Re: Pedophiles in Cyberspace

[mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)]

Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com> writes:

 > The WSJ op ed page today has an article on the 1st
 > Amendment in Cyberspace by Stephen Bates that focusses
 > (analytically) on pedophiles and Usenet.  It is not
 > hysterically negative but discusses the "downside" of our
 > technology.

Just what the world needs.  Another reporter who spends a short
time on Usenet and emerges to proclaim to the clueless masses
that the Internet is bursting at the seams with child porn GIFs
and that the pedophiles are frolicking uncontrollably.

While it would be difficult to list all the inaccuracies and
misstatements of fact contained in Steven Bates' WSJ article in a
single message, the following leap out at even the most
inexperienced Internet user.

The newsgroup, alt.sex.pedophile.mike-labbe, originally formed to
discuss the legal problems of a BBS Sysop, is almost dead and
averages no more than a few posts a week.  While pictures are
occasionally posted, they are almost without exception art taken
from legal sources.  While some messages have been posted which
might seem to solicit illegal activity, such messages are
regularly flamed by other readers of the group, and illegal
activity is discouraged.  Calling this group "alt.sex.pedophile"
and characterizing it as the Internet's official distribution
point for illegal child porn is a gross misrepresentation of
reality.

The newsgroup, alt.sex.intergen, formed to discuss issues
surrounding intergenerational relationships, including those
between adults and minors, is represented as a place where
pedophiles congregate to plot their evil deeds.  But discussion
of the sexual rights of minors is only one issue covered under
the alt.sex.intergen charter and it would be ludicrous to suggest
that pedophiles are the only people to whom such issues are
important.  You don't have to be a member of a sexual minority to
find fault with American sex and censorship laws, and such issues
are discussed by people representing all ages, sexual
orientations, and professions.  Taking a few lurid-sounding
quotes out of context from many months of postings does little to
correctly convey the tone of this newsgroup.

Mr. Bates repeats the popular myth that Europe is some bastion of
readily available child porn easily accessed via the Internet.
This is simply not the case.  All the European and Scandinavian
countries now have laws against distributing such material with
severe penalities for violations.  With the large number of
American net.cops trolling the Internet looking for illegal
pornography and the cooperation of foreign law enforcement
agencies in shutting down sites, no such operation could stay in
business for long.

The comparison the article makes between "advocating pedophilia"
and Holocaust Revisionism should be equally offensive to Jews and
non-Jews alike.  Suggesting that teenagers should have the right
to choose their own sexual partners cannot be compared to denying
the deliberate killing of six million men, women, and children.

Dr. Fred Berlin, who should have known better, is quoted in the
article as suggesting that people in general, and pedophiles in
particular, are prone to do in real life everything they
contemplate in fantasy.  Since the world of fantasy is largely
devoid of the moral and social inhibitions which constrain our
real-world behavior, this is unlikely to be the case.  Since Dr.
Berlin is the world's foremost authority on the treatment of
paraphilias, we should give him the benefit of the doubt and
assume he was either quoted out of context, or like Ken Udut,
deliberately misled as to the purpose for which his comments were
being solicited.

-- 
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $