[godshatter]

From the report these are mostly 11 to 13 year olds we're talking about, and overwhelmingly female.

I do agree that "children" is too broad a term and that we should segment that population into different groups and focus on the younger groups much more than the older ones.

[danaris]

I mean, it doesn't matter whether the person taking the nude selfies is 16, 11, or 6: despite what the law says, it is painfully obvious that we should not treat that as "production of child sex abuse material" and punish those children the same as we punish adults who force children into such things.

I can see a reasonable argument for "11-year-old girls shouldn't be sexting their boyfriends", but the way to address that problem isn't to treat them as sex offenders. It's to get the parents to be more healthily engaged in their children's lives so that they can productively teach them why that's not a good idea in a way that is likely to stick.