in what world do *guides on how to sexually exploit children* fall under "freedom of expression"? the safety of children is in fact more important than some books. you should be ashamed of yourself.
Well first off I'm always ashamed of myself, so jot that down 😓
But I really think that there's a few points you might want to consider:
Criminals usually do NOT want their methods, tactics, and guides made public. Especially with things like this, that contain tips and inside information, abusers want to keep it hidden away and unexamined by law enforcement, nonprofit organizations, parents, etc. Because once this material becomes public, it becomes vastly easier to defend against.
As I just discussed in a recent post, these sorts of guides can often be invaluable as evidence, especially if the author admits to crimes they've committed. And even if the author doesn't directly admit to anything, it still draws attention to the author like a neon sign saying "INVESTIGATE ME!"
When people fear punishment for certain speech, they try to stay well within the law for their own safety. That leads people to self-censor perfectly legal speech just to be safe - this is called a "chilling effect". In other words, once you officially criminalize these guides for giving detailed instructions, people become scared of giving these kinds of descriptions under ANY circumstances. And I just explained in another recent post how a news program did exactly this thing (explaining the step-by-step process for how child sex tourists found their victims), and how it was actually an amazingly positive thing that helped to raise awareness and eventually just obliterate the child sex trafficking they were exposing. If they had outlawed "guides on how to sexually exploit children," well you could make a really strong case that that's exactly what that Dateline expose was - even if their motive a good one. Would everyone involved in that story have been willing to risk criminal charges for covering it? Even if there's just a 1% chance of you being charged with a crime, huge companies in particular (like NBC) are not willing to take that risk. (This last one is a bit long, and it's going to get super controversial at the end. So I need you to lock in, keep an open mind, and remember that the only important thing here is protecting children - that's it. Okay…)
When we hide these materials and subjects away, there is no way to directly push back against these viewpoints and change the views of people interested in them. So, during my big stupid clumsy investigations into online pedo communities, it was obvious that many of these places had just become echo-chambers. Apparently, a long time ago you did have these "maps" ("minor-attracted person" apparently is the term they prefer) posting more openly on Twitter and Tumblr and stuff. But they were all constantly banned and ended up forming their own communities. Well, as a result, there have been less and less people around them who are willing to push back on the idea that children cannot consent. I saw a lot of self-delusion in specific communities, from people who have convinced themselves that adult-child sexual contact isn't harmful "if it's done right." But I really honest to god believe that if there were people who could look at these sorts of materials and discussions and push back with discussion and debate, then it could change the views of many of these "maps." Because... okay, here's the controversial part that can be super upsetting to hear: Most of these pedophiles do care about children. I know, I was really confused and shocked when I encountered this for the first time. I had 100% expected that these communities would either be filled with sadists who liked the fact that CSA harmed children, or sociopaths who just didn't care that it hurt kids. But I genuinely don't think I ever once saw anything like that. Instead what I saw was people who really hated the concept of children being harmed. And the only way that some of them were able to reconcile those feelings with their sexual attraction was by convincing themselves that all of society must be wrong - that children must actually be able to consent to sex with adults and there must be no harm in doing so. Yes I know, this is all very alarming - this isn't a fun discussion to have. But listen to me: this is actually good news. Again, some of these people are the type to get deeply depressed and physically nauseous when they just hear about a child being harmed - or even just yelled at by a parent or teacher. And that signals to me that if these so-called "pro-contact maps" could be convinced that CSA and CSAM are legitimately harmful to children, a lot of them really wouldn't be at much risk for offending. But how the fuck are their views going to change, with the way things are right now? Nowadays, any sort of "pro-contact" or "pro-pedophilia" materials are just instantly suppressed to the point that it can't even be mentioned publicly in most places. And I get the impulse, believe me - it is so upsetting to 99.9% of society. It makes your skin crawl. But these materials don't magically disappear - they just go underground. They go back into these shitty little hidden echo-chamber online communities where there are no normal people who can see them, address them, argue against them, and change people's views.
tl;dr - I am NOT arguing that the safety of children is less important than absolute free speech. I am saying that exposing darkness for the world to see is good. Contradiction, study, friction, and outside scrutiny are better than just quietly hiding something away from all public view. All that does is give you a false sense of comfort: "Out of sight, out of mind."
Phew... 😮💨
Sorry, that got a little long and crazy. Which does seem to be a running theme on my blog, I know. But I hope maybe this could help explain where I'm coming from with all this.
