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[–] Gramba@kbin.social 151 points 1 year ago (57 children)

Also Swartz had a section of his homepage defending child pornography as "not necessarily abuse" and that possession & distribution of it should be a first amendment right. He also advocated for a violent overthrow of the US government. Here's a cache of one instance of him defending it. Aaron did some really great tech stuff, but he's not a person that should be regarded as some hero as he had a lot of views that were misguided at best.

[–] HeavenAndHell@lemmy.world 69 points 1 year ago (7 children)

In the US, it is illegal to possess or distribute child pornography, apparently because doing so will encourage people to sexually abuse children.

This is absurd logic. Child pornography is not necessarily abuse. Even if it was, preventing the distribution or posession of the evidence won't make the abuse go away. We don't arrest everyone with videotapes of murders, or make it illegal for TV stations to show people being killed.

I don't know if that's the reason CP is actually banned, but his logic is even worse and dumber by a mile.

[–] Syrc@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, the article linked in that page (albeit horribly long due to useless info) does raise a point against current laws on viewing illegal material.

But sharing it? Yeah that’s a bit of a stretch. Thinking that isn’t going to lead to more actual children being exploited is extremely naive.

[–] Wollff@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Thinking that isn’t going to lead to more actual children being exploited is extremely naive.

That particular argument doesn't hold water. We don't generally subscribe to this kind of argument.

The general principle behind the specific argument you bring up here is this: All expression which is likely to inspire someone toward illegal action should itself be illegal.

CP is likely to inspire some people toward child abuse. Child abuse is illegal. Thus the distribution of CP should be illegal.

We don't do this anywhere else.

Descriptions of non consesnual violence are likely to inspire some people toward non consensual violence. Non consensual violence is illegal. Thus the distribution of all descriptions of non consensual violence should be illegal.

If we take this seriously, we have to ban action movies. And I am not even getting into the whole porn debate...

No, the only valid reason for banning the distribution of child porn which I can think of, lies in the rights of the victims. The victims were abused, and their image was used without their consent. Without them even possibly being able to give consent to any of that, or the distribution that follows.

So anyone who shares child porn, is guaranteed to share a piece of media which shows someone being subjected to a crime, while they couldn't possibly give consent for that to be recorded, or shared publicly. Making it illegal to share someone being a victim of a crime, without them being able to consent to that being shared, is a reasoning which has far fewer problems than what you propose here.

[–] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You raise a few valid points, but the problem with the action film thing is that it is fiction, and thus protected by free speech rights.

That's actually the main argument against lolicon being illegal: depictions of other crimes, including heinous ones like murder and rape, are not illegal.

Ultimately it comes down to inconsistency in the law, and sensationalism makes it very difficult to discuss rationally.

[–] Yendor@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That particular argument doesn't hold water. We don't generally subscribe to this kind of argument.

The general principle behind the specific argument you bring up here is this: All expression which is likely to inspire someone toward illegal action should itself be illegal.

CP is likely to inspire some people toward child abuse. Child abuse is illegal. Thus the distribution of CP should be illegal.

We don't do this anywhere else.

Yes we do. Plenty of stuff is banned by federal law. Snuff films, for the same reason as CP/CSAM. Obscene pornography (stuff showing abuse or degradation, even if it’s just acting) isn’t illegal to posses, but it is illegal to buy, distribute or carry across state lines. Ivory is illegal, unless you have a certificate proving it is from pre-1989. These are all banned to stop demand.

And that’s not even getting started Americas long history of banning books.

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[–] Syrc@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The general principle behind the specific argument you bring up here is this: All expression which is likely to inspire someone toward illegal action should itself be illegal

To me it’s more like “All situations where committing illegal actions could bring a positive feedback to the perpetrator should be avoided”.

Allowing CP to be shared, and thus sold/hosted on for-profit sites creates a market for it, and makes abusing children an actual profession. That’s not ok and already a talking point against the current, legal, porn industry.

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[–] CaptainEffort@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Yes, that’s why CP is banned. It being distributed and sold encourages the further making of it, thus leading to more instances of children being abused.

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[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 58 points 1 year ago (4 children)

That website has been the same since it’s first archive on 2002-12-17. Aaron Swartz had just turned 16 a month earlier. I know I had some seriously immature opinions at that age. As well, that website was still up as of this January, a decade since his passing. http://www.aaronsw.com/ is also still up, and it doesn’t look like it was updated since 2002 either. Neither is any of this referenced on his wikipedia page, nor on it’s talk page. This feels like such a reach…

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[–] elkaki@lemmy.dbzer0.com 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I sure love it when people use a single opinion to smear a person's entire legacy, he was great not only for the tech stuff but his stance on scientific articles piracy and a lot of other stuff too.

I won't say that that his opinion on cp is a great one (there is no doubt at least for me that distribution should always be illegal), but he wrote it as a 16 years old and it was guided due to his extremism for free speech over the internet, regardless, it's not like he himself was an evil person distributing child pornography, to paint him as an overall shitty person for an opinion like this seems idiotic imo

This is q bit personal and maybe slightly unrelated, but it reminds me of when people defend non-offending pedos (as in they are attracted to children because yhey are born that way but have not offended, nor groomed, nor harmed a child) saying the stigma should be erased because that would allow us to actually help this people who constantly hide it, therefore reducing the harm to children. This position has unironically got me called a pedophile and a lot of horrible stuff over the internet, and I would draw parallels to this situation, no matter how you slice it this opinion should not be used singlehandedly to state he is someone that shouldn't be respected. Especially since he is not defending the harm itself being done to children (as in the production of CP) which would still be a crime under his view. (Although distribution of course grows the market so it's idiotic not to go after that too), but as I said, it's a bad opinion but that doesn't make him a bad person.

[–] Gramba@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago

I'm not saying Aaron was 100% bad, my point is that I don't really think he's some modern-day hero either. And I've already replied to someone that dismissed the his child porn views as a forgotten childhood comment. It wasn't merely a poorly thought out comment he made at 16 and forgot about, he maintained and edited that page until his death, even restoring it after a server crash deleted it.

If you want to celebrate his tech contributions or his views on scientific piracy I'm all for it. I just don't agree with this view of him getting spread that he's some hero co-founder of Reddit that is being unfairly erased from history when that's inaccurate at best. He's just a dude that did some great things, had some great views, had some really really shit views, and never gave a shit about reddit.

[–] entropicshart@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

FYI your link is broken and is just leading to the archive home page

[–] Gramba@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sorry I'm brand new here. The link I put is https://web.archive.org/web/20130116210225/http://bits.are.notabug.com/ which loads an archived copy of his homepage as it's no longer online since his death. The link loads properly for me on all my devices, even when i click it from my comment. Did I perhaps format the link incorrectly here and that's why it's not working? I know it's a bit of an odd url format that the wayback machine uses.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Still not formatted correctly on memmy. Let’s see if this works…

https://web.archive.org/web/20130116210225/http://bits.are.notabug.com/

looks like a bug in lemmy or certain clients. Probably to do with the double absolute URL’s in archive links…

[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your link isn’t working for me

[–] Gramba@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

It's a link to an archive of his http://bits.are.notabug.com site on the wayback machine as his site is no longer online. It's working for me on my PC and my phone. I can take a screenshot and share it if your browser is unable to load the wayback machine?

[–] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Dont Link to Us is like saying, "Dont Mention us on your coffee shop's Bulliton board", is that why redditors call "Starbucks" things like "That one coffee shop with the green logo"

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 3 points 1 year ago

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