[akmiller]

Child porn is already illegal

Honest question, is it illegal everywhere? I'm just taking a stab in the dark that there are societies somewhere in this world that either haven't established laws or are terribly enforced if they do exist. Playing devils advocate what if a child porn site is hosted in that area, then what? I realize that the situation is unlikely but if it's possible wouldn't there need to be a way to handle it?

[pgeorgi]

Politicians tried that line in Germany. They even gave a number of countries that have "no laws" or don't follow up on them.

For every country named, the ambassador to Germany was able to cite laws that prohibit child pornography (or just porn, eg. in countries with sharia law). In all cases, they stated interest in enforcement by their governments, too.

Given that they tried a couple of times, and failed just as often, I'll assume that no such country exists - otherwise some advisor to our local propagandists would have found and presented it on the second or third try.

[Jach]

Not too long ago in human history (and even today in some places and with some different forms) it was customary for young boys to orally pleasure old men, or wed off girls before or at puberty. Playing more devil's advocate, the only thing that should really be illegal is exploiting children when they can be shown to be incapable of sound personal choices. (So covering both child porn and Britney-Spears-pattern Disney stars at once.) Now we just have to worry about where we draw the line at exploitation and whether potential monetary or status gain is important or not. The main point though is the act has already occurred by the time some pedo sees it on a tor page, and I don't think it's ever been shown that pedo-consumers are much more likely to become pedo-producers if they weren't already. (Someone please correct my belief if that's not the case, and then explain Japan.) Of course, catching either the consumers or producers is fairly difficult without draconian, invasive practices, and on the producers side it reduces to the classic problem of domestic abuse.