I think this case is different. I would agree with you that you have the right to know if your neighbor or the school nurse has been convicted of pedophilia; this kind of information is important in your role as the protector of your children.
This facebook thing is different in my opinion. Essentially it was a club of like minded individuals that were tracking down pedophiles and harassing them or cheering on others while they harassed them. This is completely different than letting everybody near the pedophile with children know that there is a potentially dangerous person nearby. This is different than publishing the pedophiles name and details of his crimes on a searchable directory (by the way, do you search the child abuse registries for people who have access to your children?). This guy started a social media site with followers that were engaging in recreational outrage and hate and possibly inciting violence. I think the penalty was deserved though I do not believe that any conviction, especially one on charges of pedophilia, is private information. I feel the same about assault, theft, and drunk driving. I don’t really want those people around me and mine either.
“Pedophile” isn’t synonymous with “child molester”, and vice versa. This is an important distinction. Acting as though all pedophiles molest children (and that only pedophiles do so) is part of the Western hysteria that ** Ibn Warraq** mentioned.
Moral relativism is the idea that what is wrong for one person may not be wrong for another person. It has nothing to do with seeing shades of gray or degrees of wrongness.
What you are claiming to reject what most of us learn around age 11 or 12, that the world is not black and white, that some bad things are not as bad as others. If you really did reject this, you would have a hard time functioning in society.
You use the word pedophile, so I’ll start there. There are pedophiles that have formed a group where they get together and keep themselves from ever becoming child molesters. I would actually count them as more moral than someone prejudging all pedophiles as being horrible. It takes a huge strength of character to fight your sexual urges.
But let’s say you are like Pjen and are using pedophile to mean child molester. Consider the guy who touched the naughty bits of one child, got caught, did time in prison, and now works his hardest to stay away from children as much as possible.
Would you really say he is just as bad as a serial child molester priest who grooms children, convinces them that they cannot tell anyone, and moves away before anyone can catch him?
If so, then I ask, do you see the guy who accidentally killed someone through negligence as the same as a serial murderer? If not, why does your moral system break down when child molestation (or worse, pedophilia) is involved?
I’m objecting to your(and the British press, if this is their standard practice, and D’Anconia’s) usage, as it’s both factually incorrect (as already noted), and morally wrong (as it demonizes non-offending pedophiles, who do indeed organize in “Virtuous Pedophile” groups to help themselves remain non-offending). It also overlooks the estimated 50% of child molesters who aren’t pedophiles, which can serve to blind parents and guardians to that danger.
I certainly wouldn’t, and I sure hope other people would say one is worse than the other. Heck, that’s why I’d want truthful information about what each of them did: so I can make an informed decision about whether one is just as bad as the other!
Of course not! That’s why we should have access to truthful information about whether a guy accidentally killed someone, or was a serial murderer!
I would not say the decision is perfect, as I don’t like covering this issue as a human right to privacy, which I don’t really think exists. But it is definitely better than the sex offender registry and hounding these people for the rest of their lives.
I could see such a thing working if we weren’t so fucking paranoid about all of this. You could then say that it’s just to let people keep an eye on them. But that’s not what happens. You can see in this thread people saying pedophile (meaning child molester) the same way a racist refers to black people.
The UK system sounds better. Have some sort of professional that can keep away from the bigotry and vigilantism–someone who is responsible to a government authority–can help make sure that it’s dealt with correctly without bigotry.
Considering this, I support a law preventing what these kids did, and support the decision because Facebook was clearly lax in monitoring this situation. Pulling it down only after people have been harassed is too late. It makes sense for you to pay for damages caused by said harassment.
I still do not remotely support the Right to be Forgotten, as it’s about forcing Google who has no malicious intent in simply indexing information, unlike the Facebook group which was promoting vigilantism.
There is a world of difference between someone who killed someone through negligence and someone who feels compelled to murder.
The issue with a pedophile is there is really no such thing as “negligent pedophilia”. Anyone who engages in it is pretty much by definition compelled to it. It is part and parcel of who they are. As such the kiddy diddler in 2B may be trying real hard to contain himself but you know you have a person living next to you who has to struggle every day to avoid sexually assaulting kids. If you had kids in that situation (i.e. you lived in 2A) I think it is reasonable to be worried.
To me it would be akin to living next to someone who had a lion. It may be docile most of the time but it only has to slip once to cause irreparable harm.
The half that…aren’t? I’m not understanding your question.