Cuties violates federal law of your country

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I asked a law student on his 3d year of law school as to whether cuties violates law on twitter. According to him, he says more likely than not that some specific scenes violate the law. He also linked to us code 2256 and after I read 2256 it seems to me that it would violate your laws.

Those scenes must be censored and Netflix/Pedoflix prosecuted. Pedophiles need to be removed from positions of power within Netflix, this film in it’s current form would have never been approved if it were not for pedos that exist in Netflix’s power structure.

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(A)Except as provided in subparagraph (B), “sexually explicit conduct” means actual or simulated—
(i)sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex;
(ii)bestiality;
(iii)masturbation;
(iv)sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
(v)lascivious exhibition of the anus, genitals, or pubic area of any person;
(B)For purposes of subsection 8(B) [1] of this section, “sexually explicit conduct” means—
(i)graphic sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex, or lascivious simulated sexual intercourse where the genitals, breast, or pubic area of any person is exhibited;
(ii)graphic or lascivious simulated;
(I)bestiality;
(II)masturbation; or
(III)sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
(iii)graphic or simulated lascivious exhibition of the anus, genitals, or pubic area of any person;

Having watched Cuties, I cannot see where any “sexually explicit conduct” was performed. There was a lot of twerking, but that is not real or simulated sexual intercourse. There was a momentary flash of a boob, but that is not the anus, genitals or pubic area. Likewise there was no masturbation, sadism, masochism, or bestiality. Therefore, lacking any of these listed items, it does not meet the definitions in 18 U.S. Code § 2256.

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I don’t like Cuties either. I think it’s inappropriate and unnecessary to use real child actors for a film about twerking. I haven’t seen the film, and I likely never will.
My overall opinion of the film is pretty much the same as that of others who support free speech and expression but draw the line at actual, real-world child exploitation:

“It could have been a book.”
“Or cartoon. Or anime.”

Granted, I’m not in any position to accuse the film of violating federal law. Dozens of American Congresspeople on all sides of the political spectrum have publicly gone on record to berate and criticize the film for its unsettling plot and, more specifically, its use of real children. Many of these have written and signed letters to the Dept. of Justice and some local municipalities have even taken matters into their own hands by criminally indicting the film itself (albeit for the wholly wrong charges).

If the film were to have reached criminality status, then such truth would have already been made apparent. Netflix is a walled-garden catalog, where all content is carefully curated and licensed for streaming on a region-to-region basis.
I’m not in a position to say you’re wrong about whether or not it violates the DOST test, but there are more qualified persons than me to make that decision, and as of yet, nobody has.

Please do not misinterpret this as a defense of the film. It is not. I believe content such as this belongs in fiction, wherein cartoon characters, CGI models, and youthful-looking adults are used. Not real life where a camera is pointed at a real child.

Keep it 2D.

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I confess I never watched this Cuties, and I don’t think I ever will. I don’t have any interest in this kinda of material ^^". But by the trailer it doesn’t seem THAT bad. And I guess what I can add in this discussion is that, in my opinion, that kind of material is WAY more nocive to children who watched it, then pedophiles. And yes, I know the point people say is always that. But what I mean is, even if zero pedophiles watch it the effect would remain the same. Because the “problem” about that is with children who could try to replicate that kinda of value. That is a problem because they could be early sexualized and end up turning into pedophiles themselves in the future. And yes, I have a theory that says that, and I’m aware that my theories don’t have much value… But, I said it was just a opinion in the beginning, don’t I? :3

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So… I followed up to that law student, he said there were scenes of inappropriate zoom ins of the pubic regions. He also pointed out that case law does not require nude pubic region. So it likely violates lewd and lascivious exhibitions. Yeah, I’m convinced it violates federal law, but the feds from what im told tend to prioritize the worst of the worst and kick the rest down to the states. This may explain why netflix is being prosecuted in texas instead of a federal court.

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[quote=“Chie, post:3, topic:1447”]
I’m not in a position to say you’re wrong about whether or not it violates the DOST test, but there are more qualified persons than me to make that decision, and as of yet, nobody has. [/quote]

The DOST test is not the only concern. Miller v. California sets the precedent as to what may constitute illegal obscenity, in general. Dost only focused on the prong of the Miller Doctrine that deals specifically with appealing to the prurient interest. The other two prongs of the Miller Doctrine, are whether or not the material violates contemporary community standards, and whether or not the material in question has serious artistic, literary, or political value.

Thus, it is possible for material to fail the Dost test, but still be protected by the first amendment, since Miller requires failure on all three of its prongs before the government may be said to have a permissible governmental interest in prohibiting a given work, where Miller requires that any given work be considered as a whole.

The Protect Act plugged the loophole that existed after
the Supreme Court’s ruling in Ashcroft v. Free Speech
Coalition. In the wake of that decision, child pornographers
could effectively escape prosecution by claiming that their
sexually explicit material did not actually involve real
children. Technology has advanced so far that even experts
often cannot say with absolute certainty that an image is real
or ``virtual’’ computer creation.
For this reason, the PROTECT Act permits a prosecution to
proceed when the child pornography includes persons that appear
virtually indistinguishable from actual minors, and when this
occurs, the accused is afforded a complete affirmative defense
by showing that the child pornography did not involve a minor.

All that being said, I found the movie unimpressive. I just scanned through to evaluate, for myself, the claims being made. And, as noted, if there were any actual CP involved, Netflix’s lawyers would not allowed them to air it.

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True, but obscenity requires more than just “lewd and lascivious”.

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I can’t say from any specific source, but there have been a lot of comments on this site that attraction to minors is a function of certain differences in the brain and not a “choice”. Just as being gay is what you are, not what you want. So sayeth the scientists who study these things.

Of course, an attraction to minors (pedophilia) is not illegal as long as it goes unrequited. Also, some, maybe much, of CSA is due to other factors, such as control, punishment or money.

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So, this is not really a place for you to campaign against pedophiles/pedophilia. You can actually address these concerns without stigmatizing anyone. You can bring up the fact that you think certain scenes are inappropriate, you can opine that the movie should be criminalized (thus heaping scorn and stigma on the woman who made the movie and all the child actors in it.) You can consult any law student you want. You can even say you really hate the movie. Emotional kneejerk reactions are very human.

But it’s not really ok to come here and attack MAPs. It’s not ok to conflate minor attraction with abuse. Attraction is not action and no one is doomed to offend. The myth of the pedophile cabal needs to die. These conspiracy theories are ridiculous and just work to cloud the issue of real prevention. Netflix is neither the problem, nor under obligation to only show movies you personally like and approve of.

And your law student giving their opinion on a fairly niche subject is a bit like a medical student diagnosing a rare illness without seeing the patient in person.

Anywho, I asked you nicely in private to be more respectful. I am now asking you in public to be more respectful and curb your use of stigma. If you fail to be show this community respect, you will not be welcome in it and subject to expulsion. If you have questions, please feel free to DM.

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I took the trouble to watch this movie to see what the fuss was about, and decided that the said fuss was misplaced. But the way the movie gave out its message reminded me of the nasty old story about the farmer, the mule and the 2 x 4.

Copied from a random web instance with some shortening:

"There is a story about a farmer who wanted to sell his mule so he put the ad in the local paper.

"One day a man from another community came to the farm and the two farmers got to talking about the mule. The farmer who wanted to buy the mule asked if the mule was a good worker. The reply was that the mule did a day’s work. The next question that was asked is did the mule obey every command. The owner said yes. The farmer asked if they could hitch the mule up to see how he worked. The owner said no problem.

"They got the mule into his harness and the farmer took the reins and told the mule giddy-up.

"The mule just stood there.

"The farmer tried a couple of more times and still the mule didn’t move. He looked at the owner and said, “I thought you told me this mule obeys.”

“He does,” says the owner, who then picked up a 2x4 and walked to the front where he was
facing the mule. He then hit the mule as hard as he could with the 2x4. He then walked back and said to the farmer, “Try again.” The farmer did and the mule obeyed.

“The owner said, “This mule always obeys, but you have got to get his attention first.””

My interpretation is that Maïmouna Doucouré wanted to whack up some attention about the problem of young girls in French culture being conditioned to put on sexiness at an early age. Given that this Senegalese director was working in France, where you’re generally allowed to show a level of reality that American, Canadian (except Québec) and Australian audiences have never been able to withstand, she pulled no punches and showed what it looked like when 11 year olds got hooked on internet influencer culture and decided to have a go at mastering the slinky pop image of female sexiness from Beyoncé and beyond. The twerks that have got various Anglophone parties so worked up are the equivalent of the 2 x 4 whacks on the hypothetical French cultural donkey, waking it up with “this is what your loose values lead to.” In the end, our heroine Amy, after becoming mean, thieving and competitive, becomes properly disgusted by her dabblings in excess and makes a wise decision to return to being a kid and playing skip rope.

No one who shakes their fist at Hollywood’s provocative, giddily rebellious and reckless youth culture, where destroying the family home with a wild sensual party is the comedy norm ever since Tom Cruise was a sexy bairn dancing in his underwear, would have any reason to be displeased with Doucouré’s clear moral editorial.

So all this stuff about lawbreaking and pedophiles at Netflix is just political flim-flam, kneejerk on the left, and on the right, opportunists capitalizing on something that would seem to have some shock value when you deliberately commit yourself to knowing nothing about it.

The people who are trying to get mileage out of conspiratorializing this film should stop waving their prudenda around and go skip some rope.

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Yeah, I will admit I never watched the film because I don’t want to violate any laws. And yeah we know it has literary significance. But there could be a few scenes that maybe a few seconds length which MIGHT be illegal. It just so happens a couple conservative politicians shared screenshots from the movie which seem like it’s on the legal/illegal borderline. (not really a fan of the idea of retweeting stuff they think /actually is illegal even if they are trying to help), but I was unfortunate enough to stumbled into those screenshots and yeah, that is all I need to know about the movie to know there is at best, morally questionable settings, and at worst, being on the wrong side of the line in terms of the law.

I believe content such as this belongs in fiction, wherein cartoon characters, CGI models, and youthful-looking adults are used. Not real life where a camera is pointed at a real child.

A lot of the ethical issues could be avoided if they did do that. Another thing is they auditioned something like 600 minors. The odds that they violated child pornography law IMO are very high, even if the law was not violated in the final movie, an extremely serious crime. When they auditioned 600 minors, there could easily be a few seconds of a clip which WOULD violate the dost test.

I think we should give the general public some credit from reframing from carrying out what IMHO would be very understandable attacks against Netflix and anyone involved. I don’t think people really give enough credit to just how much self control members of the general public have. We should give them that credit at least. I personally would be very understanding towards the general public if they did something similar to that weird coup attempt on your capitol, but instead they went into Netflix and started trashing stuff. Going into the capitol to trash stuff is stupid and does not make it more likely that your “guy” will win. But if they had went into Netflix and did the same thing, that could force Netflix to rethink what they publish. I prefer the law to do it’s thing, but if people decide enough is enough… well, can’t blame them

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Yup, netflix is fucked. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2251

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Don’t forget to come back in a year and explain why it didn’t go the way you’re now predicting. And it won’t be because of perverts in high places.

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I won’t, there is a lawsuit against Netflix right now in Texas. And so far odds are pretty good on a guilty verdict. I predict Netflix will ultimately loose and be fined. But the guilty verdict will result in hundreds of millions of dollar reduction in revenue. This guilty verdict is important not because of the fine which will sadly be a very small amount, but because it sends a message that mega corps are not immune to the law. Because this will utterly decimate their stock value, it will lead to massive house cleaning in the company. Perhaps screening of all employees for sexual deviancy is necessary. Those that fail the test will be removed.

The law will catch up with this perverted company. They can run, but justice is coming. They could have used CGI models that do not involve actual/real minors, but decided to become offenders. Such a shame really.

Mark my words, justice is coming.

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No, it’s really just illegal and unethical af.

As a Jew, and I don’t say this lightly or with any humor in my tone, it is hard not to see this attitude as all too familiar…

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The rhetoric you’re using here is basic, simple self-fulfilling prophecy mongering, and my task as an opposing rhetorician is to disenjoin you, that is to say, you’re a legal know-nothing whose ideas are based on the wishful thinking of inept politics, and that there’s zero chance this completely above board movie will be held to be guilty of a sex crime, even in a place as judicially ludicrous on sexual issues as Texas.

edit: a state that needed the Supreme Court to strike down its despicable sodomy laws. Lawrence v. Texas - Wikipedia

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I wouldn’t be so confident, almost everyone on twitter believes this movie violated the law. Juries determine guilt and trust me, when it comes down to anyone accused of producing child pornography, it’s one of the crimes the juries will have the least amount of sympathy towards the defendant.

They are screwed. Maybe a corrupt higher court could overturn the conviction, but by then it would be too late for Netflix.

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I reject your self-fulfilling prophecy as baseless bluster. It’s an ancient technique, used everywhere from “we’re gonna win this election” to “The Sultan will defeat you Europeans” to “clap your hands if you believe in fairies.”

You go ahead and believe in your fairy.

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If social media had existed in the 1980s “almost everyone on Twitter” would be repeating that heavy metal bands were secretly funding satanic ritual abuse. Mob mentality is never correct, and in a couple decades this will all look very silly. Just as that hysteria took loud party music and turned it into an arguably socially relevant genre, the controversy over Cuties could just possibly take.that rather sentimental independent arts film about a young girl who wants to be a dancer and make it into a cinematic classic.

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So a friend on twitter told me about this charity. She said it has a good mission, but she criticizes this community for failing to remove pro offending posts.

I am a enrolled in law, and reading the plain text of the language of united states federal child pornography law, and just looking at some case law, it does appear that cuties is in sort of a grey area. It depends on whether the Dost test applies. Obscenity and child pornography are two distinct types of unprotected “speech/expression”. For a depiction to violate the law, it need not prove to be obscene. As such, Cuties may not be legal. But as you know, the amount of heinous and vile material on the internet that is being traded on various dark sites or on private circles is so overwhelming that going after cuties might not be a high priority, especially in light of the enormous amount of rape and sexual torture imagery that is unfortunately being produced. Given this reality, law enforcement will prioritize the more heinous material over imagery that is in a grey area of law.

This reality does not in any way, shape, or form exonerate “Cuties”, morally, and legally. But I am letting you know it might not be legal for them to have created some of those scenes. And for you to watch it, you are in a sort of grey area legally. Be very careful.