Danish Officials charge over 1000 Danish youths with sharing Child Pornography through Facebook Messenger

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

That may be true in common law countries. I don't know the details of Denmark, but in general continental / roman law traditions lean towards a more "gramophone" view of judges, and too much discretion is seen as an excess in the exercise of power and a violation of separation of powers (as deciding what is deserved is the legislators' job). Especially focusing on the person is prevarication, since laws and court rulings should be based on objective types and circumstances, so that everyone in the same situation gets the same result. In other words, the judge must attend to the circumstances, but those circumstances objectively stipulated by the law, without reference to any individual person. He can't just say "well, but it's Timmy... you know, Timmy!". For example, that means that if you and I were identical, and I rob a bank, while you first save a person from drowning and then rob a bank, we are serving the same sentence for robbing. They cannot just say that "overall, your actions during that day deserve X all things considered". Such limits on what is considered relevant for a ruling is essential to have proper rule of law.

"Dura lex, sed lex".

Obviously the judge shouldn't preside a trial for someone they personally know. But yes, it depends on local law. With that said if cutting them some slack is in the judge's legal power than I think they should do that.

[Trixanity]

31 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Well... do they? While it was stupid and insensitive, the harm done is hardly worthy of prison. The victim wasn't raped (not even in a statutory way given the laws of Denmark) and didn't receive any violence, the worst part of all this is public shaming - which is bad of course, but all in all not nearly as harmful as years of prison.

You do realize people have (attempted) suicide in previous cases, right? It's not just 'public shaming'. It goes beyond that. 

 

Most won't see a prison cell and I'd bet we'd see a maximum of 12 months in a juvenile prison. A Scandinavian one at that. I think people in this thread imagine them being put in prison with adult pedophiles or otherwise under harsh conditions. That's not the case.

 

The worst that'll come from this is a 10 year ban from working with children but then again that's probably for the best. Who would want an asshole working around their children anyway?

 

There is no life ruined unless you intended to become a teacher or work in child care. And considering the education system there are tons of options including working in another field for what will end up being like 5 years tops considering their age - after that they can pursue a job working with children again.

 

The law doesn't exempt you because of ignorance. They knew what they did was wrong - just not that their actions would catch up to them. 

 

Their sentences are pretty much guaranteed to be very lenient to the point that's it's ridiculous in all but a few cases of massive sharing. So no need to talk about ruining lives. This isn't the American justice system.

[Linus_torvalds]

World is so fucked up place!

Why you would share child pornography god damn it why? Even if you are 15. Go study and learn something to become a good person in life and to do good things to other people too.

 

On the other hand future seems to be so ruined by government and big companies like Facebook.

When you start using it you loose your privacy. Big brother is watching you they  control everything even your life. There was a post about Twitter reading ALL the private messages. Of course they do. Every social website does this. They want to know everything about you. We should stop using it altogether. It's so much better to talk to people in person! To play with friends in real life, to go out in real world. We slowly loose our lives. Soon we'll become government controlled robot like things that can't do anything without government permission. They only give us the illusion of freedome, even today they controll us!!!

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, goodtofufriday said:

Didn't australia also make it illegal for medical or teacher professions to report cases of child abuse?

Exactly the opposite, they must report every case they believe or could reasonable believe.  If a child turns up to school complaining about a sore private parts and uncle playing doctors a bit rough they have to report it.  If they see a video or photo on a students phone they must report it.  No exceptions.

 

In fact if it can be proved that a teacher knew about an abuse case and did not report it, they, their school and the department will be held legally liable. 

 

 

 

[LAwLz]

9 hours ago, Trixanity said:

You can be sure the punishment won't be the same as an adult.

You sure about that? Is it written in the law or because the judge feels some compassion for the teens?

If it's the former then good, but I doubt it.

 

9 hours ago, Trixanity said:

I expect most to receive fines and perhaps jail time for the most prolific sharers (most shared 1-5 times I think but some shared it over a 100 times). 

That sounds reasonable to me, but that's based on assumptions rather than what the law actually says.

I didn't know that they had been filmed without consent when I first posted. I assumed it was something they had filmed themselves, which then somehow got spread over and over. If they had filmed it themselves then, according to the law (please bear in mind I am no expert on Danish law), the teenagers who were in the video could have been charged with several years in jail for producing and distributing child porn.

 

9 hours ago, Trixanity said:

And the 'sex offender' listing isn't as insane as America's. It only means they can't work with children and I think it expires after 10 years (at least in this case) so it's not as bad as it looks. 

I know the article says they can't work with children and it can last up to 10 years, but I don't see it saying those are the only things.

Being a registered pedophile probably has some other drawbacks too. Maybe not legally, but socially. Imagine being at a job interview and have to explain it.

 

9 hours ago, Trixanity said:

People like to talk about ruining lives but think of the victims: they've had it worse no matter how you look at it. Actions have consequences and while these kids claim ignorance, that's merely an excuse to get out of trouble. Kids aren't getting dumber (which their claims would otherwise indicate). They may not have expected to be charged but there is no way they did not know what they did was horrible and stupid. They did it anyway. Play stupid games; win stupid prizes.

Actually, a lot of them claim they did not know what they were doing.

A girl who was contacted by the police was interviewed on TV2. Here is a quote from her:

Quote

It’s the world’s most ridiculous case. I couldn’t tell that the people in the video were under 18.

Apparently it was two clips, totaling less than a minute in time (one around 50 seconds, and one 9 seconds).

 

I don't think it is too unreasonable to assume that a lot of people didn't know they were underage, or that it was filmed without consent. It's a really hard thing to prove or disprove though, so it's a pretty bad situation to be in, law-enforcement wise.

I mean, if someone sent you a 9 second clip on let's say Discord, would you do a background research to determine if the people in the movie were above 18 and consenting to being filmed? I can already say I wouldn't, because I assume those two things to be true.

 

9 hours ago, Trixanity said:

It's good to finally see some form of justice. Sharing photos and videos of your peers including explicit content shouldn't become the norm but for some reason kids gravitate towards it becoming just that. Hopefully this incident will work. Various campaigns to stall the development have so far failed.

I've read up a bit more of this story and apparently the ones who spread the video originally has already been charged. The people being charged now may or may not have any relation to the ones in the video. For all we know, it might be random people who might be the fifth, sixth or seventh person in the chain.

 

I am all for justice, but not "lawful stupid" justice.

[Notional]

The point of the law is to prevent abuse and teenagers under adulthood (under 18), from doing things they don't understand the consequences of. But it also exposes a much larger issue. In this digital era, where everyone has a camera smartphone with access to chatgroups and what not, this is probably a thing that will never go away. After all a 15 year old, who can legally have sex here, won't see it as distribution of child pornography, to send a nude photo of themselves to the one they had sex with. Basically it would make more sense to have to law allow nude photos etc. of 15 year olds and above for private use, not professional nor public. The laws of copyright and laws of distribution of nudity against the persons will are still in place.

 

Either way, a psycologist in Denmark explained what happened here: The young people wanting the vids are starting to get sexually interested, so there are a natural desire and curiosity involved. It's not some 28 year old russian on the camera, but someone they can relate to, their own age, and someone they might even know. The aspect of social interactions is also present. You want to be the in crowd, and you want to share this with others for acceptance, but also as a way to get to talk about sex with peers.

 

In the end the girl in question doesn't deserve this. She wasn't even aware. But when 1000 young Danes have broken the laws with up to 10 years on a sexual offenders list, making it impossible to work with children as a teacher or similar, then you have a serious problem. Denmark only has 5.5 million people in it, and the number of 15-17 year olds as of 2017 is 206654. And that is 1000 in this one case alone. Think of the shadow numbers.

[mr moose]

5 hours ago, Notional said:

The point of the law is to prevent abuse and teenagers under adulthood (under 18), from doing things they don't understand the consequences of. But it also exposes a much larger issue. In this digital era, where everyone has a camera smartphone with access to chatgroups and what not, this is probably a thing that will never go away. After all a 15 year old, who can legally have sex here, won't see it as distribution of child pornography, to send a nude photo of themselves to the one they had sex with. Basically it would make more sense to have to law allow nude photos etc. of 15 year olds and above for private use, not professional nor public. The laws of copyright and laws of distribution of nudity against the persons will are still in place.

 

Either way, a psycologist in Denmark explained what happened here: The young people wanting the vids are starting to get sexually interested, so there are a natural desire and curiosity involved. It's not some 28 year old russian on the camera, but someone they can relate to, their own age, and someone they might even know. The aspect of social interactions is also present. You want to be the in crowd, and you want to share this with others for acceptance, but also as a way to get to talk about sex with peers.

 

In the end the girl in question doesn't deserve this. She wasn't even aware. But when 1000 young Danes have broken the laws with up to 10 years on a sexual offenders list, making it impossible to work with children as a teacher or similar, then you have a serious problem. Denmark only has 5.5 million people in it, and the number of 15-17 year olds as of 2017 is 206654. And that is 1000 in this one case alone. Think of the shadow numbers.

 

1000 people shared a video, not of themselves but of someone else they did not have permission from.   Law aside, did they think that was O.K?  who could think that was o.k?   If it was your daughter would you share it? if it was your sister would you share it, if someone took a video of you doing something legal but very embarrassing would you be lenient on those that shared it knowing it would be embarrassing for you?

 

Law aside this type of behaviour is behavior that requires some very heavy handed rectification.  These boys obviously don't understand the ramifications of what they have done and when it involves the mental well  being of someone else then maybe they need a ten year slap on the wrist.    

 

 

[PlayStation 2]

What did they think would happen?

[JAKEBAB]

20 hours ago, mr moose said:

The whole idea of the law being that way is to stop the exploitation of people under 18 without making laws that prevent 15 year old's from doing what comes naturally.

We have very similar laws in Australia and every child in high school is made aware of the law. Sharing a sex tape of someone under 18 is child porn PERIOD.

I was never made aware of this in school.

 

Edit: Asked a bunch of my mates from QLD, VIC, NSW, and they weren't either. Is it a new thing??

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, JAKEBAB said:

I was never made aware of this in school.

I'm sure you didn't need to be told that sharing such a video is a wrong thing to do. Every person involved in this also knew it was wrong which is why private messaging was used and not a public forum or facebook post. I've worked in the education sector long enough and interacted with enough 13-18 year olds of every level of intelligence imaginable and they all know this is completely unacceptable behavior. The ones doing it know what they are doing even if they don't know the specific law they are breaking they know they are breaking one. 

 

I'm also speaking from the position of having to deal with situations like this and having to collect computer evidence as requested by police and teachers council for the networks I managed. I don't want to have to do this sort of thing, the ripple effect spreads much wider than most people realize.

 

I am in favor of measured justice and reformation but this behavior needs to stop, strong punishment is required and young people need to learn to take some self responsibility and be constantly reinforced to listen to their moral conscience and leave situations where there is pressure to do something wrong.

[mr moose]

35 minutes ago, JAKEBAB said:

I was never made aware of this in school.

 

Edit: Asked a bunch of my mates from QLD, VIC, NSW, and they weren't either. Is it a new thing??

Fairly new.  I have been working in schools for the last 3 years and it has only been stepping up as part of the whole sex education, drugs talk and police/welfare stuff they do. 

[Orangeator]

These teenagers were idiots for filming it in the first place and should receive a harsher penalties than anyone else. The creators of child pornography are more guilty than those who share it in my mind.

[Notional]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

1000 people shared a video, not of themselves but of someone else they did not have permission from.   Law aside, did they think that was O.K?  who could think that was o.k?   If it was your daughter would you share it? if it was your sister would you share it, if someone took a video of you doing something legal but very embarrassing would you be lenient on those that shared it knowing it would be embarrassing for you?

 

Law aside this type of behaviour is behavior that requires some very heavy handed rectification.  These boys obviously don't understand the ramifications of what they have done and when it involves the mental well  being of someone else then maybe they need a ten year slap on the wrist.    

3

I'm not defending their actions, merely explaining their behaviour based on the statements of a psychologist. As said, whether you redefine "child"pornography in this case so 15-17 year olds won't be criminals for having nudes of their girlfriends, etc, this case still violates other laws.

 

It's clear that these youths are not thinking about the people in the video at all. They are driven by other things as stated. 

 

20% of the 1004 people are girls btw.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Notional said:

 

20% of the 1004 people are girls btw.

If that matter's then I don't want to here another word from an feminist about less woman in management positions.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

I'm sure you didn't need to be told that sharing such a video is a wrong thing to do. Every person involved in this also knew it was wrong which is why private messaging was used and not a public forum or facebook post. I've worked in the education sector long enough and interacted with enough 13-18 year olds of every level of intelligence imaginable and they all know this is completely unacceptable behavior. The ones doing it know what they are doing even if they don't know the specific law they are breaking they know they are breaking one. 

 

-snip-

 

I am in favor of measured justice and reformation but this behavior needs to stop, strong punishment is required and young people need to learn to take some self responsibility and be constantly reinforced to listen to their moral conscience and leave situations where there is pressure to do something wrong.

You are making some very big assumptions in your post:

1) That the people who spread the video knew that the people in it were underage.

I have not seen the video so I can't say for sure, but according to interviews several people were not aware that they were 15. I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that a lot of people who shared the video had no direct connection to the people in it and were completely unaware that it was child porn. Some people certainly knew, like the ones who originally spread it, but you can't expect every single one of the 1000+ people to know.

 

2) That people who spread the video knew that the ones in it had been recorded in secret, rather than filming it with consent.

Unless there is some clear sign of them not being aware of being recorded, I think it is a fair assumption for people to make that a porn video was recorded with consent. I certainly don't assume all videos I see were spycam footage. Hell, I don't even assume videos labeled "hidden recording" were actually recorded in secret. I don't think the "step brother" in pornos are real step brothers either...

 

3) That people only spread it through private messages because they knew it was against the law.

Maybe I am weird, but me and my friends share porn from time to time. We do not share it by posting it on our facebook walls for everyone to see though. We do it in private groups with a limited amount of people in them, or in direct messages. We don't do that because we post illegal material, we do that because I might be OK with my closest friends knowing that I read "I can't believe I creampied my little sister", but I might not want my brother, my mom, my boss, my clients from work or other people like that knowing about it.

I think it is perfectly natural to keep your sexual activities (including porn) in private conversations rather than blasting it out for everyone to see.

[leadeater]

30 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

1) That the people who spread the video knew that the people in it were underage.

I have not seen the video so I can't say for sure, but according to interviews several people were not aware that they were 15. I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that a lot of people who shared the video had no direct connection to the people in it and were completely unaware that it was child porn. Some people certainly knew, like the ones who originally spread it, but you can't expect every single one of the 1000+ people to know.

I think you mistook my statements for everyone involved should be punished equally. With so many involved there will be people who did not know the full situation but it has a starting point, it flows from there. However the network of people who knows what the situation is is usually large. We are talking about people who are attending a school, probably in the range of 500-3500 students and these people know other students in other schools of similar sizes.

 

I can make this assumption based on experience of multiple cases of sexual misconduct and knowing exactly how far the network of information goes between students and schools. I've turned up to a different school to do work and hear students talking about incidents from another school that has been intentionally kept quiet, the only way they knew is from talking to other students very closely involved.

 

The number of people who were genuinely unaware of what was going on is likely much smaller than you expect. You can throw around assumptions as much as you want but sometimes that is required and I am giving my experiences of similar cases so people can understand how not isolated these events are and how people are actually aware of what is going on.

 

FYI I've had students lie to my face about things they have done wrong, even after showing video footage and email evidence. Many will do and say anything to get out of being punished, it's just a mental age thing and they usually grow out of it and become adults that I sometimes know longer term and work or interact with. I respect them enough to treat them like an adult and not judge them based on what they did at ages 15-18.

 

30 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

2) That people who spread the video knew that the ones in it had been recorded in secret, rather than filming it with consent.

Unless there is some clear sign of them not being aware of being recorded, I think it is a fair assumption for people to make that a porn video was recorded with consent. I certainly don't assume all videos I see were spycam footage. Hell, I don't even assume videos labeled "hidden recording" were actually recorded in secret. I don't think the "step brother" in pornos are real step brothers either...

That's not what I was saying or implying. They all knew the distribution of the video was wrong, all of them. Many of them knew what it was which makes their actions worse. Also see above, I'd guess well over half knew.

 

30 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Hell, I don't even assume videos labeled "hidden recording" were actually recorded in secret. I don't think the "step brother" in pornos are real step brothers either...

Teenagers aren't as stupid as people portray, they know when it's not what it says it is. What they do after that point is what is important, not that they received or viewed it.

[Sakkura]

15 hours ago, Sauron said:

Well... do they? While it was stupid and insensitive, the harm done is hardly worthy of prison. The victim wasn't raped (not even in a statutory way given the laws of Denmark) and didn't receive any violence, the worst part of all this is public shaming - which is bad of course, but all in all not nearly as harmful as years of prison.

Actual prison time is unlikely in this case, especially years of it.

 

I suspect many will get a fine, and the more prolific sharers maybe a few months suspended sentence with community service.

[Serin]

Er... wrong thread. How'd that happen.

[Sakkura]

11 hours ago, Notional said:

The point of the law is to prevent abuse and teenagers under adulthood (under 18), from doing things they don't understand the consequences of. But it also exposes a much larger issue. In this digital era, where everyone has a camera smartphone with access to chatgroups and what not, this is probably a thing that will never go away. After all a 15 year old, who can legally have sex here, won't see it as distribution of child pornography, to send a nude photo of themselves to the one they had sex with. Basically it would make more sense to have to law allow nude photos etc. of 15 year olds and above for private use, not professional nor public. The laws of copyright and laws of distribution of nudity against the persons will are still in place.

The law does explicitly permit that.

 

https://www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=192080

 

Quote

§ 235. Den, som udbreder pornografiske fotografier eller film, andre pornografiske visuelle gengivelser eller lignende af personer under 18 år, straffes med bøde eller fængsel indtil 2 år eller under særligt skærpende omstændigheder med fængsel indtil 6 år. Som særligt skærpende omstændigheder anses navnlig tilfælde, hvor barnets liv udsættes for fare, hvor der anvendes grov vold, hvor der forvoldes barnet alvorlig skade, eller hvor der er tale om udbredelse af mere systematisk eller organiseret karakter.

Stk. 2. Den, som besidder eller mod vederlag eller gennem internettet eller et lignende system til spredning af information gør sig bekendt med pornografiske fotografier eller film, andre pornografiske visuelle gengivelser eller lignende af personer under 18 år, straffes med bøde eller fængsel indtil 1 år.

Stk. 3. Bestemmelsen i stk. 2 omfatter ikke besiddelse af fotografier, film el.lign. af en person, der er fyldt 15 år, hvis den pågældende samtykker i besiddelsen.

Obviously that doesn't apply here though, as the 15-year olds in the video did not want it shared with tens of thousands of people.

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

I think you mistook my statements for everyone involved should be punished equally. With so many involved there will be people who did not know the full situation but it has a starting point, it flows from there. However the network of people who knows what the situation is is usually large. We are talking about people who are attending a school, probably in the range of 500-3500 students and these people know other students in other schools of similar sizes.

It was shared across the entire country. Probably almost everyone in that age range in the country heard about the video, even if they never watched it.

 

I'm sure that attention is also what tempted a lot of people to actually watch the video, just to be "in on" what's happening.