Comments on: IM: The Next Regulatory Target?

By: John Gilmore

John Gilmore — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 00:56:07 +0000

Yes, the appropriate reaction is to punish individual criminals rather than to restrict speech, particularly the speech of minors. But please skip the perjorative language ("freak", "pervert") when advocating for this.

(And let's see whether Foley's whole "crime" was speech -- or whether there was more to it than that. It cannot be criminal to talk about sex with a minor -- else minors will end up with even less information about sex than today's taboos already choke off.)

In a society that holds young people up as the epitome of sexiness, it's not perverted to want to have sex with teenagers! It's not even perverted or illegal to *have* sex with teenagers, if they're roughly 18 or 19 (depending what state you're in). I haven't seen the full extent of the scandal (ho hum) but the stuff I read was "virtual sex" through IM, with a former employee a long distance away -- hardly coercive, not likely to spread disease, easy to evade if the other party wants to skip it.

Personally I know a lot of people who are proud to call themselves perverts, but it's a word in the sense of "nigger" -- they've had to use it for themselves as a way to reclaim it from those who use it to disapprove of them.

By: John Gilmore

John Gilmore — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 23:56:07 +0000

Yes, the appropriate reaction is to punish individual criminals rather than to restrict speech, particularly the speech of minors. But please skip the perjorative language (“freak”, “pervert”) when advocating for this.

(And let’s see whether Foley’s whole “crime” was speech — or whether there was more to it than that. It cannot be criminal to talk about sex with a minor — else minors will end up with even less information about sex than today’s taboos already choke off.)

In a society that holds young people up as the epitome of sexiness, it’s not perverted to want to have sex with teenagers! It’s not even perverted or illegal to *have* sex with teenagers, if they’re roughly 18 or 19 (depending what state you’re in). I haven’t seen the full extent of the scandal (ho hum) but the stuff I read was “virtual sex” through IM, with a former employee a long distance away — hardly coercive, not likely to spread disease, easy to evade if the other party wants to skip it.

Personally I know a lot of people who are proud to call themselves perverts, but it’s a word in the sense of “nigger” — they’ve had to use it for themselves as a way to reclaim it from those who use it to disapprove of them.

By: MikeT

MikeT — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 02:38:49 +0000

Tim, never dismiss on “they’re not that dumb” grounds what can be reasonably predicted on “they’re that evil and tyrannical” grounds. No one ever went broke betting on government being evil, when it’s not just stupid.

By: MikeT

MikeT — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 01:38:49 +0000

By: eee_eff

eee_eff — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 00:27:23 +0000

Obviously, and I would be very surprised if this isn't already being discussed, the problem is we are teaching our children to read and write. If it wasn't for that evil invention of the alphabet, they wouldn't be able to read their IM's or understand how to navigate in a web browser.

All they other efforts don't get to the root of the problem.

Literacy. Just say NO!.

By: enigma_foundry

enigma_foundry — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 23:27:23 +0000

All they other efforts don't get to the root of the problem.

Literacy. Just say NO!.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 20:31:21 +0000

Congresscritters may be dumb, but I don’t believe they’re that dumb. Banning IM would be both completely useless and utterly infeasible.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 19:31:21 +0000

Congresscritters may be dumb, but I don’t believe they’re that dumb. Banning IM would be both completely useless and utterly infeasible.