A few months back I reported on Germany toning down their CSAM law due to many “non-pedophilic” cases overwhelming authorities.
Discussions in the parliament will begin on the 14th of march. Several experts were asked to give their opinion on the draft law.
What is shocking is the following:
Many of the statements mention that people with pedophilic interests must be punished harsher than those “diagnosed” without it. It is not about the harm done, but rather about the individual - something they are born with and will never change.
Fictional pornography was only mentioned by two organizations both advocating for completely legalizing fiction, or at the very least reducing the penalty for distribution even further. As to avoid contradictions to actual CSAM since that is getting its penalty lowered.
Current draft includes an embarassing oversight (the expert hopes it is a mistake) where
the attempt to distribute CSAM is not illegal, but for fictional contents it is. This would, legally speaking, mean that fictional porn is a much more severe crime than CSAM.
I do not think that much will change, but if the contradiction regarding the attempted crime will not get fixed then you know the gov. gives zero shits violating the constitution.
They did already fix that in the current draft. Obviously not by decriminalizing fictional content (as an expert committee recommended already back in 2017), but by explicitly criminalizing attempted distribution for real CSAM as well.
The spirit of the original increase in penalties back in 2021 was also very much to punish pedophiles harder. That’s explicitly why they also criminalized dolls in the process. In the past few years they realized that oops, most of the perpetrators are actually not pedophiles, but still have to be punished by the new laws that were only meant for pedophiles. Some perpetrators are just angry mothers who distribute private nude pictures of their daughters friends to all the parents of their elementary school class in order to “punish” them – which is a real case where the judge refused to punish the mother and instead filed a constitutional complaint. You see, as the mother was clearly not a pedophile, the judge thought that harsh punishments would not be appropriate in this case. This kind of sentiment is the driving narrative behind the proposed reform.
So cases like these caused the government to attempt another reform of CSAM laws. This time judges shall be given some wiggle room, with the stated intention that non-pedophiles should be able to get off lightly or even free while pedophiles shall still be punished with the full harshness of the law. The maximum sentences (10 years) were thus not changed and are exclusively reserved for pedo-criminals.
It is also noteworthy that these law changes were done by two completely diffrerent governments. While the increase in penalties in 2021 were mainly driven by a conservative party, the current proposal comes from a liberal coalition. The new minister of justice already explained that he whole-heartedly supports the doll ban that the previous government installed. It really shows that there is no hope for MAPs in Germany – no matter which way you lean politically, every relevant party basically agrees that pedophiles are dangerous, must be criminalized as much as possible and be given harsher punishments for the same crimes.
Personally, I’m just happy if they pass the law without criminalizing fiction even further, which I half-expect them to try to do.
By the way, what do you know of Ursula von der Leyen? A German Pirate MEP (a party which is all about civil liberties) in the E.U. regularly refers to her as Zensursula (Censor Ursula).
Changed position alot always shortly before or after a crisis hit in her old position.
Implemented a system by which sites where replaced by a stop sign if they contained cp or things considered “dangerous” by decision of her Ministry. That got over thrown and she changed her position again. (From Family to defense which she left after it was revealed that the German air force had 0 (in words: zero!!) flying airships after which she got her current position). She also argues in favor of chat control and other Masseures that allow the goverment to control (internet) content.
She was for a time being considered as the “next merkel” eg. her “inheritor” she lost that run against Laschet who then lost against Merz who is now the leader of the opposition in German Parlament. But she will apparently try to run for another round of Präsident of the European commission.
Just for the sake of the doll law, one could explain that the discourse to proscribe doll ownership is about framing doll ownership as incitement and framing a failure to feel protective of a doll as a threat to society.
There is nothing in the history of humankind that refutes the claim that such suppositions are absurd.
It’s not evil to think that shape cannot make a lifeless object precious, nor is it evil to think that what happens to a doll doesn’t matter; hence, punishment for doll ownership cannot be justified on the grounds that there is any evil to punish for.