In January 2016, the FBI broke into some of the largest child pornography websites, and instead of shutting them down, kept them running for 13 more days. This delay in closing the website allowed more images to be posted, downloaded, shared, and allowed more people to sign up. By allowing all these criminal activities to continue, the FBI was hoping to take down more even more criminals. This was at least the third time to public knowledge that this tactic was used. Allowing the websites to run sparked anger in many Americans because the child pornography industry gets bigger and bigger everyday. There are 5.4 million reports of child sexual exploitation online. This exploitation does not only affect …show more content…
Yung (2016) who is a professor at the University of Kansas School of Law states; “Child pornography is not like guns or drugs. It can be infinitely copied and distributed. Every time it is viewed, it victimizes those depicted” (para. 2). One gun is one gun, drugs will run out, but child pornography can be constantly redownloaded, saved, and stored. The photos and videos live on the internet where nothing dies, if one person has access to it chances are many others do as well. Kerr’s (2016) piece takes a more logical approach than Yung (2016) where he describes the ‘trolley issue’ and compares that to the issue at hand. Either way, child pornography is bad but sometimes you need to choose the lesser evil. One way or another someone is going to get hurt, but it is about making sure to prevent more children in the future from being hurt. Kerr (2016) argues that more often than not people who download these images are simply not going to stop at just viewing the images. He further argues that arrest of the people who download child pronography can save and prevent more children from what the author states “horrific physical abuse” (para. 6) which is a good example of charged …show more content…
Yung (2016) makes it very clear his stances on here and one can sense the anger and fire in his words. He uses charged language when he states that if this is true, if the FBI did allow such a website to run much longer than it should then “such conduct is immoral and inexcusable” (para. 7). The author references the New York v. Ferber case of 1982. Where Ferber, a store owner, was charged with selling pornographic material of children under the age of 16. The mention of this case serves as a reminder to the reader that child pornography has been a problem long before the world wide web existed. He has many more references to more case and child safety acts that reflect the logical facts. Although his argument is predominantly pathos he makes sure to have facts to back up each argument. Kerr (2016) is in favor of the FBI’s decision of keeping the website running where Yung (2016) offers a different approach. Even if the FBI needed to keep the website up he feels they should not of condoned or distributed pornographic images with actual children. He mentions; “The F.B.I. should have pursued its sting operations without child pornography distribution by utilizing alternatives such as virtual child pornography or by getting warrants based upon the identifying Internet information they could otherwise gather” (para. 6). Virtual child