Where to draw the line?

I found this on Laurens blog.

‘That appears to be essentially the plan of some legislators in California, who are pushing for a law making it illegal to display photos of young children on the Internet “without permission.” Note that the idea isn’t just to prohibit pornographic photos, or naked photos, but all photos of “toddlers” — including fully clothed in completely public settings.’

This seems quite ridiculous to me living in a society with a very open culture. Although I do understand that the culture in the US, and clearly in California is somewhat reserved. I try to understand this… but still it does seem a little over the top… next it will be illegal to take pictures of children… or an indication of guilt of pedophile tendencies….. please let’s not take this route…

4 Replies to “Where to draw the line?”

  1. See, that’s the bad part–you have to put up a policy that says “nobody under 13”, put a checkbox in the signup form that says “I am 13 or over”, and rely on the person to self-identify themselves as over 13–nobody would ever lie about that. =)

  2. lol, I’ve never lived there, only read about it, so who am I to judge 😉

    … and yes how to enforce these laws..how do they enforce that a child must be over 13 to get a MySpace account? Send an email to the parent or guardian? How do they ensure that it really is the parent or guardian?… and the pictures…starts to get interesting.

    Nice to see you here again rybolov!

  3. Hi KLO

    I would hardly describe California as “reserved”. =)

    Today we have laws that restrict data-gathering on children under the age of 13, that’s why you can’t get a MySpace account unless you’re 13 or over. It’s not much of a stretch to include pictures. But then again, what is the value added to the public, and is this a law that’s virtually unforceable?

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