Man Arrested For Child Porn, Blames Google For Making It Too Easy To Find

from the well-there's-a-defense dept

It’s amazing how little anyone is willing to accept blame these days. They always find someone else to blame for their actions. For an extreme example, a guy in the UK arrested for having more than 16,000 child porn photos is using the unique defense that it’s all Google’s fault for making it so easy to access the photos. His lawyer noted: “He feels that he would not have committed these offences if this information was not so freely available. He feels if companies like Google did not provide access to such sites, he would not have committed the offences.” It’s tough to see the court buying that kind of argument.

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Comments on “Man Arrested For Child Porn, Blames Google For Making It Too Easy To Find”

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68 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Scape Goat!

Common misconception. People, especially non-US Citizens, tend to believe Americans are stupid. This is incorrect.

People are stupid.

If you get a group of people, say half a dozen to a dozen, you’ll have some nice and interesting conversations most of the time.

Once the group raises above a certain threshold, you can longer consider people as individuals however. Stereotypes set in, and are sadly accurate to an extent in most cases.

As a rule, there are always exceptions.

This is why monarchies can be the greatest form of government. A fair ammount of the time you’ll get some posh toff who actually cares. Not just about his job, but really just cares.

Those times, its heavenly.

Then of course you get the mad bastards that get married 8 times and keep killing their wives in order to not have to split the kingdom down the middle or something.

Oh and for those of you that didn’t catch it, this is why true democracies are always failures: mob rule. Even the Founding Fathers of the United States knew this.

This is why we’re supposed to be a Representative Democracy.

Of course, the Founding Fathers didn’t make sure to abolish all forms of classes so now the “aristocracy” is just the super wealthy, like it would have been before anyways.

The cynic in me suggests they did have that foresight, but wanted to keep the power for themselves.

Heroes rarely are nice people after all.

proud to be a-non-angrosxsn-american says:

Re: Re: Scape Goat!

“Common misconception. People, especially non-US Citizens, tend to believe Americans are stupid. This is incorrect.

People are stupid.”

didn’t majority of Americans elect what’s his moronic face….GWB….TWICE!?

i think it’s a common conception nowadays….a pretty strong one. lol

some old guy says:

hrmm

well, if its “so easy to get” then obviously there are plenty of people that don’t think its so wrong to have? I don’t think google is to blame here, either way, but it looks like society has a problem indeed with kiddie porn. Namely… its not really a problem, but everyone loves to make it out to be.

duefiori says:

Re: hrmm

What do you mean, “it’s not really a problem”??? Yes, society HAS a problem with kiddie porn. Because kids do NOT want to be in it. Anyone’s fantasies are their own property, and I can daydream of beheading goats if it gets me any kick (it doesn’t – just mentioning). But if i DO it, or I pay someone to behead goats and picture that – yes, society has a problem with that.

Gib says:

lame excuse, fake problem

OK, MOST kiddie stuff is against their will or coerced, but let’s not forget the TINY percentage that do it willingly. The ones who make money from it. Apparently, according to this guy, it’s out there.
That being said, blaming GOOGLE is pathetic and the lawyer who brought it before the judge should be equally fined. I bet if they did that there and here a few times, fewer solicitors would be so willing to even attempt such trivial and pathetic defenses.

John Strickland (profile) says:

Different.

Mr. Pedo said “Namely… its not really a problem, but everyone loves to make it out to be.”

I can understand that some might think, that like homosexuality, our culture will just become more tolerant.

The difference is that homosexuality is between adults who are old enough to make informed decisions about who they are and what they are doing with their life.

In the case of a pedophile, they are asking someone who doesn’t have to the right to say yes. They don’t have the right because they are not old enough to manage that kind of decision yet.

This is why there are laws that prevent old guys from nailing 14 year old girls.

With an age difference of that much, you get into issues of power balance. Namely a relationship these days are supposed to be equal. If one partner is old enough to be a parent, you don’t have equality you have a sex slave.

matt says:

nothing new

I have to disagree when people who say things like: “It’s amazing how little anyone is willing to accept blame these days.”

The fact is that irresponsibility is nothing new. There has always been, and will always be, a certain percentage of the population made up of people who are strangers to their own free will. These people who abuse their freedom to make choices tend to have that freedom taken away, as this individual certainly will.

cory says:

lazy government

Doesn’t anyone have self control these days? I mean, really, this guy is one of the dumbest idiots I’ve heard about in a long time. If this man had any self constraint, then he wouldn’t have the 16k pics that they found. Another thing is, doesn’t the government block those kinds of sites? If they are so easy to find on google, I would beleive that the government would have a problem with that, or maybe they just keep them up to catch pedophiles. Who knows?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Not so easy.

It’s been pointed out that censoring the Internet is not an easy thing; even China has a problem accomplishing total control. A government may be able to shut down a site that’s physically resident in their borders, but in the case of a site based elsewhere, the best that can do is to try and block access to the site. This requires the cooperation of telecos, which is unlikely in most areas because being the government’s censor hound doesn’t provide them much benefit for their efforts. Even at that, if they block me from getting directly to machine A, all I need to do is find machine B that I can proxy through to get to machine A. If they ‘block’ access to B, I just find C and so on.

Nate says:

WHat I wouldn’t give to have about 20 minutes alone in a room with this guy. Not only because he had child porn… ok, that is enough reason for me. But, because he is blaming a search engine for making it possible. GUESS WHAT SCUM BAG… it was your own sick mind that found the stuff. Is it your ISPs fault for giving your access to google? Is your employers fault for paying you the money that you pay your ISP with? Pure scum… hope he rots in jail. http://www.custompcmax.com

Am I A Pedo? says:

“Mr. Pedo said “Namely… its not really a problem, but everyone loves to make it out to be.”

Lol nice way to start off your argument, you assume that because he doesnt think the same way as you he is a pedophile. Witch trials, McCarthy, etc. As you were.

“I can understand that some might think, that like homosexuality, our culture will just become more tolerant.”

To the contrary, the arbitrary age of consent laws in this country have done nothing but increased over the years, not decreased. Even were you to somehow be able to make a defensable argument that girls and boys somehow magically are mature when they turn 18, anyone with half a brain can tell that this isnt an age that was picked for any scientific or reasonable reason, but because rich old white guys with connections ran to their congressmen yelling “they fuckin our girls!!” Hello arbirtary age of consent law.

“The difference is that homosexuality is between adults who are old enough to make informed decisions about who they are and what they are doing with their life.”

You threw in this irrelevant homosexuality argument, take it elsewhere.

“In the case of a pedophile, they are asking someone who doesn’t have to the right to say yes. They don’t have the right because they are not old enough to manage that kind of decision yet.”

You make an elegant, and Im sure unitentended, point. The “RIGHT” to say yes. This country has arbitrary age of consent law in place, in other countries of the world it is normal and acceptable for girls as young as 12-14 to get married and have children. Are you somehow implying that their entire country is fucked up in the head? I guess we should invade them and force them to abide by our rules?

Its hilarious to me the double standards that this country follows. There is a famous movie featuring a nude 12 or 14 year old Brooke Shields, called “Pretty Baby”. You can buy it on dvd pretty much anywhere, I saw it in Wal-Mart. She does full frontal nudity in that movie. Why is it not considered child pornography? Can you explain this dichotomy? Coincidentally, she posed nude in Playboy at the same age.

Another interesting comparison is the case of Webe web, a so-called “child-modeling” site featuring models in the range of 9 to 16. It was 100% non-nude, and the operators and photographers were recently sentenced to jail for child pornography. How exactly can those that created and sell “Pretty Baby” be rewarded and those that created “Lil Amber” be jailed?

“This is why there are laws that prevent old guys from nailing 14 year old girls. With an age difference of that much, you get into issues of power balance. Namely a relationship these days are supposed to be equal. If one partner is old enough to be a parent, you don’t have equality you have a sex slave.”

Oh so its ok if 18 year olds have sex with 12 year olds? Your arguments have more holes than swiss cheese. Im eagerly awaiting your ‘well-reasoned’ response.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Hmmm… you make a few interesting arguments but they’re mainly wrong-headed. First of all, the article is from the UK, where the age of consent is 16, so for a “child porn” crime, you really do tend to be looking at very young children who cannot make mature sexual decisions – usually 14 or below. Unlike the US, where nude pictures of 17 year old seem to get labelled as child porn, if this stuff is prosecuted in the UK, it really is young children being exploited.

FTA: “He indicated that the bulk of this material related to children – male and female – aged between eight and 14 and that he understood that these images were of children being sexually abused”

That’s a hell of a long way from Brooke Shields happening to be naked in Pretty Baby, The Blue Lagoon or Playboy (though you can certainly argue that she was being exploited nonetheless, and such imagery would definitely be illegal now).

…and that’s the point, and the reason why pedophilia is such a hot topic. An 8 year old cannot make an informed decision about sex. They can easily be manipulated into being abused and exploited. This abuse and exploitation is what is really illegal, not necessarily pedophilia itself, and it’s a serious crime because these images cannot be made without abusing a child.

“in other countries of the world it is normal and acceptable for girls as young as 12-14 to get married and have children”

In other countries, it’s OK to stone women to death for being seen in public with a man. In other countries, a woman can be put to death for being the victim of rape. In other countries, you can be legally murdered for “practising witchcraft”.

Just because something is “OK in other countries”, that does not mean it’s something that is, or should be, acceptable in the Western world.

“If one partner is old enough to be a parent, you don’t have equality you have a sex slave.”

“Oh so its ok if 18 year olds have sex with 12 year olds?”

Somehow, I don’t think you read what he said.

John Strickland (profile) says:

In response.

I apologize if I don’t have the most rock solid arguments. But let me share where I am coming from.

I know several people who were sexually abused as children. The guilt, shame and humiliation do not just go away. They will never be able to just forget it. 1 in 4 people are sexually abused in the US.

After you have learned the stories of your family, friends or significant other, you cannot help but be outraged.

Why I rbought up homosexuality: Many pedophiles try to pull the argument out that pedophilia is just another form of sexual orientation and that they shouldn’t be persecuted for their beliefs. I felt that “Mr pedo” aka “Old guy” was heading down that line of thought.

As you may or may not know, back in the 1950’s it was a crime to be homosexual. People were sentenced to chemical castration for their crimes. Now we mostly accept homosexuality as a choice, not a mental sickness or defect.

“Oh so its ok if 18 year olds have sex with 12 year olds?” Do you think that the 18 year old is on equal terms as a 12 year old? Do you feel like they have a similar level of mental development? I don’t. Have you ever spoken to an average 15 year old female? The next time you are at the DMV, just note how the girls getting their permits and licenses for the first time are acting. They are children in all senses of the word.

I know that in a majority of the European countries, 16 is the legal age of consent. I know that this age works for some cultures but maybe not for all cultures.

American courts, law makers and citizens have settled on the age of 18 with a plethora of exceptions. It is not a magical number, it is just the age at which most people graduate from high school and pregnant teen drop outs that cannot support themselves are longer an issue.

Ergo says:

Re: In response.

Dear John,

This is a sensitive issue I understand. But there should be difference between rape and sex with teen that agrees to it (even if it is questionable whether he/she can make that decision). I met my wife when she was 16 and I was 18. We are still together after 20 years and have 2 beautiful children.

I understand that it will be hard for me to accept my daughter to have sex before 18 but it is reality. All I can do is to give her as much info on sexuality as possible so she can make a reasonable decision when she comes to that age. But it is still far from equaling this with rape and child pornography that is very, very much different subject.

Not John says:

Re: Re: In response.

There is a significant difference, as I’m sure you’re aware, between two young peers engaging in certain acts and the presumed coersion involved in pedophilia, etc. The ‘magic numbers’ of 16 and 18 are questionable at best, and generally when a young boy is attracted to a young girl we don’t consider him sexually deviant.

An interesting point brought up in the points on culture is that one upon a time one became an adulty at 14 or 16. Technological advances have lead to cultural changes which brought about child labor laws, the public school system, and adolescence as we know it: not so very long ago there wasn’t really anything comprable to modern teenagers.

It can be argued, and I would take such a stance myself, that we are unnecessarily preventing our children from growing up. The culture we have encourages them to remain children on into what should properly be their adult life. Many of my twentysomething peers are little more than children themselves, and are unprepared for dealing with the world as an adult. Choosing 18 (or 16) as the age of adulthood encoutrages and ensures that childhood will persist until at least that time, and no one grows up over night.

This isn’t a problem the government can fix. you can’t mandate that children grow up before a certain age. It’s something parents (or at the most abstract, communities) must take on as their own responsibility. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening any time soon in America or the UK, or most “other countries.”

Staying Anonymous says:

Re: Re: Re: In response.

The recent change in age of consent laws in Canada raising it from 14 to…well..18 in most cases…almost died in Parliament because no one could quite decide what to do with the 16 year old attracted to the 14 year old and if that was illegal.

They resorted to a formula that involved differences in age of, I think, two years. I say I think because it isn’t all that simple, of course, but that should cover it.

Time to do a bit of outing here. I was sexually abused as a child by what shrinks call “trusted adult”. My father actually. I won’t go into what that did to my life other than to say that some of it wasn’t the least bit pretty.

What it does do is illustrate that the vast majority of child/adolescent sexual abuse is perpetrated by an adult the victim knows, trusts and, often, loves. Something well over 90% of it.

The guy in the dirty raincoat hanging around schools is a myth. There are some though nowhere near as many as our current obsession with this topic would have us believe.

In no way shape or form am I defending kiddie porn sites or excusing them. They are, however, a reality. Deal with it. How, I don’t know but just deal with it. and a bullet in the head isn’t the way to do it.

But do get it through your head that the problem isn’t kiddie porn sites. They are a symptom. And while you’re at it get it through your head that the overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse instances are committed by adult parents, relatives, close family friends and so on. Stranger abuse is rare in relation to that.

As for age of consent there’s a major problem with attempts to legislate that. The forgotten reality in all of this is that when a child hits puberty a more powerful force has decided that it’s time for sexual relations.

That force, of course, is nature. Attempts to legislate an age of consent, while well intentioned, are crude instruments to put up against this powerful force. While destined to fail they are “a good thing” though, I suspect, 18 is leaving it a little late. In all honesty I don’t really know what age is ought to be though I think 18 is an age where the person will simply laugh at the law should he or she decide they want to get laid.

x says:

O.o

Anybody else thinking. Perhaps he’s right about one thing, it shouldn’t be as easy to get ahold of as it is.

Perhaps Google has a moral responsability to filter child pornography from its results, and if they do already, perhaps to do a better job at it. I’ve just tried, and can confirm it is remarkably easy to get ahold of child porn via Google, I don’t think this should be the case.

There are a few other obvious angles to get ahold of this material via the internet. I belive people out there need to do more to prevent it from existing online.

Twinrova says:

Google not at fault?

My post here is most definitely going to be attacked, but just try to keep in mind it’s my opinion. Agree to disagree if you must.

In college, I wrote a thesis on pedophilia which stemmed from a group discussion in an English class. The TA had asked if a book on how to molest a child by a child molester should be published.

Of course, everyone in the class but me agreed it should not be. When the TA spotted my lack of agreement, she asked why and I simply responded “What better way to protect your child than by getting into the head of the person most likely to do it. Learn their tricks and teach your child not to fall for them.”

Instantly, the class changed its view. Funny how that works.

The point here is that Google (et al) is absolutely 100% responsible for failing to take appropriate steps to filter search words related to child pornography.

Stop and think.

Does everyone here feel that Google’s in the clear here?

I’m sorry I can’t agree it is, especially knowing that child pornography is illegal on a global scale.

There is absolutely no reason why any search engine should display images from the search text “child porn”, “kiddie porn”, etc.

Prove me wrong.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Google not at fault?

OK, here goes.

“The point here is that Google (et al) is absolutely 100% responsible for failing to take appropriate steps to filter search words related to child pornography.”

What words are those? How can you be sure that these words are only used to search for child porn? How can you be sure that you aren’t filtering anti-pedophile sites, for example, that offer help and advice to victims? Keyword filtering is notoriously unreliable – e.g. library filters blocking access to breast cancer information because they filtered the word “breast”, or sites discussing the UK country of Middlesex.

Moreover, Google did not instigate the man’s search. He was searching for child porn and happened to use Google as the tool to use it. Therefore, the fact that he used Google is irrelevant. He is a pedophile who was actively looking for photos of child pornography. Maybe Google was the reason he amassed such a large collection, but it didn’t instigate the search nor instil the interest in such material in the man. Removing the tool that he happened to use in this instance would NOT stop future abuse from happening, just force a change of tactics.

Besides, why exactly should Google act as a censor and/or police the net? Under which country’s laws would it filter? A search that results in pictures of 16 year old girls would be legal in Europe but illegal in the US. How can Google effectively censor one country without removing legal content from another? Under what authority can it do so without becoming a censorship tool for the US goverment. What a can of worms would be opened here – there are many things that are benign under Western culture that are unacceptable to muslim countries – which laws should they filter under? Bear in mind that Google has local offices all over the world so “it’s based in the US” would not necessarily trump local laws.

No, Google has no responsibility here. Blaming Google is like blaming the post office because it allowed photos to be sent, or the phone book because that’s how numbers used for obscene phone calls were found.

“The TA had asked if a book on how to molest a child by a child molester should be published.”

Completely false analogy. First of all, Google does not publish information, it indexes it. Google might allow you to find a child porn site, but it has no hand in creating the site to begin with. Attacking Google would simply encourage these people to use other, less obvious, means of finding and sharing material. If Google are used at all here, better for police to use it themselves to find the sites and go after the people committing the crimes, rather than impose a de facto ban and push these people further underground.

Twinrova says:

Re: Re: Google not at fault?

“How can you be sure that you aren’t filtering anti-pedophile sites, for example, that offer help and advice to victims?”
What website helping others would ever place themselves in a category for image searching regarding child pornography?

Show me one.

I want to clarify, because I think the point was overlooked: What circumstance would any search engine allow an IMAGE search on “child pornography”.

Image.

Text, I agree, is an entirely different ballgame and trying to do anything here is a waste of time.

The guy has some merit if his searches were done via image searching. Text is an entirely different aspect because it doesn’t list images, but sites to them, meaning one extra step needs to be taken (and blame away from the search engine).

But there is NO extra step needed for image searches. They’re displayed.

Try this:
Open Google and type “Kaley Cuoco” in the web search.
Lots of sites and a couple of images on the results.

Now do the same under the images search.

Understand now? I can say that a search for “pedophilia” under the web search isn’t going to yield you pictures of a nude 8 year old girl having sex with an adult but who the hell knows what you’d get under the images search.

I’m not that damn stupid to try it.

“Completely false analogy.”
The analogy was used simply to show that looking at something from one point of view isn’t necessarily the correct one.

Given the replies to this blog, I’m attesting the “common view” that Google isn’t partially liable isn’t the correct one.

I’ve yet to see any logical replies on why a search engine would yield *IMAGE* results of child pornography (or any variation thereof).

Hell, a damn caution message with the results would be better than NOTHING.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Google not at fault?

Ah, maybe that’s where we’re not seeing eye to eye. I’m thinking of broader searches (e.g. using Google to find pedophilia sites or galleries and communities where underground photo swapping take place), while you seem to be assuming pure image search (e.g. “I fancy some porn, what’s image search got for me?”).

You’re also assuming that words and phrases used to search for this material will be obvious and not used for anything else. Sure, if somebody’s going to search Google images for “pedophilia” or “naked 8 year old having sex”, maybe your idea would make sense.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. To begin with, it’s well known that pedophiles will use codewords to describe their activities. I don’t know them, but let’s take an obvious one – “lolita”. Blocking images and sites based on that word would not only block some child porn, but also images and discussion of the novel, 2 film versions, possibly pictures of the cast and crew of those movies as well. An image bookmarked “Stanley Kubrick on the set of Lolita” could be blocked as often as “8 year old lolita porn”. From a free speech point of view, totally unacceptable. As codewords and euphanisms become more widely known, more innocuous material would get blocked.

So then, we’re faced with a dilemma. Should Google block all images and risk blocking a lot of legitimate content? How exactly would they filter it? SafeSearch does a relatively good job at filtering porn, but how would it filter adult porn from child porn? How would it tell the difference between different kinds of “unacceptable” images? the only way I can think of is manual filtering, and that is impossible to do on this scale.

Then, of course, there’s the wider issues – what happens when a search engine stops being a blind indexer of content and becomes a censor of that content? Should a private American company become guardian of the internet? How would you deal with them if your site is wrongly filtered? How would you even know? What happens when anti-drugs groups demand the same filtering, or anti-racism groups demand that historical pictures of lynching be removed, for example?

No, the price to pay is far too high. I say, Google is not responsible for this content. They should work with authorities to indicate suspect content when it arises.

“I’ve yet to see any logical replies on why a search engine would yield *IMAGE* results of child pornography (or any variation thereof).”

You have yet to indicate why it wouldn’t. Unless some kind of additional filtering is introduced, what we’re talking about here is blind indexing of every available image. If those images include child porn, and they’re pretty much bound to, then the Google index will include it for searching.

“I’m not that damn stupid to try it.”

Me neither. So, unfortunately, this will remain a hypothetical discussion. Maybe searching for “pedophilia” or “10 year old getting it on” will return a goldmine of images. Maybe it won’t. I suspect not, meaning that pedophiles have to be more creative. meaning that Google would have a much higher false positive ratio.

Either way, that’s not the point. My previous post’s main point was this – the guy wanted to find child porn and he found it, in this case using Google. If Google didn’t index it, maybe Ask.com or MSN or Yahoo or another engine would. Maybe they’d drift further underground, being less detectable.

I agree with Bonehead, post #37 above mine. I have been online since 1996 and despite various searches for questionable material, I have NEVER stumbled across child porn. To my mind, therefore, it must be something already underground, and to make Google a de facto internet police would only make it more so. his would harm children in the long run – if it’s harder to find, it’s harder to prosecute those responsible – and therefore Google should not be held responsible for whatever tiny percentage of blame can be placed in their hands.

Google are the easy target, but they are absolutely the wrong target.

r. decline (profile) says:

Re: Google not at fault?

@Twinrova
ok what about the computer companies? they make the machines that can access google, without a computer google is worthless. so i guess they are responsible and should build something into their firmware? car companies should design their cars to be unable to run people over as well as sidewalk companies make sidewalks you can’t drive on??? cause that makes it so easy to just drive along down them right.. come on.. google isn’t 100% or 10% responsible for this any more so than whoever made his computer or the parts in it. anything can be used incorrectly or illegally.

why should a search engine display results for those kinds of searches? for the same reason you want a book published. if you search for terms like that you will find far more research results, support groups, studies, news, etc etc. the search engine and the computer doesn’t know what the image result is either, and nor should it really have to, but i could easily photoshop an image of a post-it note with the words No More Child Pornography on it as a logo for a company and label it nochildporn.jpg or something. (yeah that is a bad logo and poor naming scheme) the computer doesn’t look at the image the way we do.

anyway, thats a long reply considering i am really hoping you are just playing devils advocate.

Twinrova says:

Re: Re: Google not at fault?

“why should a search engine display results for those kinds of searches? for the same reason you want a book published.”
I dare you to publish a book on pedophilia with images of children being molested.
You’d be arrested faster than anything.

Publishing a book about pedophilia is quite different than what we’re talking about here.

It’s illegal to “publish” these web pages and yes, we know they’re out there. But as I’ve replied already, it should be up to search engines to warrant a caution message (or blocking, I’m open to both) on this type of image search.

And before I get the whole “But what about porn to minors? Stop that too?” I want to clarify: Porn isn’t illegal and a minor going after it is NO WHERE NEAR the same level as anyone searching for child pornography.

Hell, I’ll bet some of you had a dad who tossed you the latest issue of Playboy when you were younger.

But not one taught you how to screw an 8 year old girl when you’re 21.

I’m truly sorry if you people don’t understand this point but I had to say my piece.

Chronno S. Trigger says:

Re: Re: Re: Google not at fault?

“Publishing a book about pedophilia is quite different than what we’re talking about here.”

That is what he’s talking about. Read the rest of his post and use his quote in context.

Why stop with blaming Google for allowing you to search for illegal things. Let’s force them to record any IP address of anyone typing in anything referencing illegal material into the search engine. Good luck researching that high school paper on arbitrary age limit laws. “No, Mr. FBI officer, I was just looking up information for a report.”

If memory serves, Google already has a filter in place. It’s on the low side because they don’t want to punish legal support groups, research papers, law sites.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Google not at fault?

I might point out that a warning message wouldn’t do much at all. The guy already had to turn of SafeSearch. If he got a message saying, “this material may be objectionable or illegal,” I’m sure his response would be, “yeah, that’s what I asked for.”

You make an interesting point on filtering based on key words, but I think it’s a much more difficult problem than you make it out to be. You’d have to come up with “dirty” words, and then think of combinations of “clean” words that become dirty, and so on. Google is designed to search and it does it’s job very well; don’t blame it for the perversions of the people that use it.

Joe Schmoe says:

It’s rather amusing when anyone suggests that Google [or any entity] should filter results, when as the US law reads [as I understand] that it is a crime to even seek it or view it, let alone possess it.

Basically, you are asking these companies to break the law and put themselves at risk in the process of developing filters [a magical technology that will never work]. (You can’t develop technology w/o testing it…)

Bonehead says:

Am I Missing Something?

Call me a moron, but I’ve been on the Internet for 20 years now and have NEVER seen any actual pornography involving children. I’ve occasionally come across photos of 12 or 13 year olds nude or semi-nude, but not in sexually provocative positions. Now I’m clearly not looking for this kind of material. And I’m not suggesting for a second that it isn’t out there. My point is that you don’t find this stuff accidentally.

In many, many years of trolling for porn, I’ve come across examples of every perversion and fetish known to man. Yikes, it makes me shiver to think.

Anyway, if my experience is any guide, you have to make a very specific effort to find this type of material. Google may enable that effort, but no more than a gun manufacturer enables a murder. In the US, this question was settled with the Betamax case. Most other countries formally or informally came to a similar policy, you can’t hold a company responsible for criminal actions enabled by its products if the product has substantial legal uses. The corollary is that you can’t evade responsibility for criminal acts by blaming the product if the product passes the Betamax test. Even then, the company’s liability would probably be civil, not criminal, so the perp is still on the hook for their own actions.

Child pornography is illegal almost everywhere, and as far as I know (which may be nothing), the law is enforced just about everywhere. Any cop should be able to use Google just as well to find servers hosting illegal content. So Google is irrelevant in this court case.

Slyrr says:

This is just a symptom of a growing disease...

The world is reaping the bitter harvest of it’s own hypocrisy. For years, for decades, there are people who have been saying, ‘You can’t tell teenagers not to have sex. They’re gonna do it anyway’. And the drumbeat in schools, media, universities and institutions of ‘higher learning’ have hammered in the message that there IS no ‘right and wrong’ and that right and wrong can be anything you want them to be depending on whatever situation you want them applied.

These same people, who demanded that underage kids be taught about sex ‘because they’ll do it anyway’, who demanded that porn and sleaze be flooded into print, film and other media as ‘free speech’ are now in a cleft stick of their own cutting.

They can’t say that underage teen sex is ok and that porn is free speech, and in the same breath say child porn is ‘wrong’. They can’t say that gay sex/marriage is ‘right’ and say polygamy and bigamy are ‘wrong’.

They sneered and scoffed at the concept of the ‘slippery slope’ of moral degradation and now they’re caught. These two-faced moralists who demanded that every form of perversion and decadance be made socially acceptable are now stuck trying to defend the indefensible and yet punish those who follow their lead. It’s only a matter of time before incest, beastiality and rape well seek to be included in thier little list of things that must be made legal ‘because we can’t stop it anyway’.

And while morality and virtue crumble to dust around them, they’ll still be sneering at a truth so profound they won’t beleive it: ‘Abstinance works – every time it’s tried.’

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: This is just a symptom of a growing disease...

Wow. Erm. What a load of crap…

Just in case you’re not trolling, 3 points:

1. “We hear a lot more about child porn in the media” != “there is more child porn”. This stuff has existed for a long, long time. Remember all the cases about priests abusing kids? Those were cases stretching back to at least the ’50s, and those are only the ones we know about. This is NOT a new thing, and happened a lot during your mythical moral paradise of the past. It wasn’t talked about, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

2. You are talking utter rubbish that has nothing to do with this case, sorry. You seem to be talking about teenagers having sex with each other. The issue at hand is an adult who at least encouraged the abuse of 8 year-old children (well before the age of the sex ed classes you’re complaining about) if not participated in the acts himself. Totally different things.

3. “Abstinance works – every time it’s tried”. Yes, you’re right. Now, going beyond the fact that teenagers don’t try that every time – hence the need for education about how to stop pregnancies, STDs and the like for when they don’t – that again has bugger all to do with the issue at hand. It doesn’t matter how abstinant the kids being raped are – they are still being raped! The definition of that term is that the recipient of the act doesn’t want it. Again, even if you had relevant points (and I could go on for a long time about how you don’t), it’s got sod all to do with the issue here.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: This is just a symptom of a growing disease...

Symptom of a growing disease. This man, who is trying to excuse his pedophelia because ‘Google made me do it’, has obviously fallen into the trap that he doesn’t think that what he’s doing is wrong.

And abstiance does work every time it’s tried – you admitted it. The fact that it’s difficult is no excuse for wimping out when temptation comes along. And it makes things no easier when parents are told to NOT intervene when kids want to succumb to desires they’re not ready to responsibly fulfull. And as that kind of nonsense sinks into the heads of generations taught, you get people like this guy in Canada.

‘A load of crap’ indeed. Well – at least you didn’t swear.

Nasch says:

Re: This is just a symptom of a growing disease...

Besides the utter irrelevancy of your post as pointed out so well by PaulT, I’m wondering about this one:

“They can’t say that underage teen sex is ok and that porn is free speech, and in the same breath say child porn is ‘wrong’. They can’t say that gay sex/marriage is ‘right’ and say polygamy and bigamy are ‘wrong’.”

What leads you to that conclusion? Do you think consensual sex between adults is OK but between teens is not? Or sex within marriage is OK but outside of it is not? How are those distinctions (or whatever moral distinctions you do make if not those) any more valid than the ones you criticize? Other than that they’re different from your distinctions of course, which doesn’t mean they’re wrong, just that you disagree.

A man with Aspergers (user link) says:

Blames Google For Making It Too Easy .Well It's everwhere

The diffrence between soft porn and hard porn is olny in the eyes of the law!.
If the child is black and in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC its some how ok to be Nude?,
FACT child modling sights do reduce the sex offending.
Becouese men youse these Web/sights as a subjtutes.(spelling sorry).
FACT Have you ever wonderd If ASD Aspergers syndrome individuals just like collecting lurge amount of sexual stuff as its a natrail progression.I’m not saying that chrilden must be raped or harmed for the photo shoots but there is a massive market for this thing.lil amber & /12 year old brook sheilds ect ect,, just one more thing 1920 ART DECO NUDE CHILD GARDEN SCULPTURE WOULD NOT BE IN PEOPELS GARDEN TO DAY..FACT>>>

nobody says:

maybe instead we should try to make people who think a baby picture thats harmless is porn and make it clear that aint aint goddam child porn unless it depicts sexualy in any way then instead of ilegalising it compleatly let the mture enough to decide whether they want to or not like maybe at 12 they should chose what pictures to be in and how common if the 13 year old wants to risk alot by posingin a picutre nude compleatly nude with a girl if it isnt too sexual to the parents of the childrens point of view then why not if it isnt sexual

Quest says:

In, My opinion,

I do believe that this man is at fault for possession of Child pornographic material. With that said, I will still put some blame on Google, and not just them. Most search engines pull up very similar images, so it’s not just Google to Blame.

Google and other search engines do give you the choices of strict, moderate, to no filters at all in the settings. Google just gives the browser the capacity to find child porn, but that’s not a guarantee that the browser would just jump at the chance to find it, download it, and store in their computers.

That’s why I say it is his fault that he was caught with the photo because he was the one who kept them. Google didn’t make him get those photos, that was all him. As for how easy child porn it to find, it’s very easy. As a novice artist, I use Google images to find things like body proportions and clothes, and even when I was just looking for porn(in general), I would run into some of those images.

So I know that a person doesn’t always have to be looking for it, sometimes they find you. But that doesn’t change the fact that he had the pictures. With that said, I don’t think this dude woke up thinking about children as sex objects. It’s just like porn or drugs, never thought I would ever watch porn.

It started with one video, and the next thing you know, your watching BP vids. I’m still not excusing his crime, just saying it could have happen to anybody, really. No could say “that couldn’t happen to me.”

richardsievert (user link) says:

this is a very touchy subject here is what heaven feels about sex with a child children know what you are doing they grow up to be adult’s and see with there eye'[s what’s been touched here is a story! ‘LISTEN’ There was a boy and a girl in a family they grew up together knowing the world was not perfect
they kissed there mother each day before they had breakfast and new deep down that was there mother! One day bad men grabbed the twin’s sister and he watched as they raped her helpless to stop them! He grew up hating men because they where mean and hurt his sister at the age of 7 a year later that girl started to feel her female desires because of those two men’s and a girl’s destructive desires and so the girl held his brother like they did to her! Both of these children grew up knowing there where bad men and women in the world and nothing you do could ever change the future for a torn child! Both the male and female knew from that horrible day that nothing on this earth could stop them from one day knowing those men that changed there lives forever where brought to justice! The story of the wheat and the tear’s! Nothing can be dune unfortunately from the injustice in this evil age all we can do is stand taught together and love each other before the harvest that is shortly gong to take place!

Ron McMurrray (profile) says:

child porn

This has got to be one of the lamest excuses for pervert action I have ever heard. This guy is a real sicko. Who in their right mind would even entertain the thought of watching adults performing sex with children? The thought of it is repulsive and I have never even been curious about such perversions. These people will get what is coming to them in the end. It would be better for them to have a millstone tied around their necks and tossed into the sea than to deal with the wrath that is coming to them!

Ron McMurrray (profile) says:

In response.

You are correct about being molested at a young vulnerable age and NEVER being able to forget it. I was molested when I was 14 years old by a full grown man. I am now 53 and I cannot talk about it without my voice cracking. Sometimes I even shed tears when I think or speak of it, it was so awful and degrading. These people who are exploiting these children should be punished for the acts committed and I believe Google has a moral obligation to not make these sights available for viewing. Yes, I know if Google does not make them available, perverts who enjoy this sickening vileness will find it elsewhere.

tiger (user link) says:

can you be procuted for what you type in your search box?

as in the case of the cannibal cop in new York every one is responsible for what you type in the search box and can be held accountable weather its kiddy porn,murder,kidnapping or rape.fiction or fact.cyberspace is the real world as real as you in your home or a thought in your head and its policed like the real world where the search engines keep record of your wildest thoughts so unless you are a renown friction writer do not do searches you wouldn’t want to be identified with even if its a joke

Thom says:

Nude Images, Time To Change The Laws

This is the mass hysteria witch hunt of our generation. I couldn’t agree more, arrest people hurting people, posting and producing abuse… not solely looking at pics, especially considering the laws are so vaguely written that it’s meaning is left up for the individual to decide and these laws are often making criminals out of the very teens they are supposed to “protect”.

The argument is, looking at the pics is harmful and can facilitate more abuse. If that’s true, why allow violent images online? Why can you watch videos of war atrocities? Couldn’t the same argument be made in both cases? Not to mention, Mother Nature ensures we have an innate desire for nudity/sex, what rational person would disagree?

The problem is this is a win-win for politicians and for-profit prisons, and a huge loss for common sense (as well as a very real physical/emotional loss for people prosecuted). No politician has ever lost any election for being too tough on c*p*, and putting more people in jail than another other country is good for the for-profit prison system in the U.S. Now, I ask, why not block those sites if they are convinced simply viewing images is harmful in and of itself?

Don’t believe for one second they can’t, they could easily, the only issue would then be file sharing sites. Which would be the only sites you’d have to avoid. Why don’t they, simple, it again goes back to the for-profit prisons. Don’t kid yourself, that’s exactly why, and politicians who love easy targets to make themselves look like heroes. I know my comments can easily be dismissed…

Except the facts are on my side, if you are just willing to look. We allow 16 year olds in many states to get married in the U.S. (this may come as shock but that means they have sex, I know shocking right), some U.S. states even lower the age with parental consent. Tell me how a picture is wrong, but early marriage and sex in those situations is perfectly okay?

Simple, it’s not, it only is cause “they” say so. Still not convinced, why does Sally Mann, Jock Sturges and David Hamilton all have such huge success. Why are their images sold legally on Amazon or at your local book store, yet, if you search similar images the government kicks in your door?

Again the answer is simple, you (i.e., any average person) likely doesn’t have the financial means to fight them, whereas, they have deep pockets. Don’t stay silent, fight back, abuse should be prosecuted, looking at images found widely available online isn’t abuse. Also, teens chosjng to take pics and sending pics of themselves isn’t abuse; it’s innate, natural and emotionally healthy behavior (don’t allow others to conflate the issue). How would you like the thought police to arrest you for what you watch on TV? Oops, you clicked on and downloaded the wrong TV show, now you go to jail, and your life is ruined. Don’t kid yourself, the internet is what TV was 20 years ago to everyone that surfs the web.

Stand up, fight back, write your politicians, start petitions… it’s not a popular subject, don’t let others intimidate you, remember nudists view nudity for what it really is, nothing more than a human body. It’s your thoughts that they object to, not your actions, because they are simply coming after you for viewing.

Also, it’s easy to see why so many don’t fight back, fear of being ostracized by the abstinence only and purity ball movement crowd is very real. Enough already, don’t be afraid anymore, fight back!

Stats you should know:

54% of teens “sext” (sent nude images)
http://time.com/2948467/chances-are-your-teen-is-sexting/

Another study put the number at 25%
http://resources.uknowkids.com/facts-stats-sexting

A study in the southeastern U.S. found that 53 percent of boys and 28 percent of girls (ages 12-15) reported use of sexually explicit media. The Internet was the most popular forum for viewing. (Note: doesn’t it make sense that at least some of the images they viewed were of teens, close to their own age?)
*Brown, J. & L’Engle, K. 2009, Communications Research, 36(1), 129-151, X-Rated: Sexual attitudes and behaviors associated with U.S. early adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit media

So our answer is to make them criminals in order to protect them? That’s nonsense and the laws need to change, time for some common sense.

Why the hysteria?
1 in 6 girls take an oath (under pressure/coercion from her parents) to her father to remain a virgin at a purity ball.
http://www.purityball.com

For-profit prisons –
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/8180124.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/

Politicians “When ‘tough-on-crime’ measures appear on the ballot, they almost always win, and often by large margins.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=OUiZLQdGJwkC&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=politicians+always+win+when+they+are+tough+on+crime&source=bl&ots=6aCk1tCpBx&sig=nYVpEuNvsxHqQnXc5ypUDFlwMZc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzsKLm5Z7NAhUWUVIKHU4LAzoQ6AEIPTAJ#v=onepage&q=politicians%20always%20win%20when%20they%20are%20tough%20on%20crime&f=false

cj says:

Child porn

lets go after google for making it so easily accessible for people to get and just because they look does not mean that they would ever touch. So google is ruining more peoples lives for looking than the ones that actually create the videos and place them on google. it needs to stop they can regulate everything else why not this google needs to go down they can stop it if they want.

Researcher says:

lazy government

THe “government” sir sets these sites up and uses still other similar sites as lures for the emotionally and sexually misguided. THe numbers of Americans that are falling prey to stings and sets ups and false evidence and false testimony in courts and wind up life long sex offenders is astonishing!! The entire porno industry has made its money but has yet to evolve its products to anywhere near socially redeeming — Therefore, the porno all of it every type – must be eradicated from the servers!
Its not fair that Google can pay $6.2 million dollars per year to BUY it First Amendment rights and allow law enforcement to use their sites to snag children & minors; scholars researching electronic device addiction and child exploitation; the unsuspecting who just happens about this garbage and then yes, there is the person who wants to find this material — But all are destroyed by our crappy courts that treat each instance the exact same – no degrees no grey area — This is a justice SYSTEM with emphasis on SYSTEM and not justice!

Moral Pedo says:

Re:

I am a pedo (by attraction), I’m almost 40, a father, and have babysat. I’ve never touched anyone, and have sworn off pics since I was in my 20’s. Not surprisingly, I was molested, repeatedly, from a young age.

All that being said, PaulT hits it on the head. I’ve never felt directly bad for my preference, but when I hear about how they talk children into it (or worse), I feel sick. All I can think is "raaaaaape". And that feeling extends beyond children or age difference. Like when I see one teen trying (too hard) to get touchy with another (more inexperienced) one. Or a guy following a woman down the street, yelling and generally not taking ‘no’ for an answer.

And some (few) people would say this proves the age limit is abitrary (which it technically is); that we aren’t magically, totally prepared (usually females) for the onslaught of offers, coercion, and deceipt (usually from men) JUST because we turn 18. True, absolutely, for sure. I had much more to develope when I was 18.

But, viewed from the point of gaurdianship and the defense of choice, it really proves the opposite. In a perfect world, no one would ever feel pressured to say ‘yes’, ‘no’ would be responded with only ‘well thank you so much for your time’, and cops wouldn’t have to wear cameras. But it’s NOT that world, men don’t have the restraint or respect they should, and it’s 18 arbitrary years to GIVE THEM A FIGHTING CHANCE!

We all know how most men are. I know I can control myself, that I’d never hurt someone (unjustifiably), but can I prove that to the whole world? Can every person in the world prove that to me? Not well enough for me to gamble a child’s well being, their memories for life. MY child’s wellbeing…

In my opinion, it not about a child’s ability to choose (or the validity of it). It’s about the inherent differential in power (size, money, intelligence, believability, opportunity), and how so very often that difference is levvied. It’s about how often, in the history of these crimes, has the offender EVER listened to the word ‘no’. ‘Cause, as a person who’s been through it enough, that’s what broke me.

P.S. The overwhelming majority of underage children being presented like this are being trafficed. Many end up dead. I would gladly boycott chocolate if I thought it was coming from this kind of treatment. Regardless of any moral debate about the activity itself (like the above), going to these sites funds child abduction and murder. I don’t care if they’re pictures of puppies; if they’re from mills, it should still be banned. These are child mills. Atrocities against humanity.

Moral says:

Google not at fault?

Again, gotta’ agree with PaulT here. If you do try to look up sites like that, even before the Millenium Act, most what you’d find are blogs and articles on cop stings and celebrities busted for it. The trying to use it as a legal defense is full of logical refuse. It doesn’t just ‘pop up’, and that makes sense. Sites that easy to fins get shut down fast. Not many countries are overtly lenient with child porn rings (bad PR with the West, if nothing else).

Besides, again, as PaulT said, it will only make it harder to prosecute. There are already 50k code words for that garbage, don’t make ’em bury the lingo deeper.

As has been previously stated, most people that do this are close ones and need counseling. Burying digital content is ineffective at best, and (has become) a slide into data manipulation schemes at worst.

Google doesn’t make 16k pics easy to find, that’s an obsession. If you Google ‘pink cupcake’, and you get underage pics, THEN we can talk about pointing the finger at Google.

MoralP says:

This is just a symptom of a growing disease...

Wow! Not trolling?.. Seriously? I come from Kansas; go see abstinence and the strictures of morality work there. My county, for almost 2 years, was at the very top for teen pregnancy. But we had abstinence speeches at the school yearly. The only sex ed we got were VD slideshows that made one girl litteraly run to the bathroom to puke. She still slept with her boyfriend.

Teenagers got together at 12-14 to start families (as their hormones tell them) for eons. They still get together at that same age now, hasn’t changed.

What’s changed is the World. More to learn, more to establish before you’re prepared to have children. But humans, like nearly all species, attempt coupling shortly after their reproductives systems start functioning. That’s why they start then.

I will, however, totally and woefully agree that humanity, and definitely America specidically has a terrible instant gratification problem. Good things come to those who wait, but lessons, unfortunately, are easier learned than taught.

Uriel-238 (profile) says:

Kids don't want to be in child porn.

If we were interested in keeping kids out of the porn industry, the solution would be to decriminalize realistic CGI renders. Yes, there still would be child porn the same way there’s still snuff, but it would be a fraction of the current market by orders of magnitude.

It would also raise awareness of non-porn ways our society sexualizes kids (e.g. beauty boutiques including a partial strip-tease, or Benetton using tween models in a state of partial undress to sell its fashions.)

But no, our society likes the thought crime. We are terrified of the notion of pervs perving out on kids and want an excuse to lock them up, hence we have laws to criminalize cartoons of child porn, or porn that looks too much like a naked kid (even when the model is registered.) Also the whole teens sexting = child porn distro thing.

We’re not interested in protecting kids. We’re interested in targeting people we can demonize and putting their warm bodies into private prisons.

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