Let's be clear: making pornographic content based on a child's likeness (or an adult's without consent) is sexual abuse and should be treated as such.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/10/child_psychiatrist_sentenced_ai/
@ProstasiaInc If it existed, would writing about my fantasies featuring real children (or children based on real children) into my hypothetical private diary be sexual abuse of these children? Writing about these fantasies would definitely be pornographic content, but would it be sexual abuse? It's just my thoughts, it stays private.
@hinindil @ProstasiaInc I can't speak for the org, but I imagine there are limitations to what's considered a likeness. It's very hard to identify a specific person based on text content, especially if that content is kept private
@hinindil @ProstasiaInc Personally, I think allowing courts to make guesses about the context of certain content is incredibly dangerous (i.e., in some countries, harmless pictures of kids magically become illegal if a court decides you have those pictures for a sexual purpose), so I wouldn't support treating a diary and porn differently if the content is identical.
However, I also don't see a significant risk of harm when taboo content is created in a non-exploitative manner and kept private, so I think justice systems need to reevaluate how they handle cases like that, regardless of the content's context (or the type of content). That's not relevant in the case Prostasia was talking about since the method of creation involved massive violations of consent and professional ethics.
As I said, I can't speak for the organization, so these are just personal views.
@elliot @ProstasiaInc 2 / x In German law, one of the ways in which murder is distinguished from manslaughter is the motivation. To cite from German Criminal Code, § 211: "Mörder ist, wer aus Mordlust, zur Befriedigung des Geschlechtstriebs, aus Habgier oder sonst aus niedrigen Beweggründen, [...] einen Menschen tötet." (can be approximately translated as A murderer is anyone who kills a person out of murderous lust, to satisfy the desire for sex, out of greed or otherwise for base motives [...].)
@elliot @ProstasiaInc 3 / x
So, courts do generally speaking know how to assess motive and circumstances of an offence.
However, especially when it comes to, as German law calls it, offence against sexual self-determination courts / judges are IMHO not trained enough to properly evaluate the whole context. This is not limited to CP, also, there are still cases where in cases of rape / similar offences, the defendant is declared innocent because of long-disproven rape-myths.
So, I don't think that this is not really a legal problem but rather a problem of missing knowledge.
@elliot @ProstasiaInc 4/4
In the case that Prostasia presented, it's clear that this behaviour is intolerable. Whether or not it should be called "sexual abuse" is debatable, because legally, the creation of CP and the sexual abuse of a child are entirely different things. However, that does not make the offence of this psychatrist less appalling.
@elliot @ProstasiaInc 1/x
In my Cyberlaw course at my University (I am a CS student, not a lawyer or even a law student) our professor said that in criminal trials, to evaluate the individual guilt of a defendant, one need to consider the circumstances of the offence, including the motive of the defendant.