Question about new legislation re: 20 Years for Disguising Porn Sites as Child-Friend
 

Regarding "Senate Legislation: 20 Years for Disguising Porn Sites as Child-Friendly" (article below - main section highlighted).

I posted this on a blog tonight, and want to get feedback from others. Does this make any sense?
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Note: This is quality legislation. For once I completely agree with the Congress on this issue. Anyone actually, purposefully tricking children to come to a porn site should be shot, cut into little pieces and buried alive.

The only reasons to do that, that I can think of, are to a) get the unsuspecting child to deliver personal information, which means the web site operator intends some kind of harm to the child or, b) thinks he'll get paying adult to come to the site through the same trickery.

In case "a", that person needs to be jailed (or buried alive - up to you) for being an evil bastard. In case "b", they need to be put away for being incredidbly stupid! The FSC (and others) has it right: the legitimate adult industry needs to clean up their act - now - or the gov will do it for us.

Now, I do have one question. I've thought about this, and something doesn't quite make sense. Why would a predator go to the trouble of creating a pornographic web site, embedding keywords and other search engine optimization methods (hey - the kids gotta find it somehow) to attract children, if they truly have the intent of causing that child harm - harm in person - like most predators are known to do? Does that make any sense? What child, looking for whatever lead them there in the first place, would find a pornographic web site, then eagerly enter their contact data and wait for a response from "the nice man with the porno site"?

I don't get it. Are there any cases on record of someone doing this? Going to the trouble and expense to create a porn site designed to attract children? To paraphrase Commodus from the movie Gladiator, I'm vexed.. I'm terribly vexed.

If this has ever happened, it certainly has nothing to do with the legitimate adult industry, for at least two reasons. One, the vast majority of adult webmasters are not evil bastards. Two, and it's not pretty or intended to make people feel good (but it's true), kids can't buy porn. We don't want them to, so that's cool. The fact of the matter is, there is no market incentive to attract kids to a porn site. None, nada, zip.

Anyway, enjoy the article:

Senate Legislation: 20 Years for Disguising Porn Sites as Child-Friendly
By: Larissa Gates
Posted: 3:00 pm PDT 7-25-2006

WASHINGTON - Luring children to websites containing sexual content by using child-friendly words may soon be a felony, under new legislation approved by the U.S. Senate Thursday, according to a report by CNET News.com.

The Child Protection and Safety Act would see fines and imprisonment for up to 20 years handed to anyone convicted of deliberately misleading children to view potentially harmful web pages, the report said.

?Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years,? the legislation declares.

?This bill will protect children and save countless lives by dramatically improving our efforts against sex offenders and violent criminals,? said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, after the vote. ?Too many parents are devastated by an innocent child exploited and harmed by predators lurking in our communities.?

Webmasters, however, would have to clearly indicate an ?intent to deceive? visitors who access the site before they would be subjected to charges under the legislation, a requirement that would leave the application of the law open to extensive judicial interpretation, according to the report.

The legislation would also tighten laws relating to child porn, sex offender registration and child exploitation.

The Senate approved the bill by a voice vote. The House, which voted to approve an earlier version of the bill, is expected to clear the revised version next week and send the legislation to President Bush for his signature. The president endorsed the legislation Friday, saying it would provide ?law enforcement officials with the tools they need to track those who prey upon children?.

Previously the Child Protection and Safety Act was amended to include a section called "Truth in Domain Names" or Misleading Domain Names on the Internet.

It's not the once directly tricking kids that will get affected the most (since their numbers are probably few and far between). It's the misleading domain holders. Unfortunately, any legislation can be expanded broadly and liberally interpreted. That's where your concerns become urgent.

When has this ever happend? Why would anyone want underage kids on their website? They like wasting bandwidth when kids download the free trailers?

You're right, it doesn't make sense, and I seriously doubt it ever happens. Congress loves to spin their fight against porn as an attempt to protect children, instead of what it is, a Christian based attempt at censorship. They'd probably like to focus on sites that use terms like "teens."


"This bill will protect children and save countless lives by dramatically improving our efforts against sex offenders and violent criminals"

Riiiiight

uhhh come ON