April 22nd, 2008Attacking Child Porn Online
This is the first of a multi-part series focusing on the many different forms of internet crime. I plan on looking at several different ways people use the internet to profit from various illegal activities, as well as examine different solutions that have been presented over the last few years. The final post in the series will be my potential solution to the problem.
Child pornography; the two words we never want to see next to each other. It’s yet another crime that preys on some of the most vulnerable people in the world and, like adult pornography and prostitution, it’s not going to disappear anytime soon. This shouldn’t stop us from trying, though.
The Tokyo-based Internet Hotline Center identified 1,600 web sites as repositories of child pornography in 2007. Of these, only about 300 have been shut down in response to the IHC’s “cease and desist” requests. Of course, it doesn’t help that downloading pictures and movies of children in various states of undress, perhaps while “pleasuring” someone, is not a punishable offense in Japan. This is considered one of the major factors behind the availability of such material online, and has drawn the ire of several nations as they try to eliminate this socially unacceptable and psychologically damaging criminal activity.
A Worldwide Problem
Japan’s IHC was set up by the National Police Agency to collect information, in the form of complaints and tips, on objectionable material online. In 2007 alone, 1,600 sites were reported by concerned citizens. Of these, 543 are hosted on servers overseas, which puts them outside the jurisdiction of the Japanese authorities. Five hundred of the sites operating from inside the nation were then asked (a little too politely) to remove the illegal content or otherwise shut down. Only 298 have complied.
As for why the IHC could only request the shut down of 500 sites, the organization does not have the legal authority to force operators to cease and desist, even if it can identify the operators. To add insult to injury, for every site shut down, two others are launched.
Naturally, with all the sites available and the audiences that follow, once an image or video is posted, it can circulate online for dozens of years. There are some victims of this heinous crime that have said they can never move on with their lives so long as these digital reminders exist in cyberspace.
Definition of a Crime
Many nations consider just the act of seeing child pornography as a crime, regardless of whether a person had intentionally sought the material. However, in Japan, only those who distribute or purchase the porn are punishable under Japan’s law on child prostitution and pornography. People who obtain the stuff for free or simply in possession are not punishable.
Because of this, lawmakers are working hard to revise the law in order to penalize everything from full scale production, to simple possession.
Blocking The Distributors
In a bid to counter the ready availability of child porn, the IHC is pushing for the introduction of a blocking system, much like the one currently used in several European countries since 2004. If a blocking system is implemented, people would not be able to view these sites, including those hosted overseas. This system has proven to be incredibly effective in Sweden, where 30,000 attempts to access illegal sites are blocked every day.
That said, the introduction of a content blocking system could undermine the police’s ability to track, trace and otherwise bait child molesters. If that’s not bad enough, we need to remember that the miscreants who visit public sites to get off on children are the dumbest of the dumb. These are the mouth-breathing bottom-feeders that are too inept and unconnected to matter. If governments want to seriously start going after the villians involved with child pornography, they need to set their sights on something bigger: the content creators.
However, in order to be mostly successful with this, people may need to give up some of the freedoms and liberties found on the internet.
How far would you go to protect children from this kind of exploitation? Is it enough just to combat the problem online? When it comes to defending human dignity and rights, how many freedoms would we be willing to give up for the greater good?
People who subject children to such trauma and exploit them for their own selfish desires are the lowest of the low. Why it’s tolerated (and dare I say, even encouraged to some extent - see the case of elementary school bathing suit pin-up girls in Japan on talk TV and variety shows) here, I’ll never be able to understand.