Australia has ruled that a cartoon depicting characters from the show, The Simpsons, having sex is child porn.  The cartoon depicted Bart, Lisa and Maggie engaging in sex acts and shows their genitalia.

The judge ruled that a cartoon could depict a real person — in this case, children — and therefore a man with possession of such a video on his computer is guilty of child porn.  He was fined the equivalent of $2,000 American dollar.

Writes the BBC:

Justice Michael Adams said the purpose of anti-child pornography legislation was to stop sexual exploitation and child abuse where images of “real” children were depicted.

But in a landmark ruling he decided that the mere fact that they were not realistic representations of human beings did not mean that they could not be considered people.

He ruled that the animated cartoon could “fuel demand for material that does involve the abuse of children,” and therefore upheld the conviction for child pornography.

I feel conflicted about whether or not I agree with the decision, mostly because I don’t know what exactly is in the video. It could have been a spoof video or a fan fiction video, for all I know.  I don’t have enough information about what exactly happens in the film, and who is sleeping with who, to know enough about the intent. But mostly, I think I’m with the judge on this one.

I do think that someone who is likely to possess animation depicting children having sex is also likely to sexually abuse a child and/or be interested in real-time child porn.  However, being likely to do something is not upholding the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” in the American legal system. Therefore, it seems the best way to weed these potential sex offenders out is to criminalize their behavior  — which is not actually, physically harming a child, but comes as close as possible to it.

It’s certainly a controversial decision, though: tell us in the comments sectin below what you think.

Facebook will add new safeguards to keep younger users safe from sexual predators and cyber bullies. These new safety features will include banning convicted sex offenders from the site and finding better ways to verify users’ ages and identities.

The agreement was announced by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in a deal along with other attorneys general around America. “This marks another watershed towards social networking safety,” he said. It will “protect kids from online predators and inappropriate content,” he added. It comes on the heels of a similar comprehensive agreement that 49 states and Washington, DC, made with MySpace last January. [BBC]

Keep your kids safe from Internet danger, and check out http://www.netsmartz.org. NetSmartz is an Internet safety resource from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America that uses the latest technology to create high-impact educational activities for even the most tech-savvy kids of any age group.

 Jezebel had some interesting commentary on this NY Magazine article about 45 sex offenders living in one small Long Island town, saying “What do you do with sex offenders? If normal straight dudes in prison go gay — and rapey — almost immediately upon entering prison, why do we foist isolation among all sex offenders without regard to the nature of their offense? Or more to the point, why don’t we spend more time investigating the nature of sex offenses?”Both pieces are worth a read especially since the question of what to do with sex offenders remains unanswered.  For more on registered sex offenders, including lists of offenders in your area visit http://www.familywatchdog.us/