Penguinisto opened this issue on Mar 28, 2003 ยท 39 posts
Orio posted Fri, 28 March 2003 at 5:48 PM
"Cyh has a good point, too, since a precedent has been set about that already (Australia, I believe)." Well, I don't know about Australia, but for sure, one thing is freedom of speech, another is child pornography of course. There could never be such a censorship on the freedom of expression (at least, not in the EU), the only case I think there is a censorship on opinions allowed, is when the opinion ceases to be presented as opinion and becomes the so called "apology of crime", and not for common crimes either, but only for the kind of crimes that regards things like "apology of Nazism" for instance. As far as pornography goes, there are surely different sex age limits in the EU, but I don't think those limits apply to pornography. Generally speaking I think that in all EU pornography is forbidden to all people of minor age, and I think minor age should be 18 everywhere in the EU (not 100% sure though). Here for sure all pornography that involves persons below the age of 18 is illegal. By pornography our laws mean representation of body in sexual acts or even just explicitly erotic nude poses. Nude below 18 is generally tolerated only if artistic (but not very popular for sure, nowadays). On the contrary, the sex age is much different, sex is allowed from 13 on, although of course with another minor only, and with a limit on the age gap also (can't remember the details of it). So I don't think that the age limit differences can make a real difference (sorry for the pun). Anyway I think that the only thing that one nation can possibly do to prevent vision of illegal pornography from other nations' sites where it is legal, is to "block" the offending sites at the providers' source, in order to make those sites "forbidden" if seen through the national ISPs. Surely no censorship can be done on the other countries' websites directly.