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by junon
1904 days ago
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I think both comments above have taken the argument to the extremes on both ends. OHO, I think RMS is making a point about the excuses governments and LEOs make in favor of censorship/anti-encryption - a good one, at that. OTOH, he does a pretty piss-poor job describing it in that blurb. I'm not convinced this is an argument in favor of child pornography. I'm simply choosing to believe it's poor wording on RMS's part trying to make a point about encryption and he's not actually in favor of child pornography. |
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His general argument is a good one, even given how reprehensible child pornography can be - there are ways to fight it without giving open ended backdoors and carte blanche to law enforcement. But part of that argument does rest implicitly on an argument that child pornography itself isn't harmful. His rationale that simply possessing an image does no harm doesn't take into account the harm that went into creating that image or the networks of harm that their creation and distribution supports.
Setting everything else aside, that's not really the sort of argument people should want a spokesperson for free software to be making on their behalf. Most people don't see child pornography as mere images with no context or moral weight, so an argument that deviates into a tangent of "and they're just pictures anyway so what's the harm? Maybe the kids were into it" isn't going to be compelling.