[otherwiseguy]

That isn't as much of an issue. Once a secret is out, it is out. Something like child porn would be permanently illegal and permanently stored in the chain. Imagine hiding it there, letting a year or two of transactions build upon it before letting people know it was there. You can't remove it. The blockchain is now technically illegal.

I was just thinking about this a lot this week, actually. The really crazy thing is that, due to the PROTECT Act, a person in Japan could legally upload certain manga that the US would consider CP. So one wouldn't even have to risk jail to poison the blockchain.

[lopmotr]

I think child porn laws are too one-size-fits-all. It's supposed to be to be a disincentive to abusing children to produce the images for profit. Once it's well and truly public so the profit motive is gone, it should become legal. Or at least at the same status as revenge porn if the subjects are identifiable.

Unfortunately, most people are too puritanical to even dare to think about the topic, let alone opens debate it or soften the law.

[sgt101]

Every time one of those images is viewed it's an attack on the person in it, the person who could not, and never can give their consent. Also the normalisation of the behavior in the images enables abusers.

The law is there to protect children, profit doesn't feature in the calculations.

[lopmotr]

Viewing an image obviously doesn't harm anyone directly. What's the chain of causation between that act and the harm, assuming no payment.

Normalization of behavior is a worry that always comes up with "immoral" information. Violent movies, violent video games, adult porn, strip clubs, prostitution, open homosexuality, etc. You'd need actual evidence to support the claim that it makes things worse not better or neutral.