Thread: Viewing Child Porn On Internet Now Legal in New York

I don't understand what's appealing about child pornography in the first place, unless you're one of those people who are just very twisted in the head. What's so attractive about a child's undeveloped body anyway? It scares me that viewing child pornography was actually legalized in New York. I'm not surprised, though.

Originally Posted by lyu1112

I don't understand what's appealing about child pornography in the first place, unless you're one of those people who are just very twisted in the head. What's so attractive about a child's undeveloped body anyway? It scares me that viewing child pornography was actually legalized in New York. I'm not surprised, though.

I don't understand what's so appealing about it either. But then, I also don't understand what's so appealing about feet or ear lobes either. And yet, there are individuals who are particularly attracted to these parts of the human body.

Human sexuality is truly a complicated thing. There are no black and white answers. There's only many, many shades of grey, and each one of them a new question seeking an answer.

I don't understand what's so appealing about not reading threads before posting in them. There are so many incorrect opinions in this thread and that would all be solved by spending a few minutes reading things. I'm thinking the sensationalist title has something to do with it. So I'm going to try to make this clear.

Viewing child pornography by accident is no longer a crime in New York. So the next time your friend decides to prank you by sending you to a child porn distribution website, you're no longer going to jail. And yes, there are ways that ISPs and authorities can determine whether viewing the material was an accident or a deliberate offense.

Owning child pornography is still illegal. Downloading (physically saving it to your harddrive rather than your cache) child pornography is still illegal. Distributing child pornography is still illegal. Abusing minors is still illegal. Sick individuals WILL be put away and this is not some conspiracy to hurt children.

($10 says there will be another misinformed post after this one. Just watch.)

What. The. F**k? i dont have anything to say as everone who commented has already said it for me, but just, wow. Holy S**t

Originally Posted by Caitlin

I don't understand what's so appealing about not reading threads before posting in them. There are so many incorrect opinions in this thread and that would all be solved by spending a few minutes reading things. I'm thinking the sensationalist title has something to do with it. So I'm going to try to make this clear.

Viewing child pornography by accident is no longer a crime in New York. So the next time your friend decides to prank you by sending you to a child porn distribution website, you're no longer going to jail. And yes, there are ways that ISPs and authorities can determine whether viewing the material was an accident or a deliberate offense.

Owning child pornography is still illegal. Downloading (physically saving it to your harddrive rather than your cache) child pornography is still illegal. Distributing child pornography is still illegal. Abusing minors is still illegal. Sick individuals WILL be put away and this is not some conspiracy to hurt children.

($10 says there will be another misinformed post after this one. Just watch.)

Blame it on the misleading and poorly worded title.

Why is this even allowed. It doesn't matter if you posses it or you see it (Which is completely disgusting either way).

They basically are saying yes to the production of this stuff. And condoning this behaviour just causes a vicious circle that never ends.

Edit:
oh. I misunderstood.

Ok by accident. But still, child porn is wrong and disgusting.

I feel like a lot of people are viewing this in the wrong frame, and the tone of the original article may have had something to do with it. If I recall correctly, the man in question was on trial for several counts of child pornography, of which he was convicted of all but a few. He was found guilty of the counts in which he had downloaded, but not guilty in those counts in which he had merely viewed it online.
Many have taken this as a decriminalisaton of the viewing of child porn, but that's not really the case.
He was found not guilty not because what he did wasn't illegal, but because there was reasonable enough doubt as to whether he reached those webpages intentionally, and he had to be presumed innocent, regardless of his other convictions. It's plenty reasonable to claim the pages were unintentionally reached, or pop ups, or navigated to by malware.

The viewing of child porn is not legal in New York, it's simply difficult to police.

N

Originally Posted by Haruto Tenjo

That makes sense. But I don't see how this is even right.... There's such a thing as being able to express freedom and just downright creepy. And besides, there are still a lot of things in this country that aren't technically "free". So why is this allowed to be?

Well that's democracy sometimes:(

Originally Posted by Nicoleta01

"Merely viewing Web images of child pornography does not, absent other proof, constitute either possession or procurement within the meaning of our Penal Law," Senior Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick wrote for a majority of four of the six judges.

"Rather, some affirmative act is required (printing, saving, downloading, etc.) to show that defendant in fact exercised dominion and control over the images that were on his screen," Ciparick wrote. "To hold otherwise, would extend the reach of (state law) to conduct — viewing — that our Legislature has not deemed criminal."

This is the judge's reasoning. And I agree with it. With current laws, you can get in trouble just viewing things that clearly aren't child pornography, but the government may consider it to be (ex: Just silly pictures of young family members in the bathtub. Who doesn't have those?). What this judge is saying that simple viewing is NOT the same as possession, which the current law says needs to happen BEFORE it is a crime.

I also agree with this decision on that reasoning as until there is definitive proof of one of the defined affirmative acts is given, there are many circumstances which could land innocent people in jail, such as:
- Person A knows that Person B hates child porn, so as a joke, he sends a number of random, unidentifiable links to Person B. Person B opens the links, is horrified to see what they contain and closes them straight away - however, they still remain in his cache and history.
- Person A goes on an online message board and because he is a dick, decides to spam the place with child porn. Person B was browsing one of the innocent threads that had unfortunately been hit by the spam attack and bam - now has it in his history. (Imagine if that happened here on Bulbagarden guys. You can be sure that the person who did it would have their asses banned in an instant, but some damage could already have been done before that happens. Would you want to get arrested just because the guy above you decided to post child porn?)
- Person B posts up pictures of their adorable son or daughter in the bath onto Facebook. However, being naked (As you often are in the bath, unless you're Ned Flanders), Person C mistakes it for child porn.

I've had the first example happen to me before, just not with child porn (to be exact, it was furry porn). A guy I used to know knew that I found it absolutely disgusting, so he'd send me ambiguous links to stuff, claiming that they were a funny image and when I opened up...yeeeeaaaah. If I had been arrested for possession of animal porn based on that, it would not have been right or fair at all.

Look, Like a lot of people have said, If you see a link and it says "Install Rei's minimap for Minecraft" or soemthing and you click it and its illegal porn, You shouldn't get charges pressed on you.

On the other hand, If you keep Child porn on your HDD or Portable HDD, Its definetly a bit pedoish and, Yes, Illegal. As being a younger kid myself, and thinking of 40 year old crusty men looking at me/People my age and gender naked gives me the creeps.

On the magical 3rd hand, The "Grey Area" (Cartoon child pornography) Is still not okay. (Wait thats the same thing as hentai, Well not technically, But a sub "Folder" of it) Is not okay either but certainly not illegal because no kiddies harmed in the making. I think :l