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Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography Online
The first book on the abhorrent business of child pornography
Perhaps nothing evokes more universal disgust as child pornography. The world of its makers and users is so abhorrent that it is rarely discussed much less studied. Child pornographers have taken advantage of this and are successfully using the new electronic media to exchange their wares without detection or significant sanction. What are the implications of this threat for free speech and a free exchange of ideas on the internet? And how can we stop this illegal activity, which is so repugnant that even the most laissez-faire cyberlibertarians want it stamped out, if we know nothing about it?
Philip Jenkins takes a leap onto the lower tiers of electronic media in this first book on the business of child pornography online. He tells the story of how the advent of the internet caused this deviant subculture to become highly organized and go global. We learn how the trade which operates on clandestine websites from Budapest or Singapore to the U.S. is easy to glimpse yet difficult to eradicate. Jenkins details how the most sophisticated transactions are done through a proxy, a “false flag” address, rendering the host computer, and participants, virtually unidentifiable. And these sites exist for only a few minutes or hours allowing on-line child pornographers to stay one step ahead of the law. This is truly a globalized criminal network which knows no names or boundaries, and thus challenges both international and U.S. law.
Beyond Tolerance delves into the myths and realities of child pornography and the complex process to stamp out criminal activity over the web, including the timely debates over trade regulation, users' privacy, and individual rights. This sobering look and a criminal community contains lessons about human behavior and the law that none interested in media and the new technology can afford to ignore.
Perhaps nothing evokes more universal disgust as child pornography. The world of its makers and users is so abhorrent that it is rarely discussed much less studied. Child pornographers have taken advantage of this and are successfully using the new electronic media to exchange their wares without detection or significant sanction. What are the implications of this threat for free speech and a free exchange of ideas on the internet? And how can we stop this illegal activity, which is so repugnant that even the most laissez-faire cyberlibertarians want it stamped out, if we know nothing about it?
Philip Jenkins takes a leap onto the lower tiers of electronic media in this first book on the business of child pornography online. He tells the story of how the advent of the internet caused this deviant subculture to become highly organized and go global. We learn how the trade which operates on clandestine websites from Budapest or Singapore to the U.S. is easy to glimpse yet difficult to eradicate. Jenkins details how the most sophisticated transactions are done through a proxy, a “false flag” address, rendering the host computer, and participants, virtually unidentifiable. And these sites exist for only a few minutes or hours allowing on-line child pornographers to stay one step ahead of the law. This is truly a globalized criminal network which knows no names or boundaries, and thus challenges both international and U.S. law.
Beyond Tolerance delves into the myths and realities of child pornography and the complex process to stamp out criminal activity over the web, including the timely debates over trade regulation, users' privacy, and individual rights. This sobering look and a criminal community contains lessons about human behavior and the law that none interested in media and the new technology can afford to ignore.
- GenresNonfictionSociologyAbuse
260 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2001
3 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Philip Jenkins
75 books160 followersJohn Philip Jenkins was born in Wales in 1952. He was educated at Clare College, in the University of Cambridge, where he took a prestigious “Double First” degree—that is, Double First Class Honors. In 1978, he obtained his doctorate in history, also from Cambridge. Since 1980, he has taught at Penn State University, and currently holds the rank of Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of the Humanities. He is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion.
Though his original training was in early modern British history, he has since moved to studying a wide range of contemporary topics and issues, especially in the realm of religion.
Jenkins is a well-known commentator on religion, past and present. He has published 24 books, including The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South and God's Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe's Religious Crisis (Oxford University Press). His latest books, published by HarperOne, are The Lost History of Christianity and Jesus Wars (2010).
His book The Next Christendom in particular won a number of honors. USA Today named it one of the top religion books of 2002; and Christianity Today described The Next Christendom as a “contemporary classic.” An essay based on this book appeared as a cover story in the Atlantic Monthly in October 2002, and this article was much reprinted in North America and around the world, appearing in German, Swiss, and Italian magazines.
His other books have also been consistently well received. Writing in Foreign Affairs in 2003, Sir Lawrence Freedman said Jenkins's Images of Terror was “a brilliant, uncomfortable book, its impact heightened by clear, restrained writing and a stunning range of examples.”
Jenkins has spoken frequently on these diverse themes. Since 2002, he has delivered approximately eighty public lectures just on the theme of global Christianity, and has given numerous presentations on other topics. He has published articles and op-ed pieces in many media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, New Republic, Foreign Policy, First Things, and Christian Century. In the European media, his work has appeared in the Guardian, Rheinischer Merkur, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Welt am Sonntag, and the Kommersant (Moscow). He is often quoted in news stories on religious issues, including global Christianity, as well as on the subject of conflicts within the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, and controversies concerning cults and new religious movements. The Economist has called him “one of America's best scholars of religion.”
Over the last decade, Jenkins has participated in several hundred interviews with the mass media, newspapers, radio, and television. He has been interviewed on Fox's The Beltway Boys, and has appeared on a number of CNN documentaries and news specials covering a variety of topics, including the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, as well as serial murder and aspects of violent crime. The 2003 television documentary Battle for Souls (Discovery Times Channel) was largely inspired by his work on global Christianity. He also appeared on the History Channel special, Time Machine: 70s Fever (2009).
Jenkins is much heard on talk radio, including multiple appearances on NPR's All Things Considered, and on various BBC and RTE programs. In North America, he has been a guest on the widely syndicated radio programs of Diane Rehm, Michael Medved, and James Kennedy; he has appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air, as well as the nationally broadcast Canadian shows Tapestry and Ideas. His media appearances include newspapers and radio stations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Brazil, as well as in many different regions of the United States.
Because of its relevance to policy issues, Jenkins's work has attracted the attention of gove
Though his original training was in early modern British history, he has since moved to studying a wide range of contemporary topics and issues, especially in the realm of religion.
Jenkins is a well-known commentator on religion, past and present. He has published 24 books, including The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South and God's Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe's Religious Crisis (Oxford University Press). His latest books, published by HarperOne, are The Lost History of Christianity and Jesus Wars (2010).
His book The Next Christendom in particular won a number of honors. USA Today named it one of the top religion books of 2002; and Christianity Today described The Next Christendom as a “contemporary classic.” An essay based on this book appeared as a cover story in the Atlantic Monthly in October 2002, and this article was much reprinted in North America and around the world, appearing in German, Swiss, and Italian magazines.
His other books have also been consistently well received. Writing in Foreign Affairs in 2003, Sir Lawrence Freedman said Jenkins's Images of Terror was “a brilliant, uncomfortable book, its impact heightened by clear, restrained writing and a stunning range of examples.”
Jenkins has spoken frequently on these diverse themes. Since 2002, he has delivered approximately eighty public lectures just on the theme of global Christianity, and has given numerous presentations on other topics. He has published articles and op-ed pieces in many media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, New Republic, Foreign Policy, First Things, and Christian Century. In the European media, his work has appeared in the Guardian, Rheinischer Merkur, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Welt am Sonntag, and the Kommersant (Moscow). He is often quoted in news stories on religious issues, including global Christianity, as well as on the subject of conflicts within the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, and controversies concerning cults and new religious movements. The Economist has called him “one of America's best scholars of religion.”
Over the last decade, Jenkins has participated in several hundred interviews with the mass media, newspapers, radio, and television. He has been interviewed on Fox's The Beltway Boys, and has appeared on a number of CNN documentaries and news specials covering a variety of topics, including the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, as well as serial murder and aspects of violent crime. The 2003 television documentary Battle for Souls (Discovery Times Channel) was largely inspired by his work on global Christianity. He also appeared on the History Channel special, Time Machine: 70s Fever (2009).
Jenkins is much heard on talk radio, including multiple appearances on NPR's All Things Considered, and on various BBC and RTE programs. In North America, he has been a guest on the widely syndicated radio programs of Diane Rehm, Michael Medved, and James Kennedy; he has appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air, as well as the nationally broadcast Canadian shows Tapestry and Ideas. His media appearances include newspapers and radio stations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Brazil, as well as in many different regions of the United States.
Because of its relevance to policy issues, Jenkins's work has attracted the attention of gove
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 7, 2024
Insightful book, but it's dated
Good book. Useful if you want to understand the child pornography online subculture. It's also an insightful look into how some pedophiles feel about children and how they perceive the world. Considering the book was written over 20 years ago, some aspects of the cp Online subculture have undoubtedly changed.
Good book. Useful if you want to understand the child pornography online subculture. It's also an insightful look into how some pedophiles feel about children and how they perceive the world. Considering the book was written over 20 years ago, some aspects of the cp Online subculture have undoubtedly changed.
March 28, 2025
An incredibly difficult book to read and 25 years out of date but so fascinating and essential to my research. Much has changed for the better but I would love a more updated version that tackles the DarkNet etc. but naturally these communities are harder to track which is fine by me -- dark and dangerous corners are where these criminals belong (besides prison obviously).
July 26, 2014
In a word: horrifying. For several years, Jenkins delved into the underworld of the child porn community online. Readers learn how child porn has thrived on the internet, despite being one of the most universally reviled evils imagined, despite being illegal in many countries, despite all the obstacles thrown in the path of those who exploit children. And it’s all free and available to anyone who knows how to find it.
Because viewing child porn is illegal in America, he blocked all images on his computer and researched through the Internet chat rooms devoted to promotion of child pornography. That’s problematic from a research standpoint, and he can’t provide data (stats or numbers or anything provable), but he admits that, given the laws of this country, he couldn’t do otherwise.
The excerpts from the chat rooms are graphic, though. The offenders describe the contents of the images they’ve downloaded and tell their fellow offenders about. So it’s not hard to imagine what horrible abuses are shown.
Jenkins details the problem facing law enforcement agencies: how to catch the offenders and take down the images but maintain internet freedom and individual privacy. It’s a complex issue.
At the end, he offers several ideas to help combat child porn. The one I found most intriguing was this: make it legal for journalists and social scientists to access child porn for research purposes. Obviously, this would be problematic; the privilege would be abused, and it would be almost impossible to convince lawmakers to loosen the laws around child porn rather than tighten them. But if research could be done, we’d know what we’re dealing with. We wouldn’t be relying on law enforcement agencies for information. More solid research could be performed, with quantifiable data to back up the conclusions (rather than random numbers guessed at by child porn opponents, etc.). It’s an idea worth considering.
Quick warning. This is not a book for everyone. Jenkins includes transcripts and snippets of conversation from child porn chat rooms, and they are often graphic and always revolting. I had to read this book slowly and put it down often, and frequently my stomach was churning. If you can’t handle that because of past abuse, don’t read this book. Everyone else, wake up and realize that ignoring evil doesn’t eradicate it. You may not agree with Jenkins’ ideas or libertarian stance, but it’s worth the effort to look beyond surface differences and consider what should be done to stop child porn.
Because viewing child porn is illegal in America, he blocked all images on his computer and researched through the Internet chat rooms devoted to promotion of child pornography. That’s problematic from a research standpoint, and he can’t provide data (stats or numbers or anything provable), but he admits that, given the laws of this country, he couldn’t do otherwise.
The excerpts from the chat rooms are graphic, though. The offenders describe the contents of the images they’ve downloaded and tell their fellow offenders about. So it’s not hard to imagine what horrible abuses are shown.
Jenkins details the problem facing law enforcement agencies: how to catch the offenders and take down the images but maintain internet freedom and individual privacy. It’s a complex issue.
At the end, he offers several ideas to help combat child porn. The one I found most intriguing was this: make it legal for journalists and social scientists to access child porn for research purposes. Obviously, this would be problematic; the privilege would be abused, and it would be almost impossible to convince lawmakers to loosen the laws around child porn rather than tighten them. But if research could be done, we’d know what we’re dealing with. We wouldn’t be relying on law enforcement agencies for information. More solid research could be performed, with quantifiable data to back up the conclusions (rather than random numbers guessed at by child porn opponents, etc.). It’s an idea worth considering.
Quick warning. This is not a book for everyone. Jenkins includes transcripts and snippets of conversation from child porn chat rooms, and they are often graphic and always revolting. I had to read this book slowly and put it down often, and frequently my stomach was churning. If you can’t handle that because of past abuse, don’t read this book. Everyone else, wake up and realize that ignoring evil doesn’t eradicate it. You may not agree with Jenkins’ ideas or libertarian stance, but it’s worth the effort to look beyond surface differences and consider what should be done to stop child porn.
February 12, 2009
not exactly a summer beach read. this is a sobering, disturbing, and thought-provoking study. probably one of the best of its type out there (i find it almost equally disturbing that there is not more literature out there, or more research being done in this area).
November 20, 2012
Although much of his reasearch is empirical, Jenkins makes some important points on the issue of child pornography. His research is limited in that he used message boards as his source for information, but he does shed some light into the minds of pedophiles.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews