| nordlead said: @OP actually, if someone sent you underage porn and you didn't want to get in trouble, all you would have to do is report them and/or delete it immediately if you didn't know the source. By doing that, you could prove to the court that you didn't want the photos and they were forced on you. |
As far as I understand it, the problem here is that the law doesn't work like that. I'm going to have to consult my roommate who's obsessed with these matters (vague online laws, not CP ^^) to say for sure, but as far as the laws of many countries are concerned, clicking on a random image link (which saves a cache image on your computer) and receiving a text message count as possession. Whether you delete is immediately or not doesn't get mentioned in most laws, placing everyone who has ever been to /b/ under the mercy of angry old men who've been to law school and frown upon our shenanigans.
The root of the problem here is that the people who wrote these laws don't know the first thing about computers, but just heard "possession" and "download", and immediately assumed they were something you have to conciously decide to do. Stuff like this is why I think legislation should be taken very, very seriously. Most judges will use common sense, but sooner or later one is going to go by the book and ruin some poor fellows life.
