The Child Porn Hoax -- Susie Bright, AlterNet

[Lone_Star_Dem]

There's a difference between the real world of child abuse -- a story that apparently has no legs-- and Child-Porn!™ that is constructed by unethical politicians.

Once upon a time, there was a very serious reporter for a very serious newspaper, who decided to investigate one of society's scourges: the child pornography ring.

Two years after his exposés riveted the nation, it turned out the reporter had gone off the deep end. He'd paid his main source, become a webmaster at the very porn site he was investigating, lied and bullied anyone who questioned him, and had all but ostracized himself out of a reporting career.

But it wasn't just him. The witch-hunters, bogeyman blamers, and moral-panic enablers -- were everywhere. Our little reporter might have landed in deep shit, but the hysteria he milked became bigger than ever before.

Call him one of the most bizarre media offenders in the past two years of fear-mongering: Former New York Times and Portfolio reporter Kurt Eichenwald. He wrote two front-page stories on the subject of sex that won't be forgotten soon: Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World, and its followup, Child Sex Sites on the Run.

From the get-go, both stories were creepy: the softcore sexy descriptions, the "blame the internet" righteousness, the homophobic ick factor, and the unexplained implication that Eichenwald had looked at piles of this material himself, when by current law, he wouldn't have that right, no matter how well-intentioned his purpose!

Why did Kurt portray himself as an elite one-man rescue mission, and why was he so lurid in his crusade?

It didn't smell right.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/64081/

[Hydra]

1. Sick world

Most people only care about this issue when it's used for someone else's aggrandizement. I can count on one hand the number of people who were willing to give any help at all to the kids when I was advocating against kidnapping.

:puke:

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. That's so true

You could summarize this very long article by saying, people exploit fear of child molestation to further their own agendas.

The children are far too seldom the ones that are the real focus.

[Coexist]

2. wow.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

4. That's more than I could say right after I read it

I was struck speechless.

I just noticed that this post has more than 420 views and two replies. Perhaps it had the same effect on most others too.

[Hydra]

5. It's the "after the fanfare" reaction

Plenty of people were interested in this when it was considered "objective"

People are rarely interested in the evidence of foul play- look at the various pieces of evidence that Bush was always intending to invade Iraq...tepid response. Especially since I could have told you that- Bush said he was aware of our protests, but our input was not asked for nor important.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

7. "After the fanfare" reaction

I've never heard that before, but I like it.

I thought that those who post here would be receptive to discussing this type of manipulation. It's not as if the article in anyway disputes the perverseness of child pornography. What it does is expose the manipulation of our reactions to such perversities and shows some of the results of such.

It's hard to accept that something such as our fear of children being exploited can be used against us. But then it's also hard to accept that our fear of terrorism has been used against us to permit actions which have done nothing to hinder terrorism and has hurt the very core of what our nation is supposed to be.

[varkam]

6. It's an extremely safe political platform.

No one is going to argue that our children should be less safe, so the politicians and the hucksters conjur up a gin-u-wine pandemic to get the masses all worked up into a lather by focusing on something that, while vile, doesn't have a huge impact on the numbers.

For example, I'm sure more children have been harmed by lack of healthcare, or domestic violence, or poverty than by child pornography. That is not to denigrate it's victims, but only to say that the discussion is sorely lacking perspective. For instance, the majority of children who go missing in this country are either runaway/throwaway children, or are abducted by a relative - rarely a stranger. And yet the majority of noise is made about stranger-danger type abductions, even though statistically they do not represent as much of a real threat as other kinds do.