Are people really Googling sexual imagery of children?

Now Google and Microsoft are teaming up to block child pornography. So it will be even more difficult. Normally such issues always starts as a good cause, but then it always ends going too far. I hope their efforts will be successful.

My understanding is that there are private networks for file sharing. It’s not like you do a search for it and lo and behold, there’s a website.

And I don’t know that the FBI is “quickly alerted”. How would they know a file contained child porn? If you named something as “geography”, what would be the clue?

I don’t know – I have never looked for it.

But “child porn” is really a story, a meme, a narrative, or an excuse.

In the name of “child porn”, the government, broadly defined, has taken for itself the authority to search houses, computers, phones – anything. The government has used this excuse to censor books, TV, and movies, even if (a) it is the printed word, not visual depictions, and (b) the actors are over 18 but look younger. Cartoons have been censored because they supposedly depicted (in cartoon format) people under 18.

So the actual answer to your question is really irrelevant. The concept if “child porn” has been used, and will continue to be used, as a huge excuse to take away all sorts of liberties.

After all, who can be against reducing child porn?

Yes, it is easy to be looking for porn, and suddenly have illegal and disgusting child porn images come up. It is equally likely you will find a computer virus.

Pornography and pornographic images, media and websites are banned here in the UAE. Similarly something should be done like this regarding Child Porn in other countries too.

They get their porn somehow, don’t they? They must find it on the Internet. Perhaps not via a Google search, but they get access to the photos/videos somehow. Private file sharing with other pedophiles is probably one way, but not all of them have a network of peers to exchange material with.

I believe the cops had a huge yard sale of the sick shit immediately after Michael Jackson’s untimely demise…or not.

Well, the only paedos I have ever known and loved (before finding out they were paedos, obvi) were part of a P2P file sharing network and forum, and the way they were found out and caught was that there was a cop setting up a sting in the P2P forum, and my former Sunday School student hooked the cop up with a file containing 10,000 explicit images.

I don’t think there are a great number of people doing a Google Image search for naked 7 year olds. Few truly evil people are that stupid.

@filmfann I have never come across images of child porn while looking for adult porn, and this is over years of viewing porn online several times a week. I don’t know what sketchy sites you’re looking for porn on, but there are more reputable sites out there.

I have been on the internet since the day it came out, and I have used it every single day, to find porn I can jerk off to. I have seen 1 child pornography video in all that time, and it was over 10 years ago.

I don’t buy for a second, that this crack down has anything to do with protecting children or getting rid of the porn, I don’t even believe that it is a publicity stunt. it is far far faaaar more likely, this has something to do with SOPA, PIPA, and censuring the internet, and gaining new and better powers for invading peoples privacy.

Me and my friends, have even gone pedo hunting in the past, and anyone who has watched “to catch a predator” knows that there are well informed organized groups dedicated to catching these people.

These people simply don’t operate like that. There is not a massive wave of child porn out there, be it on listed sites, unlisted sites, or p2p networks.

The facts are, that we live in a world, where the average person is just too skilled with computers, for anyone to get away with it. There have been plenty of cases of people who have been tracked down by the internet users, for things such as throwing a puppy in a river, or spitting in burgers and posting pictures to the web.

If the internet will hunt you down and ID you in 4 hours, for throwing a puppy in a river, you can imagine how fast you would be tracked for child porn.

Don’t trust google, they are up to something.

I think you might be surprised how stupid people are about the internet, @dafox.

An acquaintance of mine (protective father of an 18 yo girl) claimed he clicked on an innocent looking link. Child porn popped up with a warning that if he didn’t wire them $350, they would turn him in. He was so freaked out that he threw his computer in the lake. We said, “That was Sooo stupid…if you’re innocent, you destroyed the one thing that could prove it.”

Now, here a different version, of the same story he told a different source. He was surfing “legal” kiddy porn, and got a virus. It seems as if the kiddy porn is acceptable as long as it’s computer generated. He thought he destroyed all the evidence. lol

“Sexual” is in the mind of the beholder.

Maybe I’m being a bit naïve here but what’s the harm in looking at child porn on the internet? If you are paying for the images you are creating a market in which children are being hurt and exploited, but just looking at pictures? It is sick but I don’t see much harm in it.

@flutherother “Maybe I’m being a bit naïve here but what’s the harm in looking at child porn on the internet?”

To create child porn, a child has to be abused. You do not have to pay for images to create a demand for it; offenders get off knowing that people are viewing what they created. So by viewing child porn, you are encouraging more abuse. Furthermore, how do you think the victims feel knowing that there are depictions of their abuse floating around and that people are getting off on it?

Additionally, viewing child pornography does nothing to prevent child abuse from occurring. Few pedophiles are going to seek treatment if there exists a “healthy” outlet for them to explore pedophilia. If they don’t seek treatment, they are still pedophiles, and pedophiles tend to abuse children.

@flutherother What @dafox said.

You have to discourage the market to discourage the abuse. If there’s no market, you at least discourage the sickos from filming it, possibly ruining the rest of the child’s life. Children grow up, images remain on the internet forever. Not to mention the fact that if there’s money to be made, greedy bastages that aren’t even otherwise pervs will start making kiddy porn.

@ibstubro – that’s essentially the same argument used in the so-called “war on drugs” – you have to kill the market because there will always be a supply of drugs as long as people are going to pay for it.

And we all know how successful that has been.

@elbanditoroso Actually, the war on drugs has been largely successful considering that the US is a consumer based society awash in wealth.

The current scourge – particularly among the poor and poorly educated – is crystal meth. Largely because it can be made at home, and the production and distribution are nearly unregulated.

I live in a rural area, and I appear to be one of the few people still surprised when an 19 year old girl (that I met an hour earlier) feels perfectly free to turn to her friend and say, “Oh, did you hear that they got the people that killed my brother? Yeah, it was a meth deal. His bleeping ex girlfriend set him up and her current boyfriend killed him.” Living in a town of about 200 people, surrounded by cornfields.

This all seems to tie in nicely with the new anti-porn laws in the UK too.

How, so? @poisonedantidote ?