Child Pornography

[user101]

While this is an actual case of child pornography, for this question I will refer to the website as "the blog", as I intend to report this website for hosting child pornography. However, I wanted clarification as to what, if any, responsibility the blog's owner(s) have to his or her website.

The blog, which is split into two sections: the main page, of which the only posts that appear are those of the blog owner(s) or any post syndicated to that page from the second section. The second section, of which posts that appear are written by third party contributors, and as it appears, are published with moderation by the blog's owner(s).

Another website owned by the/these same blog owner(s) is located using a different url, however is linked to by the first blog, for this we will call it "nudes". The nudes website includes posts by both the blog's owner(s) and by third party users, both of which appear on the nudes website without moderation or consent of the party of whom the pictures are of.

With the above being said, is/are the blog(s) owners responsible for moderating, screening, removing and/or investigating the identity(ies) of individuals who appear on the nudes website naked, most of whom if not all, have not provided that owner or poster his or her permission to appear on that website in that manner? Or is it the user who posted said pictures on the nudes website liable for any legal repercussions that may arise from posting these pictures?

Doing some research, it appears the company of which the owner(s) has/have registered the nudes website with is USA-based, so international rules need not apply. The blog/nudes owner(s) reside in the state of California.

If responsible for his or her website, what recourse, if any, do I have (as a person who has not appeared on this website personally) for reporting, or assisting with any investigation, of these occurrences.

Through limited research of my own, simply a google search of ones 'username' as indicated in a post of nude photographs of that person, revealed the person to be sixteen years old, and a resident of Canada.

 

[dee_dub]

With the above being said, is/are the blog(s) owners responsible for moderating, screening, removing and/or investigating the identity(ies) of individuals who appear on the nudes website naked, most of whom if not all, have not provided that owner or poster his or her permission to appear on that website in that manner? Or is it the user who posted said pictures on the nudes website liable for any legal repercussions that may arise from posting these pictures?

What difference does it make to you? Or is this of purely academic interest?

what recourse, if any, do I have (as a person who has not appeared on this website personally) for reporting, or assisting with any investigation, of these occurrences.

You don't have "recourse". You might have a duty. But if you're just someone who happened on it by accident, you probably don't have any legal obligation. If you want to do something morally decent, report what you suspect to be a crime to the authorities.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

The responsibility to prosecute, should there be a crime, is in the hands of the District Attorney. That's a criminal matter. Civil issues, if any, are an entirely different matter.

If you want to look at an interesting case involving international borders, look at the current headlines:

"A Houston mother remained jailed Wednesday after authorities said she flew to Canada and lured a 16-year-old boy, whom she allegedly had an online sexual relationship with for more than a year, away from his home."
Criminal Prosecution of Texas Mother Who Flew to Canada for Sex with Teenager

What is very interesting here (besides the rubbernecking effect) is that the boy was of consensual age in Canada (at the time she actually had relations with the boy) although not in the US. She is being prosecuted in Texas. This is a tragic but legally interesting case with regard to jurisdiction.

 

[tpajet]

The owner of a site is not responsible for content put on the site by a third party. Only the poster. So if your posting here had included an illegal pict, YOU would be the one facing charges, not the site owner. Granted if it's a small site they should be able to moderate better, but even if you go through every new post, there's nothing to stop someone from posting something new right behind you. But they are responsible for what they posted themselves.

As stated above, you don't have any recourse. You were not on the site, so there are no damages on your part. You can contact the authorities, but once you have done that, it's out of your hands. They have to investigate at that point and make a determination as to what to do. So report it and walk away. That's all you can do.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I agree with tpajet with one additional caveat - a web site owner may qualify for immunity from civil prosecution (you can see the Communications Decency and Digital Millennium Copyright Acts) but that doesn't mean that a web site owner cannot be prosecuted (civilly or criminally) for posts that may remain on a forum. For example, if a forum owner knows that his forum is being used regularly by users to share child pornography or copyrighted music files and, after receiving notification, fails to take any action to cease this activity, the forum owner could find himself or herself with a legal problem.