Who watches the Watchmen?

[Lucia Lanigan]

Some extremely dodgy-looking legislation is looming:

This week Parliament will discuss a new Bill which will make it a criminal offence to possess cartoons depicting certain forms of child abuse. If the Coroners and Justice Bill remains unaltered it will make it illegal to own any picture of children participating in sexual activities, or present whilst sexual activity took place.

Full story here.

It's a really bizarre law at its current draft stage.

the new law . . . currently defines a child as under 18-years of age

This despite the age of consent being 16 in the UK.

And, according to the only MP (Lib Dem) to speak out against the Bill so far:

The Government considers almost anything to be an image, from a painting to a private scribble on a piece of paper. At the same time they have defined a child as something that looks like a child even if it isn't.

Also:

The Bill currently going through Parliament is closely modelled on a similar piece of Australian legislation which has caused numerous controversies since it became law. Earlier this month an Australian man was convicted of possessing child pornography because he downloaded six images of characters from The Simpsons performing sex acts on each other as a joke.

I mean, apply this to TV, and my watching Skins on the Channel 4 website yesterday would potentially have made me a sex offender.

But more importantly, comics have always been a good medium for exploring areas more mainstream media fear to tread. As the article suggests, under this law, Alan Moore's latest would have had to have been so heavily censored as to be meaningless.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Who watches the Watchmen?

Erm, it's obviously hard to draw a line that satisfactorily excludes things like the Simpsons joke. Probably more sense and restraint should be exercised there.

But for the purposes of child-pornography laws, a child is defined as 18. You can call that absurd if you like, but it doesn't make the proposed new law bizarre. All it aims to do is to extend the current prohibitions on photographic or video images to digitally generated images.

There are two plausibly justifiable reasons for a ban on child pornography, however that is construed. The first is that its creation certainly involves an instance of child abuse, which is clearly not the case with digitally created images.

However, there is another reason, which is that the use of child pornography may serve to normalise, engender, and encourage paedophilic inclinations and urges. This is more controversial, but the data I've seen suggest it does happen.

So on that aspect of the rationale, I guess I don't have a problem with banning computer-generated simulations of "real" child-pornography. Yeah, drawing up a law requires care because of the Simpsons-type things (though that example has been doing the rounds for at least ten years, since I was a student debater) that may wrongly get included in its ambit. But any law requires care in its formulation. That doesn't mean its intent isn't perfectly sensible.

[Ginger Yellow]

Who watches the Watchmen?

Presumably a pretty huge proportion of hentai would fall under this ban. Time to short shares of DVD importers.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Who watches the Watchmen?

Who's said the intent isn't perfectly reasonable, toro?

The issue is surely how you define "child pornography". By the terms of the draft Bill, a screenshot of Channel 4's flagship drama Skins could be child pornography.

Do you trust the police, in their current incarnation, to make that judgement?

[Brandenburger Toro]

Who watches the Watchmen?

Well, okay, I think we're on the same page.

I don't see any way around trusting the police to uphold laws, and I'm generally in favour of allowing them more rather than less discretion. But obviously, the law as drafted seems unacceptable. Not sure how one would better formulate it, though. And the Simpsons Guy In Australia, as I say, has been being jailed last month for at least a decade now, so I wonder if there isn't a certain amount of scaremongering going on.

[Incandenza]

Who watches the Watchmen?

Do I want to know what this Simpsons thing is you're talking about?

[Brandenburger Toro]

Who watches the Watchmen?

From the fourth quote in Lucia's initial post;

Earlier this month an Australian man was convicted of possessing child pornography because he downloaded six images of characters from The Simpsons performing sex acts on each other as a joke.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Who watches the Watchmen?

I'd assume that we all agree that 1) there should be laws, 2) the police must enforce them, and 3) child pornography is a bad thing, whether "real" or "simulated", toro.

So it's hardly scaremongering to raise the MP's objections quoted above: the terms are so broad, and the pressure on the police to demonstrate that they're effectively "cracking down" on the relatively new and notoriously difficult-to-tackle problem of child pornography so great, that it will leave innocent people in a vulnerable position. As always when it comes to censorhip, when nuance goes out of the window alarm bells should start ringing.

The Bill also comes from a government that's been dogmatically keen all along to increase the discretion given to the police when dealing with high-profile, highly emotive issues such as terrorism, with very few demonstrably successful results, and the introduction of the longest detention period without trial avavailable in Europe. And it faces no opposition from their traditional, er, opposition.

And as you know from reading the article, the comic writers campaigning to raise awareness and get the bill written properly, not to get it abandoned:

Comic book writers and publishers, including Moore's daughter Leah who is herself an acclaimed graphic artist, have now set up the Comic Book Alliance to ensure that the legislation only targets overtly paedophilic and pornographic cartoons and not artistic erotica.

“We do not oppose any legislation that protects children from abuse, we understand the need for it, but some parts of the Coroners Bill do need rewording and clarifying,” said a spokesperson. “This new legislation could be used for the wrong reason and if used incorrectly thousands of people could become criminals overnight. The Government refused to impose minimum tariffs on cheap alcohol because it was unfair to punish the majority for the crimes of a minority; yet this legislation does exactly the same.”

[Incandenza]

Who watches the Watchmen?

Also Sprach Zaratoro wrote:

From the fourth quote in Lucia's initial post;

Earlier this month an Australian man was convicted of possessing child pornography because he downloaded six images of characters from The Simpsons performing sex acts on each other as a joke.

Ah, that's what I get for speed-reading.

I saw dirty Simpsons cartoons when I was in middle school. Which raises a question that might sound stupid, but I really don't know--what happens if a minor is found posessing what is deemed to be child pornography? Say a 13 year old has dirty pictures of a 13 year old girl. Has that ever come up?

[Brandenburger Toro]

Who watches the Watchmen?

How do you propose that the distinction be drawn, Lucia?

[Lucia Lanigan]

Who watches the Watchmen?

I don't, because I don't have access to the relevant research.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Who watches the Watchmen?

Nor I. But I can't even imagine how it could be drawn in principle.

So to the extent that there's a difference between us on this, I'm less sure than you that a better formulation is possible, or that the current one is necessarily as deleterious as claimed.

[gyp]

Who watches the Watchmen?

The Australian case discussed above is both real and relatively recent, although the jail term was an exaggeration. He got a $3000 fine and a two-year good behaviour bond.

See here.

[Incandenza]

Who watches the Watchmen?

American manga collector pleads guilty to possession of child pornography and now faces up to 15 years in prison.