Child Porn and the Internet

The issue of how we can block porn on the Internet, especially child porn, is heating up here in Canada as the programmer, Briere, who kidnapped and killed a 12 year old girl, Holly, confessed that, "I don’t know how it is for other people, but for myself, I would say that, yes, viewing the material does motivate you to do other things … the more I saw it, the more I longed for it in my heart.". (See CJAD 800 : News.) Conservative leader Steven Harper has now made it an election issue accusing Martin of being soft on child porn.
Like the question of whether violent games encourage violent action, we are seeing a debate about the relationship between pornography and abuse. See, for example, Rosie Dimanno’s response in the Toronto Star, TheStar.com – The abomination of Briere’s excuses.
The difficulty is in how to respond, and respond we must if there is evidence that child porn encourages violence against children. If one legislates representations then there is the risk that artistic representations with nude children will be deemed pornography. The alternative is to legislate intent, but how do you tell intent? Can one look at systems of production and distribution to distinguish art from porn? Is it any less porn if displayed in an art gallery?

One thing that has changed is how easy it is to find kiddie porn. Jan Wong: A journey into depraved cyberspace is about how a simple computer user (Jan Wong) took only 70 minutes to find the horrid stuff. While kiddie porn has probably always been around, the availability of it and the relative anonymity of the browser, change the consumption of it which in turn may change its production.
Further, we are now realizing how easy it is for others to create, distribute and find it, thanks to the Internet. How many citizens will now look for it and in so doing be radicalized? What happens when this filth is not just read about, but can be seen by the many? Perhaps when people talk forcefully about how they are offended by this those who are tempted will realize the horror.