In Germany is a point of contention sadly. Sharing is definatly illegal. Even if said images are clearly not real. possession depend on what the judge will decide. The actual language used is
undertakes to make available to or obtain possession of, for another, child pornographic content which reproduces an actual or a realistic act,
where “a realistic act” is anything that could not be distinguished from a real deal.
For Sharing the relevant part is subsection 1.1 given the second sentence of Section 1 which reads:
ncurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between one year and 10 years. If, in the cases under subsection (1) sentence 1 no. 1 and no. 4, the child pornographic content reproduces no actual or realistic act, the penalty is imprisonment for a term of between three months and five years.
The laws regarding that changed in July 2022 so pretty recent. (Number 4 deals with commercial usage of such content. e.g. selling, advertising, import and export, production for Commercial usage, storing and obtaining for Commercial usage.
My issue is if, say, a would-be predator starts chatting with who they think is an underaged boy/girl (really an agent). But then the person has second thoughts, realizes they’re doing something wrong and tries to leave. But the fucking agent won’t let them go and proceeds to shake the lure a bit more and reel them back in. Baiting people into committing crimes is just plain wrong IMO. It just never sits right with me…
Just a thought, but how is this entrapment different to a situation where a police officer runs a candy shop, telling customers as they come in that the candy is in fact not candy but drugs, advertising the quality and effect of those drugs and then arresting them when they still try to buy from them?
In both cases we have:
A perpetrator who initially beliefs he was going to find something legal (candy or 18+ women)
The perpetrator was lured in under these false pretenses
The police actively trying to get the “customer” to commit the crime by advertising the illegal behavior
No actual crime ever took place as the perpetrator only ever interacted with officers
Where do we draw the line if we allow the police to actively try and get people to commit crimes just so they can arrest them?
Why did you delete your posts? Nothing you said is wrong, it IS insane to prosecute fiction as CSAM, it IS counterintuitive to bait people into committing crimes. Such tactics do nothing to actually help victims and prevent more crime, only to waste resources punishing innocent and low-threat people while taking attention away from actual Omega-level dangerous people (serial offenders, traffickers, etc.).
Another thing I would argue is: If you already agreed to something and afterwards the terms change it is a lot more likely you will agree to that then when the terms where the same from the beginning. Ever have a friend ask if you could help him carry the chair up to his room and after you did that, he asks you to help him with the table too? And you end up agreeing even through you would not have in the beginning? Because after all that is not that much more?
We tend to judge information based on information we already have. That is called Anchoring Bias And while that is of cause no excuse for agreeing to something like that it is likely to have affect their judgement and might have eased people into agreeing to this even if they would not have before.