1,000 Danes Accused of Child Pornography for Sharing Video of Teens

[Independent voter]

People shared a video of under aged teens having sex which is illegal.

I've always wondered about that, say you're look at a 100 images for arts sake all of them of girls who are adults but somehow someone sneaks one in of a 16 year old who looks 20. Have you committed a crime?




https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/w...phy-video.html

COPENHAGEN — About 1,000 adults and adolescents may face prosecution for sharing online video of two 15-year-olds having sex, and more people may be charged for spreading the images, the Danish National Police said Monday.

Consensual sex between 15-year-olds is legal in Denmark, but anyone who forwarded the video violated the law against distributing child pornography, the police explained. The two video clips — one 50 seconds long, the other 9 seconds — were shared through Facebook’s Messenger app.

The case prompted outrage when it was first reported last year, because the video appeared to show the girl being abused, penetrated with foreign objects. The girl has said that she consented to sex, but not to the abuse or to the recording.

The police notified 1,004 people on Monday that they faced preliminary charges, which the police can issue on their own; prosecutors will decide whether to proceed with charges and take the cases to trial. Investigators are looking into whether the video was distributed on platforms other than Facebook.

“It may sound very dramatic that we’re charging with child pornography,” said Flemming Kjaerside, a police superintendent. “Many had no intention to distribute child pornography, but objectively speaking, that’s what they’ve done.”
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With the ubiquity of phone cameras, cases like this one have become a recurring phenomenon around the world, testing accepted legal standards. In some instances, including a highly publicized case in North Carolina, minors have faced criminal charges for sending explicit pictures of themselves. In others, like a Colorado case involving more than 100 high school students, the authorities have declined to bring any charges.

Those found guilty in the Danish case are unlikely to go to prison, but the convictions will remain on their records for 10 years, barring them from becoming police officers and from taking certain jobs working with children. Some have already confessed, Mr. Kjaerside said, as the police across the country contacted the accused and their parents, and conducted the first rounds of questioning.

It is not clear whether all of the people charged knew that the boy and girl in the videos were under 18, the minimum age for legally distributed pornography. If they convince a judge that they had no way of knowing, the child pornography charges could be dropped, but they could still be charged with distributing the material without the consent of the couple in the images.

All but eight of the accused are under 25 years old, and four-fifths of them are male. A few 14-year-olds who also shared the video are not being prosecuted, the police said.

Mira Bech, 19, who received notice to contact the police for questioning, admitted seeing and storing the video, but she denied sharing it. She said she knew others who also had the video but had not been charged.

“This will ruin my life,” she told TV2, a national television station. “It’s the world’s most ridiculous case. I couldn’t tell that the people in the video were under 18.”

Mr. Kjaerside, the police superintendent, said that charges were leveled only against those who had shared the video.
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The case came to light in the fall of 2017, after Facebook alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States, and that group contacted American and international authorities. Danish police spent months identifying the social media users, their IP addresses, phone numbers and names.

The recordings were made at a party by friends of the couple, who were the first to share them online. Two of them were fined last year for their part in the distribution.

The girl in the video later told Information, a Danish newspaper, that one of the people responsible tried to use the recordings to blackmail her. She said she received a message saying: “I have a video of you. If you don’t send me a nude photo, I’ll share it with all of my friends.”

“I tried to forget that evening,” she said. “I knew that it was filmed, but I didn’t realize they would think of passing the videos on to others.”

Kuno Sorensen, a psychologist with Save the Children Denmark, said, “Youngsters are afraid of reporting these cases to the police,” and they are embarrassed to discuss them with their parents or other authority figures.

“A lot of the charged are under 18 years,” he said. “It’s sad that they become hostages in this, but at the same time they’ve committed a crime with a heavy impact on the victims.”

For years, Danes have discussed the issue of sexual images shared without consent, so it is hard to believe that the people who spread the video were ignorant of the consequences, said Emma Holten, who is known for her campaign against cyberbullying.

“Four years ago, I would have felt sorry for them,” she said. “Back then you could have argued that they were not aware of that it was illegal, but today they know.”

Rather than tell children not to take explicit images, she said, adults should tell them not to bully or humiliate others, just as they do in school or on playgrounds.

“Telling them to not take photos is like trying to forbid them to have sex,” she said. “That’s been tried for 10,000 years and it didn’t work.”

[Prifter]

I dont get people who share strange shit on Facebook

[Endus]

People shared a video of under aged teens having sex which is illegal.

I've always wondered about that, say you're look at a 100 images for arts sake all of them of girls who are adults but somehow someone sneaks one in of a 16 year old who looks 20. Have you committed a crime?

That's where mens rea comes in. If you had no way of knowing it was child pornography and no reasonable person would have expected it to be under the circumstances, there's no wrongful intent, so you're innocent.

In this case, if these people sharing this knew the two were 15, it's child porn and every one of them deserves to get nailed to the wall for it.

[Puupi]

Do people actually share porn with each other on social media?

[Nasuuna]

arrest the dude who took the video, arrest the people who shared knowing who the girl was.

done deal

[Mosotti]

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, there's something in the water there I think...

[AeneasBK]

Sounds like rape.

[ItsRainingMetal]

When this story was news, I remember my thoughts being something along the line of "wtf".

Mira complaining that the sentence will ruin her life.. Well you helped destroy that girls life too!?

[Deleted]

Sorry but WTF shares underage porn

[zenkai]

Do people actually share porn with each other on social media?

Pedophiles do.

[sarahtasher]

And before some people feels the need to come here and says ''but it's normal to feel sexual urges toward teenagers, which is COMPLETELY different than pedophilia'' (no, it's not normal. Edgelords THINK this is normal, because they call women over 18 ''ugly and old'')

Explain that to your future jail-pals-for the law, 10 years old and 16 years old are both illegal.

[Orby]

*shudder*

Sick world we live in...

[Harry Botter]

Do people actually share porn with each other on social media?

I guess they do. I've always wondered why Pornhub has social media share buttons.

[Aphrel]

it is mildly terrifying that random pornographic content could have underage ppl in them and theres no way to know...

[Aggrophobic]

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, there's something in the water there I think...

Or they care enough to actually catch the pervs and freaks.

[Deleted]

I guess they do. I've always wondered why Pornhub has social media share buttons.

Yeah but knowingly share underaged sex is weird

[luc54]

And before some people feels the need to come here and says ''but it's normal to feel sexual urges toward teenagers, which is COMPLETELY different than pedophilia'' (no, it's not normal. Edgelords THINK this is normal, because they call women over 18 ''ugly and old'')

Explain that to your future jail-pals-for the law, 10 years old and 16 years old are both illegal.

But in many places it's not illegal to have sex with 16 years olds. It only becomes illegal to film it and watch it. It's kinda weird

Biggest problem with these laws can be that they might be used to persecute said victim. I remember reading about some guy or girl taking nude selfie and sending it to someone else. And they were persecuted for spreading child porn. Some common sense here should apply.

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Yeah but knowingly share underaged sex is weird

Did all of them know it though? I mean it's one thing with all the pro porn in big websites like pornhub, but there's no way to know if the persons involved in amateur videos are underage or not expect their assurance when uploading video (provided they even question if actors are over 18 or not - I hope they do)

[Harry Botter]

Yeah but knowingly share underaged sex is weird

I agree. Anyone who knowingly shares child porn should be skinned alive and then something involving crossbows. Or something less brutal, there's a reason I'm not in a position of power.

[ButterBeast]

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, there's something in the water there I think...

Yeah, no lead.

[derpkitteh]

if they didn't know, they shouldn't get in trouble. it's really not fair if they do.

i mean look at some girls that are actually in porn, piper perri and others, they easily look somewhat underage.

idk if it's just good genes in my area or what, but me and most of other girls in my school looked older than we were.