Battleangel

There has been something in the air these last couple of months. And I’m not talking about pollen. No, rather the latest paedophilia (pedophilia) scare that has at least caused ripples locally here in Sweden. Maybe the same is true elsewhere. Maybe it already has and we’re lagging behind the storm front. Anyway …

The story is simple. It has come to the attention of the media, the “responsible” and “moral majority” that so called “paedophiles” are out and about on the net. In fact they are everywhere or so it seems. Major newspapers take up precious time and resources to publish guides on how you and your children can avoid the looming danger of “paedophiles.” The headlines make it big with “Your child is hunted by paedophiles” and even more colorful descriptions of current events. And to get these rabid people and the hype off of their backs, ISPs promptly develop filtering capabilities and promise backbone security and censorship. But what is really happening here?

First, one snag in the logic is that “media paedophiles” don’t exist. At least not technically. The whole thing is a fad built upon the clinical term paedophilia. I have been over this before, sort of, but here we go again. From the perspective of social psychology at least, the paedophilia definition stands on its own. But is there really such a thing as a “paedophile / paedophiles”? Many would argue against the unfortunate labelling and stereotyping. It has nevertheless been picked up by the media and popularized. Much like terrorism has been stamped and profiled to “terrorists”. And after a while that same terms, “terrorist” is expanded to include just about everything that you don’t like. In his case anyone who opposes the system. Like paedophilia is being confused with rape, and mentally ill Belgian men keeping girls locked up in their basements. Or indeed with a budding commercialization of paedophilia oriented pornography. But that is not what the term stands for.

It’s a rather long and complex debate over existential issues, culture and a two-way stigma. Again, wikipedia has got some of the answers.

Just to backtrack here and approach the censorship idea again, one can’t help but wonder if this course is a wise road to walk down. Or even effective. Lets examine the filtering for example. In order to filter something and without the use of futuristic sci-fi level artificial intelligence you have to establish a pattern. A domain name, a series of IP addresses. Whatever. Something to block. But here is the deal, what we refer to loosely as “child pornography” is illegal EVERYWHERE, at least everywhere where they have basic infrastructure to support information technology. So if you have a domain name for instance you can get to them. Which I am sure will be step two in the equation. But if they can get to them, why bother blocking the sites or whatever? And so the case for censorship just falls apart. Because like everything else with a tangible if a little flimsy benefit, there is a cost attached to this method.
In this case, nothing like this has ever been done before. Sure, Google bent over backwards for The Church of Scientology once (and then backtracked) and there are more cases of localized censorship like that but never before has censorship on such a scale been developed. Barred China of course. We always hear a lot about the Great Firewall and the jokes that follow in its wake. But the truth is that major players as well as governments around the world are envious at or even salivating over the proxy / firewall system that envelops China’s internet users. And the funny thing is that it probably blocks “child pornography” too apart from obviously stifling free speech. Many are those corporate and political elites that have cursed the day that they blinked and missed the Net, then denigrated it and later found it to be a lost once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and even a threat to continued hegemony.

There are those that take every opportunity to link “child pornography” and “paedophiles” to P2P, file sharing and “piracy.” We in the “pirate” community are used to being demonized by now. We have been linked with everything from “terrorism” to “communism” (two equally ambiguous terms) … and now lately paedophilia. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the powers that be have a real reason to fear both (file sharing and free speech in the unbridled version that the wired world provides) and have drummed up pseudo-real reasons for legislating and shaping popular opinion. And since people seem to like file sharing, an alternative approach had to be devised. One that almost everyone can agree to. It’s all crushing two birds with one stone really.

Trust me when I say this is just the beginning. There will come a time when we look back and wonder how we could have been so stupid that we gave up the first and perhaps only truly free forum and sold out to fear and myths.