Child pornography isn’t illegal because of the contents of the speech. It’s illegal because it’s an accessory to the original crime of child molestation. That is why the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that virtual child pornography, even photorealistic, is Constitutionally protected speech.

Okay but you're can surely realise that someone in possession of child pornography images that were taken, say, 20 years ago is no longer accessory to the original crime in any way. In fact, it might very well be possible for that person to not have even been born back then. Of course, that's not really how law works because some crimes don't have a deadline.

But whatever the legal reasoning behind it is, the consequence is that you are pretty much forbidden from distributing this material on the internet and so your right to show something to others is being restricted. I would consider that a limitation of free speech. But of course, I can totally see why you'd have the need to justify it in some other way, because we don't want our freedom of speech to be limited in any way. The law is always open to interpretation after all.

What's the reasoning behind restricting people from sharing copies of copyrighted material? Obviously it is also an illegal action. My point being, there are many ways in which our speech is monitored and restricted already.

> I think only Americans believe in this absolute negative liberty view of speech.

That's a wonderful compliment.

It's really not.

Some groups due to historical or biological reasons require special protection. It is why we protect kids, it is why we protect people with disabilities. But if you take negative liberty to its extreme this special treatment that we offer these groups of people become unwarranted privileges. A world view that is based entirely on negative liberty ends up in a "survival of the strongest" state.

Obviously there is a big discussion on which groups require what sort of positive reinforcement from society to be able to truly enjoy and perform as close to the rest as possible. One simple example is access to buildings for people in wheelchair. When the government requires businesses to put these they're infringing on the businesses liberties to decide how to, well, run their business. But I know very little people who wouldn't agree with this situation.

So, i don't know, I think a purist vision of the state as a non-interfering voice (negative liberty) has for a long while been deemed an inadequate way of structuring society. So I don't think it's a wonderful compliment.

I see it more as hubris then something beneficial. Any society that allows a man like Alex Jones to peddle what he peddles with just a light financial slap on the wrist isn’t a society I consider to be healthy or going in the right direction, even on principle. It creates a dog eat dog world and it doesn’t have to be that way.