Is censorship moral?

[Loren Pechtel]

If you're going to use a lot of technical terms, then it's best to define them.

Pick the word you need defined and ask about that rather than pretending any of the words I used are ambiguous here. Ask Google, first though.

No thank you. That's a rabbit hole.

What rabbit hole? We aren't seeing what you consider undefined technical terms. There are two names that most of us will not recognize but he identified them as websites. Not being familiar with them is irrelevant to his point.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think censorship is generaslly moral when it protects people from being hurt who have done nothing to deserve to be hurt. For example child pornography. A child did not choose to be in it, has done nothing to deserve to be in pornography and is harmed by it.

In what way do images of children harm children, and how does hiding those images protect children from harm?

He's talking about the creation of such images. It's almost impossible to create authentic images without causing harm.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But getting back to the topic, I simply want to know how the censorship of child pornography prevents child sexual abuse. I'm very willing to read what you have to say. If you don't know how censorship safeguards kids, then you may very well be wrong.

It doesn't prevent it. It does make it very hard to produce it for commercial reasons, though. This means little is produced simply from commercial motives.

Consider the Chinese Mitten Crab. In the US there is no season, no bag limit--you're free to take as many as you can find. However, it is not permitted to sell them. They are considered a delicacy by many Chinese, but they are considered a pest by the US government, extirpation would be a desirable outcome. Not being able to sell them means you can't hope to profit from a farming operation even if it's possible to do (I have no idea what it would take.) Thus there are no farms losing crabs into the local ecology.

(The reason for this is they like to dig nests in riverbanks. Unfortunately, they are equally interested in digging nests into earthen dikes.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Allow me to post an example of the harm censorship can do. A woman I know told me that she took photos of her young kids naked, a very common practice. After having the film processed, she said she was warned by the developer that she could get into trouble with the law! Her perfectly innocent, harmless act could have resulted in her imprisonment. So how is that kind of censorship moral? Isn't it evil instead to bully a woman who only wanted to have fun with her children?

No.

What you are showing is the harm caused by witch-hunting about child pornography. In the quest to stamp it out they sweep up lots of things like the images you refer to which are not pornography.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Allow me to post an example of the harm censorship can do. A woman I know told me that she took photos of her young kids naked, a very common practice. After having the film processed, she said she was warned by the developer that she could get into trouble with the law! Her perfectly innocent, harmless act could have resulted in her imprisonment. So how is that kind of censorship moral? Isn't it evil instead to bully a woman who only wanted to have fun with her children?

Wiow, you are one confused person. Where to start … first, she wasn’t censored, was she?

He does have a valid point with his example--except it's actually about our country having a very hard time telling the difference between nudity and sex. His woman is being improperly censored but it's not actually about pornography.

 

[steve_bank]

I believe courts have ruled animation of child porn is protected as artistic expression.

For the creeps who get off on it there is plenty of animation on the net to satisfy them. I sampled some of the animation porn. Images of kids with a dick in their mouths gagging on cum.

To me those who argue censoring human child porn is wrong because not all images flaged are about child abuse are in need of counseling and a dose of empathy for defensless minors..

As I said this debate comes down to values.

 

[bilby]

Allow me to post an example of the harm censorship can do. A woman I know told me that she took photos of her young kids naked, a very common practice. After having the film processed, she said she was warned by the developer that she could get into trouble with the law! Her perfectly innocent, harmless act could have resulted in her imprisonment. So how is that kind of censorship moral? Isn't it evil instead to bully a woman who only wanted to have fun with her children?

No.

What you are showing is the harm caused by witch-hunting about child pornography. In the quest to stamp it out they sweep up lots of things like the images you refer to which are not pornography.

Do they though? Even this anecdote doesn't end with the woman in question (who may or may not have ever existed) being punished, just being told (by a possibly entirely fictional individual of unknown qualifications or experience) that it might have been a possibility.

No harm has been shown by this anecdote, even if we are naïve enough to accept that it's a true story.

 

[bilby]

Allow me to post an example of the harm censorship can do. A woman I know told me that she took photos of her young kids naked, a very common practice. After having the film processed, she said she was warned by the developer that she could get into trouble with the law! Her perfectly innocent, harmless act could have resulted in her imprisonment. So how is that kind of censorship moral? Isn't it evil instead to bully a woman who only wanted to have fun with her children?

Wiow, you are one confused person. Where to start … first, she wasn’t censored, was she?

He does have a valid point with his example--except it's actually about our country having a very hard time telling the difference between nudity and sex. His woman is being improperly censored but it's not actually about pornography.

No, she isn't. She's not being censored at all, just warned that she might be. By a person who may well be wrong. Or fictional. Or both.

And you don't know what country she's in. I can recall hearing much the same tale told in the 1980s*, and set in England. So even if it's true, it may well be evidence that some completely different country with laws very different from your country's (particularly as regards freedom of speech and of the press) has a hard time telling the difference between nudity and sex.

But really, it's not evidence of anything, other than the existence of an anecdote.






*The fact that the scene takes place in a world in which family photos are taken to be developed, strongly suggests that this anecdote is from the 1980s or earlier; Certainly from the twentieth century, which, despite my difficulties in accepting the fact, is now twenty three years ago. 1989 was thirty four years ago.

 

[TomC]

What you are showing is the harm caused by witch-hunting about child pornography. In the quest to stamp it out they sweep up lots of things like the images you refer to which are not pornography.

Maybe the real problem is that child porno is a really poor subject for a hypothetical about censorship.
Too many gray areas. Too much irrational thought. The subject of child abuse is very important because it causes so much damage. We can't just ignore it. But some youngsters skinny dipping in the family pool doesn't even come close. People have such strange ideas about nudity and sex.
Tom

 

[Shadowy Man]

Just because a line might be fuzzy or hard to interpret doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a line or discuss where that line should be drawn. Reminds me of all the gun discussions. Lines are drawn on all our rights in our laws. None are absolute.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Allow me to post an example of the harm censorship can do. A woman I know told me that she took photos of her young kids naked, a very common practice. After having the film processed, she said she was warned by the developer that she could get into trouble with the law! Her perfectly innocent, harmless act could have resulted in her imprisonment. So how is that kind of censorship moral? Isn't it evil instead to bully a woman who only wanted to have fun with her children?

No.

What you are showing is the harm caused by witch-hunting about child pornography. In the quest to stamp it out they sweep up lots of things like the images you refer to which are not pornography.

Do they though? Even this anecdote doesn't end with the woman in question (who may or may not have ever existed) being punished, just being told (by a possibly entirely fictional individual of unknown qualifications or experience) that it might have been a possibility.

No harm has been shown by this anecdote, even if we are naïve enough to accept that it's a true story.

Remember, you're in a different country.

There are substantiated incidents of problems with innocent images in the US. Even if the police see sanity big tech often doesn't. (Nuking accounts for supposed kiddie porn even though the police say there was no wrongdoing. Nuke from orbit any suspects because figuring out if they're guilty is too hard.) Whether his example is real or not is irrelevant, there are real examples.

 

[bilby]

Allow me to post an example of the harm censorship can do. A woman I know told me that she took photos of her young kids naked, a very common practice. After having the film processed, she said she was warned by the developer that she could get into trouble with the law! Her perfectly innocent, harmless act could have resulted in her imprisonment. So how is that kind of censorship moral? Isn't it evil instead to bully a woman who only wanted to have fun with her children?

No.

What you are showing is the harm caused by witch-hunting about child pornography. In the quest to stamp it out they sweep up lots of things like the images you refer to which are not pornography.

Do they though? Even this anecdote doesn't end with the woman in question (who may or may not have ever existed) being punished, just being told (by a possibly entirely fictional individual of unknown qualifications or experience) that it might have been a possibility.

No harm has been shown by this anecdote, even if we are naïve enough to accept that it's a true story.

Remember, you're in a different country.

Remember, your country really isn't that different from mine. Remember also that we have no information about which country this alleged event took place in, if it even happened at all. So you too may be in a different country. Or maybe we both are.

There are substantiated incidents of problems with innocent images in the US.

And in every other OECD country. So perhaps we could discuss one of those cases. Feel free to post the details of one, along with its substantiation. Until somebody does, we have no incidents to discuss.

Even if the police see sanity big tech often doesn't. (Nuking accounts for supposed kiddie porn even though the police say there was no wrongdoing. Nuke from orbit any suspects because figuring out if they're guilty is too hard.)

Yup. Official overreach happens a lot. Probably more outside the US, where the rules are often more obscure, or less clearly hierarchical. In the US, when a statute is in conflict with the constitution, the situation is much clearer than in other countries where two statutes are in conflict with each other.

What we don't know is whether it happens with regard to innocent family photos being labeled as child pornography, and if so, where, how often, and with what dire consequences.

And we don't know that because literally no evidence of it has been offered.

Whether his example is real or not is irrelevant, there are real examples.

Then he should use them.

The existence of genuine information isn't an excuse for spreading misinformation, it's an aggravating factor in the crime of spreading misinformation.

If this anecdote is to be accepted as fact, then it needs to be linked to actual evidence. If evidence of something similar exists, it should be presented in support of the discussion.

Telling tall stories, and pretending that their morals are informative about real world situations, is a very popular form of propaganda. But for this to be justified, it's necessary that the tall stories be based in actual events - at which point, it would be more sensible just to relate the actual events themselves. With sources, so that anyone who doubts that the events actually occurred can go and check.

THIS IS A TRUE STORY.

A woman was queuing in a supermarket when rudely, a woman in a burkha with three screaming children pushed in front of her. Despite polite protestation, the Muslim woman refused to move. “We don’t cut queues in this country, you’ll have to go to the back of the line” said the woman.

The Muslim woman turned and said, “I don’t care. This country is a pit of sinful heretics who don’t deserve my obedience. You’ll have plenty of time to queue in hell after being judged to Shariah Law”

The cashier then turned and said, “Hang on, love. This stinks of a made up story to share on social media! There are no sources cited, no links to news articles, no evidence AT ALL to suggest that this has happened. I mean, come on. This supermarket doesn’t exist. Neither do you two. Nor me, come to think of it. Snopes.com would bust this story wide open in about thirty seconds, it’s that fucking tenuous. In fact, the genesis of this story could probably be found in a bulletin board post or circular email originating from an AOL email address from 1996, and it was lies then, too. Basically, it’s a lie. A lie spread to infuriate the stupid. Much like the raison d'être of the tabloid newspaper industry, Samantha Brick or Katie Hopkins. You’re being trolled for a reaction to get attention or money.”

The cashier took a deep breath.

“Now fuck off out of my imaginary supermarket!

The question here is not "Are problems a possibility", nor even "Are people worried that innocent actions could lead to problems", the question is "Is the specific example given here an actual event that happened, or even sufficiently similar to an actual event as to be genuinely informative?".

And all the evidence suggests that it's not. It's time to collect our shopping bags, and depart from this imaginary photographic development shop, wherein we learned that fictional people are supposedly worried about an event that was hypothetical even in their fictional reality.

If there's a point to be made, with evidence to back it, then that's what should happen.

Don't try to fob me off with an IOU for evidence. If there is some, present it.

Unknown Soldier starts his post by saying:

Allow me to post an example of the harm censorship can do.

I'm all in favour of his doing exactly that.

But instead, he went on to post a non-example of hypothetical harm that fictional characters were worried about but didn't actually experience even within the framework of the anecdote itself.

That is NOT "post[ing] an example of the harm censorship can do". It's the antithesis of posting an example. It's pretending that an example was posted, when in fact no such thing was done.

It was an attempt to manipulate us into the belief that we had seen evidence of something, without having actually shown us any such evidence. And it appears that you're being successfully mislead - you have a strong feeling that the problem under discussion does, in fact, exist; And that you have, in fact, seen some evidence of it somewhere.

But unless you, or Unknown Soldier, or someone else, actually posts that evidence, the whole thing is just a (possibly completely false) belief, founded as it is solely on vague hearsay.

So, what of this particular type of "harm that censorship can do"? Maybe it happened. Maybe it happens a lot. Maybe it's never happened at all. We cannot know, because we only have gut feelings that have been manipulated by unsourced and uninformative tall tales.

FFS, the story itself doesn't demonstrate any harm, even if it's an entirely factual account of a real event.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

If you're going to use a lot of technical terms, then it's best to define them.

Pick the word you need defined and ask about that rather than pretending any of the words I used are ambiguous here. Ask Google, first though.

No thank you. That's a rabbit hole.

What rabbit hole? We aren't seeing what you consider undefined technical terms. There are two names that most of us will not recognize but he identified them as websites. Not being familiar with them is irrelevant to his point.

I said no thank you. I fail to see the relevance between that material and censorship.

He's talking about the creation of such images. It's almost impossible to create authentic images without causing harm.

Creating images can obviously be harmful, but displaying them once created is generally harmless. If somebody doesn't like the images, then they need not look at them.

It doesn't prevent it. It does make it very hard to produce it for commercial reasons, though. This means little is produced simply from commercial motives.

So your argument is to prevent the harm involved in the production and supply of graphic materials, we should cut out the demand for them. Is that correct?

What you are showing is the harm caused by witch-hunting about child pornography. In the quest to stamp it out they sweep up lots of things like the images you refer to which are not pornography.

You can dismiss it as "witch-hunting about child pornography," but the effort to destroy images deemed pornographic of children is part of such censorship, and it threatened an innocent mother. As I see it, the laws against child pornography are the product of prudes and politicians who can't even define what they outlaw.

 

[bilby]

the effort to destroy images deemed pornographic of children is part of such censorship, and it threatened an innocent mother.

Did it?

 

[pood]

Creating images can obviously be harmful, but displaying them once created is generally harmless.

Yeah, no harm at all in displaying images or audio/video of children getting raped. Nothing to see here, folks, no harm at all.

One wonders whether the child who was raped would suffer further harm should he/she view the images made from the crime. I guess Unknown Soldier couldn’t care less, even though he loves life so much he thinks people who claim the right to end their own lives are “death lovers.”

 

[steve_bank]

The OP the appears to be somebody may get censored who should not be, therefor censorship is immoral and is more harmful than what is censored. The example given is a woman who posts pictures of kids getting flagged as child porn when it should not be..

A reasonable person with empathy for kids might say something like 'I don't like what happened but i understand the need for censoring child porn'.
At least as far back as 70s courts began ruling for a liberal interpretation of the 1st Amendment. There was a judge in an obscenity case who famously said 'I may not be able to define obscenity, but I know it when I see it.'

That leads to the slippery slope argument. Who gets to define obscenity and in such a way that there is no ambiguity and gray areas. An impossible task, so we have what we have today. Literature, public speech,video and music have near unlimited freedom of expression.

The net issues today are not about obscenity or free speech or expression. It is about what harmful forms of speech and expression can do.

Ethnic hate speech clearly can and has led to violence and mass killings. Cyber bullying has led to suicide. Predatory adults luring kids to a face to face meeting where they are assaulted.

In a diverse society like ours compromise is required for the general well being of all and social stability.

Extreme anti govt anarchists and free speech absolutists like Musk do not seem to link social and civil stability to the rights they have. Without social stability rights are a moot point.

Saying there should be no speech and expression limits is like saying there should be no traffic laws or police. Or food and water safety law. Or product safety laws. Or drug safety regulations.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Creating images can obviously be harmful, but displaying them once created is generally harmless.

Yeah, no harm at all in displaying images or audio/video of children getting raped. Nothing to see here, folks, no harm at all.

One wonders whether the child who was raped would suffer further harm should he/she view the images made from the crime. I guess Unknown Soldier couldn’t care less, even though he loves life so much he thinks people who claim the right to end their own lives are “death lovers.”

I think the point is that the child can just choose not to look. That’s better than the harm of censoring such material.

And people can choose to not listen to death threats. Or just not read libel in the papers and magazines.

If you are harmed by seeing or hearing certain material it’s your own fault for looking or listening. It would cause much greater harm to censor such material.

This is the idea being advanced here right?

 

[TomC]

How about we talk about censorship issues less emotional and murky than child porno.

Ex-president Trump is online threatening violence against the judiciary, on privately owned and operated social media.

If whatever Twitter is calling itself these days scrubbed his posts on their platform would that be immoral?
Would putting the ex-president in jail for expressing his violent opinions on social media be immoral?
Would any of that qualify as censorship?

I don't think so. Feel free to differ.
Tom

 

[steve_bank]

I do not think Trump like speech is any less murky than anything else. Like libel and defamation, it has to be proven that Trump has intent to cause harm.

Part of his defense of his speech is that Trump is speaking figuratively not literally.

So far Trump is not being prosecuted for speech except in a narrow case of inciting the rebellion at the capitol. He recently lost a defamtion case brought by a woman he publcally maligned, so he is being prosecuted.

Prosecuting Trump for his saying things like 'Hang Pence' would open up a big can of worms, IMO.

Trump's speech brings up te slippery slope argument, where is a defined boundary that does not limit free speech and discourse.

Should evey use of the word nigger be censored, or can there be discussion using the word?

 

[TomC]

I do not think Trump like speech is any less murky than anything else. Like libel and defamation, it has to be proven that Trump has intent to cause harm.

Proven to who, exactly?

If a private company decides to delete one of Trump's posts from their media platform is that censorship? What if said private company decides to delete his account and stops letting him use their company's facilities at all?

If a judge decides that a public statement qualifies as a threat and puts Trump in jail for the duration of the trial is that censorship?
Tom