Revenge-porn site operator sentenced to 18 years in prison

[ola.]

I don't know if this is the correct forum to post this is in, if not, feel free to move it, mods.


A San Diego man who operated a "revenge porn" website featuring naked photos of thousands of women and charged victims to remove their images has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Attorney General Kamala Harris said Friday that Kevin Bollaert's sentence shows there are severe consequences for exploiting people online.

"Sitting behind a computer, committing what is essentially a cowardly and criminal act, will not shield predators from the law or jail," Harris said. "We will continue to be vigilant and investigate and prosecute those who commit these deplorable acts."

Bollaert, 28, was convicted in February of identity theft and extortion in San Diego Superior Court. Prosecutors say he ran the website ugotposted.com, where people put nude photos of ex-lovers.

The Web developer posted the pictures and then charged women from $300 to $350 to have the pictures removed, according to the Los Angeles Times. Prosecutors say Bollaert earned about $30,000 from people who paid to remove the images.

Victims included teachers, wives and professionals. The compromising photos cost people jobs, damaged relationships and led to one attempted suicide.

Unlike other "revenge porn" sites, Bollaert prompted users to also share personal identifying information about the subject in the photo, including name, age and address, according to KFMB-TV. During the trial, 21 victims testified that they were embarrassed and humiliated when their private nude photos and personal identifying information turned up on a now-defunct website, the station reported.

"My life has gone through a down-spiral," one of Bollaert's victims told Judge David Gill, KFMB-TV reported. The woman said her mother refuses to talk to her because of the shame she brought on her family.

One woman said she received 400 messages on social media after the pictures were shown, the Times reported. She said she was forced to quit college and seek help in a mental hospital. "It's been so traumatic," she said. "It's a daily struggle to get my life together."

The paper also reported that Bollaert did not speak before sentencing, but his parents told Judge Gill that their son was remorseful.

Source (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/04/revenge-porn-sentenced-18-years/25286583/?siteID=je6NUbpObpQ-wGO193fg5jHxLGI0IpNgDA)

What do you guys think, on how this was dealt with? I personally really wish this absolute coward nothing but misery in his pathetic life.

[TheBigREDOne]

Wow. Pigs actually did something useful.

[MarxSchmarx]

Moved to discrimination.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Holy crap, 18 years?!

That's pretty harsh.

It's hard to feel sorry for this guy, though. He seems like a douche who wasn't particularly smart, either...he had to figure that eventually people would go after him for this shit.

[consuming negativity]

four years in a labor camp earning back the money he extorted would be a pretty fair resolution

then take a bat to his legs.

[TheBigREDOne]

Holy crap, 18 years?!

That's pretty harsh.

It's hard to feel sorry for this guy, though. He seems like a douche who wasn't particularly smart, either...he had to figure that eventually people would go after him for this shit.

Harsh?!
This piece of shit ruined hundreds of life for his own sexual satisfaction and profit. Deserves the worst torture imaginable. But that wouldn't repair the lives of these women. We all know what will. This just pisses me off :mad:

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yes he's an asshole but what exactly does ultra vindictive punishment accomplish?

Because that's how a lot of people think in the present society and I don't like that mindset ( ie someone did [insert bad thing here], so he or she deserves to be [tortured/killed/imprisoned for life] ) People need to face consequences for their actions but a lot of it smacks of mindless retribution, honestly

[#FF0000]

I'm with OS on thing.

No tears for the dude tho.

[consuming negativity]

financial hardship and emotional hardship; economic damages and pain and suffering

economic restitution fixes one, while being able to take out their anger fixes the latter

gaining control over the persons and being able to hurt them in turn could be very cathartic in terms of getting over some of the emotional pain of the event. to allow the victims of the crime to reverse the exploitative power situation over the person who wronged them could allow them to feel more in control of their lives and help to reverse the feelings of powerlessness that accompany these traumatic situations.

[#FF0000]

Hey I'm not saying there shouldn't be some kind of justice for the victims. I'm just saying that what we've got as far as "justice" goes isn't something that I want to support in words or action. I also don't think retribution should be something that a "justice" system should exist for.

I'm enjoying the schadenfreude tho. Dude got owned.

[consuming negativity]

what does justice even mean if it is not justice for the victims? and if the victims are not made whole to the best of our ability to do so, how can we say that they've gotten their justice? that's not retribution, it's restitution.

[The Feral Underclass]

There is absolutely no evidence that retributive justice is beneficial to either victim or perpetrator. The momentary feeling of "comeuppance" is not a productive one; it's not achieving anything positive. It's a petty, biblical notion of justice that does nothing to actively deal with the causes of social transgressions.

[consuming negativity]

again, i'm not talking about retributive justice. it isn't about punishment or about society at large. you're attributing what i'm saying to a reactionary justification of the current judicial system because what i'm saying allows for violence. but to ignore the power dynamic (see: the cause of social transgressions) that contribute to the action and the emotional reaction to it is to create a version of justice that is completely detached from what our purpose should be, which is making things even. rehabilitation of the offender is completely separate from restitution for the victim, and is secondary. punishment never comes into it - it isn't a public flogging or a prison sentence, it is a potential option in the course of therapy. i'm not even sure if it's one i would personally choose, but i don't think it is the place of anyone to deny the option in this and similar cases. it is specifically because i recognize that we don't know if it will be helpful or not to each individual person that i think we have to leave the option open.

[The Feral Underclass]

Your argument isn't clear to me at all. You suggested in your initial post that someone should take a "bat to his legs." You also suggested he be put in a labour camp for four years with hard labour...

"Making things even" is essentially the definition of retributive justice. It's a modern day way of saying "an eye for an eye." Now, a victim of a crime may feel powerless and exploited, but the cause of their victim-hood is social and economic, and beyond the individual perpetrator. An individual being forced to provide "restitution" isn't really addressing the fundamental nature of the crime, is it? Nor does it really make sense if we understand crime as a social issue, rather than an individual one (which is the bourgeois argument for crime, i.e. humans are essentially greedy, terrible people). The perpetrator is also a victim of powerlessness.

[consuming negativity]

an "eye for an eye" is about inflicting a punishment equal in nature to the severity of the crime. what i'm suggesting is the exact opposite of retributive justice; restorative justice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice). it is about making the victim whole again. restoring the state of affairs to normal. getting the money and dignity back for the victim.

e: your confusion is probably from assuming that i meant that some random judge has some dude take a bat to the guy. maybe my fault, i could have been clearer, but that isn't what i meant, as i've explained.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

The compromising photos cost people jobs, damaged relationships and led to one attempted suicide.
Yeah. Fuck that dude.

[The Feral Underclass]

an "eye for an eye" is about inflicting a punishment equal in nature to the severity of the crime. what i'm suggesting is the exact opposite of retributive justice; restorative justice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice). it is about making the victim whole again. restoring the state of affairs to normal. getting the money and dignity back for the victim.

Punishment and retribution are synonyms.

The point of my intervention is to argue against punishment. You are proposing a legal system, not unlike Sharia justice, in which someone is punished "equally" for committing a crime (something the Iranian legal system take literally). By definition that is clear-cut, old Testament retributive justice. It may also be restorative for the victim (I contest that), but it is a legal system predicated on the principle of revenge. I also bring into question the kind of "restoration" that is creating in society at large.


e: your confusion is probably from assuming that i meant that some random judge has some dude take a bat to the guy. maybe my fault, i could have been clearer, but that isn't what i meant, as i've explained.

I'm not convinced that's what is confusing me. The issue isn't who metes out the bat to his legs, but that a bat is being taken to his legs in the first place.

[Lily Briscoe]

Kind of obvious that the whole reason this was posted in the first place was for people to engage in white-knighting revenge fantasies, because there isn't actually much to discuss about it.

I agree with the opposition to retributive justice. But if, say, some cop gets sentenced to a couple decades in prison for brutalizing minorities, I'm not going to particularly give a shit, and that's pretty much how I feel about this. Who cares? I'm more surprised that they didn't treat this guy like a typical rapist in court, blame his victims for their "indiscretion", and let him off. Some woman in Indiana just got sentenced to 20 years in prison for inducing an abortion. That's "harsh". This is just whatever.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Some other guy got sentenced recently, Moore I think was his name? Interesting to see as revenge porn laws weren't on the books in any states until very recently.

Yea, I get why people are against retribution and all, but 18 years really isn't harsh.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Also, people don't actually serve the full sentence in America, this guy will probably serve about half. We rarely get into discussions about retributive justice in these types of threads (that should be in its own thread), and if the first response people have to this is that it's "harsh" then that's pretty concerning.

[#FF0000]

What sort of prison is he going to, I wonder?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yea, I get why people are against retribution and all, but 18 years really isn't harsh.

An 18 year sentence is comparable to a murder conviction. So yeah, it is harsh. I understand why it happened though, they're making an example out of this guy.

[BIXX]

I don't really know how I feel about the discussion of punishment. I'm the kind of person who really enjoys revenge, which I guess might be considered a type of justice. However I'm not interested in the state doing this- I'd much rather see victims utilize UV, as I think that'd be actually empowering. Idk, just some thoughts.

[Os Cangaceiros]

What sort of prison is he going to, I wonder?

Probably a really nice one. California is renowned for it's cushy penitentiaries, after all, where people serving nearly twenty year convictions only do half that, despite the fact that most people with those kinds of sentences are mandated under California law to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences before even being eligible for parole. :)

Since the crime here wasn't a violent felony he'll probably be eligible before then, though.

[Bala Perdida]

Probably a really nice one. California is renowned for it's cushy penitentiaries, after all, where people serving nearly twenty year convictions only do half that, despite the fact that most people with those kinds of sentences are mandated under California law to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences before even being eligible for parole. :)

Since the crime here wasn't a violent felony he'll probably be eligible before then, though.
Is that for cyber crimes? I'm not sure about those, but for more 'physical' crimes prisons here are terrible.

Also yeah, institutionalized punishment is terrible but I don't know where to go from there. It's weird how people on here advocate violence against counter-revolutionaries but then advocate therapy for killers. I mean I'm not completely against it, but I guess it matters on the situation this is a bad area for me.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I was being sarcastic. Prisons in California are hellish, so much so that the courts ruled that merely residing in them constituted cruel and unusual punishment, due to how overcrowded they were

[consuming negativity]

Punishment and retribution are synonyms.

The point of my intervention is to argue against punishment. You are proposing a legal system, not unlike Sharia justice, in which someone is punished "equally" for committing a crime (something the Iranian legal system take literally). By definition that is clear-cut, old Testament retributive justice. It may also be restorative for the victim (I contest that), but it is a legal system predicated on the principle of revenge. I also bring into question the kind of "restoration" that is creating in society at large.



I'm not convinced that's what is confusing me. The issue isn't who metes out the bat to his legs, but that a bat is being taken to his legs in the first place.

no, i'm not.

i feel like 95% of the arguments i get into on this board could easily be solved if people just read my posts and stopped going through the motions and making assumptions about my position. they're nuanced, so please pay attention.

my position is not that any punishment should be mandated by any legal system, but that in the course of therapy, it may be useful for the persons affected by this person's actions to get to beat the shit out of them. and if they thought it might be useful, i say why not? i'm not saying it should be part of the law except insofar as part of conflict resolution would most likely require (not in a literal sense) mental health treatment for the victims.

it's like you guys don't really understand how traumatic something like this can be. someone tried to kill herself over this. and we're really going to sit and completely rule out kicking the shit out of the guy? you'd rather sit him in prison? and i'm on a board of communists and anarchists? yeah right. get him to pay back what he owes, kick the shit out of him if that's what the victims want to do, and everybody can move on for the better.

the crime is not against SOCIETY the crime is against these INDIVIDUAL PERSONS

it is THEIR restitution that matters, king james. in fact, the very basis of retributive punishment comes from medieval england, where crimes were no longer seen as acts against individuals but against the domination of the state. that's where the punishment comes in - it's why he's in prison, because our prison system is created based on the idea of an eye for an eye. you have everything completely ass backwards here - supporting a retributive system while claiming to support the opposite, and attacking the opposite while calling it retributive.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Prosecutors say Bollaert earned about $30,000 from people who paid to remove the images.

Yeah, don't worry folks: that money wasn't extorted. It was "earned".
Is the legitimacy of the profit-motive really so unassailable in the media that "earned" is deemed an appropriate term even in this context?

[The Feral Underclass]

no, i'm not.

Well, my claim is that you are. You're perhaps choosing to use different words and definitions, but you are essentially proposing a retributive justice system.


i feel like 95% of the arguments i get into on this board could easily be solved if people just read my posts and stopped going through the motions and making assumptions about my position. they're nuanced, so please pay attention.

You might want to consider the possibility that you present your arguments in such way that makes your meaning unclear, rather than implying I am lazy or stupid.


my position is not that any punishment should be mandated by any legal system, but that in the course of therapy, it may be useful for the persons affected by this person's actions to get to beat the shit out of them. and if they thought it might be useful, i say why not? i'm not saying it should be part of the law except insofar as part of conflict resolution would most likely require (not in a literal sense) mental health treatment for the victims

It's irrelevant whether your position is that "any punishment should be mandated by any legal system"; it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

Whether you call it "therapy" or call it "justice" the point remains the same; you can dress it up as much as you want, the blaring fact is that what you are suggesting is that people be able to seek revenge -- whether in the course of therapy or defined within the law is irrelevant. The apparent reason you are suggesting this is because you claim, spuriously in my view, that it is somehow "restorative". You may call it something different, but what you are proposing is fundamentally revenge.

There's no "nuance" to that argument. In fact, it's incredibly disingenuous. Trying to distance yourself from discussion of legal systems while claiming that the retribution you want is confined to some kind of therapy that should form part of legislation for mental health treatment within laws governing the consequences of crime is a dishonest, evasive way to have a discussion, not to mention it's an incoherent position to take. I'd be interested to know, however, how you imagine allowing people with mental health problems to perpetrate violence against other humans would help their mental health?


it's like you guys don't really understand how traumatic something like this can be. someone tried to kill herself over this. and we're really going to sit and completely rule out kicking the shit out of the guy? you'd rather sit him in prison? and i'm on a board of communists and anarchists? yeah right. get him to pay back what he owes, kick the shit out of him if that's what the victims want to do, and everybody can move on for the better.

But justice or "therapy" shouldn't be predicated on what is going make victims of crimes feel better and nor should it. There has to be some overarching philosophical and ethical dimension to how we construct a justice system, not to mention some considered, clinical based understanding of how to provide therapy to victims (I'm fairly certain violence isn't something mental health professionals would consider a useful tool). Simply saying victims can beat up perpetrators because it's cathartic or "restorative" isn't a reasoned, productive form of justice (or therapy). Nor is it particularly even true. It also does nothing to actually understand the cause of a crime.


the crime is not against SOCIETY the crime is against these INDIVIDUAL PERSONS

it is THEIR restitution that matters, king james. in fact, the very basis of retributive punishment comes from medieval england, where crimes were no longer seen as acts against individuals but against the domination of the state. that's where the punishment comes in - it's why he's in prison, because our prison system is created based on the idea of an eye for an eye. you have everything completely ass backwards here - supporting a retributive system while claiming to support the opposite, and attacking the opposite while calling it retributive.

This is a perfect example of your argument not being presented in a clear way. I have no idea what you're arguing. I don't understand why you have got it in your head that I am supporting a retributive justice system when I clearly stated my intervention was against punishment.

[Ele'ill]

Here's a bit of a ramble- I don't see it as contradictory to hold a position on prison abolition and also not give a fuck if this guy rots there. In the same sense you could take a position against the state but not give a fuck if cops and nazis shoot each other dead in the street. I agree with PC and I would not have a problem with someone taking a blunt instrument to this guys legs. Would that have solved the problem? I don't know. Is prison going to? Well he's incapable of continuing to do what he was doing but whether it changes his views to some sunshine filled rainbowy spectrum of love and understanding I highly doubt it. So I think the question that is actually pissing everyone off here is how to deal with gobshites like this guy who simply won't stop hurting people. Is it knighting if a group of people who weren't directly hurt by him engage in direct action against his website or him or his collaborators? Is it knighting if a group of people who have not been directly attacked by the police engage the police as an instutution through direct action? The highways? The dams? The churches or other groups of people who make it unsafe to be alive?

[consuming negativity]

removed

[Sea]

four years in a labor camp earning back the money he extorted would be a pretty fair resolution

then take a bat to his legs.No, take a bat to his wiener. He probably jacked off to the porn he posted so that's a better punishment.

And by the way, he was jailed for the extortion part of it. Exposing (mostly) women against their will on the internet and ruining their lives is still something that goes totally unpunished. Sorry to burst your bubble but justice hasn't been done.

[The Feral Underclass]

I don't really understand why people are working from the premise that justice can be done or not done in a capitalist society.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sea]

I don't really understand why people are working from the premise that justice can be done or not done in a capitalist society.


Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkYeah I know right. Unfortunately the apologists started rolling in, veiled in slang ("pigs") to hide their bourgeois sympathy, right in the first damn reply.

[Fire]

Seems mostly fair within the current paradigm of sentencing, though over all I put in the disclaimer that I think justice should be about keeping dangerous people put away while aiming for reform over punishment so they don't come out even nastier and more hopeless than when they went in. Adding more and more years to a sentence has diminishing returns. Also capitalism is bad.

Can't say I feel too much sympathy for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU630wCQ2Rs

[Comrade Jacob]

18 years? Fuck this guy but 18 years? Nah, 8 years max.

[Luís Henrique]

The compromising photos cost people jobs, damaged relationships and led to one attempted suicide.Yeah. Fuck that dude.

The underlying fact, however, is that if bosses weren't sexist abusive idiots, or if there were no bosses and no jobs, nobody would have lost any jobs; and that if we hadn't introjected bourgeois morals so much, nobody would attempt suicide for that kind of thing.

So this dude, or more properly this arsehole, is indeed an arsehole. But he had a lot of accomplices in his crimes, and those are going unharmed, and even probably commemorating the disgrace of this blackmailer.

So some justice.

It would be worse, of course, if he wasn't stopped, arrested, and sentenced. Thanks to the bourgeois State, for all of that - and I mean it, I'm not being sarcastic. Unhappily, our bourgeois society is constantly manufacturing guys like this - and people like his victims. Good riddance, then - but there are other, more important things to get rid of.

Luís Henrique

[Ocean Seal]

Here's a bit of a ramble- I don't see it as contradictory to hold a position on prison abolition and also not give a fuck if this guy rots there. In the same sense you could take a position against the state but not give a fuck if cops and nazis shoot each other dead in the street. I agree with PC and I would not have a problem with someone taking a blunt instrument to this guys legs. Would that have solved the problem? I don't know. Is prison going to? Well he's incapable of continuing to do what he was doing but whether it changes his views to some sunshine filled rainbowy spectrum of love and understanding I highly doubt it. So I think the question that is actually pissing everyone off here is how to deal with gobshites like this guy who simply won't stop hurting people. Is it knighting if a group of people who weren't directly hurt by him engage in direct action against his website or him or his collaborators? Is it knighting if a group of people who have not been directly attacked by the police engage the police as an instutution through direct action? The highways? The dams? The churches or other groups of people who make it unsafe to be alive?
Here's my bit of a counter-ramble
18 years is a really fucking long sentence, and in case you haven't noticed most people who are in jail aren't exactly nice people.
Most of them are generally pretty horrible people, but we still advocate for prison abolition and the end of the prison industrial complex. Most of the people in jail aren't innocent, and most of the ones doing hard time aren't there for minor drug possession, most are there for a violent crime. In fact 75% of inmates aren't there for what liberals believe people are locked up in prison for. 75% are there for violent crimes.

As judges embrace more liberal sentences for petty drug offenders they fill the ranks of the prisons with more violent criminals. And everyone claps like seals. So yeah armed robbery, assault, murder, drug trafficking are often exploitative, and ruin the lives of working class people in a much more direct way than this guy.

So don't celebrate anyone going to jail just because they "won't stop hurting people". Otherwise you are falling into the right-wing trap of retribution. Take down the website and help the victims, let the reactionaries deal with their prisons.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Retribution can give the victims a sense of control over their lives, especially given that this is a crime that rarely gets any legal recognition

[Os Cangaceiros]

Here's my bit of a counter-ramble
18 years is a really fucking long sentence, and in case you haven't noticed most people who are in jail aren't exactly nice people.
Most of them are generally pretty horrible people, but we still advocate for prison abolition and the end of the prison industrial complex. Most of the people in jail aren't innocent, and most of the ones doing hard time aren't there for minor drug possession, most are there for a violent crime. In fact 75% of inmates aren't there for what liberals believe people are locked up in prison for. 75% are there for violent crimes.

What?! Prisons are filled with non-violent offenders.

"Over half (53.4%) of prisoners in state and federal prisoners with a sentence of a year or more are serving time for a non-violent offense."

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/2014_US_Nation_Behind_Bars_0.pdf

Violence has been declining in the USA since the 70's but the incarceration rate has skyrocketed since then. How is that explained by most inmates being imprisoned for violent offenses?

And yes, a huge percentage of inmates in county, state and federal prison are there for drug-related crime, including parole violations like flunking a UA.

[Os Cangaceiros]

This issue also has some personal/anectdotal resonance for me since I personally know about 7 people who are in prison right now in my state. More if you count people who have been in and out of prison (but are not currently incarcerated). Almost none of them (except for one guy who is in for armed robbery) are in for violent offenses. Prison is a vile institution

[Comrade Jacob]

Oh, right. I thought this was just some guy who uploaded a revenge porn but he was the operator. Full 10 years Gulag.

[RedWorker]

Ok, no prisons. So where will serial killers be locked in communist society? I do agree with criticism of how bourgeois prisons are run now. But 'abolition of prisons'? Really?

[Luís Henrique]

Ok, no prisons. So where will serial killers be locked in communist society? I do agree with criticism of how bourgeois prisons are run now. But 'abolition of prisons'? Really?

There will be no serial killers in a communist society, obviously.

But, seriously, serial killers are mentally ill, so they should go into psychiatric hospitals, not jail.

I am not so sure that "abolition of prisons" can be attained overnight, though. But the repeal of "war on drugs" legislation would by itself mean a huge reduction of the need for prisons. Also it would be interesting to abolish prison sentences for non-violent criminality; those things can be better dealt with through penalties that do not imply jail time.

Another fantastic idea would be to improve the life conditions of people outside the prisonal system, so that we don't have to make absolutely hellish for the criminals in order that they notice that they are being punished.

With time, I think most if not all of the prisional can be dispensed with. Post-revolution, I mean. (But even within capitalism we see there are less insane prisonal systems, such as those or Sweden or Finland, so pre-revolutionary improvements are also possible.)

Luís Henrique

[Tim Cornelis]

Another fantastic idea would be to improve the life conditions of people outside the prisonal system, so that we don't have to make absolutely hellish for the criminals in order that they notice that they are being punished.
Luís Henrique

Meh, seems like a hassle.

[Ele'ill]

Here's my bit of a counter-ramble
18 years is a really fucking long sentence, and in case you haven't noticed most people who are in jail aren't exactly nice people. Most of them are generally pretty horrible people, but we still advocate for prison abolition and the end of the prison industrial complex.

I have a friend in prison and I think they are pretty nice, some other people wouldn't but that's life. I agree with you regarding being in solidarity with all prisoners vs being for the complete destruction of prisons (I think that's what you're getting at.)




Most of the people in jail aren't innocent, and most of the ones doing hard time aren't there for minor drug possession, most are there for a violent crime. In fact 75% of inmates aren't there for what liberals believe people are locked up in prison for. 75% are there for violent crimes.

As judges embrace more liberal sentences for petty drug offenders they fill the ranks of the prisons with more violent criminals. And everyone claps like seals.

I agree with what OsC. responded with



So yeah armed robbery, assault, murder, drug trafficking are often exploitative, and ruin the lives of working class people in a much more direct way than this guy.

I am not going to get sucked into a discussion that basically argues within the realm of legal constraints based on the status quo in order to debate micro-aspects of things like sentencing durations but I think that willingly trying to get people to commit suicide, ruin their careers, destroy their social life, stalking, harassment, etc.., is pretty direct.


So don't celebrate anyone going to jail just because they "won't stop hurting people". Otherwise you are falling into the right-wing trap of retribution. Take down the website and help the victims, let the reactionaries deal with their prisons.


Don't worry I wasn't doing anything of the sort. If stopping someone from ruining your life is simply one dimensional retribution I'd have to call bullshit on the lense you're viewing it through, because you're overlooking the qualitative aspects of what was performed which overlooks critical analysis of what's going on around you, and you'd essentially no longer be able to justify any action at all, as an individual, as a class, since it could all be considered 'retribution' and, 'revenge' and falls into lockstep with a morality that this society has gifted you with.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I'm interested in what sense of justice the victims could even feel in this situation. Putting this guy is jail doesn't remove their pictures from the internet and doesn't prevent legions of dudes from masturbating to them from now through eternity. I feel no pity for the guy, but I agree with TAT that justice is impossible under capitalism regardless of the circumstances.

[Luís Henrique]

Meh, seems like a hassle.

Yup. That's why I'm for it. For the hassle.

Luís Henrique

[Armchair Partisan]

I'm interested in what sense of justice the victims could even feel in this situation. Putting this guy is jail doesn't remove their pictures from the internet and doesn't prevent legions of dudes from masturbating to them from now through eternity. I feel no pity for the guy, but I agree with TAT that justice is impossible under capitalism regardless of the circumstances.

Nothing can remove something from the Internet once it's up there - the only possibility is to censor the Internet, which I'm sure few of us want. Different social norms would make the fallout much less damaging, as revenge porn just wouldn't be such an effective form of shaming anyone anymore. However, I would argue that it is not the victim's sense of justice that matters foremost (which is subjective, fickle, and emotionally charged - such a viewpoint is what drives the berserkers to call for more blood and gore), but rather collective justice - i.e. what is best for society in the long term, what is the punishment that has the highest chance of rehabilitating the victim and/or undoing the harm caused.

I've never been in prison, but 18 years sounds like a lot. I'd say that beyond a couple years, any prison sentence is enough to leave the inmate partly insane and more inclined to do crime than before the whole thing. This is a good time to discuss, actually - what kind of punishment would people suggest for a crime like this in a halfway decent socialist society? Or for other crimes, just for the sake of comparison? I've read threads like this on this site before and most people either seem to want a police state (executions, gulags, torture, mutilation), lynch mob justice/vigilantism, or more humane and modern methods that nonetheless seem doubtful in their effectiveness (peer-pressure based stuff, psychiatric treatments etc.). I know that prisons have eventually got to go if we want to abolish class society, but it's not trivial what will replace them. (Also, please, let's not just assume literally all crime will go away.)

[Jacky Hearts]

Ok, no prisons. So where will serial killers be locked in communist society? I do agree with criticism of how bourgeois prisons are run now. But 'abolition of prisons'? Really?

As Kropotkin said 'prisons are universities of crime'.

They're proven to be ineffective in preventing repeat offending and providing any personal reform (and I don't know about you, but punishment for punishment's sake just reeks of authoritarianism). Also with mild-moderate offenses, which I'm going to class what this guy's done as (because I'd consider a serious offense to be rape/murder/etc), they just tend to desensitize criminals, give them bitter and resentful feelings and just generally turn someone who's a wanker into a full on mega stab-your-gran-in-the-throat evil shit bag.

[Redistribute the Rep]

I'm interested in what sense of justice the victims could even feel in this situation.

Well, victims of sex crimes can feel they've gained more control over the situation by pursuing criminal charges, especially since this type of crime rarely gets recognition. That's pretty much the only motivation for them to do it

A lot of posters here seem to think they're in a place to tell the victims how they should feel about this (not necessarily directing this at you, EG).

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

People can feel however they want, but feelings don't change reality. What this guy did can't be undone, the best this system can do is inflict a different brand of suffering on him in the form of prison time. Something we as communists are opposed to. That's the point people are making, not that the victims are supposed to just suck it or something.

[Redistribute the Rep]

However, I would argue that it is not the victim's sense of justice that matters foremost (which is subjective, fickle, and emotionally charged - such a viewpoint is what drives the berserkers to call for more blood and gore),

Yea, no. Pity for the poor sex offender does not take precedence over the victims "fickle" emotions.


but rather collective justice - i.e. what is best for society in the long term, what is the punishment that has the highest chance of rehabilitating the victim and/or undoing the harm caused.

this isn't at odds with the victims here wanting a "sense of justice." They don't need to be silent and let their abuser walk to do "what is best for society in the long term"

No victim of a sex crime should feel silenced because it will harm their abuser, or, somehow, society.

[Redistribute the Rep]

People can feel however they want, but feelings don't change reality. What this guy did can't be undone, the best this system can do is inflict a different brand of suffering on him in the form of prison time. Something we as communists are opposed to. That's the point people are making, not that the victims are supposed to just suck it or something.

We can oppose the system since it doesn't do nearly as much for the victims as we'd like. But that doesn't mean we should oppose the victims wanting to prosecute him.


People can feel however they want, but feelings don't change reality.

If I'm not mistaken, the "reality" you were asking about in the quote I used was how victims could feel a sense of justice. So, yes, the reality in this instance is entirely contingent on their feelings.

If their feelings with regards to how the perpetrator was handled betters their reality, even just a little, then I do not oppose their actions. They don't have to forgo that just because it doesn't completely overhaul capitalism and the legal system

[Armchair Partisan]

Yea, no. Pity for the poor sex offender does not take precedence over the victims "fickle" emotions.

Who was talking about pity for the sex offender? I was talking about a modern justice system supported by research, such as "death penalty and other bloodlust-driven deterrents do not help curb crime". A modern justice system exists to try to rehabilitate the offenders (for which retribution is harmful), to deter other would-be criminals (for which retribution doesn't help, as supported by research - making the justice system more efficient so that everyone is caught does) and protect their victims. I repeat: protect them, and not let them indulge in their revenge fantasies!


this isn't at odds with the victims here wanting a "sense of justice." They don't need to be silent and let their abuser walk to do "what is best for society in the long term"

No victim of a sex crime should feel silenced because it will harm their abuser, or, somehow, society.

And once again, nobody was talking about letting the abuser walk free, and for that matter, the victim is free to feel or say whatever they want. This dishonest implication that any opposition to "tough on crime" punishments and your lynch-mob mentality must be motivated by a desire to suppress the victim does not reflect well on you. You are just playing the left-wing version of a classic right-populist trick: call for tougher punishments (because that's popular and gains votes, while calls for moderations don't), and accuse any detractors of supporting pedophiles and murderers. Screw that.

[7387]

This discussion brilliantly highlights the fundamental problem of any justice system - sacrifice of collective interests to humanity to the perpetrator. The whole arguing about being the sentence being "harsh" is essential arguing that increased sentence does not provide benefits to the society. It scares potential perpetrators, but creates a criminal-minded person having almost nothing to lose. Setting aside pity for the perpetrator(which is essentialy contrproductive to the socity as a whole, as a perpetrator acts as an enemy of said society), it's only rational to disband this dilemma and to increase dissencetive for the potential perpetrators simultaneously with nullifing the chance of repeated offence. Which naturally calls for capital punishment instead of any punishment higher then recidivist-producing treshhold(approx 2 years IMO). In order to decrease chances of judicial mistake, the perpetrator should serve 2 years anyway, in case there is a mistake to be found out, after which one should either be aquitted by the court besed on additional evidence or visible change in his behavior, or be killed in the worst imaginable way to dissencetise potential offender. Shall the "reformed" person be under trial second time, the punisment should be capital whatever one commits(still with 2 year sentence for gathering evidence), forexept found not guilty.