children endure because some disgusting maladjusted freak appears to enjoy watching them being abused. There are, as we know, a growing number of these children and the internet plays an enormous part in this. What used to remain a nebulous sexual fantasy, locked away in the head of the person having it, can now be made flesh in about three minutes. There is a huge difference between vaguely thinking something and having it acted out for your delectation." -PetraSchelm (talk) 00:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "may involve"

The problem with saying "may involve," without specifying that there is a minor subcategory of child porn which doesn't use actual children, implies that child porn using children "may or may not" involve abuse and exploitation of children, and that is not the case. Going into details about a minor subcategory gives undue weight in the lead, so the solution is to be unequivocal that the production of child pornography using children is abuse of children.-PetraSchelm (talk) 14:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Saying that all child pornography involves the exploitation of children is simply an untrue statement when one considers that there is simulated child pornography. Having "may involve" without explaining why it "may involve" is a problem. However, explaining it by pointing out that it exists does not give undue weight to simulated pornography and the reader should know about its existence even if its just a footnote. I have changed the article accordingly. If it is indeed a "subset" that can be pointed out later in the article.Mysteryquest (talk) 14:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
What you wrote, "the production of it generally involves abuse and exploitation of children, however there is some child pornography that involves simulated or computer generated images though it is still deemed illegal in the United States.[5]" is double qualified/contradictory--"however" contradicts "generally." Don't you think it would be more clear to say, "the production of it involves abuse and exploitation of children, however there is some child pornography that involves simulated images instead of actual children."  ?-PetraSchelm (talk) 14:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
No because "involves abuse and exploitation of children" would be incorrect and immediately contradicted by "involves simulated images", thus all production of child pornography does not involve abuse and exploitation of children. I do not believe that "generally" contradicts "however", "however" explains the use of "generally"Mysteryquest (talk) 15:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
What's not being made clear is that when child pornography involves real children, it always involves abuse of children; there are no exceptions to that. There is a subcategory which doesn't use actual children. (The use of "however" after "generally" doesn't even say what you want it to mean--"generally" implies that it is not always the case because there is a subcategory which is an exception to "always," "however" imples that there is an exception to "generally"--it's gramatically nonsensical).-PetraSchelm (talk) 15:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Well I respectfully disagree with you, I do not believe that the fact that the production of child pornography involving actual children is produced at the expense of those children is obscured by the fact that there is child pornography produced by simulated images that does not involve the exploitation of children. However, I have modified the statement to make it even more clear.Mysteryquest (talk) 15:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] uncited/contradictory

"the profit that can be generated from selling such images is seen as a factor in encouraging the original abuse that is photographed or filmed, however in most jurisdictions it is illegal to possess such images even if they have not been purchased." --purchasing is not the only way to generate profit on the internet.-PetraSchelm (talk) 15:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Finkelhor article

This was a finding specific to online chatroom predators, not child pornography users.-PetraSchelm (talk) 15:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


"This 2008 review article further indicates that when child pornography users go on to commit sexual offences, these are characterized by the exploitation of a relationship that is bent by the offender in the direction of sexuality, where violence is not used. The most common charge is statutory rape and other types of sexual crimes where the victim has cooperated with the behavior. [1]"

It is original research to extrapolate from chatroom predators to child porn users. While chatroom predators may also be child pornography users, they are not the sum total of child pornography users, and Finkelhor did not extend his finding about chatroom predators to child porn users in general.-PetraSchelm (talk) 16:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
What was in the prior article was just an abstract, I have found a complete copy of the article which should be reviewed to see if there was any extrapolation done.Mysteryquest (talk) 16:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
It is complete, and inaccurate extrapolation. The quote you are looking to verify is on p112: "Most offenders are charged with crimes, such as statutory rape, that involve nonforcible sexual activity with victims who are too young to consent to sexual intercourse with adults" and refers only to Finkelhor's findings on chatroom predators, and in no way to child porn users in general. Offenders=the chatroom predators in this context; that is the subject of Finkehor's article.-PetraSchelm (talk) 18:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for removing that.-PetraSchelm (talk) 19:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality

We cannot call Hitler evil, and likewise, I do not believe we can call child pornography abuse outright. The article should show that it is abuse and state that it is widely considered to constitute abuse, but I do not believe we can state outright that it IS abuse. I think the article needs to do a better job of describing why it is considered to be abuse and to show, not tell. Titanium Dragon (talk) 10:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It involves abuse by law and it is considered to involve abuse by scholars in the field. John Nevard (talk) 13:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Huh? We cannot call Hitler or Child porn evil, and I don't believe we do. To call child porn Child Sexual Abuse on the other hand is clearly highly neutral, and also common usage. We do not imply that what Hitler did was not evil by filling the article full of the perspectives of his tiny fringe minority of followers, that would be like saying some people think the holocaust was wrong and others think it was the correct thing to it, which we don't and never will do. Thanks, SqueakBox 14:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Child pornography is not, legally, child sexual abuse. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 14:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes but this isn't a legal encyclopedia. It clearly is child sexual abuse when real children are involved, this is common usage, and the removal of anything like this by fringe editors is becoming highly tedious. We are trying to write an encyclopedia not promote fringe beliefs. Thanks, SqueakBox 14:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "non-pornographic"

There is already an article on UK "indecent pseudo-photographs." Perhaps this belongs there? Or in the section of the article at the bottom where laws-by-country are discussed? (Stating that child pornography includes "non pornographic" material in the lead sentence/definition of child pornography doesn't make sense...)-PetraSchelm (talk) 22:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

or non-pornographic <ref>http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?parentActiveTextDocId=1502057&ActiveTextDocId=1502059</ref>

I'm not an expert, but British law appears to define non-pornographic images as child pornography. The Protection of Children Act is apparently a child pornography law and it requires an image to be indecent but not pornographic, if it is to be defined as child pornography. I personally agree with the edit which you reverted, but maybe others disagree. Cocktailexpert (talk) 23:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

As it stands, our definition is incomplete. I would support restoring Onevictim's version, but varied to say "pornographic and sometimes non-pornographic material depicting children." Minors would be better, actually. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 23:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The reference does not include the phrase "non-pornographic". The idea of defining pornography as non-pornographic is a bit illogical, I doubt there are any references that will support that. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] minors and children

In regards to the definitions, in the lead and in general, as with all of the various child sexual abuse articles we need to differentiate between legal issues and psychological/sociological issues. Child pornography under the law includes minors, but most people would not think of that as child porn, they would think of that as underage porn that's a problem, and that's illegal - however - pornography depicting sexual acts showing pre-pubescent children is a different matter of greater seriousness, greater abuse, greater harm to the child - both in the production of the material and in the trafficking of children that occurs as a result. Those differences must not be glossed over by focusing on laws about pornography showing "minors".

Of course, all of that needs to be sourced, I suggest no original research. That's an outline for where this needs to go. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Outside Wikipedia, the only people whom I've seen stress a distinction between prepubescent and and adolescent porn were criminals rationalizing their "jailbait" addiction. The distinction apparently isn't important enough for statutes to take it into consideration.
I agree that a source is necessary to support your claim that most people do not consider underage pornography child pornography. Until that source is found, we should use the term "minors." --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 15:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Then I must say that you are an extremely narrow minded and arrogant individual and, most probably, a troll, as evidenced by your extremely immature wiki-linking tactic. To clear up a few points, a large proportion of people who download adolescent porn are underage. That's right, they're just looking for girls their own age. Of course, in this great country that makes no difference to the courts. But then in a country that would label every practically teenager under a certain age either a child pornographer or a rapist, you have to ask yourself, who is really in the wrong here? Perhaps the real crime is to not draw the distinction between "jailbait" and actual child pornography. Even other than the obvious difference of actually being sexually developed, the circumstances of production are completely different (I don't suppose you realise that 99% of teenage "child porn" is produced by the "victims" themselves?). Hell, I's link you to both to prove a point, so you could see the differnce for yourself, but it'd just get deleted. -212.227.29.8 (talk) 00:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely not. Herostratus (talk) 02:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Have a look at Ephebophilia. There is a distinction made in some mental health literature between pre-puberty and puberty aged sexual attraction, but whether this is significant other than being precise in labelling deviant sexual attraction (the psychiatric literature also defines "male oriented pedophilia" and female oriented, but they are all still legally children). I don't know if the distinction makes any difference between effects on those exploited and abused, and I don't think any laws make such a distinction. "Child" is a legal definition within this article, not used as a label for level of development socially, psychologicall or physically. One could imagine that growing up immersed in sexual exploitation would be more impactful than being exploited in early teenage years, but without a source to say it is so, we need to go with the legal definition that persons under a certain age depicted sexually constitutes child pornography. The most I would accept here is to add a sentence legally defining a child as under a specific age. --Fremte (talk) 16:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
This is a quote from the Department of Justice reference:

Because legal definitions of both child and pornography differ considerably among jurisdictions, for research purposes child pornography is often defined broadly as any record of sexual activity involving a prepubescent person.

--Jack-A-Roe (talk) 17:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Florida law

Florida is introducing legislation that would make it possible for child victims to sue in civil court for up to $150,000 for each instance of use of their image by anyone convicted of downloading, viewing, or disseminating it:[6]-PetraSchelm (talk) 15:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DOJ quote/internet

Should be a block quote obviously, not deleted--very useful and relevant summary. Also re internet, it has resulted in massive increase; not sure why that word was removed. The word DOJ used was "explosion." And the internet is used as a means both to produce and reproduce child pornography--webcams are used to stream abuse in real time: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/nov/04/childrensservices.childprotection. -PetraSchelm (talk) 23:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Quotes are discouraged in favour of summaries. I wouldn't be opposed be opposed to qualifying "increase" with "massive," but explosion is unencyclopedic. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 23:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
The block quote would be very helpful, as the internet explosion is absolutely central to the subject of child pornography. It's a huge omission not to make that clear in the article. It can certainly be be added to later, or reduced as more sources are found for the article. As it stands, it does an excellent job of providing a summary, and reducing it to a sentence doesn't summarize the topic, it's gives an extremely inaccurate impression of the WP:WEIGHT of the internet in relation to child porn. "Explosion" is used in the quote (and many other articles) I don't know what you mean by "unencyclopedic." It seems another way to misprepresent weight to omit/object to the word.-PetraSchelm (talk) 00:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
The rest of the quote besides what is included in my summary doesn't really have much value -- the "explosion" of child pornography is already described. We don't need to stretch its description into two paragraphs, pointless except perhaps to make the section look a little longer... which we can accomplish instead by adding information of substance.
And "explosion" is a metaphorical term that belongs in tabloids, not an encyclopedia. "Massive increase" is fine. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 00:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
The DOJ is not a tabloid. I think a section of the quote belongs, but I like what Jack is doing with the internet paragraph (and there should definitely be a paragraph or two; as explained, the internet is abolutely central to child porn now).-PetraSchelm (talk) 00:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
User:AnotherSolipsist, which Wikipedia policy tells us that the word "explosion" is unencyclopedic? Since it's WP:Verifiable from a reliable source, it's not our job to declare them unencyclopedic.
While we're considering the word "explosion", the CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children said it this way: "The fact that child pornography can be purchased using a credit card, or traded at no cost on the Internet, is causing an exploding global problem and an immeasurable impact on the sexual exploitation of children.” - so, that's at least two reliable sources using that same word.
The whole block quote may be a bit too much, though a shorter quote for context would be appropriate, and we certainly need a better summary of the DOJ statement. I support the inclusion of the term "explosion" in the context of the quote, since that's what the DOJ official said. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Poetic terminology like "explosion" may be appropriate for tracts -- such as those of the DOJ and NCMEC -- but it still isn't encyclopedic. I don't really care, though.
Specific statistics do not belong in the introduction, nor does mention of the U.S. Department of Justice. This is supposed to be written from an international perspective: Noting that law enforcement, in general, is targeting online distribution of child pornography is more inclusive of other efforts.
The multi-billion figure is baseless propaganda (see [7][8][9]) We should not repeat such a controversial, unreliable claim in the introduction. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 01:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
You have cited a Wall Street Journal article, and two blogs which repeated the WSJ article; so that's one reference, not three. Further, what the WSJ says is that the number may not be 20 billion, it is probably "multi-billion." Since Jack put "multi-billion" in the article, I'm not sure what your point is. No doubt it is difficult to estimate the dollar amounts involved in crime, as criminals do not generally report their income to the IRS. But we have estimates from reliable sources for drugs and crime, and there is no reason not to use them. (Although I suppose the sleeper sockpuppet called "Thegreatchildpornhoax," who was blocked yesterday-- along with the other three socks trolling this article--might have agreed with the extreme fringe view that the DOJ and NCMEC are instruments of "propaganda." )-PetraSchelm (talk) 17:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
This is quite irrelevant given the evidence. Lambton T/C 21:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree--the WSJ cite AS has provided is irrelevant, given the evidence provided by NMCEC, which Jack put in the article.-PetraSchelm (talk) 21:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of child pornography in relation to pornogaphy in which children are not used

I believe we are mixing up several subcategories of child pornography in which real children are not used, giving them undue weight, and mistakenly conflating them with the defintion of child pornography itself. This reference [10] points out that "computer manipulated pornography" means something different from "simulated pornography." I think we need to make a distinction between child pornography and the subcategories which include computer manipulated child pornography (computer altered or wholly computer generated), simulated child pornography (adults who look like children) and cartoons. In addition to separating and naming "computer manipulated child pornography" from child pornography, the reference also addresses regulation and legal issues, and does a good job of explaining the two sides of the controversy. Note also that INTERPOL and other countries besides the US (and the UK) regulate computer manipulated child pornography. I think the below passages from the reference should be paraphrased, added to with other references etc., but the gist overall and organization scheme should be replicated in the article, and not at the top, where it would give computer manipulated child pornography undue weight. Child pornography is the subject of the article, and computer manipulated child pornography is a niche subcategory of child pornography, not notable because it is a large percentage of child pornography, but because of the legal controversies surrounding it.-PetraSchelm (talk) 17:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


Regulation of Computer Manipulated Pornography

Since the advent of computer manipulated child pornography, several countries have passed legislation supporting an expanded definition of child pornography which includes "simulated" child pornography (where the person depicted is considered an adult by law but is obviously portraying a child) or "pseudo" child pornography which can be computer manipulated or computer generated pornography. In the United Kingdom, the law explicitly prohibits "pseudo-photographs." In Austria, the law prohibits not only real child pornography, but also material that suggests to an objective spectator that its production involved the sexual abuse of a child. Similar statutes in the Netherlands and in Canada could be applied to computer generated pornography. In the United States, the current federal child pornography statutes and most state statutes apply only to depictions of actual children and not "pseudo" or computer generated pornography. The state of Virginia, however, has passed a statute which criminalises simulated child pornography in which "a person who is depicted as or presents the appearance of being less than eighteen years of age in sexually explicit visual material is prima facie presumed to be less than eighteen years of age." (Code of Virginia 18.2-374.1). The same statute includes computer generated reproductions. INTERPOL adopted a resolution that recommends all countries enact legislation that criminalises child pornography and that such legislation should include "future forms of support such as computers and other virtual representations." The passage of such legislation in many countries is controversial because it directly challenges the right to freedom of expression which is highly valued, particularly by the computer on-line community.

Legal Issues Raised by the Regulation of Computer Child Pornography

The possibility of creating computer generated pornography has produced a myriad of additional legal issues that are difficult to resolve. Civil libertarians argue that if computer generated pornography involves no real child victim, laws based on protecting children would no longer apply and regulation would be an unwarranted restriction of free speech. They argue that because there is no absolute scientific data that demonstrates a causal connection between the use of child pornography and the commission of crimes against children, there is no reason to restrict its transmission on the Internet. They might also point out the difficulty of determining the "age" of a "child" depicted in a computer generated image.

Child advocates voice the position that the harm of child pornography extends far beyond the individual victim. They assert that children as a whole are the victims of computer generated pornography which displays child victims as sexual objects. Many law enforcement officers argue that the harm reaches beyond the individual child when pornography is used to seduce other children. They add that neglecting to prohibit computer generated child pornography could well re-establish the commercial trade--filling bookstores with computer generated images, de-sensitising society and fuelling demand for such material. Additionally, if it becomes impossible to distinguish computer generated pornography from that which depicts an actual child, prosecution of " genuine" child pornography would become virtually impossible and child pornographers would be furnished with another avenue of defence.

--- from Child pornography: an international perspective; Computer Crime Research Center


I've noticed this also - to avoid WP:UNDUE the information about simulated or computer-generated child porn needs to be separated into a separate section where it can be address with the relevant concerns such as differences in legal status and its relation to child abuse.

Computer-generated porn, while growing in prevalence, is only a very small fraction of child porn on the internet. Some concerns overlap, but some are completely different. There is zero controversy that child pornography produced with the use of real children is an act of sexual abuse against the child involved in the production, and that abuse is compounded by the distribution of the photo because the child knows and will know as an adult that those photos exist and can never be destroyed because they are so widely distributed.

Mentioning computer-generated porn in the context of discussing sexual abuse of children resulting from production and distribution of child pornography is a major distraction. This article currently is far from NPOV and needs to be reorganized to resolve the undue weight. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 17:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, "virtual child pornography" isn't a catch-all synonym for the various kinds of computer manipulated child pornography--they really need to be distinguished in their own section. "Virtual" implies wholly unreal, whereas some computer manipulated child pornography involves real children and/or perpetrators morphed slightly to make them harder to identify. In the 2007 INTERPOL case of the Canadian man, he altered his own image in the pornography he produced, but with image analysis, INTERPOL was able to detect his manipulations and produce an identifiable picture of him.-PetraSchelm (talk) 18:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Do you have a citation to "virtual" pornography which is created my manipulating the images of actual children? The Interpol case you cite involved the manipulation of the pornographer's image in order to make it difficult to identify him. I have defined "virtual" pornography in the article as pornography which appears to but does not depict children which I feel is an accurate definition per the present sources in the article.Mysteryquest (talk) 20:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
My understanding of the US law, noted in the reference I just added, is that morphed pictures are still illegal, even if a child wasn't abused (such as pasting the head of a real child on on a naked body). "Computer manipulated" is a more comprehensive, less imprecise and slang term than "virtual," and the various kinds of computer manipulated (including what may be only hypothetically possible wholly computer generated pornography) could be addressed in a section on computer manipulated pornography. Also, legal controversies therein and other countries, as described above.-PetraSchelm (talk) 21:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wholly computer generated child pornography

This statement asserts that it is produced:

"However, except when it is produced with computer-generated images..."

So we need a citation that any has been produced. Just because it is hypothetically legal, doesn't mean it exists. (And if you can find a reference, also one indicating the percentage/prevalence.)-PetraSchelm (talk) 21:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that the citations provided allow us to make that statement as it stands now. We are writing more specifically about the law, which is clearly cited and verified, rather than debating the existence of the material that the law was designed to regulate. In other words, the law exists even if purely virtual kiddie-porn doesn't. Doc Tropics 21:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I didn't put in that sentence, however if that part of the sentence needs a reference, then the entire sentence needs a reference including the portion saying that children are exploited by the production of child pornography, which is obvious. Of course the Supreme Court, struck down the law that outlawed "computer-generated images ... etc. Nobody would have brought a case to the supreme court to defend a phenomena that doesn't exist. Thus, it exists, and citations to the various news accounts and the actual Supreme Court decision I believe are sufficient to establish its existence. Furthermore, if child pornography is produced without the involvement of actual children, one can easily argue that it doesn't involve the exploitation of children and again, the Supreme Court stated it doesn't or it wouldn't have struck that portion of law down. The prevalence and percentage of computer generated images are not relevant to its actual existence. Additionally, even if morphing a child's face on a body is still illegal per the Seattle Times article, are children being exploited in its production? They are being exploited perhaps by the aftermath of its production, i.e., the theft of their image and the presumption that they were exploited, a "after the fact" exploitation if you will. However, they weren't actually exploited in the actual production.Mysteryquest (talk) 21:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
The law does in fact deal with abstracts and hypotheticals, so we will need references attesting to the existence of wholly computer generated child pornography (especially as we have a reliable source who says there isn't a shred of evidence that it exists.) I can't find any reference attesting that it does, but there may be one. The L.A. pornographers who brought the Supreme Court case very much wanted there to be an exploitable loophole in prosecuting child pornography, not to defend any extant wholly computer generated pornography they were producing. The case is about where the burden of proof lies--must the defendent prove real children were not used, or must the prosecution prove that real children were used? The case wasn't about any specific pornography, it was about the burden of proof.-PetraSchelm (talk) 22:31, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Here is a case that involved "child pornography" which was computer generated.Mysteryquest (talk) 01:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
That case is about a man who generated fake porn using the image of a real person, not wholly computer generated porn. That's still illegal/not really virtual. (I think it's against the law to do that to adults, under invasion of privacy laws...)-PetraSchelm (talk) 03:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lead and "Undue Weight"

I feel that the statement that "The legal status of simulated child pornography is unclear in many countries, with recent legislation and court challenges continuing;" is shading the truth when the the 2002 Supreme Court ruling clearly stated that simulated pornography was not illegal. It would seem to me that the legal status of simulated child pornography is settled in the U.S. for the moment and there is no reason to dance around that fact. I don't believe explaining this is giving "undue" weight or "too much detail. Either the statement that the "legal status of simulated child pornography is unclear" should be removed or it should be countered by the statement that the legal status of simulated child pornography in the U.S. is clear. That would be more NPOV.Mysteryquest (talk) 01:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I changed the sentence in the intro, made it simpler but also included examples from other countries. HI hope you like the update. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 02:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
LOL, its excellent!Mysteryquest (talk) 02:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Cool, glad you agree. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 02:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] considering a split of this article

I'm starting to think this article needs to be split into two topics, with a separate page for Virtual child pornography instead of having that redirect here.

There are many reasons this could be a good idea. So far virtual child porn is a small part of the child porn universe. But as the tech gets cheaper and easier to use, it will become more common and the controversies will escalate also. Along with that, there will be more other kinds of virtual porn too, such as what happened in the Second Life online game recently.

By separating the articles, the main article on child porn can focus on the child abuse issues, which are at the core of why it's such a huge problem for society; the other article can explore the ideas of how virtual child pornography that does not involve children may affect society, and the legal issues involved.

There may be some overlap but that's OK, many articles have overlapping content.

There is still a lot of info to add to this article - so it's going to become larger anyway, for example, info on organized crime; child trafficking for pornography; uses of child pornography (ie, its used for Child grooming)

Just a thought, not a formal proposal yet; something to consider. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 02:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, there is this already, which has a section on child porn:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_Internet_pornography. There's also a wiki article "Indecent pseudo photograph of a child." Maybe virtual child porn should redirect to indecent pseudo photograph? And/or Indecent pseudo photograph could be expanded and renamed virtual porn and vastly improved. That article needs attention, and no editors seem to be watching or improving it.-PetraSchelm (talk) 02:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Good point, those need a lot of work too. After I wrote the suggestion above, I thought about it some more, and I'm not sure which is the best way to proceed. Meanwhile, maybe it'll become more clear as this article improves as the missing sections and content are added. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Deletion of sources

Cole, I know you just started editing Wikipedia only today, so you may not be aware that deleting sources is not acceptable. Please replace all the sources you deleted from the introduction.-PetraSchelm (talk) 19:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that wasn't intentional. I have found a way to replace the references. Cole Dealton (talk) 19:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ideas for new article sections

Topic areas for improving and expanding this article:

  • Uses of child pornography - including how pedophiles value their collections and how child abusers use child pornography in the process of Child grooming
  • Consumers of child pornography - references and statistics re: pedophilia and child sexual abuse offenders
  • Producers of child pornography- references and statistics re: pedophilia and child sexual abuse offenders; organized crime, bedroom cottage industries, private traders of personal collections
  • Types of child pornography - there is a range of obscenity in child porn with scales defined in law enforcement and by researchers, from so-called "child erotica" (photos of clothed children, generally legal, that pedophiles find erotic), to recorded images of varying levels of child sexual abuse, to the most abhorrent forms including acts of sadistic sexual violence upon children (it's hard to even think about that to report it, but it does exist and law enforcement agencies document it).

As a separate note, it may be useful to retitle the article on Child modeling (erotic) to Child erotica and link to an improved version of that article from this one. I've checked it out and there seem to be plenty of references available. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 19:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I know that the huge "Wonderland" child pornography ring that was busted not so long ago had a membership entrance requirement of 10,000 pictures that had to be uploaded for other users to view--I saw that in my research a day or so ago. Also, something about abusers making "home grown" child porn to impress other people in forums--a way of both achieving status in the group, and obtaining trust so that people will send them porn. I think collecting/producing/trading overlap? Or maybe there should be a short subsection on child pornography as a social means of exchange among pedophiles (that results in more porn/is a motive for producing it)? -PetraSchelm (talk) 20:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Paedophile more reliable than a sexologist and judge?

That's what Petra claims, despite mountains of evidence indicating that child sex offenders tend to justify their abusive behavior by, for instance, saying "there is no way I [could not abuse a child]." The cognitive distortion of a single child molester should not be given the weight of a such a long quote. The fact that he's a sex offender rationalizing his crime aside, anecdotal evidence is notoriously unreliable. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 21:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe he was in therapy at the time to deal with cognitive distortions, of which denial is one. (Honesty/confessing is part of sex offender treatment.) It's from a reliable source; your opinion of the source is not relevant, that's OR. Both the judge and the therapist are equally anecdotal--we're reporting individual opinions, not studies. (Which is perhaps a flaw). But, there are two sides to the issue, and I believe they are 50-50 (or less, tilted 60/40 towards research that says porn promotes offending, especially if there was a prior offense--definitely in the ASTA literature, using porn is *not* advisable for pedophiles in relapse prevention CBT treatment). The question at this point is, since we have two anecdotal representatives of the view that porn use sublimates the desire to offend, should we eliminate the only anecdotal representative of the opposite view? I would say no, that is not NPOV, in the extreme. Also it is sourced information, which you should not be deleting at all, defintitely not based on your own opinion vs. the source (and especially not if it creates a pov imbalance).-PetraSchelm (talk) 21:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Petra, this is the kind of thing that you would not be having, if it worked in the other direction. I see no reason for using these anecdotes. Please be more balanced in your editing. Lambton T/C 21:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Anecdotes are fine when they are on-topic, not creating a synthesis, and based on a reliable source - as in this situation. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Anecdotal evidence, by definition, describes an incident. Neither the judge nor the sexologist use anecdotal evidence. They also fail to cite scientific evidence in support of their opinions, which is unfortunate, but in step with the rest of this article (considering we recite the NCMEC's outrageous claims that child pornography is a "multi-billion dollar industry" that represents "approximately one fifth of all pornography traded over the internet").
Even in my revision, the opinion that child pornography incites abuse is given much more space than Weiss and the judge's statements: "One perspective is that exposure to child pornography stimulates and provokes criminal sexual intent that otherwise would not exist. Exposure to child pornography might heighten desire and motivation to act on urges by decreasing internal restraints. Anonymity (or belief that anonymity exists) may further loosen the internal restraints, such that the individual "practices" molestation in the imagination, facilitated by still or moving images, which makes actual criminal sexual behaviour with children more probable if the person was already sexually motivated toward children, or, by creating new sexual interests in children . The review article states that these are plausible hypotheses, but that there is a lack of clarity as to the general applicability of these mechanisms." --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 21:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the direct quote from someone who is attesting to his own experience--not speculating in the abstract about others--adds a lot to the article and should remain. It is not our job to suppress the views of pedophiles here on Wikipedia.-PetraSchelm (talk) 21:43, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Petra. If we are to include these tabloid-like anecdotes, we would have to balance them with counter comments. One example would be Dr. Nigel Leigh Oldfield who appeared on the UK TV news show, "Newsnight" and claimed that he would not have abused regardless of circumstances. Another would be [11] Lambton T/C 23:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC).
Jovin, are you saying The New York Times is a tabloid?-PetraSchelm (talk) 23:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Compared to an encyclopedia, yes. Lambton T/C 06:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Uh, no. Reread RS. The NYT is a definitively desirable and reliable source.-PetraSchelm (talk) 19:30, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
The NYT is RS for many things, Petra. It is also to an encyclopedia what a tabloid is to itself. The anecdotes are "tabloid", and are not needed. Lambton T/C 14:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Discussion of the ArbCom pedophile userbox case and its repercussions for pedophiles editing Wikipedia 

[edit] Victimless crime

The ref in the article is from 2001, which pre-dates the appeal court judge ruling the same year establishing that child pornography is most certainly not considered a victimless crime in the UK: [12]. Another reference could perhaps be used, but the one currently in the article gives a misleading impression of British law, because it is outdated/obsolete. (+ pro/con arguments would both need to be included to address the idea of "victimless crime").-PetraSchelm (talk) 19:30, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] recent addition of OR to the article

This was recently added to the article : "It is currently unknown whether the viewing of child pornography has a causative influence on contact offences against children, or whether the association found in some studies can be attributed to a common cause, such as sex drive." IMO, this is OR and should be deleted. ResearchEditor (talk) 03:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I have removed it for the second time. Not only is it unsourced but it does not actually say anything, if something is unknown we do not want it in the article. Thanks, SqueakBox 03:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I have removed that several times as well. There's another OR sentence that precedes the NYT quote that various Tor nodes and company have all been reinserting also.-PetraSchelm (talk) 03:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Concur that the removed sentence is original research and does not belong in the article. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
It's not original research. It states what is not known. From the following sources, it is clear that we know none of these things. When an association has been established, and we do not know what caused it, common cause for both factors is a natural possibility, and in this case sex drive is a possible common cause. This is pretty obvious stuff and amounts to nothing else but a logical, informative reader friendly expansion of the article and introduaction to an issue.
Once again, excessive misinterpretations of policy, and pseudo-scholarly practise are being used to remove anything that may upset the subjective beliefs of certain editors. Selective and highly excessive source requests can be used like a gun to the head. Lambton T/C 14:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
It's complete original research/uncited opinion.-PetraSchelm (talk) 15:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Or stating the obvious when someone else wants to create an alternative "truth". Lambton T/C 20:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
As an encyclopedia we deal in the known, not the unknown. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] moved from article - obsolete/dubious text from unreliable source

The following sentence moved here from the intro for discussion. Content is dubious and obsolete, a fringe theory; source is completely unreliable:

In the Netherlands, when child pornography was legal, it made up 1% of all pornography sales. < footnote: Schuijer Jan, Rossen B. (1992). "The Trade in Child Pornography," Issues In Child Abuse Accusations, 4(2). >

The above text does not belong in the article because the source is unreliable, and even if it the website were reliable, it's not a peer-reviewed study, and the information is obsolete (pre-dates the internet that is the nexus of child pornography). The information is particularly dubious in that the Netherlands was one of the main centers of pro-pedophile activism during the time that the paper describes - it is completely contrary to the most basic common sense that in the center of pedophile activisim, child pornography would have been tiny compared to its documented prevalence in the rest of the world.

The source is unreliable because it's the website of two people who have made controversial (and attention-generating) statements about pedophilia in an interview published in Paidika - here is the link to the Paidika interview. Here is the link to the IPT website founders' page. They later denied condoning adult-child sex. This is a quote from the late Ralph Underwager, from the Paidika interview:

Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love. I am also a theologian and as a theologian, I believe it is God's will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of the flesh, between people. A paedophile can say: "This closeness is possible for me within the choices that I've made."

(Their IPT website does not appear to include the full text of their own interview in Paidika). --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC) -- re-edited my comment for accuracy per WP:BLP. The quoted statement above from the late R. Underwager is from a published interview, so BLP does not apply regarding the quote. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 19:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

This should not be reinserted. Thanks, SqueakBox 03:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Completely unreliable fringe source.-PetraSchelm (talk) 03:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
No, your poisoning of authors is not a valid argument. Both were distinguished professional careers and association arguments fall flat the moment they are uttered.
You are attempting to foist off your subjective bias as scholarly prudence. It doesn't work. Lambton T/C 14:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment on content, not on contributors. Accusing everybody else of "bias" doesn't make an unreliable source reliable, and isn't an argument.-PetraSchelm (talk) 19:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
It's behavioural criticism, not the use of personal attacks and poisoning against other editors or established authors - as we have seen elsewhere. Lambton T/C 20:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
They're both completely unreliable fringe sources--take it up at the RS board if consensus is against you but you think more input would be helpful (instead of insulting everyone who doesn't agree with you).-PetraSchelm (talk) 21:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Applauds irony. Lambton T/C 17:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] misleading section

Why is this being continually reinserted without discussion--it's a straw man section. Someone misinterpreted the NCH quote, and built rebuttals around it. It's irrelevant and misleading/fallacy of correlation--there are documented reasons for the decrease in sex offenses against children (like tripling the incarceration rate of offenders). The decrease of the offense rate cannot be correlated out of context this way to suggest that the increase of porn exists in a vacuum in relation to the decrease of the offense rate.-PetraSchelm (talk) 05:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Child_pornography#NCH_quote.3B_text_reinserted_by_sockpuppet

Every study cited in that section is correlational, including the studies added by yourself. There has never been a study which has established a causal link, nor has there been a study which has established the lack of a causal link.

The paragraph in question is not misleading at all. NCH said that there would be an increase in child sex abuse cases due to the prevalence of child pornography, but government figures show no such relationship. That is relevant to a section which discusses the effects of child pornography on the prevalence of child sexual abuse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.194.46.199 (talk) 12:20, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

No, as I pointed out in the discussion that is linked, the NCH said due to the increase of pornography, more children would be abused to produce the pictures, not more children would be abused. They were not making a prediction about the effect of pornography on the sex offense rate; they stated the obvious: more porn=more children used to make porn. Someone misquoted the NCH, and then tacked on four studies to refute the misreading of the quote. We already have info in the article about the unknown relationship between porn and the overall sex offense rate. Studies which point out that the sex offense rate has decreased are off-topic, and in order to include them we would have to go further off-topic by contextualizing them, to demonstrate that the sex offense rate has gone down for a multitude of factors, chief amongst them the tripled incarceration of sex offenders against children. It's a hugely false implication that the sex offense rate going down is correlated with the increase of porn. (It's like saying that since the number of pirates has decreased while global warming has increased, the decrease in the number of pirates is responsible for global warming. It's a correlative fallacy).-PetraSchelm (talk) 14:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I understand the weaknesses of correlational data, however it's the only data which we have, and the majority of correlational data in the article was added by you. It seems you only wish to remove correlational data if it contrasts with your POV. 81.169.168.201 (talk) 19:03, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

So, you're not only a Tor sockpuppet, but you have no idea what the difference is between epidemiological research (a study of child porn as a factor in the sex offense rate would have to control for every other factor but child porn) and correlational data (studying sex offenders and porn much simpler question). You have been reverted by someone else. And please stop trolling the article via various Tor nodes, we don't want to have to semi-protect it.-PetraSchelm (talk) 19:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] OR

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Child_pornography&oldid=211069164

By using only a clinical source to describe "child pornography" (use, production, distribution?) as "abuse", editors are engaging in original research, as abuse goes beyond the clinical and into the legal, where it varies from one jurisdiction to another. For example, what child porn (and therefore abusive production) is, varies from state to state. Much of the solo-non contact yet tittilating CP still avialable was produced legally abroad decades ago.

A failure to attribute opinions also leads to a lack of neutrality, and a gold rush to find sources that one can use to falsely establish epistemological fact.

And it is most unhelpful when other editors accuse OR of someone who is removing these blatant assumptions from the article and softening the tone. This just leads to back and forth quoting of policy - a tiresome practise that neglects the fact that everyone has a different interpreation of policy, and indeed, sometimes quite a distorted interpretation - for example "take the centre POV as given" as applied to WP:NPOV. Lambton T/C 17:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Any information about how child porn used to be legal should go in the laws section, or a new section called "child porn before the internet" (which I've been thinking should be added) not the lead. Child porn generally wasn't legal in the Netherlands, etc, where the center of production was in the 70s, it just wasn't a prosecution priority. (Just like the Netherlands only recently decriminalized prostitution. People think it was legal because it wasn't prosecuted, but it wasn't legal until very recently.) So find your sources for the laws/history section very carefully.-PetraSchelm (talk) 18:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
You appear to have a very poor understanding of the law. For instance if someone were caught in possession with what you claim to be legally produced child porn today in the UK they would be in contravention of UK law and prosecuted for it. Its like saying "well, officer, the cannabis in my possession was produced in Bangladesh, where its production is legal, and thus I am not breaking the law". if you cannot show that child porn is legal somewhere today the fact that it was allegedly produced legally is not a legal argument. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I would also add that trying to insert this alleged legality of CP in the opening sentences appears to be quite extreme POV pushing of non-notable material and I am wondering what your motivation is. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:06, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Rubbish. It is a fact that the production of large quantities of now illegal CP was not considered abusive by the law. Therefore, we can't call all CP an act of abuse, as the only given effect on the child is production (there may be others, but these are far from given and are irrelevant). Your Bangladeshi analogy is strikingly ethnocentric. This encyclopedia is not written for the UK only. Lambton T/C 15:11, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The entire UN, + Interpol condemns child porn. It's overwhelmingly globally condemned. Anything about the history of child porn belongs in history, not the definition now.-PetraSchelm (talk) 17:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

If I understand the debate here, it is that in the past there were no specific laws against child pornography. True, but this does not mean that it was ever legal; for example, in Canada, there have always been offences against public morals. At one point, such laws were interpreted to forbid specific photographic depictions of pubic hair and intercourse. The lawmakers have responded to changed conditions with the rise of the internet, and have written new specific laws because they felt a need for a specific response because they connected pornography with child exploitation. So never legal, just not responded to with specific laws before because conditions in the world made it quite rare. A parallel: before the first plane hijackings in the 1970s there were no specific laws against hijacking, but it was never legal to take people hostage, threaten them with bombs and guns etc. Fremte (talk) 18:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Denmark

Child "erotica"--sexual posing not depicting sex acts--is legal in Denmark. (Which is a factoid that belongs in the laws section and/or the child erotica article).-PetraSchelm (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

http://www.redbarnet.dk/Default.aspx?ID=1951

There are variations accross the globe and throughout history. Hard CP production was once legal in Denmark for example. We cannot go with the vague assumption that "all CP is abuse", as the only guaranteed source of material cause-effect on the child is production, and much of this production was considered non-abusive and legal at the time. Lambton T/C 15:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fremte's edit

Re this edit: [13]--Ken Lanning (who isn't "one FBI agent--but an expert in child porn/sexual abuse) is quoted merely about collecting, not the connection between collecting and offending. The review article sentence is already in the article elsewhere, where offending is discusssed.-PetraSchelm (talk) 19:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Your point is taken, and maybe it has to do with how this is written versus what is said: it leads to the connection to actual behaviour in the wording. Maybe put under "Internet Proliferation" rather than "Relationship to Overall Offence Rate". That is where I started my perception of what this is about. Please edit if you think it is right. --Fremte (talk) 20:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Tks for response. The section is still under development (maybe it should have the "pls expand" tag?) Up above on this page, Jack-A-Roe has made suggestions for what we can expand. My intention in starting the collection section is to address collecting, not the relationship between porn and offending. Could you move the review article stuff back to the secion that addresses relationship of porn to offending? If there's something you'd like to add that directly addresses collecting, like I said, the section is under development and needs expansion so that would really improve the article. (It's difficult to completely separate each section/there is overlap, but the collecting section shouldn't repeat verbatim what is said elsewhere in the article about another section, I don't think. Also, I parsed the Lanning quote to completely exclude everything he said about the relationship between porn and offending, because it was useful info about collecting by itself/trying to find quotes/info on collecting, which is a different and distinct phenomena from just viewing. Some merely view; some heavily collect.-PetraSchelm (talk) 20:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I moved the section to where it might go better. What do you think? This is quite a complex area - it is about behaviour with pictures, what behaviour that behaviour is connected to (ie offending) and then the issues with legal response. Thanks! -Fremte (talk) 16:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the move; good call, Fremte.-PetraSchelm (talk) 17:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disruptive Edit

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Child_pornography&oldid=211235118

Removed material without consensus and described the other editor's behaviour as "vandalism", when it actually made additions to the article. There is nothing in the books that say numerical IP editors' contributions are any less worthy, that they are necessarily more "anonymous", or that "anonymous" editors can be trampled on by a charging-bull edit policy. This kind of behaviour is very likely to be reported to an administrator if it continues. One editor has already been warned and given an ultimatum over it. Lambton T/C 15:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a good call to me, what is suspicious is you tag teaming with open proxies in order to insert your POV into the article, that is disruptive, though heaven knows not the first time. Your definition of disruptive is anything you and the open proxies do not agree with. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
In fact, I think that characterises your behaviour perfectly. Anyway, this is not for discussion here. Please report my editing if you feel suspicious. Lambton T/C 15:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
What describes my behaviour? Making a good call? Well, sure. Of course any tag team suspicions need to be dealt with here, given the anon edits, it makes them appear to be your socks. But as you should know by now I am not an admin I am a simple editor and policing this site is absolutely not a part of my voluntary work here. As an editor my concern is NPOV and thus the tag teaming strikes me as odd precisely because it is being done to promote a fringe POV not to promote an NPOV article. Oh, and by the way you do not set the agenda on this discussion page, sorry15:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
SqueakBox, I do not care who sets the agenda, as long as progress is made. All I can say is that little comment might just reveal an anxiety of yours, I dont't know (seemed rather uncalled for to me). The "tag team" comments, etc are subjective - it's exactly what "the other side" are doing. What I am trying to do is pick out behaviour that is disruptive in itself, and justify why. Again, please report me if you are suspicious of anything at all; I would prefer it to the onslaught of insubstantial comments on article talk. Lambton T/C 15:56, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we are all very suspicious, after this article has been trolled for days by Tor sockpuppets which have all been blocked, of an IP editor who makes a single edit to replicate their edits, and call us pov-pushers. Further, the IP edit put OR in the article: "There is currently no reliable data examining that possible relationship between the use of child pornography and the commission of contact sex offences against children. Previous research has been limited to correlational studies and interviews with dual offenders." You then attached a ref to the OR which does not support the statement. I have summarized some of what the source said and put it in three places in the article. The continued edit warring by Tors, whom East.718 believes may be banned editor Voice of Britain, to change the name of the "relationship to sex offending" section "anecdotal material," has not been discussed and is not acceptable. The National District Attorneys Association is not "anecdotal material," for example. I have noted on AnotherSolilpsist't talkpage that you have been edit warring in tandem with socks to do things such as insert a pro-pedophile website with no known author (which is not even a reliable source for the pro-pedophile activism article). I do think this is adding up to disruptive editing on your part, and that rather than accusing John Nevard of making a "disruptive edit" for reverting you, that you should stop, or I will have to mention it to Herostratus. I would prefer that you just stop, though, and discuss any changes you would like to make instead of edit warring in tandem with socks and insulting people in your edit summaries and talkpage subject headers.-PetraSchelm (talk) 16:46, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I propose

That the following introduction is biased:

Child pornography refers to pornographic material depicting children. It is a type of child sexual abuse;[2] children are sexually abused in the production of child pornography when sexual acts are photographed, and the effects of the abuse are compounded by the wide distribution of the photographs of the abuse.[3] Legal definitions of child pornography generally refer to any pornography involving a minor, varying by jurisdiction with regards to the age of consent. For research purposes, child pornography often refers to any recording (photograph, video, or audio) of sexual activity or sexual posing involving a prepubescent child.[3]

It has an ethnocentric and clinical bias by using just one source to support the assertion that all "CP" (I assume production?) is "abuse", when in fact, what may be considered CP in one country was not produced "abusively" under the law of its country or era of production. Nor is the abuse assertion attributed to law or clinical opinion. It stands as a judgement, when we all know just how much adolescent "CP" constitutes a grey area.

It is ethnocentrically and epistemologically biased by claiming that the effects are compounded by distribution, and using one american source to back this up. Again, very poor understanding of encyclopedic language; attribution required.

I propose that the following replaces it:

Child pornography refers to pornographic material depicting children. Under the law, and in a clinical setting, it's production is a type of child sexual abuse.[2] However, the exact definition of child pornography has varied over time[3] and place, making the interpretation of abusive production less than consistent. According to the US Department of Justice, the effects of the abuse are compounded by the wide distribution of child pornography.[3] Legal definitions of child pornography generally refer to any pornography involving a minor, varying by jurisdiction with regards to the age of consent. For research purposes, child pornography often refers to any recording (photograph, video, or audio) of sexual activity or sexual posing involving a prepubescent child.[3]

The following can also be used as a source for variability over time and place: [14]Lambton T/C 15:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

What your proposal leaves out is that it isn't just "under the law, and in a clinical setting"--the entire UN and society in general all over the world consider it child abuse, too. The reverse is true, in other words, you would be introducing inaccurate bias by implying that it is only legally and "clinically" child abuse. Further, this article is focused on child porn, not teen porn, and that has been argued ad nauseum.-PetraSchelm (talk) 17:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The version proposed by Lambton looks pretty accurate and neutral, and it has my approval. One of the difficulties I have with the contested version presented at the top of this section is that having the word "abuse" appear four times in various forms within the first sentence is a bit of an overkill. Maybe there's a way to compromise between these two versions? ~ Homologeo (talk) 00:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd go with the version proposed by Lambton at this time. Although this discussion needs to be archived as it is very long and may cause problems for wikipedians lacking current technology Nk.sheridan   Talk 01:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I would agree with PetraSchelm above, that "the entire UN and society in general all over the world consider it child abuse, too." IMO, the definition above should be broadened. ResearchEditor (talk) 03:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
The proposed version is off-track. I concur with PetraSchelm and ResearchEditor that the current version as quoted at the top of this section is better. Homologeo's comment that the word "abuse" appears 4 times is a good point, there could be some copyediting to address the writing style, so long as it does not weaken the NPOV definition of child pornography as child abuse, which it is. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 04:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] US vs Williams

I added this landmark case: The USA Supreme Court on May 19, 2008 upheld a 2003 federal law,” the Prosecutorial Remedies and other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act, the Protect Act, aimed at child pornography, in a 7-to-2 ruling penned by Justice Antonin Scalia in "United States v. Williams." It dismissed the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit's finding the law unconstitutionally vague.nytimes.com, Supreme Court Upholds Child Pornography Law --Florentino floro (talk) 09:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PDF full decision yesterday

For lawyers and justices, here is the full decision and syllabus:www.supremecourtus.gov, UNITED STATES v. WILLIAMS, No. 06–694, Decided May 19, 2008 --Florentino floro (talk) 11:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

While this may, in fact, be a "landmark case" the section you put it in is a description of US laws about child pornography, not a history of the case law. If you could describe how it changes or defines the existing laws, that could be useful, but the fact of a court case that presumably has some bearing on child pornography is not appropriate. maxsch (talk) 15:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
The court found that individuals who request or offer what they believe to be pornography depicting actual minors may be prosecuted, regardless of whether the images in question were in fact 'fake' or even non-existent. Ho hum. Without these specifics, Florentino's wording seems to imply that the constitutionality of the ban on child pornography was challenged and upheld. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 18:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
IMO, this decision is an important one and should be included in this page somehow. ResearchEditor (talk) 03:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the PDF's syllabus or summary and full text of the decision, unlike the news links, would clearly and fully describe the law, the indictment, the facts of the case and the opinions of all the justices. This landmark ruling is so rare in USA. Here in Philippines we do not have the syllabus or summary of the decision, and our website releases the full decision too late, unlike in USA. The reader will have to suffer reading only the biased news links, as what happened in my own case Florentino Floro. We cannot blame journalists, since fair reporting is often tainted with entertainment so that the paper can compete, but sacrificing some truths. I added it and described how Williams did it. --Florentino floro (talk) 13:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I was not asking for a description of the crime, but rather a description of the law. I agree it can probably be found in the ruling, but the important points should be in the article. The name of the case and the date of the ruling don't tell us anything. maxsch (talk) 13:18, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
The description of the law was there, since I added the very long title, which totally describes the law, after the short title: ”the Prosecutorial Remedies and other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act, the Protect Act; every lawyer and even laymen would know, that laws are just mentioned by numbers or names, like R.A. 3019, graft law of the Philippines, and fully described by its long and full title "Anti-graft and corrupt practices act". Anyway, I will add this, if maxsch would think that readers would not know what the law is all about: so I amended and added this revised one: The USA Supreme Court on May 19, 2008 upheld a 2003 federal law,” the Prosecutorial Remedies and other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act, the Protect Act, aimed at child pornography, in a 7-to-2 ruling penned by Justice Antonin Scalia in "United States v. Williams." The law, Section 2252A(a)(3)(B) of Title 18, United States Code, criminalizes, in certain specified circumstances, the pan­dering or solicitation of child pornography, as it generally prohib­its offers to provide and requests to obtain child pornography. The court ruling dismissed the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit's finding the law unconstitutionally vague. Michael Williams of Florida was caught in a 2004 federal undercover operation and found guilty later of “pandering” child pornography, since he offered to sell nude pictures of his young daughter and other forms of child pornography in an Internet chat room.nytimes.com, Supreme Court Upholds Child Pornography Lawwww.supremecourtus.gov,UNITED STATES v. WILLIAMS, No. 06–694, Decided May 19, 2008theweekdaily.com, Busting child pornography, real and imagined --Florentino floro (talk) 10:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

(undnet)The information about Williams is unnecessary and I have removed it. I've also removed the second news link as unnecessary and generally re-worded. I think what remains is acceptable, but I'm not an expert and am willing to listen to reasons why I could be wrong. WLU (talk) 13:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sexually Abused

The current first line in the article reads:
Child pornography refers to pornographic material depicting children being sexually abused.
This sentence has a reference, but is poorly worded. It seems to suggest that the material depicts children (plural), and that they are being sexually abused. While the production of child pornography is often considered abusive by itself, this sentence reads as though the recording of an abusive act is child pornography, where as the rest of this article says that in many case recording a child simply in a state of undress or provocatively posed is child pornography. Additionally, with the variety of definitions for child pornography a neutral point of view is difficult to achieve, and it does not appear that the current introduction (and possible the rest of the article) have done that. The section "International Perspectives" should be revised, the section title alone implies a point of origin for the rest of the article, which currently appears to be the United States and Europe. I think that I could go on and on about all the problems with this article. But instead I will be bold. If you read this and see several major edits on this article discuss any objections you may have to them but please be specific, I'd like to hear your opinions.--Biggayallison (talk) 07:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality Disputed

The Wikipedia, and other, articles on lolicon mention evidence that access to erotic images of children may contribute to decreasing motives for child sexual abuse. This article only argues that child porn is a FUEL for child molestation. Doesn't this seem alittle odd and one-sided?

I might be wrong, but if there is a reason why the effects of lolicon and child porn are so different, it should be explained or at least pointed out.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.97.49 (talk • contribs)

The last paragraph of this article does in part cover this. "The purported link between use of child pornography and child abuse has been used to justify the prohibition of sexual depictions of children, whether their production involves child abuse or not.[77] This link is itself disputed: "Considerable controversy exists within the social and behavioral science community about the negative effects, if any, of child pornography upon the behavior of potential or actual offenders. ... Many researchers have come to the conclusion that there is no sound scientific basis for concluding that exposure to child pornography increases the likelihood of sexual abuse of children. Others have suggested that there is a consistent correlation between the use of pornography and sexual aggression.[78]" ResearchEditor (talk) 20:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I read this discussion, and decided to read through the reference. I editted the reference to put it into 'cite web' format. This reference [78] is from 1996. It would be good to have something more recent if available I think. I know nothing of lolicon, but would think that for the person viewing it for sexual arousal purposes, as long as they imagine it is real, there is no reason to think the effects on the user/consumer would be different than real depictions. Then you have to also wonder about psychological patterns for users of lolicon, if it is for sexual arousal purposes, then their arousal patterns may be deviant just like the users of the actual pornography. Sort of like a smoker telling themselves it is okay to continue smoking if they smoke light cigarettes versus regular, or to change over to a pipe. --Fremte (talk) 22:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] another kind of child porn - live webcams

Here's an interesting reference describing a new kind of child porn - [15] - something to consider adding as a new section in the article. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 22:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

This is a one-off case. Not notable. -212.227.29.8 (talk) 17:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)