That’s just not how the world works.
Youths lack judgment, so they can’t vote, drink, drive, have sex or consent to adults.
A 14-year-old can’t be relied to understand the consequences of making nudes of some girl.
Beyond that, we regulate guns, speed limits and more according to principles like “your right to swing your fist ends at my nose”.
We do that not only because shoving kids into jails is something we want to avoid, but because regulating at the source of the problem is both more feasible AND heads off a lot of tragedy.
And again, you fail to acknowledge the investigative burden you put on society to discover who originated the photo after the fact, and the trauma to the victim.
If none of that computes for you, then I don’t know what to say except I don’t place the right to generate saucy images highly enough to swarm my already overworked police with requests to investigate who generated fake underage porn.
>A 14-year-old can’t be relied to understand the consequences of making nudes of some girl.
Teenagers do stupid shit all the time. But they still get prosecuted or convicted when they do crimes. They go to juvy or their parents get punished. Being 14 is not a get out of jail free card.
In that case, why not allow teenagers to carry firearms as well? Sure, some will die, others will go to jail, but at least that ought to teach the rest of them a lesson, right?
I am in agreement with you, but as a kid, we DID carry guns, regularly. Gun racks in our cars/trucks, and strapped to our backs as we walked down the street.
The problem stems from parents lack of parenting, a huge lack of real after-school programs, and the tiktokification of modern society.
30 years ago, we had a lot of the same "slap on the wrist" punishments because it was assumed when you got home your parent was going to beat your ass. That isn't a thing anymore (rightfully), because parenting through threat of violence just leads to those kids becoming violent parents.
Our problem is we never transitioned from violent parenting into any other kind. I watched my nieces and nephews get parented by YouTube and get social media accounts before they were 10. COVID created a society of chronically online children who don't know how to interact offline.
And yes, the tools to create bad shit are more accessible than ever, and I always come off as some angry gate keeper, but so much of the internet as it is today has become too easy to access by people incapable of the critical thinking required for safe use.
In the last 5 years, generative AI has taken over most of the "public facing" internet, and with internet literacy at the same level it was 20-30 years ago, we are back in the "walled garden" AOL era, but it is Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok that are the gardens.
Wut? I carried guns regularly from about age 7. Without my parents around. The USA at one point embraced radical freedom. That is the childhood I had, and I thank "god" for it on a regular basis. "Live free or die."
I'm similarly repulsed by the idea of Grok generating images of kids, but if you draw a nude of an adult woman she's not going to get raped by that existing, and you don't have a right to not be embarrassed. Tough shit, deal with it.