Monday, 12 March 2012
Bill C-30 and Child Abuse
My problem with Bill C-30 is that child pornography is only the result of the bigger problem of child abuse. The correlation between child porn viewing and child abuse is unclear. In fact, this study suggests that access to child pornography is linked to the decline of actual child abuse. Therefore, I feel that targeting child pornography so specifically doesn't seem like an efficient action.
Before I start sounding like a child-porn-supporter, child pornography is undoubtedly a terrible thing because the child in the videos/pictures are being abused directly. It's too difficult to reduce the demand for child pornography because it's a combination of social and biological desires. It's more important to try to prevent the conditions for abuse from happening.
As a result, I don't think spying on citizens in case they look at child porn will stop people from abusing children. As I noted before, there is no link between looking at child porn and abusing actual children. Looking at child porn is all weird and wrong and etc, but if we're going to be taking drastic measures to stop child porn, I rather those drastic measures be better thought out and more effective.
I do not mind losing my privacy for something that's a good cause. You can peep on my browsing habits all you want if it's going to save some 9 year old from being raped. But research shows it probably won't be doing anything.
A possible solution for our society to take is to demonize child abuse even more in the media and brainwash the next generation into never sexually abusing kids.
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Actually, I wanted to argue this somehow, but I agree completely.
ReplyDeleteThere's a huge moral panic these days about child porn, that turns digital images into the issue, instead of _children being hurt_. It's outrageous. The focus should be on the children, not the pedophiles :/
I agree that targeting child porn is misguided and might even be harmful. As long as no children are being harmed (physically or mentally) in its production (written fiction, drawings, etc.), I think that it gives pedophiles a healthy outlet for their urges. They will have these urges regardless of what is there for them to view, as this is the nature of pedophilia, but if they are allowed to view the forms of "harmless" child porn as I described, it may lessen their chances of assaulting an actual child.
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