Should The Internet Be The Wild West? - General

This is one of the issues that has been coming up a lot lately, SOPA, CISPA, net neutrality and the Patriot Act. In the 1990's the web pretty much was the wild west; anyone could upload anything, and there was very little any government could do to take anything down, let alone would they be allowed to spy on its own citizens. But now it seems that every few months another bill is brought up that threatens to take down certain cites like Megaupload, that would allow large sites like Google and Yahoo to control what sites people have access to on their broadband connection. Not to mention government spying on citizens which I'm sure is being done way more extensively than we are aware of. On one hand I can how certain pieces of content can be harmful. Child porn, sensitive government documents, even pirated content is costing some middle class worker their job somewhere. Things like bomb making recipes and terrorist handbooks can be harmful if they get into the wrong hands. Should those items be regulated and taken down at the request of the government? I definitely think there is no black and white way of looking at this, there's a lot of grey are in there that frankly I'm not sure how it should be dealt with. That being said having free unrestricted internet has been one of the greatest tools for Democracy in the last 200 years. iReporting has allowed people to upload photos of videos of government abuse instantaneously. Sites like Wikileaks have held governments and corporations accountable for some of their most grievous crimes. And since anyone can create and upload content our world view is no longer what the mainstream newspapers and media conglomerates force down our throats. People have been able to organize demonstrations and grassroot movements like never before, thanks to social media. I think the internet is one of our greatest assets, but there's definitely some stuff on there that I think deserves some serious discussion about whether or not we should let it stay up there. Because once the cat's out of the bag, so to speak, there's no putting it back in. And it seems like that's already starting to happen, and it's pretty worrying. What are your thoughts?

What the governments are doing wrong is trying to regulate the 'regular' internet. The deep/dark web is where everything very illegal happens.

I think the internet should be a "Wild West", because the illegality that happens will just move elsewhere if you remove it from the regular internet. By letting it be on the regular internet, the police can easily access it and use it as evidence, which they can't when the data is forced underground / removed. [QUOTE=Not Flapadar;36618702]What the governments are doing wrong is trying to regulate the 'regular' internet. The deep/dark web is where everything very illegal happens.[/QUOTE] Well, those things happen on the deep web exactly because it is being removed from the regular internet. The things that are harmful should be stopped, no doubt, but I don't think you can do that on the internet. The internet is just a surface that shows us what happens in the world, and stopping that from being shown won't change the fact that it happens. The fact that piracy is a problem is a sign that the way we handle media isn't right for our time, and that problem has to be solved by changing those systems rather than trying to force it out of the internet. Same goes for [I]"sensitive government documents"[/I] I think. Anything that can be on the internet should be allowed to be on the internet; it's just data. If it hurts the outside world then the outside world is doing something wrong.

the thing about the internet is that it's very similar to real life. it cannot truly be controlled, people will just find workarounds for everything you impose. there are laws in real life, but murderers who get away with their crimes still exist on a regular basis - the same applies (especially for areas of the internet such as the deep web) - the only way you'll ever remove illegal activity on the net is if you provide an incentive to do so, give them no reason to do so, or simply provide an alternative.

[QUOTE=Not Flapadar;36618702]What the governments are doing wrong is trying to regulate the 'regular' internet. The deep/dark web is where everything very illegal happens.[/QUOTE] The dark web exists only because of the regular internet being regulated. Without any regulations, all of the filth of the deep web will dilute itself in the general population.

Freedom of information etc

i myself don't really see the bad side of this. i don't use all the bad stuff that lurks in the deep dark internet but then, i support freedom of speech and information so i'm just a massive hypocrite. :v:

Interesting topic. I personally think the law shouldn't be regulating the internet until it absolutely has to intervene, which is kind of a vague point, but still. That's my basic idea, and it could be fleshed out and be made more sense of.

Internet is knowledge. Knowledge should be free. Freedom does not kneel to the hands of a government that seeks to control every aspect of an individual's life. The sad fact is, like pirating, anything and everything bad on the internet will forever be there. We won't be able to get rid of every single piece of child pornography, but what we CAN do is leave the regular people to a free internet while tracking down the individuals who ACTUALLY do the harm by creating the child pornography in the first place. The internet is too big of a giant to regulate and if it were regulated, I believe most of the internet would die out. Most of what we love about this amazing colossus would probably wither away under the firm choke of censorship and control.

Well its tricky. I think shit like children pornography and other shit like that should be banned and those who post it should be arrested but then it kinda goes out into the whole if its illegal in real life then it should be illegal on the web and it would end in the situation we have now - SOPA, CISPA, PIPA etc. 'tis a tricky subject.

[QUOTE=Bobie;36618998]the thing about the internet is that it's very similar to real life. it cannot truly be controlled, people will just find workarounds for everything you impose. there are laws in real life, but murderers who get away with their crimes still exist on a regular basis - the same applies (especially for areas of the internet such as the deep web) - the only way you'll ever remove illegal activity on the net is if you provide an incentive to do so, give them no reason to do so, or simply provide an alternative.[/QUOTE] The difference, I think, is that while a murder in real life has real consequences and real harm caused, the internet is more like a net that simply catches information about real events. For example when a video of a murder is uploaded; you can use that video to review the event, and you can even use it as evidence against the perpetrator of the actual murder, but why on earth would you treat the video itself as part of the crime? Banning and thereby forcing such things underground, such as what has been done with child porn, is like burning your own evidence. [I]"Whenever any government, or any church, or anyone else for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects: “This book you may not read, this film you may not watch, this image you may not see, this knowledge you may not have,” then the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives." – Robert A. Heinlein, “If This Goes On…”[/I] In my opinion, we shouldn't do anything about child pornography on the internet. However, the police and the internet should simply use it to catch the real molesters that cause real harm in the real world. Everything on the net is just information. I think the problem with piracy is just that we haven't really gotten used to the fact that many things we previously saw as limited goods suddenly became unlimited because it could simply be copied. We're going to have to find a way to integrate that into society rather than trying to cover it up with copyright laws. Data can be copied and that is a good thing; people who used to earn money from limited data will simply have to find new ways.

[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;36618937]I think the internet should be a "Wild West", because the illegality that happens will just move elsewhere if you remove it from the regular internet. By letting it be on the regular internet, the police can easily access it and use it as evidence, which they can't when the data is forced underground / removed.[/QUOTE] I can definitely see where you're coming from, however, many of the illegal harmful materials that are online take a little digging to find. Most normal people don't know how to use the deep web. By simply allowing that content on the regular internet wouldn't that make those materials more prevalent, and easy to find as a simple Google search? [QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;36618937]The fact that piracy is a problem is a sign that the way we handle media isn't right for our time.[/QUOTE] I don't think that's necessarily true. It was definitely true in the early days of Napster/Limewire when online piracy was first becoming prevalent, but iTunes and Amazon are now the two largest music/movie retailers in the world because entertainments were willing to change their business model to fit the 21st century. I'm willing to say a large number of people that pirate things online are pirating because either they're being cheap or can't afford to buy stuff online, not because they aren't able to get media easily online. A notable exception to this is games with horrible DRM, there are legitimate reasons why you would want to pirate them instead of buy them.

[QUOTE=DamagePoint;36624475]I can definitely see where you're coming from, however, many of the illegal harmful materials that are online take a little digging to find. Most normal people don't know how to use the deep web. By simply allowing that content on the regular internet wouldn't that make those materials more prevalent, and easy to find as a simple Google search? I don't think that's necessarily true. It was definitely true in the early days of Napster/Limewire when online piracy was first becoming prevalent, but iTunes and Amazon are now the two largest music/movie retailers in the world because entertainments were willing to change their business model to fit the 21st century. I'm willing to say a large number of people that pirate things online are pirating because either they're being cheap or can't afford to buy stuff online, not because they aren't able to get media easily online. A notable exception to this is games with horrible DRM, there are legitimate reasons why you would want to pirate them instead of buy them.[/QUOTE] Game of Thrones. Don't forget how shitty HBO handles that. Anyone who pirates that are in the right.

The cyberspace is a place outside any country's regulations. The cyberspace must remain free. I like how the web is now. To find dangerous/deviated stuff you must know where to look and how, and that stuff remain hidden from most of the public, as it should be.

[QUOTE=JJ Isaac;36624541]Game of Thrones.[/QUOTE] True. I guess there are a few media companies that are still holding out on a subscription model. I'm personally a big fan of iTunes' and Amazon's Season Passes, for $20 a season I can download each episode of a T.V. show hours after it airs, which is far less than the Blu-ray price. It's a shame HBO/Showtime haven't hopped onto this train, or offered an online subscription service of their own.

Wild west, except for CP and the like.

[QUOTE=geogzm;36624670]Wild west, except for CP and the like.[/QUOTE] You can't have wild west and then get rid of some. We have seen this with the "war on drugs." Either you control all or control none, for when you taste some control it only leads to you wanting more control.

[QUOTE=DamagePoint;36618283] In the 1990's the web pretty much was the wild west; anyone could upload anything, and there was very little any government could do to take anything down, let alone would they be allowed to spy on its own citizens. [/QUOTE] The internet hardly existed in the 1990s. More like early 2000

[QUOTE=Adarrek;36624777]The internet hardly existed in the 1990s. More like early 2000[/QUOTE] Just because you were born in the late 1990's doesn't mean the internet wasn't there. Although we didn't have the internet anywhere at anytime like we do today by the mid-90's the internet was already pretty prevalent.

[QUOTE=DamagePoint;36624475]I can definitely see where you're coming from, however, many of the illegal harmful materials that are online take a little digging to find. Most normal people don't know how to use the deep web. By simply allowing that content on the regular internet wouldn't that make those materials more prevalent, and easy to find as a simple Google search?[/QUOTE] But that's a good thing. It would be just like gore. It's easy to find for everybody, but easy to avoid, too. The thing is, for example when animal abuse videos are uploaded, they're uploaded to the surface net. In this way, the internet (sometimes 4chan) can easily pick it up and investigate, and forward information to the police. Child porn has been pushed underground, which means that it all happens either on the deep web, or in closed circles off the internet entirely. This is why the police can't just go on the internet and find evidence and then catch actual molesters. They have to wait until they catch someone with child porn, go through his stuff, and hopefully find something new that they can use to catch a molester. All data should be equally available. 'Offensive' data like gore and child porn should just be made so that people don't accidentally stumble over it. There's plenty of problems with keeping it illegal anyways. You get cases where innocent people get sweeped by the law because of a family photo, or cases where minors themselves are hit by the law. Not only that, but it's also simply hypocritical, since I can show you videos of children dying or [URL=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d4/TrangBang.jpg]pictures of children who have been hit by napalm,[/URL] but I wouldn't be able to link to a naked girl without the napalm. Apperantly that would be more harmful. [QUOTE]I don't think that's necessarily true. It was definitely true in the early days of Napster/Limewire when online piracy was first becoming prevalent, but iTunes and Amazon are now the two largest music/movie retailers in the world because entertainments were willing to change their business model to fit the 21st century. I'm willing to say a large number of people that pirate things online are pirating because either they're being cheap or can't afford to buy stuff online, not because they aren't able to get media easily online. A notable exception to this is games with horrible DRM, there are legitimate reasons why you would want to pirate them instead of buy them.[/QUOTE] Well, some services are definitely moving in the right direction, whereas the government has been trying to pull in the wrong direction. I'm guessing sometime 'soon', companies will have fully adapted to how it works, by offering something that people are actually willing to pay for, despite the fact that it is possible to just copy data. That one will just need time, hopefully game companies will learn that their version of DRM doesn't work. Some companies already have the right idea; Steam, like iTunes and Spotify, have found ways to get around piracy without shitting all over their costumers.

[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;36625120]But that's a good thing. It would be just like gore. It's easy to find for everybody, but easy to avoid, too. The thing is, for example when animal abuse videos are uploaded, they're uploaded to the surface net. In this way, the internet (sometimes 4chan) can easily pick it up and investigate, and forward information to the police. Child porn has been pushed underground, which means that it all happens either on the deep web, or in closed circles off the internet entirely. This is why the police can't just go on the internet and find evidence and then catch actual molesters. They have to wait until they catch someone with child porn, go through his stuff, and hopefully find something new that they can use to catch a molester. All data should be equally available. [I]"Offensive"[/I] data like gore and child porn should just be made so that people don't accidentally stumble over it.[/QUOTE] I suppose I agree with you in principle, but then again I'm not sure if it's ethical to just allow that stuff to just float around and do nothing to try to stop it. Also by having CP and terrorist web sites on the mainstream internet, there would be a [i]lot[/i] of money to be made from it from advertising. Probably leading to more of that content being created to grab a share of that money made from advertising. People already make a killing from advertising on piracy cites, by having CP and other types of harmful content out there and easy to find you might inadvertently cause more of that type of content to be produced.

I don't think more of it would be produced, since actually producing it would still be a crime. I don't think ethics should be involved when it's just data. I agree it would be unethical to observe it and not try to do anything about what happened, but there's a difference between wanting to remove the data, and wanting to arrest the perpetrator. I'm not sure about the advertising thing to be honest, it isn't something I've considered. But I'm pretty sure the pros would outweigh the cons. Like I said earlier, making it illegal to even view the content makes it incredibly hard for the police to gather the evidence. Nobody can investigate because it would be illegal, and nobody can report it because people don't find it on the regular internet, + they could be charged for it themselves. All of this compared to videos of murder or animal abuse, where it can be instantly found and investigated, and nobody except the perpetrators have to worry about getting in trouble for simply seeing it. [editline]4th July 2012[/editline] I also think terrorist sites on the regular web, contrary to hidden somewhere, would be vastly superior. It'd be more transparent to normal people AND to the government / authorities. I really think, in all cases, as far as I know - information beats the hiding of information. If they make money from advertising on a website that doesn't directly cause harm, then I say let them. But the moment they start [I]doing things[/I] that are harmful, everyone will know it due to the transparency, and the police will be after them immediately. What about LiveLeak, Ogrish, Rotten, WikiLeaks and so on? They already offer videos and pictures of people being murdered, so do you think your arguments are valid on those as well?

[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;36625411]I don't think more of it would be produced, since actually producing it would still be a crime.[/QUOTE]Uploading and distributing warez is still illegal, and there are thousands of web pages devoted it, making millions of dollars in advertising revenue. If there is a market and money to be made, you can guarantee that people will jump at the opportunity to be a part of that, it's guaranteed that having sites dedicated to CP and other harmful content with millions of viewers will cause more of that content to be generated. [QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;36625411]What about LiveLeak, Ogrish, Rotten, WikiLeaks and so on? They already offer videos and pictures of people being murdered, so do you think your arguments are valid on those as well?[/QUOTE] Videos of murders and bombings and beheadings aren't really what I was talking about. While disturbing, they aren't particularly illegal or harmful. I meant websites that have bomb making recipes or detailed instructions on how to carry out a terrorist attack and such. Pages that simply have propaganda wouldn't really fall under this category either. [QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;36625411]I also think terrorist sites on the regular web, contrary to hidden somewhere, would be vastly superior. It'd be more transparent to normal people AND to the government / authorities.[/QUOTE] The government already knows about the dark web and has thousands of agents monitoring it daily, I don't think having those sites on geocities instead of the Tor netowrk will make them more susceptible to surveillance.

Yes it should because life is hilariously banal, and the internet would be too if it was as regulated as governments want it to be.

the government doesn't need to regulate the internet, they need to do what happened to TV: Flood it with anesthetizing content and consolidate the power to a few select content providers, making it uneconomic for a small startup to exist. TV and news ruined the Vietnam war for the state, so they learned. If the government wants to control content on the web, they have to produce it themselves. It's easier to maintain and control the ideology of a populace when we're all reading the same news, watching the same shows, listening to the same music, and speaking the same language. Case in point: Clear Channel.

[QUOTE=DamagePoint;36626193]Uploading and distributing warez is still illegal, and there are thousands of web pages devoted it, making millions of dollars in advertising revenue. If there is a market and money to be made, you can guarantee that people will jump at the opportunity to be a part of that, it's guaranteed that having sites dedicated to CP and other harmful content with millions of viewers will cause more of that content to be generated.[/QUOTE] I agree there would be sites dedicated to it. But I don't think it would cause more cp to actually be made. Those who make it wouldn't earn a single penny from making it and putting it up on a website, unless they owned the website. And if they owned the website, then they would be caught. [I](Just like a gore website would be in deep shit if they started to produce their own gore.)[/I] Why would viewers on a site that hosts child porn cause more child porn to be created? Child porn producers don't earn anything, so they wouldn't have any more incentive to do it no matter how popular it is. A site dedicated to it wouldn't produce cp, it would just host it. Exactly like bestgore hosts gore and snuff videos - even though it has a lot of viewers, it doesn't give people an incentive to create more snuff videos. [QUOTE]Videos of murders and bombings and beheadings aren't really what I was talking about. While disturbing, they aren't particularly illegal or harmful. I meant websites that have bomb making recipes or detailed instructions on how to carry out a terrorist attack and such. Pages that simply have propaganda wouldn't really fall under this category either.[/QUOTE] They're not particularly illegal or harmful? Murder isn't harmful or illegal? What? I think I lost the train of thought on this quote. What's different about a site that hosts snuff videos and one that has bomb recipes? Are you saying that bomb recipe sites should be illegal based on the idea that people could make money off of advertising? Couldn't one make a compromise then, and say that sites with 'questionable' content cannot advertise? Kind of like how you can't have cigarette adverts. ? [QUOTE]The government already knows about the dark web and has thousands of agents monitoring it daily, I don't think having those sites on geocities instead of the Tor netowrk will make them more susceptible to surveillance.[/QUOTE] That might be true, but they still can't intervene as well due to the anonymity that Tor gives. And I imagine that there's a lot of it that has been pushed even deeper than just Tor. One thing that does come to mind is that one case of an animal abuse video where 4chan literally solved it by looking at the backgrounds and so on. I really think everything should be available to everyone. There's also the 'funny' thing about cp, that it seems to be the only crime that has to be repeated in court in some cases. Sometimes they show the pictures in court to determine whether it is or isn't cp. If it is, then they're literally committing the same crime as those who possess it. This doesn't happen with any other type of digital evidence. For example showing the video of a murder. It seems obvious when talking about murder: Of course it isn't illegal to have the video - it's just a video!

[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;36626887]Child porn producers don't earn anything, so they wouldn't have any more incentive to do it no matter how popular it is.[/QUOTE] Not unless they sold it to a website that made money off of advertising. And you actually bring up an interesting point when you said that a site that produced its own gore would be caught and taken down. Perhaps the same thing would happen to a site that produced and sold its own cp, but there's also thousands of piracy sites that are easily accessible that have not been taken down. Like I said, there's a lot of gray area. [QUOTE]They're not particularly illegal or harmful? Murder isn't harmful or illegal? What? I think I lost the train of thought on this quote. What's different about a site that hosts snuff videos and one that has bomb recipes? Are you saying that bomb recipe sites should be illegal based on the idea that people could make money off of advertising?[/QUOTE] I mean the videos themselves aren't harmful or illegal. Obviously the murder itself and the filming of it is highly illegal, but the videos themselves aren't illegal to watch, heck even CNN show parts of them. Bomb making videos on the other hand could be used to cause grievous bodily harm. [QUOTE]Couldn't one make a compromise then, and say that sites with 'questionable' content cannot advertise? Kind of like how you can't have cigarette adverts?[/QUOTE] Now I see what you were trying to say about CP. CP is still illegal to watch, and yet it's not illegal to watch a snuff video. Which I guess really doesn't make any sense. If the government tried to shut down a cp site I wouldn't be opposed to that. If they tried to take down Liveleak I would be opposed even though I know I'm supporting a double standard. [QUOTE]That might be true, but they still can't intervene as well due to the anonymity that Tor gives. And I imagine that there's a lot of it that has been pushed even deeper than just Tor. One thing that does come to mind is that one case of an animal abuse video where 4chan literally solved it by looking at the backgrounds and so on. I really think everything should be available to everyone.[/QUOTE] Sort of like a 'Crimestoppers' website, where PD's post videos and ask the public to figure out where they came from? That would actually be kind of cool, although it would bring up a lot of questions as to whether it is ethical for government officials to be posting those kinds of videos on a government website like that. [QUOTE]There's also the 'funny' thing about cp, that it seems to be the only crime that has to be repeated in court in some cases. Sometimes they show the pictures in court to determine whether it is or isn't cp. If it is, then they're literally committing the same crime as those who possess it. This doesn't happen with any other type of digital evidence. For example showing the video of a murder. It seems obvious when talking about murder: Of course it isn't illegal to have the video - it's just a video![/QUOTE] Yeah there's definitely a double standard there. And to be perfectly honest I don't know how to feel about it. I don't think think it should be a crime to watch a beheading video on Al Jazeera. Then again what about that creepy gym teacher with hundreds of cp videos on his hard drive?

Can I be Sheriff?

tldr incoming [QUOTE=DamagePoint;36627657]Not unless they sold it to a website that made money off of advertising.[/QUOTE] Right. Exactly. And I believe that would be a crime. Isn't that something like conspiring or accomplicing to a crime? This again makes a perfect parallel to snuff videos. Bestgore.com doesn't commit a crime when it uploads and hosts 3 guys 1 hammer. But they sure as hell would have committed a crime if they had paid for someone to make the video. [QUOTE]And you actually bring up an interesting point when you said that a site that produced its own gore would be caught and taken down. Perhaps the same thing would happen to a site that produced and sold its own cp, but there's also thousands of piracy sites that are easily accessible that have not been taken down. Like I said, there's a lot of gray area.[/QUOTE] Mmhm. I'm not sure exactly what to think when you bring up piracy to be honest. It just seems that murder/cp is on a whole different level from piracy. Piracy is something that's pretty easy to do, and doesn't exactly harm anyone other than companies that "lose" money from it. Indeed, they're not all being shut down, but isn't that just because those who want them shut down simply cannot keep up? If they could, all of it would be gone. I think they should just be allowed to do that, and then companies will have to find ways to offer more or simply do better, so that customers will have an incentive to pay for media. Like Steam. [QUOTE]I mean the videos themselves aren't harmful or illegal. [/QUOTE] And I'll contend that the videos and pictures of child pornography themselves aren't harmful either, and thus should not be illegal. So you're saying that if child porn was legal on the internet, people would start producing more of it. But you don't think this is true for murder videos because they're not harmful and illegal? So murder videos [I]have[/I] been made legal, yet nobody is making more of it for that reason. [QUOTE]Now I see what you were trying to say about CP. CP is still illegal to watch, and yet it's not illegal to watch a snuff video. Which I guess really doesn't make any sense.[/QUOTE] That is indeed the double-standard I often try to point out :/ [QUOTE]If the government tried to shut down a cp site I wouldn't be opposed to that. If they tried to take down Liveleak I would be opposed even though I know I'm supporting a double standard.[/QUOTE] Honestly I think this has to do with the hysteria and irrational hate that goes on in the world currently. I mean don't get me wrong, hating actual child molesters and rapists is completely rational and I don't think we should ever stop opposing actual abuse. But it becomes irrational when you start to hate even those who just want to watch the material, those who simply have the feelings. Especially when you're totally fine with people watching and hosting snuff videos :P [QUOTE]Sort of like a 'Crimestoppers' website, where PD's post videos and ask the public to figure out where they came from? That would actually be kind of cool, although it would bring up a lot of questions as to whether it is ethical for government officials to be posting those kinds of videos on a government website like that.[/QUOTE] Perhaps.. Frankly I don't know how it would actually work, but I think it would be figured out by someone. Maybe a website like that would work. Hell, maybe the website wouldn't even be run by the government, I think there's probably plenty of people who'd want to play the roles of internet detectives and then simply relaying the information to the police. And I think that could be accomplished by letting the internet be completely transparent and open. [QUOTE]Yeah there's definitely a double standard there. And to be perfectly honest I don't know how to feel about it. I don't think think it should be a crime to watch a beheading video on Al Jazeera. Then again what about that creepy gym teacher with hundreds of cp videos on his hard drive?[/QUOTE] I think judging him as a child molester would be like judging someone who hoards snuff and gore videos as a murderer... We have to judge people for what they do. And when they do something harmful, that's when we can punish them. Simply looking at pictures and videos isn't harmful, and punishing someone for that would be like enforcing thought crime. Usually the argument that pops up here is that people who watch child porn will inevitably be tempted to molest children. But I think that's pretty much the same argument as when Jack Thompson says that violent video games will make people violent. Or even that watching a beheading will make you want to behead someone. Actually, statistics have shown that rape and child molestation goes down when you legalize porn of any kind, even child porn. Basically, sex related crimes have been going down constantly, and either porn has helped, or porn has not affected it. Russia and Japan are two examples of countries where possession is legal.

[QUOTE=DamagePoint;36627657]And you actually bring up an interesting point when you said that a site that produced its own gore would be caught and taken down. Perhaps the same thing would happen to a site that produced and sold its own cp, but there's also thousands of piracy sites that are easily accessible that have not been taken down. Like I said, there's a lot of gray area. [/QUOTE] That's more to do with the hosting provider. While not all have to abide by (for example) US copyright protection laws, almost all will have a legal or moral obligation to object to CP or similar content.