Nowadays, the vast majority of producers of ‘child porn’ are kids themselves. The combination of webcams, Internet access, and sexual curiosity guarantees that images of underage nudity will only be more prevalent as time goes on.
They are sophisticated and wealthy operations, which is why it is next to impossible to make any inroads into catching them.
Hence targeting the consumers (which I agree is like closing the stable door...)
I think you’re missing my point: there are millions of teens experimenting on the Internet, [...] in front of webcams. The number of people involved with what you describe is orders of magnitude smaller.
If states believe this argument, they should legalise the distribution of child porn where no money changes hands. Alternately, if they don't believe it, they should stop trying to shut down The Pirate Bay and other Torrent sites.
They cannot have it both ways, without being hypocrites.
I don’t know where you get that idea. The law makes no such distinction. Nude depictions of individuals who appear to be younger than 18 years of age are usually illegal. In many countries, this includes drawings and animations. In other countries, the subject doesn’t even have to be nude, striking a suggestive pose can make the image illegal.
When an analyst looks through some images they have to make a subjective judgement because it is very hard to judge age in many cases.
To be clear; striking a suggestive pose is very very rarely illegal in itself. It may be classified on a relevant scale as part of the investigation (e.g. COPINE) but that is only because it is of obvious relevance to the charge/conviction.
If someone was caught with "suggestive" images on their computer in the UK, for example, the CPS wouldn't prosecute (because it's not actually illegal).
