*Triggers Possible* A research paper: "The child sexual abuse material survivor as homo sacer: bare life under cyber-libertarianism"
axlr
Registrant
Looking for sources for a school project the other night led me to an interesting paper. It primarily concerns female survivors of CSAM exploitation but I'm sharing it here as men can go through the same thing and I'm sure others here might find something in it, it's honed into a topic that I've spent time thinking about but never necessarily wanted to talk about (the plight of 'popular' CSAM survivors):
Some choice excerpts:
"Jane Does abide in what Agamben (2004: 1) called the ‘no-man’s land between political law and public fact’, where legal norms do not apply and the infliction of harm can occur without consequence to the perpetrator. This state of exception is legitimised and indeed required by the cyber-libertarian formulation of ‘digital rights’, in which the Jane Does are denied their rights to privacy, freedom and justice in the name of those very same rights, marking CSAM survivors as the ‘homo sacer’ (Agamben, 1998) of the online status quo."
"In the state of exception provided by the Tor network, offenders who produce and share CSAM take on a heroic status: no longer criminals but rebels who flouted the law to the benefit of the paedophile collective. On Tor hidden services, information about two of the primary offenders who produced CSAM of the Jane Does was available. One offender’s legal name was found in 50 comments and the other offender’s name was found in 49 messages. The appreciative tone of commentary is evident in references to them as ‘HEROES of the CHILD PORN UNIVERSE’, as ‘legends’ and by other laudatory titles. A particularly alarming thread on a Tor offender forum provided the details of the prison where one of the Jane Doe perpetrators was incarcerated, and encouraged other offenders to ‘send him something for the commissary’ to ‘thank’ him for CSAM production. The authors passed this information on to the appropriate authorities."
"Offenders attributed these CSAM series an iconic status within the history of child sex offending. In the following excerpt, an offender compared the level of exposure faced by Jane Doe to that of a celebrity. He observed: ‘There’s probably literally millions of pedos who know who Jane Doe is. If millions of people know who you are then some of them will be bat shit crazy. It’s why celebrities almost always have stalkers and need body guards.’ This quote was unusual for its acknowledgement that Jane Doe might come to harm because of CSAM distribution. CSAM survivors featured in offender discourse as almost entirely objectified; the targets of sexual fantasy, possessiveness and aggression, but almost never as subjects with their own rights and needs, separate from offender fantasy and distortion. There was a high level of obsession and privacy invasion evident in the discussions analysed for the study.
In the state of exception provided by the Tor network, the Jane Does were stalked, hunted and threatened. Our analysis found that the legal names of two Jane Does were in wide circulation in online offender communities. One Jane Doe was referred to by name in 307 messages, and another Jane Doe referred to by name in 1,130 messages. Offenders sought to identify and share contemporary information about the victims. One offender said: ‘You can google “Jane Doe today,” and see what she looks like at 30.’ Another said, ‘Last I heard, she was [in certain profession], look up her name and you will find her.’ For one Jane Doe, offenders harvested and collected a myriad of photos of her from social media, creating a ‘zip’ file of her adult photos which they uploaded and shared."
Obviously this article has some rather controversial conclusions on privacy rights. I think that can be a fine thing to discuss so long as we're respectful about it. I'm also interested in talking about some of the nuances of being a CSAM survivor when it comes to the media being public, a more personable discussion that isn't quite a debate on this or that political topic. How does one cope with such things being out there and available, does one fear being recognized? How do you reconcile that? I've personally created a distance, accepted it as inevitable, but others may have their own means. Interested to hear.
Some choice excerpts:
"Jane Does abide in what Agamben (2004: 1) called the ‘no-man’s land between political law and public fact’, where legal norms do not apply and the infliction of harm can occur without consequence to the perpetrator. This state of exception is legitimised and indeed required by the cyber-libertarian formulation of ‘digital rights’, in which the Jane Does are denied their rights to privacy, freedom and justice in the name of those very same rights, marking CSAM survivors as the ‘homo sacer’ (Agamben, 1998) of the online status quo."
"In the state of exception provided by the Tor network, offenders who produce and share CSAM take on a heroic status: no longer criminals but rebels who flouted the law to the benefit of the paedophile collective. On Tor hidden services, information about two of the primary offenders who produced CSAM of the Jane Does was available. One offender’s legal name was found in 50 comments and the other offender’s name was found in 49 messages. The appreciative tone of commentary is evident in references to them as ‘HEROES of the CHILD PORN UNIVERSE’, as ‘legends’ and by other laudatory titles. A particularly alarming thread on a Tor offender forum provided the details of the prison where one of the Jane Doe perpetrators was incarcerated, and encouraged other offenders to ‘send him something for the commissary’ to ‘thank’ him for CSAM production. The authors passed this information on to the appropriate authorities."
"Offenders attributed these CSAM series an iconic status within the history of child sex offending. In the following excerpt, an offender compared the level of exposure faced by Jane Doe to that of a celebrity. He observed: ‘There’s probably literally millions of pedos who know who Jane Doe is. If millions of people know who you are then some of them will be bat shit crazy. It’s why celebrities almost always have stalkers and need body guards.’ This quote was unusual for its acknowledgement that Jane Doe might come to harm because of CSAM distribution. CSAM survivors featured in offender discourse as almost entirely objectified; the targets of sexual fantasy, possessiveness and aggression, but almost never as subjects with their own rights and needs, separate from offender fantasy and distortion. There was a high level of obsession and privacy invasion evident in the discussions analysed for the study.
In the state of exception provided by the Tor network, the Jane Does were stalked, hunted and threatened. Our analysis found that the legal names of two Jane Does were in wide circulation in online offender communities. One Jane Doe was referred to by name in 307 messages, and another Jane Doe referred to by name in 1,130 messages. Offenders sought to identify and share contemporary information about the victims. One offender said: ‘You can google “Jane Doe today,” and see what she looks like at 30.’ Another said, ‘Last I heard, she was [in certain profession], look up her name and you will find her.’ For one Jane Doe, offenders harvested and collected a myriad of photos of her from social media, creating a ‘zip’ file of her adult photos which they uploaded and shared."
Obviously this article has some rather controversial conclusions on privacy rights. I think that can be a fine thing to discuss so long as we're respectful about it. I'm also interested in talking about some of the nuances of being a CSAM survivor when it comes to the media being public, a more personable discussion that isn't quite a debate on this or that political topic. How does one cope with such things being out there and available, does one fear being recognized? How do you reconcile that? I've personally created a distance, accepted it as inevitable, but others may have their own means. Interested to hear.
