• Johny Mark (unregistered) in reply to Man 987876980
    Man 987876980:
    TRWTF is that it took weeks before someone finally decided to complain. The first time he did it, the whole department should have acted en masse. By not doing that, they deserved to be shouted at. Not reporting something of that nature is itself grounds for disciplinary action, and in many countries is probably illegal too.

    Maybe their boss (or the boss's boss, etc) had some important connections with that person, and everybody knew the guy would just delete all the kiddie porn and deny watching it, tell somebody was hacking his account. Then, someone else would be fired, and the same guy would keep watching his kiddie porn.

  • Steve (another one) (unregistered)

    I'm in agreement with the first Steve commenting except that I'd've called the cops the first time I became aware of it. Anything less is becoming an accessory after the fact, possibly subjecting oneself to some pretty serious criminal liability. Kiddie porn is just a couple of ticks below homicide, as far as most DAs are concerned.

    CAPTCHA: facilisis (I think there's a treatment for this)

  • Stairmaster (unregistered) in reply to eryn
    eryn:
    i remember once seeing some porn with a teenager in it on the tech network. her brittle smile for the attention of the camera while she was vigerously violated by a man with an evil grin, it was truly horrific.

    the juxtaposition of this euphamized article and that memory is...

    euphemized article? it explicitly states kiddie (as in pre-teen) porn here. this is worlds apart from porn with teenagers.

  • Loren Pechtel (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that it even went through HR.

    Assuming it's true kiddy porn I wouldn't have squawked to HR, I would have gone to the cops immediately.

  • (cs)

    How would you classify images of preteens wearing clothes but in suggestive poses? In my last job we caught a guy downloading a large amount of that type of content during work hours. He was married with a family which made it more disturbing.

  • Pat (unregistered) in reply to cellocgw
    cellocgw:
    I have to say the "send him to jail" folks are missing something important. First of all, I fully agree that child molesters are nasty criminals, and that people who enslave children and force them to commit sex acts, on or off camera, are even worse. However, the person in this case was (allegedly) *watching* kiddie porn. Certainly unacceptable in the workplace, but I am not convinced that *viewing* illegally created material is in and of itself a crime. (sort of like the **IAA trying to nail people for watching illegally copied DVDs).

    You are fucking retarded.

    You are so fucking retarded I can't believe you actually wrote something that fucking retarded.

    Child porn is not something you just "happen across" at work, you fucking retard.

  • Pat (unregistered) in reply to "The Law" is still wrong
    "The Law" is still wrong:
    real_aardvark:
    "The Law" is not always right (remember Prohibition?):
    Morality is in the eye of the beholder to anyone who is not a blind sheep.
    No, morality is a social construct, built by consensus. Nice bit of pointless relativism though.

    I was wondering when the Ayn Rand/NAMBLA lads were going to get in on the, ahem, act.

    And what sheep don't realize is that if the consensus is stupid, the law is still wrong. Having a majority of sheep feed into your every word doesn't make it right, it means that the majority are too ignorant and stupid to see otherwise.

    Yes! Exactly! Because it's RELATIVE that watching children be violated is wrong. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS FUCKING WRONG WITH YOU YOU FUCKING RETARDED LITTLE FUCK??????

    WHY DON'T YOU GO FUCKING APPLY SOME RELATIVITY TO GETTING HIT BY A FUCKING BUS YOU USELESS WASTE OF FUCKING FUCK!!!

  • (cs) in reply to Stairmaster
    Stairmaster:
    eryn:
    i remember once seeing some porn with a teenager in it on the tech network. her brittle smile for the attention of the camera while she was vigerously violated by a man with an evil grin, it was truly horrific.

    the juxtaposition of this euphamized article and that memory is...

    euphemized article? it explicitly states kiddie (as in pre-teen) porn here. this is worlds apart from porn with teenagers.

    It was my understanding that "kiddie porn" implied under-legal-age (in the USA, 18 years). Teenagers would be included in that.

    Not that that's any more excusable...

  • Pat (unregistered)

    Alos, Mr. retardedly arrogant name, I'd love to see you hold on to your precious moral reletavism without the internet to hide behind. The nice thing about moral reletavism is that unless you want to be a giant hypocrite, you can't get mad if someone beats the shit out of you and throws you in a ditch for sating something retarded. Because to them it's moral, an you have to respect that.

    Of course, you never discussed logic with a real human being, so you wouldn't know that moral relatavism is a joke. There is no intelligent philosopher in the world who buys into that bullshit because it's so obviously flawed.

  • iMalc (unregistered)

    Excessively unhealthy comment - do not read!

  • baronzemm (unregistered) in reply to iMalc

    It just dawned on me why the guy would have to leave his desk in a hurry multiple times without closing the browser...

    ...

  • (cs) in reply to Pat
    Pat:
    Alos, Mr. retardedly arrogant name, I'd love to see you hold on to your precious moral reletavism without the internet to hide behind. The nice thing about moral reletavism is that unless you want to be a giant hypocrite, you can't get mad if someone beats the shit out of you and throws you in a ditch for sating something retarded. Because to them it's moral, an you have to respect that.

    Of course, you never discussed logic with a real human being, so you wouldn't know that moral relatavism is a joke. There is no intelligent philosopher in the world who buys into that bullshit because it's so obviously flawed.

    Now now, that's a bit uncalled for. While I'm sure we all agree children shouldn't be exploited commercially (for sex), the whole idea of children and sexuality is viewed with much less of a Pavlov reaction in other cultures. And by "other cultures" I don't mean some backwater - the ancient Greeks thought it perfectly okay, and I'm sure I need not remind you that they are considered one of the cornerstones of western society.

    All I'm saying is: there is indeed no absolute truth to morality. Claiming there is, and you know it, and attacking someone for pointing out you are, in fact, wrong by using excessive swearing words is more a sign of your own moral shallowness than anything else.

    More importantly, pointing out that our truths aren't universal does not mean we do not wish to live by said truths. Now /that/ is an unforgivable fallacy.

  • fluffy (unregistered)

    All I can think is that the HR department was bringing the whole group in to be admonished because, while only one member of the group was viewing X amount of kiddie porn, this means that the group as a whole was viewing X/10 amount of kiddie porn on average.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to fluffy
    fluffy:
    All I can think is that the HR department was bringing the whole group in to be admonished because, while only one member of the group was viewing X amount of kiddie porn, this means that the group as a whole was viewing X/10 amount of kiddie porn on average.

    Would that make it a healthy amount?

  • Sanity (unregistered) in reply to Pat

    Disclaimer: I haven't commented on this thread yet.

    Pat:
    Alos, Mr. retardedly arrogant name, I'd love to see you hold on to your precious moral reletavism without the internet to hide behind.

    I actually can and do. I support Freenet, in theory, realizing that it will be used for many things I find offensive -- including child porn.

    Pat:
    The nice thing about moral reletavism is that unless you want to be a giant hypocrite, you can't get mad if someone beats the shit out of you and throws you in a ditch for sating something retarded. Because to them it's moral, an you have to respect that.

    Assuming I accept your definition, actually, maybe my own morals say that I do get pissed off if someone beats the shit out of me, for any reason.

    Pat:
    Of course, you never discussed logic with a real human being, so you wouldn't know that moral relatavism is a joke. There is no intelligent philosopher in the world who buys into that bullshit because it's so obviously flawed.

    Leaving that quote in just to demonstrate something -- I doubt any intelligent philosopher would make that kind of argument, even casually. Argument from authority, ad hominim, false premises... It's embarrassing.

    I actually make a very clear distinction -- hurting people is wrong. Looking at pictures of people who've been hurt is not wrong. If it's not wrong to look at a picture of a corpse (who's been murdered), then it's not wrong to look at kiddie porn.

    Either one is very sick and disturbing, but that's relative, and different than "wrong".

  • Robin (unregistered)

    "Finally, someone got offended enough to say something to HR."

    The most amazing part of this story is that the author assumes that readers would think that this scenario is in any way plausible.

  • Kanthalas (unregistered)

    I figure what was being watched is not actual Kiddy Porn, but Teen Porn. So they might just be "young" looking 18 year olds or it actually could be illegal and have 15-17 y.o or whatever. So people walking by would just see porn, not actual kiddie porn. Which I'm guessing would have raise alarms -real- quick.

  • Kasper (unregistered) in reply to charonme
    I wonder if it occurred to anyone that the original author might have meant something else by "kiddy porn"
    It sure did occur to me. People have different limits on what they classify as kiddie porn. An 18 year old that looks very young would be enough for some people, while others would think a 14 year old is not that bad. And what exactly defines whether a picture is pornographic. For some nakedness is sufficient to classify it as porn, others would require actual sex to be happening. Of course there are extremes where there can be no doubt, but you cannot just draw a line. There will always be some edge cases where people will disagree.

    Considering how some people react when the subject is discussed, I would say you would have more reason to worry about getting lynched, than about getting fired or reported to the police. Also in this forum I see some completely ridiculous comments. Such comments scare me more than the story did.

    Even the laws about it don't always make sense to me. There are countries where it is legal to have sex with a 16 year old, but illegal to posses a picture of somebody else doing it. Can anybody provide a sane argument why the law would consider it worse to be looking at it than to be doing it?

    Also consider that in some countries possession of child porn is illegal, but if you simply look at it on the interweb, you are not possessing it.

    Frankly I think it would make a lot more sense to go after the people that produce and trade it. Going after the people who just look at the pictures means losing focus on those that are actually abusing kids.

  • (cs) in reply to Sanity
    Sanity:
    Pat:
    The nice thing about moral reletavism is that unless you want to be a giant hypocrite, you can't get mad if someone beats the shit out of you and throws you in a ditch for sating something retarded. Because to them it's moral, an you have to respect that.

    Assuming I accept your definition, actually, maybe my own morals say that I do get pissed off if someone beats the shit out of me, for any reason.

    At that point I'd have to say that your definition of "morals" is functionally useless, which is precisely why I introduced (with rather less swearing than Pat) the notion of moral relativism as contrasted to the notion of morals as a social construct.

    Sanity:
    Pat:
    Of course, you never discussed logic with a real human being, so you wouldn't know that moral relativism is a joke. There is no intelligent philosopher in the world who buys into that bullshit because it's so obviously flawed.

    Leaving that quote in just to demonstrate something -- I doubt any intelligent philosopher would make that kind of argument, even casually. Argument from authority, ad hominem, false premises... It's embarrassing.

    I actually make a very clear distinction -- hurting people is wrong. Looking at pictures of people who've been hurt is not wrong. If it's not wrong to look at a picture of a corpse (who's been murdered), then it's not wrong to look at kiddie porn.

    Either one is very sick and disturbing, but that's relative, and different than "wrong".

    Leaving aside the various pitfalls of defining "hurting people" here, which is neither clear nor simple, your argument is both sophomoric and based on a questionable premise. There is no necessary equivalence between looking at a corpse and looking at an abused child.

    (Indeed, police officers may have to do both, and will not be locked up or censured for either. Context is everything in these matters.)

    I assert that your argument is sophomoric because it rests on a platform of pure logic -- given your axioms -- and not on a platform of reality.

    Leaving aside the question of why a corpse would care whether you are looking at it, and why an abused child would not care, isn't it just possible that there's a whole industry out there based on abusing children and taking pictures of the process, whereas there doesn't seem to be a particularly large industry based on creating corpses and taking pictures of the process?

    I think this is the main reason why "consensus" moralists are against the viewing of child porn in the vast majority of cases.

    It doesn't necessarily involve running around in a mob spray-painting words on a paediatrician's house. It doesn't necessarily involve hoping, as two commenters above have done, that the perpetrator is ripped apart in a maximum-security jail. ("In Crazed Psychotics We Trust...")

    Mainly, it's about hoping that the entire culture of child pornography can be ripped out at its roots.

  • anonymouse (unregistered) in reply to 36% Genius
    36% Genius:
    cellocgw:
    ... I am not convinced that *viewing* illegally created material is in and of itself a crime. (sort of like the **IAA trying to nail people for watching illegally copied DVDs).

    In several countries viewing child porn is illegal. The theory is that people who view child porn constitute a market for child porn, which would be an incentive for child molesters to make child porn.

    K, first of all, screw you for actually making me defend something I find reprehensible.

    That out of the way, if I were to follow your logic, and you were a fan of say, the movie Hostel, would you be creating incentive for psychopathic criminals to kidnap tourists and offer them as torture victims to wealthy maniacs?

    People who do fucked up things don't do them because they might have an audience; they do fucked up things because they are fucked up. If they were going to diddle a little kid and film it, I doubt having a worldwide distribution channel was the motivating factor; if it were, why would there be film from the 60s-80's of the same thing, well before the Internet existed?

    The reason kp is illegal, beyond the act itself being an issue, is that the victim of the abuse has their face plastered everywhere for the creeps of the world to see. They had no choice in the original crime happening, nor the documentation of it, which results in them being re-victimized every time the image is viewed.

  • (cs) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    It doesn't necessarily involve running around in a mob spray-painting words on a paediatrician's house.

    I should hope not, what could any one have against a pediatrician? A paedophile on the other hand... I could understand that.

    The law is quite clear on this, if you look at child porn you are committing a crime. If you do not report some one looking at it perhaps you are not actually commiting a crime but you do have something wrong with you... just think when you were 5, how would you like it, your kids? your grandkids?

    Note: it is quite clear that I have pasted an html link into this post, I know, I dont care.

  • (cs) in reply to charonme
    charonme:
    I wonder if it occurred to anyone that the original author might have meant something else by "kiddy porn" since 1. the colleagues tolerated is so long, 2. the management tolerated it multiple times, 3. he was not fired and police was not called ? Let me propose that the author was foreign and didn't really know what he was implying (or he is fortunate having no idea actual child porn really exists) and in reality it was some soft erotica.

    But of course that wouldn't be dramatic enough to put on the best of sidebar. Alternatively, the "kiddy" aspect was added to the story in postproduction to boost the embellishment/drama.

    Indeed, I'm amazed it took so long for someone to say this. Maybe what this guy thought was kiddie porn was in fact perfectly legal 18-year-olds, or it was an exaggeration? As for not getting fired, maybe the higher-ups couldn't prove it.

  • (cs) in reply to Monomelodies
    Monomelodies:
    Now now, that's a bit uncalled for. While I'm sure we all agree children shouldn't be exploited commercially (for sex), the whole idea of children and sexuality is viewed with much less of a Pavlov reaction in other cultures. And by "other cultures" I don't mean some backwater - the ancient Greeks thought it perfectly okay, and I'm sure I need not remind you that they are considered one of the cornerstones of western society.

    All I'm saying is: there is indeed no absolute truth to morality. Claiming there is, and you know it, and attacking someone for pointing out you are, in fact, wrong by using excessive swearing words is more a sign of your own moral shallowness than anything else.

    More importantly, pointing out that our truths aren't universal does not mean we do not wish to live by said truths. Now /that/ is an unforgivable fallacy.

    You don't even have to go as far afield as Ancient Greece — just modern-day Spain, where the age of consent is apparently 13, meaning that having sex with teenagers is entirely legal there. (No idea how the Spanish laws regard videoing said sex, although it seems illogical to me for it to be illegal to film an act which is in itself legal.) Even within the US itself the age of consent can be a lot lower than people might expect — I was quite surprised myself when I looked it up.

  • (cs)

    Or maybe they just thought it would be more trouble than it's worth. Consider this; you found out your roommate was a raging pedo with a huge stash of horrible images. If you report him, he's just going to say it's yours. And it all got downloaded over YOUR internet connection in YOUR name. The least-risk course of action is to ignore it, and find another reason to kick him out.

  • anonymouse (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    Leaving aside the question of why a corpse would care whether you are looking at i
    Replace the word "corpse" with "rape victim", and I submit that you have something just as bad as kp, that is not (at the moment) illegal (in the worst possible taste, yes, but not illegal). Kp generates a knee-jerk reaction in people which is one of the reasons the laws against it are so extreme. It's certainly not defendable, but truth be told, I'd rather that someone who violently assualts another human spend way more time in prison than someone who is looking at kp. I don't buy the concept that kp is a "gateway drug" to actual abuse. People are screwed up enough to come up with the idea all on their own.
    real_aardvark:
    Mainly, it's about hoping that the entire culture of child pornography can be ripped out at its roots.
    Good luck. That sentiment has sure worked well against murderers, rapists and fraud artists. Wouldn't you rather have police time focused on the producers and molestors rather than than the viewers? Once the first two have been dealt with, move on to the third.

    And to Pat... chill the fuck out. You can have a much more constructive discussion once you extract anger from the argument and limit your fucking use of profanity ;) Besides, haven't you heard that old Shakespeare adage "Methinks tho dost protest too much"? I'm keeping my eye on you...

  • Stairmaster (unregistered) in reply to lolwtf
    lolwtf:
    Indeed, I'm amazed it took so long for someone to say this. Maybe what this guy thought was kiddie porn was in fact perfectly legal 18-year-olds...

    That would certainly be slander. Trying to wrongfully stigmatize someone as a paedophile when they aren't one is just about as bad as being one. Also people who do this often try to publicly distance themselves in an effort to cover up their own perverted tendencies (or to drag others down to share the burden).

  • Mange (unregistered)

    It's scary to watch some people here in their moral debates. People are very verbal in defending the laws regarding child porn (CP) and the attached "morals".

    Stop and think about it for a while: Why is watching CP illegal?

    There are a number of reasons, and I think some of them are wrong.

    Reason 1: It's wrong and immoral! Yes, and so is homosexuality, long hair, sex before marrige, not sacrificing animals to the gods, etc. This is in the eye of the beholder and it should need a "reason" why it's bad when laws are formed. Murder is bad because you actually kill another human being and remove the rest of their life, often hurting them before they die, and inflicting mental pain for the relatives (for example).

    Reason 2: It hurts children. Yes, by doing the production. And by distributing it, as "anonymouse" said:

    anonymouse:
    The reason kp is illegal, beyond the act itself being an issue, is that the victim of the abuse has their face plastered everywhere for the creeps of the world to see. They had no choice in the original crime happening, nor the documentation of it, which results in them being re-victimized every time the image is viewed.
    Should the very act of viewing it really be illegal? Let's get back to that later.

    Reason 3: It motivates child abusers to have an audience I'd guess most child abusers do it because of mental illness (like most serious crimes) and not because people will be watching. Some might do this for the very reason, but I think most of them don't. Of course, I have no real statistics to link to, but I don't think people claiming this have either.

    Reason 4: Watchers will be doers after a period of watching. Please, give me some evidence of this. I don't see why this should be true. Actually, I've read several statements from pedophiles where thay say that they feel aroused by minors, but since they aren't "fucked up" they would never, ever do anything with a minor. Furthermore, they would not want to see CP with actual children since it means that the children they see are abused, and most pedophiles there would only want to fantasize about a child who is willing as it's part of their kink (naïve and inexperienced partners; many people have this, only it's not as "extreme").

    To recap, producing CP hurts the children in the proccess and distributing it hurts them even more mentally after the act. Watching the act after it have taken place does no real physical damage on the victim, although mental damage is applied if you see it from that viewpoint.

    But people here don't realize that we still haven't touched the aspect of simulated CP. Simulated? Yes, we have these variations:

    • Photoshops
    • Drawn (lolicon)/Computer animated
    • Suggestive poses with clothes on
    • Actors, makeup and camera play ("the 28 year old lolita"-syndrome)

    Tell me who the victim is when some guy in his basement looks at the Hello Kitty cat having sex with a drawn seven year old (in the same drawing style). It should be his business and his business only. There's no victim here. None.

    In the case of a photoshop (adding genitalia in a picture without it, switching heads, etc.) the victim is the child in the picture, but only as slander (which is a more minor offense -- also debatable, of course).

    Many countries have outlawed every form of CP, no matter how it's made. Lolicon/Shota is illegal where I live, AFAIK - although it have never been tested in court. Lolicon/Shota is Japanese Ecchi (softcore*) and Hentai (hardcore*) porn involving children. Since there is no victim in this porn, it should NEVER be illegal, not even to produce or distribute.

    In Japan CP is allowed as long as there's not a real victim in it. Japan also have among the lowest rates of child molestation in the world. If it's unrelated, because less edge cases are being punished or because the pedophiles have something to look at without having to hurt real children, I do not know, but it's a thing to think about.

    I've actually seen some "real" CP by mistake (I promise) on some dark corner of the internet, where somebody posted images to see how long it took for him to be banned and the images removed, and they appeared as semi-large thumbnails when entering there. It took about 4 minutes, AFAIK, and I was unlucky. I wanted to wash my eyes with bleach and I don't like it at all. They were only softcore (thank the gods!) so I didn't suffer from some cardiac arrest or something, but it was still very creepy and I didn't like it at all. So why would I defend it? Well, as long as no single person are hurt, I don't see the problem. It's only their business then, and they may watch whatever they want for all that I care.

    I'm not even posting this as AC, just because I want to make a point. I believe in the concept of free speech and liberties and this should always be applied to "immoral" practices like homosexuality, bisexuality, etc. as long as no person is hurt.

    OP "kiddie porn" might have referred to jailbait (15-17) porn, which some people classify as CP. CP is with younger people than that.

    It's also possible that the person was watching lolicon and/or shota, and that is not the same thing either -- unless you are the law. In the case of the law, all CP is wrong because it's immoral, just like some other conservative christians have outlawed anal and/or oral sex in some USA states.

    If it was "real" CP the employee looked at, people wouldn't just get "offended" after awhile. Believe me. They would not even dare look at his general direction and shout the same stuff people shout when they see 2 girls 1 cup for the first time. It's fucking disgusting.

    Think about stuff like this for a moment sometime. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean that it's wrong (hello MAFIAA!) and the other way around.

    Oh, and try to keep the flames a bit civilized. Not funny to take time to write arguments and only getting "u a faggot pedohile defender get outta here we h8te u" as a response ;-)

  • (cs)

    I think the quote from Benjamin Franklin is appropriate here:

    "Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

  • Mel (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    Sanity:
    I actually make a very clear distinction -- hurting people is wrong. Looking at pictures of people who've been hurt is not wrong. If it's not wrong to look at a picture of a corpse (who's been murdered), then it's not wrong to look at kiddie porn.

    There is no necessary equivalence between looking at a corpse and looking at an abused child.

    I know it's completely irrelevant, but surely the analogy would be more like watching someone actually being murdered (and deriving pleasure from it), rather than seeing the body afterwards? It's deliberately, purposefully seeing/watching the act itself happening, rather than the aftermath...

    I for one find this whole story and thread very, very disturbing...

  • Mr.'; Drop Database -- (unregistered)

    The real WTF is these comments.

  • Saemundr (unregistered) in reply to charonme
    charonme:
    Let me propose that the author was foreign and didn't really know what he was implying (or he is fortunate having no idea actual child porn really exists) and in reality it was some soft erotica.

    This makes perfect sense. best explaination so far tbh.

    "Kiddy" as in explicit enough to excite young boys, without being hardcore.

  • Mel (unregistered) in reply to Mange
    Mange:
    Reason 3: It motivates child abusers to have an audience I'd guess most child abusers do it because of mental illness (like most serious crimes) and not because people will be watching. Some might do this for the very reason, but I think most of them don't. Of course, I have no real statistics to link to, but I don't think people claiming this have either.
    I would argue (admittedly, from a completely uninformed position) that it's not so much an 'audience' as a 'paying audience' that could provide motivation in a lot of cases. As someone above mentioned, there *is* an entire industry based on this stuff.

    And yes, I suspect it was all happening before the internet as well. However, I'd suggest people were doing because there was something wrong with them, rather than because they could / thought they could make a living or even get rich doing it (producing the images, selling them, grooming the victims, trafficking the children, not necessarily actually 'doing it').

  • Saemundr (unregistered) in reply to anonymouse
    anonymouse:
    That out of the way, if I were to follow your logic, and you were a fan of say, the movie Hostel, would you be creating incentive for psychopathic criminals to kidnap tourists and offer them as torture victims to wealthy maniacs?

    No, he would be creating incentive for people to make FICTIONAL movies. FICTIONAL.

  • Ben (unregistered)

    Re: bosses slapping hands to foreheads:

    We were at a client site, installing a bit of software I'd written for a data collection project on all users' machines (really, little more than an icon linking to a server). It was a last-minute rushed job and we were trying to get dozens of machines going before everyone got into work that day.
    I was working at one of the last machines, with my boss looking over my shoulder. I could hear that someone - presumably the user for this PC - had walked up beside him to wait for me to finish. Without looking around, I said "I'm almost done, I just have to erase some porn on this machine to make room for our software..."

    I turned around to see a very small, grandmotherly-looking Asian woman chuckling quietly to herself while my boss, next to her, shook his head with his face in his hands. It took some explaining on the way back from the site, how I could have been sure the joke would be taken as such, how I wasn't risking pissing someone off (had I turned around first and seen the user before making the remark, I think it would have been appropriate to fire me!) - but in the end, they'd been working with me too long not to know how my sense of humor works.

  • (cs)

    Lovely story, but for those of us who do read the sidebar and have seen it before, where's the NEW content? Best of the sidebar is a great idea, but only if it's in addition to feature articles, not replacing them.

  • Mange (unregistered) in reply to Saemundr
    Saemundr:
    anonymouse:
    That out of the way, if I were to follow your logic, and you were a fan of say, the movie Hostel, would you be creating incentive for psychopathic criminals to kidnap tourists and offer them as torture victims to wealthy maniacs?

    No, he would be creating incentive for people to make FICTIONAL movies. FICTIONAL.

    Yes, and there are no fictional pornographic content. That lady with the pizzas really did accept sexual intercourse as payment for the customer that forgot his wallet at his friend's house.

    Thing is, in some places, porn including this scenario is illegal to see since there is untaxed value transfer and not paying taxes for pizzas is immoral and everyone not doing it should be put in jail and then be marked for the rest of their lives and never ever be able to come more than 200 m close to a PizzaHut -- even if it was no pizza in the car and the female in question did not work at a pizzeria. The thought police will be making murderous thoughts illegal next fall.[/metaphor]

    Remember people... UK have even put a ban on possessing violent pornography. Hostel would fall under that category if you feel aroused by the naked bodies once since that's how it's defined. The fact that violence and sexuality goes hand-in-hand and have always done that (look at all the classic horror flicks; sexual tension or scenes are everywhere) does not make this law better. Wouldn't you at least agree that there are simulated violence in porn out there? It doesn't have to go as far as simulated rape (this is more common than some people might think; it's one of the most common kinks in japan, etc.), but also to spanking, which is mainstream. I hope for the brittish that the law specifies some very, very high bar on "violent" here.

    Would you consider this law good, too? In the people's interest? Or maybe just a moral defining semi-religious kick in the people's groin? The kind no one dares to protest in the open since they would be "defenders of rapists" and "immoral SOBs"?

  • (cs) in reply to Mange
    Mange:
    Saemundr:
    anonymouse:
    That out of the way, if I were to follow your logic, and you were a fan of say, the movie Hostel, would you be creating incentive for psychopathic criminals to kidnap tourists and offer them as torture victims to wealthy maniacs?

    No, he would be creating incentive for people to make FICTIONAL movies. FICTIONAL.

    Yes, and there are no fictional pornographic content. That lady with the pizzas really did accept sexual intercourse as payment for the customer that forgot his wallet at his friend's house.<snip/>

    Way to go missing the actual point on this one, guv.

    I'm beginning to find this thread very disturbing, too. Not because it mentions child pornography, which we all know is out there. Not because at least half-a-dozen posters have come up with interesting guesstimates at what "child porn" might mean in this precise instance -- far easier than focussing on what I presume the OP meant. Not even because of the alarming amount of moral relativism that's showing up, because we all know that there's an alarming number of sociopaths, both in IT and writing to blog threads in general.

    I'm getting alarmed because so few people actually try to read any individual argument and respond to it, rather than flying off the handle with what I would call "the wrong thing to say."

    I'm not at all sure why I should find this disturbing, either. I just do.

  • (cs) in reply to Mel
    Mel:
    real_aardvark:
    Sanity:
    I actually make a very clear distinction -- hurting people is wrong. Looking at pictures of people who've been hurt is not wrong. If it's not wrong to look at a picture of a corpse (who's been murdered), then it's not wrong to look at kiddie porn.

    There is no necessary equivalence between looking at a corpse and looking at an abused child.

    I know it's completely irrelevant, but surely the analogy would be more like watching someone actually being murdered (and deriving pleasure from it), rather than seeing the body afterwards? It's deliberately, purposefully seeing/watching the act itself happening, rather than the aftermath...

    I for one find this whole story and thread very, very disturbing...

    That would be a closer analogy in support of the dubious proposition presented, I agree. It just doesn't happen to be the one made at the time.

    I even tried to address this form of analogy in the rest of my response, what with the corpse not caring and there not being a noticeably large industry generating corpses for pleasure, and all.

    So, it's a better analogy, but still a fairly pointless one if you ask me.

    I'm surprised nobody has yet brought up the widespread buying and selling of illicit videos of Saddam Hussein being hanged -- that would be just as good an analogy, wouldn't it? I can certainly see how a lot of people would get very understandable pleasure from it, and I find it morally repugnant on a personal level, but I think the crucial difference is that they didn't top Saddam because they wanted to make money out of the distribution rights. I'd be very surprised if that's not precisely the intention of some of the scumbags out there in kp-land. And, once again, Saddamn is no longer in a position to care. Tens of thousands of abused children are in that position, and will be so for the rest of their lives.

  • John Henry Frank (unregistered) in reply to charonme

    +1 charonme - The real WTF is embellishing the article. It does however make me wonder what 'acceptable use' at a porn website company is?

    Otherwise, ignoring relativistic rhetoric, the most likely scenario from an American perspective is the material was objectionable but not obscene. Photos from the beach, etc. It's gross that people get off on that, but they're not breaking the law unless you live in Iran.

    Having brutal usage policies in place is a good thing when you want to get someone fired: just wait for them to leave their workstation unlocked....

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered)

    I call shenanigans. Or stupidity.

    I'm the security analyst for my firm. If we found child porn the order of reporting would be cops first then senior management (let them tell HR).

    As a moral issue: it's evil. As an issue of the company's welfare: can you imagine the repercussions of doing it any other way?

    Can you imagine explaining to your spouse and/or children that you let it slide? Can you imagine explaining to a court? Can you imagine your company's officers trying to explain it to the media? Can you imagine your company's officers trying to explain it to the courts? For the selfish: Can you imagine trying to find work ever again?

  • AdT (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    I assert that your argument is sophomoric because it rests on a platform of pure logic -- given your axioms -- and not on a platform of reality.

    Huh? What is wrong with pure logic? Surely you can question the axioms, but attacking logic itself is illogical - if you do that, you lose any rational discussion by definition.

    (Of course, some, like Pat, are not interested in a rational discussion, maybe because they want to prove their alleged moral superiority by being the most irrational about deeds considered immoral, or because their berserking brain stem has murdered all higher cognitive faculties, but that's a different topic altogether.)

    real_aardvark:
    Leaving aside the question of why a corpse would care whether you are looking at it, and why an abused child would not care,

    This is a problematic argument because what happens if the abused child is then murdered? Or the abuse happens post mortem? Cases like this surely exist.

    Also note that in all other cases, consumers of media that violates someone's personal privacy are not held responsible. If some celebrity magazine illegally publishes helicopter photos of Princess Sahine of Wakatukistan naked by the pool, by buying the magazine I do not commit a crime. In fact, in all cases other than child pornography, it is considered sufficient to hold producers and distributors liable, not consumers.

    real_aardvark:
    isn't it just possible that there's a whole industry out there based on abusing children and taking pictures of the process

    Highly unlikely for numerous reasons. First, selling homemade child pornography is a particularily risky business, riskier than drug dealing because little bags filled with coke do not have your (literally) f***ing face on them. Second, anyone can copy the stuff and the "producer" won't get paid. What is he going to do? Sue the others for copyright infringement? I'm sure that - most criminals being morons - some have tried, but I doubt they were successful. In fact I assume that dealing with hard to find child pornography can be a lot more profitable than actually making some, and less risky as well. Furthermore as has been mentioned there are many more motives for sexual child abuse and earning money with film recordings seems unimportant given that most of those who abuse children never think about recording their sick acts and turning a profit. The most important objection however is that you are trying to make a case for the illegality of possession rsp. consumption of child pornography, and the reason you state is tantamount to a false dilemma. Paying producers to make more material is certainly worthy of criminal prosecution, but that does not imply that all possession/consumption is.

    real_aardvark:
    Mainly, it's about hoping that the entire culture of child pornography can be ripped out at its roots.

    That's a noble goal but somehow I can't help thinking that prosecuting consumers is just hacking at the weeds. This topic also holds dangerous slippery slopes. In Germany, last minute public protests just killed a legislative initiative to make possession of media depicting "sexual acts with, or in front of" people under the age of 18, or who look younger than 18 illegal as child pornography, with realistic but not real depictions explicitely included. Needless to say to any rational observer that this law would have had bizarre consequences given that an adult may still legally have sex with a minor 16 or older if no coercion is involved (and AFAIK even with a minor 14 or 15 years old if, in addition, the minor's parents consent), but possessing a nude image of a 21 year old girl who looks like she might just be 17 would have been a criminal act. There were a lot more absurdities - traditional German law requires obscenity for something to qualify as pornography, and obscenity in turn requires a violation of human dignity. This law however would have equated pornography with all depictions of sexual acts and by this line of reasoning, sex is always a form of humiliation. I can't comment on this because any attempt to do so would require investigating on the love life (or lack thereof?) of the proponents of this legislative initiative and the results could be less than inspiring. Another weird characteristic of this law is that even juveniles themselves were not exempt from prosecution, meaning that a 17 year old is considered old enough to be a criminal, but not old enough for sexual self-determination (needless to say it would have been considered irrelevant whether or not the supposed victim actually considered him or herself a victim or not).

    Then there's the absurdity that you are still considered guilty even if you can prove that the depicted person is no longer a minor because the draft law did not contain any provisions in that respect. In a bizarre perversion of the principles of a constitutional state, appearances would have counted, not facts.

  • Bad phrasing... (unregistered) in reply to Saemundr
    Saemundr:
    charonme:
    Let me propose that the author was foreign and didn't really know what he was implying (or he is fortunate having no idea actual child porn really exists) and in reality it was some soft erotica.

    This makes perfect sense. best explaination so far tbh.

    "Kiddy" as in explicit enough to excite young boys, without being hardcore.

    "Kiddy" meaning PG-13 rated stuff... This is the only explanation I've seen so far that makes an ounce of sense. Especially given the line: "Finally, someone got offended enough to say something to HR."

    I don't know about most other work-places, it wouldn't be a "finally"... The first time it happened, there would be a huge screaming incident and fists thrown, probably before anyone had time to report this to HR...

    In fact, this is how I've seen such incidents unfold at offices. Someone has a background image of a woman with a lot of cleavage/legs showing or in a bikini or something of that kind. Finally someone (a woman, usually) will have a word with the person's supervisor and then management (HR) gets involved.

    The situation described sounds much more like that then it does about what would happen if someone really was looking at the really awful stuff...

  • Konrad (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    In a lot of places firing on the spot, is not legal. I have heard of an employ fired for watching pron successfully suing his former employer for unfair dismissal.

    Basically if its not formally communicated to you (in writing) that you are not allowed to do X at work then the employer is obliged to give warnings.

    In this case reporting to police, and providing necessary logs as evidence, would have been the solution. The offender would then have been fired not for the original offense but for not being able to attend work (due to being in jail), which strangely enough is easier to get past unfair dismissal laws.

  • John Henry Frank (unregistered) in reply to Mel
    Mel:
    real_aardvark:
    Sanity:
    I actually make a very clear distinction -- hurting people is wrong. Looking at pictures of people who've been hurt is not wrong. If it's not wrong to look at a picture of a corpse (who's been murdered), then it's not wrong to look at kiddie porn.

    There is no necessary equivalence between looking at a corpse and looking at an abused child.

    I know it's completely irrelevant, but surely the analogy would be more like watching someone actually being murdered (and deriving pleasure from it), rather than seeing the body afterwards? It's deliberately, purposefully seeing/watching the act itself happening, rather than the aftermath...

    I for one find this whole story and thread very, very disturbing...

    Some of you need to watch more Law and Order or something.

    Child porn is classed as illegal because we have decided that as a country there is no redeeming value in it. Children are abused and coerced into making it (children do not have the ability to make a rational and informed decision about it). Then edge cases are ruled out by enforcing that you can't even make anything with kids that look pornographic, or even with adults that pretend to be kids. Nor can you 'just watch' and get away with it. We don't want anyone to ever think it's okay, or make any part of it allowable.

    The sad part is people who like that crap are wired badly, and so far research shows that nothing can be done to help them. In the scheme of things though, you go to jail longer for robbing a bank, so what does that say?

    ... News articles can show images of people dying only for merit of the news article. How many times have you seen the planes hit the WTC? How many times have you seen the WTC collapse? Thousands of real people are dying at those moments, and it's still hard to watch when you think about that. But it's news, and we deem that however repugnant some news images may be, there is value obtained from viewing it (one of them being proof).

    Snuff films are illegal. TV shows assembling news clips of people dying and disclaiming that they're news shows are repugnant (Fox tv anyone?) but unfortunately still legal.

    Many movies glorify violence, but we accept that because for some reason we like it and collectively think showing 14 year olds images of simulated murder or getting the crap kicked out of them is better than an exposed breast.

  • yawn (unregistered)

    so lame and self promoting. give us something worth reading, please...

  • Saluto (unregistered)

    Ok you win.

    I used to think I had worked with the worst employee ever, but even she didn't do anything illegal.

    However, I do get tired of companies sending company-wide "reminders" of corporate policy when there's only one (known) person who needs to be reminded.

    I don't know why companies are so lenient on very serious matters but serious on rather minor issues. Last place I worked had all sorts of policies to help people with drug or alcohol addictions, but would fire you on the spot for sleeping. So if ever we were caught having a nap at lunch time we'd have to pretend to be drunk if we wanted to keep our jobs.

  • why bother? (unregistered)

    the whole thing is a made up story. maybe to inflame a comments section, maybe because there was nothing else to post. but this whole 'story' is pretty weak soup. wtf has become the penthouse forum of the it world.

  • (cs) in reply to Someone
    Someone:
    Kiss me I'm Polish:
    Hey, what's wrong with watching porn at work? As long as it's healthy.
    First, you're supposed to WORK when you are at work. Not to watch porn. Second, kiddie porn is not very legal you know. And most people don't really like people who like to watch it.

    He was making fun of the comment "unhealthy amounts of kiddie porn." The comment implies that "healthy" amounts of kiddie porn would be acceptable. Hence the joke.

  • Balony (unregistered) in reply to curtmack
    curtmack:
    He was making fun of the comment "unhealthy amounts of kiddie porn." The comment implies that "healthy" amounts of kiddie porn would be acceptable. Hence the joke.

    Probably to the point where you would stress your eyeballs perhaps. Really, the question should be directed to Occupational Health and Safety people rather than HR. Hence the real WTF :)

  • (cs) in reply to Saluto
    Saluto:
    However, I do get tired of companies sending company-wide "reminders" of corporate policy when there's only one (known) person who needs to be reminded.
    When there's one person who "forgot" the policy, then maybe there are others who didn't get the message. It's a good time for management to remind everyone. I find no problem with a reminder. In this story, the mistake is scolding the non-offenders rather than just re-enforcing the policy and its purpose.

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