Source: northdakotamonitor.com 1/20/25
Possessing a computer-generated image of child pornography would be punishable as a felony in North Dakota under a bill discussed Monday by state lawmakers.
House Bill 1386 adds images created by artificial intelligence to state law prohibiting the possession of child pornography.
Deputy Attorney General Claire Ness strongly urged members of the House Judiciary Committee to advance the bill.
“Computer-generated images and artificial intelligence have opened a new world for the cruel individuals who make, possess, or trade (child sexual abuse materials),” Ness said.
The bill would make possessing computer-generated child pornography a Class C felony.
The bill also proposes enhanced penalties for more egregious cases of child pornography, such as possessing 20 or more images, repeat offenses or cases involving explicit images of an infant or toddler.
They’re all jumping on the bandwagon now in a vain effort to appear “pro-active.”
This is all a bit perplexing. It seems we are heading to a blurring of the lines between art, animation (cartoons, anime, CGI and AI of fictitious characters), real photography/videography, pornography and real CSAM. Real victims, the children purportedly to be protected, only occur with real CSAM photography/videography or drawings/images made of real posed children. In the other media, with no real posed children, there are no actual victims to protect. This seems to beg the true motives. Is the motive to protect (non-existent) children or just punish the viewers (the ‘ick’ factor)?
Studies show that viewing pornography and CSAM does not lead to sexual abuse of children, or adults for that matter. In fact, there is a school of thought that this sort of fictitious material may be an outlet, a safety valve if you will, for people with minor attraction to vent and fulfill their sexual urges without harming children. More research is needed in this area.
Rather than consuming public resources trying to catch and incarcerate people for looking at cartoons, that money would be better spent on a public, nationwide media campaign to encourage people with minor attraction to get confidential specific therapy for that (it exists) before they offend. More children could be protected in that way I firmly believe.