Porn’s great, right? Everyone loves a little bit of it, yeah? Well, no actually. This isn’t going to descend into an argument about the morality, acceptability or wonderfulness of softcore, hardcore or weird-core porn. Porn exists online. It has been there since the beginning, and it will probably be there until the end.
I see no problem with (the majority of) porn. I’m not a consumer thereof — no, this is not a case of “the lady doth protest too much”, whatever you may think — but I’m not offended by it, its existence doesn’t bother me. Providing everyone involved is a consenting adult and no one is getting hurt (unless they are so inclined), it’s something that’s providing entertainment, enjoyment and income for some.
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I view porn like sport. That’s to say, I don’t. I have literally no interest in any sport whatsoever. Football? I could care not a jot. Cricket? Nope, no interest. Snooker, golf, darts, horse racing? Nope, nah, no, uh uh. But the fact I don’t like sport doesn’t mean that I’m offended by it, it’s just something I dislike. I can ignore it and I certainly don’t go and seek it out. There are countless millions of people around the world who love sport, and it’s an industry that has made a lot of people very rich.
The same goes for porn. I’m not a prude, I’m not offended by porn, I don’t have an unhealthy attitude to sex; porn is just something that does not feature on my radar. I’m also a fierce advocate of freedom of speech and, generally speaking, I am vehemently opposed to any form of censorship. There are some obvious exceptions of course — the protection of children in court cases means that newspapers and websites should be prevented from publishing details that could lead to their identification, and the same goes for certain other legal matters.
So, in summary, I’m not anti-porn, I’m anti-censorship and I’m pro freedom of expression. With that out of the way, let’s move on to the meat of this article. Child porn. How did you react to reading those two words? Did you immediately recoil? Did an inaudible “urgh” sound in your head? Did you see the word “porn” first, get excited and then notice the specific type?
Child Pornography
The topic of child porn is one of the few subjects in the world that is not divisive. Your view of child porn is not dependant on your race, religious, political leaning, level of education, class, or other factors that might influence personal ideologies. The vast majority of the world — by which I mean sane human beings capable of reasoned thought — regard child porn (by which, for the sake of clarity, I am using to refer to pornography involving people below the age of 18, although it will often — indeed, usually — involve much younger participants) as wrong.
In fact, child porn is probably on a par with murder in terms of crime severity — if it is possible, or indeed right, to compare such things. Murder is, by definition, wrong. No one has the right to take another person’s life. Similarly, no one has the right to force a child to be participants in pornography.
Anyone who has an interest in (regular) porn finds it easy to satiate their desires. Head into a newsagent and there are countless magazines available, and bookstores are home to all manner of erotic and pornographic material. But for the widest selection of free material, the web is where it is at. Practically everyone who makes use of the internet will have encountered online pornography — you don’t even have to try to seek it out.
Take a look through your spam folder and, regardless of what you use the internet for, you’re almost certain to find that you have received emails advertising pornographic websites. There are some areas of the internet that are linked with porn. We’re all web users here, I’d be willing to bet good money that most of us have downloaded something illegally from some website or other — that app you’ve been considering buying but can’t quite justify, that movie you could order on DVD but really want to watch right now.
Head to one of the countless torrent sites that are available and you’ll find that many of the advertisements that adorn these pages are for sexually explicit sites. Sex sells and it’s an easy way for both the host website and the one associated with the ad to make a quick buck. The titillating nature of these ads means that pay-per-click income can quickly mount up. But this kind of pornography is, broadly speaking, harmless. Regardless of whether you like porn or not, most of it involves consenting adults having fun, making money, or both.
Of course, there are instances of people who are forced to take part in videos, pose for photos etc against their will. This is bad enough when the victim is an adult, but it is infinitely worse when it is a child. When talking about sex and pornography, it is important to consider the age of consent.
A Global Problem
The issue brings up the problem of the global nature of the internet. This is something that has cropped up time and time again when looking at piracy; a law that is applicable in one country could hold no water in another. The same is true when it comes to child pornography. In some countries a person is considered a child until the age of 18, but in some instances it is lower. In the eyes of the law someone can be tried as an adult from the age of 16 in many countries, which neatly ties in with the age of consent.
So already we have a wrinkle to consider. Should it be consider child pornography if the ‘child’ involve is below 18 or below 16? What about counties that consider that adult starts at a different age, or have a higher or lower age of consent?
Imagine a country in which someone is considered an adult at 15, and this is also the age of consent. Within this country there would be nothing to stop a 15 year old boy or girl from taking part in pornographic movies or posing for explicit photos. But if these photos and videos made their way online and were viewed in the US or UK where the age of adulthood and consent are higher, how should viewers of this material be regarded? Are they only criminals if they view this material when they themselves are located outside of the country in which the lower age of consent is applicable?
Already this is opening up the potential for a problem. In this scenario, if there is a country in which those interested in viewing pornography involving 15 year olds know they can do so legal, there is the risk of this becoming a haven for this type of activity. To some extent this already happens.
But while pornography involving anyone under the age of 18 is generally frowned upon, the younger the child, the more seriously it is viewed. While it could be argued that a 15 year old anywhere in the world could conceivably willingly take part in pornographic productions, this is certainly not the case for very young child — children too young to even understand what is happening. All children need protecting, this is without question, but it is the really young participants that generally raise the greatest concern.
A New Approach
The problem of child pornography is far from being a new one, but it has been in the news again recently with a number of high profile cases. In many ways it is like the probably of tackling piracy online. Close down one website that peddled illegal software and movies, and another one will pop up in its place. As that suggests that closing down these websites is easy. Tracking down those responsible for hosting and running these websites can be near-impossible task.
There are several approaches that can be taken to tackling objectionable and illegal content online. The first option is to close down websites, which, as we have discussed, can be very hard. The second option would be to block access at ISP level. This is something that is done in many parts of the world, but it does require the cooperation of ISPs — and, of course, whenever a block is put in place there is always a way around it.
Google and Microsoft have joined forces in a bid to combine resource and share technology to help detect illegal pornography. While some detection methods take a hands-on, labor-intensive approach in which workers actively seek out content that should be blocked, there is also scope for some automation. But no system like this is going to be perfect and if those dealing in child pornography realize that the wider web is become a difficult place to trade on, things get pushed underground ;and the further underground illegal activity goes, the harder it is to manage, and the worse things get for those involved — namely children.
The darker side of the internet — unsurprisingly referred to as Darknet — is an advanced type of peer to peer networking that allows for virtually impenetrable transferring of files between users. Thing like this and the advancements in encryption and anonymization mean that the task of law enforcement and prosecution is made ever more difficult.
Really, there is no simple solution to eliminate child pornography online, but is it reassuring to see that big names such as a Google and Microsoft are at least trying to combat the problem. It’s easy to feel blasé about software piracy — after all, it’s just rich corporations losing a little profit, right? — but child pornography is a very different matter. People get hurt. Lives are irreparably ruined. A new vision is needed to take the battle to the next level. Who is going to be the one to come up with a seriously viable solution?
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