Blaming Child Porn On The Internet

Studies

from the passing-the-buck dept

dan winckler writes in with a link to a story about a new report from a children’s charity looking at the rise in child porn arrests over the past fifteen years, and basically blaming the internet – and saying we need to create systems that will stop users from accessing child porn. While I don’t doubt that many more people are now accessing child porn than they were fifteen years ago (mainly due to the internet), shouldn’t the focus be on finding and helping these sick individuals? Blocking access to content online is nearly impossible and would mostly be a wasted effort that will do little to stop the determined person from accessing the content – while probably adding collateral damage. At the same time, it does little to help figure out who these individuals are, and could lead them to find other (even worse) outlets for their problems. Blaming the technology isn’t the solution. At the same time, while the report (focused on the UK) talks about how police actions involving child porn rose 1,500% in that time frame, they’re starting with a very small base number, and the total number of offenders was still relatively small. While some would have you believe that every other person online is a pedophile, this suggests that it’s a small community of sick individuals that are starting to be tracked down through traditional police work. Before we go changing the internet completely (to no avail), shouldn’t we let this process continue? Update: Apparently, I’m not the only one to think this study is ridiculous. This article points out that the numbers mean even less because the laws were different in 1988. They also point out that the rise in police actions is a good thing, that shows the police are doing a good job.