[Monotoko]

Child pornography makes sense though, I can't see any civilised society ever being okay with that because of the permanent harm it brings to those involved. The ban has been in place since before the Internet, and thus it was brought to the Internet too.

There needs to be rules, but they need to be sensible and not limit speech. The other side of that coin though is the laws against copyrighted material, most people don't care and download stuff illegally anyway.

I can't imagine lawmakers backing away from the Internet, and I don't really want them to because before you know it someone would be monetising child porn. No idea how you would even begin to solve the problem of balance though.

[gizmo686]

I do not want to enter into a discussion about the morality of child porn. However, regardless of you view on that, it is still a form of speech. US legal precedent explicitly allows for the limitations of speech under specific circumstances (such as intent and likelyhood to incite a crime, and malice with a reckless disregard to the truth). What is important to remember is that wheather we are censoring terrorist how-tos, child-porn, or political opponents we are still limiting speach.

[rdl]

Child pornography doesn't have a bright line, though. I don't think 16/18/21 are particularly different (I.e. societies could choose any of those). There still seems to be debate around the edges of simulated, simulated using real photos of non sexual underage people, self pics to other minors, etc. And IMO the bigger issue of knowing possession vs. it being totally radioactive.

[gizmo686]

>There still seems to be debate around the edges of simulated

Not just the edges. I've seen porn sites self censor obvious fictional porn depicting children, because of concern over hosting child porn.

[rdl]

The thing where Australia banned porn with smaller (A/B) breasted adult women because it "contributed to pedophilia" was amazing, too.