[bilbo0s]

child pornography, child exploitation, rape, ultra violence

Sometimes people get into a position where they have to defend the indefensible, and in the process end up rhetorically fighting a rear-guard action against the truth. There was the question of a particularly horrific death video of a 7 year old girl being disemboweled (among other things) a while back. Instead of simply conceding that there is some filth that has no place in civilized societies, these absolutists stubbornly stuck to their talking points. This makes all of us look bad. People start looking at all free speech advocates as being this same level of unreasonable.

I always try go out of my way to separate my ideas of privacy protection, anti-surveillance, and free speech from those of these absolutists. I do not believe little girls should be able to be publicly raped and disemboweled, even virtually and digitally created, simply because there exists a market of sickos for it. But I do believe that unpopular opinions should be countenanced and the right to express unpopular opinions should be supported.

[goldcd]

It's a reasonable point, but if I can be a little bit "whataboutist"

If you're against entirely fictional depictions of child abuse, then how do you feel about other fictional depictions of a crime? (That's a lot of films and books to ban). Or pictures of actual real crimes? Would you remove photos of Auschwitz from text books? Or from a far right meme?

Not saying I have any better answers, just I get slightly niggles when others think they've solved the issue, by everybody else agreeing with them.