"it's more "Any kind of filtering is bad"
thin end of the wedge type of thing. First it's Child porn, once that's gone we'll move on to the next most horrific thing, until eventually all we have left are things we don't consider bad at the moment."

Actually, they're already starting to use child pornography as a wedge tactic for wider censorship of the internet. A research paper for the Coroners and Justice Bill mentioned that a clause criminalising foreign ISPs who violate UK virtual child porn laws "could potentially provide a test bed for the future development of wider internet regulation."

As soon as you use those words, you have lost your argument in the eyes of the general public. Studies have shown that most illegal images of children do not involve sexual abuse. Data from Garda (linked above) shows that the most serious image possessed in 44% of "child pornography" cases in Ireland (whose child pornography laws mirror those of the UK) decpited no sexual activity whatsoever.

Pictures of naked children, which presumably comprise the majority of blocked images, should not be called "child abuse images". That term is just newspeak designed to justify the vast powers of censorship and funding which are handed to the IWF.

"If several people came forward to say that the IWF had blocked, for example, their photographs of nudist children (which are not illegal), then it might undermine support for the IWF blacklisting system and for their mission in general."

An image is "child porn" in the UK if it offends against "the recognised standards of propriety", even to a minor extent. In other words, images are illegal if they are offensive to the jury (who are considered able to "apply the recognised standards of propriety"), and some juries have found nudist photographs to be illegal. Such juries include those in R v Graham-Kerr (1988), R v Mould (2000) and R v O'Carroll (2003). Those cases are notable for reasons other than the fact that a person was convicted for possessing nudist material and should threfore not be seen as anomolies as regards the nature of the offending material.

As I have said before, the IWF is not solely to blame for blocking access to pages which contain photographs of nude children; the issue is that the UK has a law which criminalises the possession of images which a random group of people find to be morally offensive. On the other hand, if the IWF didn't deliberately mislead people into believing that indecent images are always "child abuse images", people wouldn't be so shocked when they find that photographs of nude children are labelled as child pornography and therefore blocked.

If the blogger does not clarify which [whatever your name is] he or she is blogging about, the blog post could be potentially slanderous. As someone who has followed anti-paedophile blogs closely, I may be able to help with identifying the blogger who potentially slandered you.

Feel free to contact me at blribbon at fastmail dot fm, with a link to the blog post in question.

"many employers do have a prescreen which would catch both that as well as the lack of a criminal conviction."

Many of the paedophiles outed on anti-paedophile blogs have never committed a criminal offence, but have simply been careless about posting personal information to online support groups for people who are attracted to children. If the person with whom "illini1022" shares a name isn't a sex offender, how will the lack of a criminal conviction prove that "illini1022" is not the paedophile in question?

"That's a common explanatory gloss, but it is not correct. "Indecent" isn't defined in the legislation (or any legislation) at all. It is for a magistrate or jury to decide as a matter of fact."

You are correct when you say that indecency is not defined by statutes, however its meaning is defined by precedents set in previous indecency and obscenity cases.

"They are aided in such decisions by the prosecution experts or police witnesses, who purport to grade material from their special experience and expertise in 'child protection'"

The grading of images is performed to aid sentencing, but not for deciding whether an image is "indecent". Images which do not meet the criteria for level 1 images have still been declared indecent; see my article here.

"Coincidentally, on Wednesday the UK introduced legislation that would make it an imprisonable offence to possess sexually explicit drawings that appear to be of minors."

Do you have a link to the text of the Bill? I can't find it at Parliament's website.

"You still should more directly address the question of whether the possession and/or distribution of child porn should be legal. I'm pretty comfortable declaring that should NOT be covered as free speech."

Well, distributing or downloading photographs is obviously not a form of free speech, but that is irrelevant as this story is based around UK law where there is no codified constitution protecting free speech.

I have said, many times, that accessing and possessing child pornography should not be illegal, as producers are motivated by profit or trade. Producing, purchasing, selling, requesting, or trading child pornography should be illegal, however those who download it for free presumably have the same effect as those who download music for free; they're certainly not encouraging production.

"It is almost if the IWF has a different view of child abuse than British law."

No, they have a very similar view. Parliament and Judges assume that non-sexual nude photographs of children are "abusive" and they have decided that simply accessing ("making") such images is abusive and should be illegal. Or maybe they simply can't cope with the idea of people being sexually aroused by pictures of children and so decided to go on a moral crusade, where "abusive" means "offending our morals". Either way, the IWF has a similar attitude to what constitutes "child abuse".

"Wouldn't it be better to tell the Internet Archive about the offending images? If it really is child porn then I'm sure they'll be only too happy to remove it."

The UK criminalises "indecent" images of children; defined as images which "offend against the recognised standards of propriety". The US criminalises "pornographic" images of children; defined as images which involve lewd or lascivious exhibition of the genital area.

An image can be "indecent" (illegal in the UK) without being "pornographic" (illegal in the US). The IWF may therefore be blocking access to the Internet Archive due to images which are not considered "child porn" in the US.

The fact that the IWF are blocking access to indecent images in the Internet Archive proves that they are a moralistic organisation rather than one which wishes to protect children. The dubious claim made by organisations such as the IWF is that simply viewing indecent images "creates a demand". While this claim is already flawed due to the fact that most producers take illegal images for profit/trade, the claim is undoubtedly wrong in the case of images on an archive which is almost certainly not operated by people who create indecent images. Just how would a producer be aware of the "increased demand" when he doesn't even know that the images are being viewed?

"I knew as soon as I saw this discussion you guys from annabelleigh.net would be out in force."

I've been here since 2006, when Epifora (an ISP which hosted pro-paedophile websites) was cut off by Verizon. I did not come from annabelleigh.net, though I do post there occasionally.

"I asked you last time we had a discussion how you could claim that most paedophiles don't really want to have sex with children and you didn't respond."

There are a myriad of ethical, social and legal reasons to avoid sex with children. I avoid sex with children for the same (or similar) reasons that most men don't walk up to a woman in the street and start groping her. Why is that so difficult to understand?

"Straight people download porn about having sex with adults of the opposite sex then they go out and do it, or at least attempt it; the same can be said of gay people with the caveat that it's adults of the same sex. Why would paedophiles view images (real or simulated) and then not want to have sex with children?"

Your argument is illogical, because there is nothing wrong with consensual sex between adults. The same cannot be said for sex with children, which is presumably one of the reasons why most child porn viewers don't molest children.

"I saw your post above where you cherry picked some studies that failed to show a link between viewing images and desire to have sex with children but we all know that if you just limit yourself to a few studies you can prove any point."

Okay. Can you find any studies with contrary findings?

"Rather than try to depict yourself as the victim of politicians playing some power game with your fantasies, isn't it really the case that sex with children (real or imagined) is all about power?"

Paedophilic fantasies are not typically based upon a desire for power; I actually like the idea of being controlled by a child (anything can happen in a fantasy, it doesn't need to be realistic). Many child molesters abuse children because they have a desire for power, but those offenders are rarely paedophilic.

There is little point in trying to build theories about something of which you have no knowledge.

"Even if you limit yourself to virtual images of children I find it very weird that you'd come out in public and defend what's essentially a rape fantasy."

A fantasy is a fantasy, and nobody has any right to police it.

"Arguably, banning the drawing of such things, and dissemination of such cartoons discourages sickos from watching the cartoons and being encouraged."

There is no evidence for the argument that viewing child porn cartoons increases the risk of a person molesting a child. There is evidence to the contrary, however. Hall, et al. (1995) found that "arousal to pedophilic stimuli does not necessarily correspond with pedophilic behavior", Freel (2003) found that "if someone is fully inhibited from sexually abusing children, no amount of emotional congruence, sexual arousal, or blockage will lead them to abuse children", while Sheldon & Howitt (2008) found that "fantasy deficit may be involved in contact offending against children."

"I was under the impression that the reason for child pornography laws was to protect children from exploitation."

That may have been the original intention when the first child pornography law was created (I believe that was in 1977), but those who now scream "think of the children!" are not really thinking of the children at all.

Child pornography is an emotional topic, so it is very easy to use the issue for political reasons. Campaigning for laws against issues which cause moral outrage are an easy way for a politician to raise his profile and/or attract support. Each campaigner has to find something slightly different to campaign for, so it's not surprising that someone eventually chose virtual child porn.

Of course, laws against child pornography are also a great way to justify intrusive and restrictive laws. Child porn (among other issues, such as terrorism) was used to justify Part III of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (UK), which forces a person to provide any encryption keys which they know of, under penalty of imprisonment.

Laws against child pornography are an easy route to power, so it is not surprising that politicians use them regardless of the consequences to children and ethical paedophiles.

As someone who runs a potentially offensive but legal website, I will certainly be looking for ways to subvert website ratings if they are ever introduced.