Comment On The Wrong Thing to Say

Seriously I think there's a place for tolerance, but I'd be all for calling the cops after the second time, if not the first.

I agree with Steve... this isn't really a WTF, just a very stupid pervert who deserves to get hauled away.

irony captcha: genitus

Why didn't they just fire the one guy. It's idiotic to call inn all of the employees to yell at them about something one person did.

You have to admire how someone could manage to use the words "excessive" and "kiddie porn" next to each other. I'd like to see more of this:
"The defendant is accused of excessive rape."
"I'm sorry your honor, I only meant to rape one woman."

Wow how was this person not fired on the first offense? Not only is this disgusting and an offensive abuse of company resources it is illegal and such should at minimum be immediate dismissal.

Anon:

Wow how was this person not fired on the first offense? Not only is this disgusting and an offensive abuse of company resources it is illegal and such should at minimum be immediate dismissal.

Well, it might explain the 'defunct' part.

Hey, what's wrong with watching porn at work?
As long as it's healthy.

NevroMance:

Why didn't they just fire the one guy. It's idiotic to call inn all of the employees to yell at them about something one person did.

Yep, kind of reminds me of the classic school scene, where the teacher yells at the kids in class because so many kids are skipping school.

Ok, beyond the fact that anyone watchign kiddi-port should not only be fired but sent right to prison:
That response WAS the best possible answer. If you ask me, it was the perfect thing to say!

Yesterday's Dilbert is suddenly pertinent:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/080525/cx_dilbert_umedia/20082505

"But you people are downloading an unhealthy amount of kiddie porn..."

I don't get this. If it was only one guy, it's kinda harsh to say that the whole IT department was "Downloading it". If we're going to strech there, we might as well add the whole company (including Mrs HR Director) to the offense.

Best. Reply. Ever.

NevroMance:

Why didn't they just fire the one guy. It's idiotic to call inn all of the employees to yell at them about something one person did.

Well since they don't want to get a bad name for firing people they just make all the others kinda pay so that they mob the one guy out.

If it had just been regular porn the response of HR would be understandable (if ineffectual and misguided). If this case involved actual kiddie porn (as opposed to say "barely legal" stuff). Then the only appropriate response from HR is to terminate (fire) the employee and notify the police.

Since I work in a school, it would be normal for my workplace to be one...
But if I got a yelling at for something someone else did, school or no school, I'd be walking out of the "meeting". If I get fired, who cares. Not worth working there anyway if they choose to yell at all staff instead of fixing the problem.

Well, it is a WTF. That they did not fire him and sent te cops after him when they busted him the first time, that is. Are they stupid, pedofile, or both? Whose ass was that guy licking that he did not get fired?

Kiss me I'm Polish:

Hey, what's wrong with watching porn at work?
As long as it's healthy.

First, you're supposed to WORK when you are at work. Not to watch porn.
Second, kiddie porn is not very legal you know. And most people don't really like people who like to watch it.

I can´t help but repeat what other 15 people said already - where I work, people would be fired for ANY kind of porn watched on workplace. Actually, they would probably leave out of sheer shame first time someone caught them.
(I myself fear the day I am caught reading The Daily WTF).
And all other coleagues and managers alike would probably resort to shocked silence, instead of yelling at anyone/anything.
What is nationality of original poster? Must be country with some specific attitude. Or maybe ,,kiddie porn" means something completely different there.

George Nacht:

(I myself fear the day I am caught reading The Daily WTF).

Nothing to worry about. This here is curious perversions, not illegal and downright immoral perversions.

real_aardvark:

George Nacht:

(I myself fear the day I am caught reading The Daily WTF).

Nothing to worry about. This here is curious perversions, not illegal and downright immoral perversions.

Morality is in the eye of the beholder to anyone who is not a blind sheep.

I'm reminded of the funeral director who justified keeping on the necrophiliac member of his staff by saying:

"We don't care what our employees get up to during their break time, so long as it doesn't frighten the hearses..."

"The Law" is not always right (remember Prohibition?):

Morality is in the eye of the beholder to anyone who is not a blind sheep.

No, morality is a social construct, built by consensus. Nice bit of pointless relativism though.

I was wondering when the Ayn Rand/NAMBLA lads were going to get in on the, ahem, act.

I may be a simple person, but I would have simply called the police on the first occasion. Aside from the moral dimension, it fixes the problem much faster and otherwise you'd become an accessory to the fact and you don't want that because for child porn that can mean life in prison.

Ours would routinely view kiddie porn - during work hours. He would occasionally leave the images up on the screen when he walked away.

Personally, I think they were excessively tolerant to this point.

Ummm, yeah.... The guy committed a felony (and a pretty fucked up one at that) during office hours and you didn't call the police the first time it happened. Screw HR.

I wonder if anyone ever pointed out to HR that they were probably committing an crime by NOT reporting the pedo to the police.

That's odd. A group of people see another one watching kp and the only things that happens is that one persons goes complaining about it, and not even with him in person?

I don't know how other people would react, but if I saw any of my collegues watching it, no matter if it were peers or people higher up the ladder, I would certainly have a little talk with them.

...quietly closes porn site.

Someone:

Kiss me I'm Polish:

Hey, what's wrong with watching porn at work?
As long as it's healthy.

First, you're supposed to WORK when you are at work. Not to watch porn.
Second, kiddie porn is not very legal you know. And most people don't really like people who like to watch it.

Seeing as we are unfamiliar with sarcasm, I shall close the register at this point.

real_aardvark:

"The Law" is not always right (remember Prohibition?):

Morality is in the eye of the beholder to anyone who is not a blind sheep.

No, morality is a social construct, built by consensus. Nice bit of pointless relativism though.

I was wondering when the Ayn Rand/NAMBLA lads were going to get in on the, ahem, act.

And what sheep don't realize is that if the consensus is stupid, the law is still wrong. Having a majority of sheep feed into your every word doesn't make it right, it means that the majority are too ignorant and stupid to see otherwise.

gold :)

isn't the "but you guys are downloading"-argument not a complete backwards reply to "we didnt do it you know who did it" ??

"The Law" is still wrong:

And what sheep don't realize is that if the consensus is stupid, the law is still wrong. Having a majority of sheep feed into your every word doesn't make it right, it means that the majority are too ignorant and stupid to see otherwise.

So if morality is in the eye of the beholder, who decides what is stupid and what is wrong, and based on what?

Relativism is too often a badly throught out excuse for being a lazy, egoistical prick.

What office full of a 100 degenerate fucking assholes sees a guy viewing kiddy porn and doesn't call the cops?

brazzy:

"The Law" is still wrong:

And what sheep don't realize is that if the consensus is stupid, the law is still wrong. Having a majority of sheep feed into your every word doesn't make it right, it means that the majority are too ignorant and stupid to see otherwise.

So if morality is in the eye of the beholder, who decides what is stupid and what is wrong, and based on what?

Relativism is too often a badly throught out excuse for being a lazy, egoistical prick.

Oh hell, beaten to it.

You've got to admit that the imagery of a blind sheep, possibly associated with drinking moonshine during the Prohibition era (an interesting example of "consensus morality" being hijacked by a bunch of loonies, and thus hardly relevant to the topic at hand) is rather appealing, though.

Very Phil K Dick.

I'm still going with the Ayn Rand theory. But you could be right. He might just be a lazy, egotistical prick.

Perhaps it's not as bad as everybody is thinking...

Isn't a baby goat called a kid ?

babygoatsex.com

I've read this before...

TRWTF is that it took weeks before someone finally decided to complain. The first time he did it, the whole department should have acted en masse.
By not doing that, they deserved to be shouted at. Not reporting something of that nature is itself grounds for disciplinary action, and in many countries is probably illegal too.

Someone:

Second, kiddie porn is not very legal you know. And most people don't really like people who like to watch it.

Agreed. And those of us with small children, even less so. Human rights violations aside, I'd welcome the chance to experiment with power tools on said creeps. I do however trust in the system: those that are convicted, if not securely isolated, tend to meet tragic, but somewhat deserved, ends in prison.

George Nacht:

(I myself fear the day I am caught reading The Daily WTF).

The key is getting to know the guy in IT who oversees acceptable use policies and/or who admins the corporate web surfing proxy - TDWTF blocked? send it to them in a "hey, you gotta check this site out, its hilarious." email.

Godot:

I've read this before...

Hmm.. Perhaps it was in the sidebar? I mean, this is a "best of sidebar" article...

I have to say the "send him to jail" folks are missing something important. First of all, I fully agree that child molesters are nasty criminals, and that people who enslave children and force them to commit sex acts, on or off camera, are even worse.
However, the person in this case was (allegedly) *watching* kiddie porn. Certainly unacceptable in the workplace, but I am not convinced that *viewing* illegally created material is in and of itself a crime. (sort of like the **IAA trying to nail people for watching illegally copied DVDs).

The idiot who thinks (intentionally) looking at kiddie porn isn't a crime is a buffoon who I wish the worst possible evil and disaster upon.

Back to the post, this is obviously another one of those totally fake posts. Everyone at the company that knew about the kiddie port that didn't go to the police is just as likely to go to prison. In a civilized society normal people know that averting their eyes on felonies is a felony too.

Took only 3 weeks to get this WTF promoted from the sidebar to the front page. That speaks for itself.

I'm still laughing about that witty reply, really awesome.

cellocgw:

... I am not convinced that *viewing* illegally created material is in and of itself a crime. (sort of like the **IAA trying to nail people for watching illegally copied DVDs).

In several countries viewing child porn is illegal. The theory is that people who view child porn constitute a market for child porn, which would be an incentive for child molesters to make child porn.

cellocgw:

I have to say the "send him to jail" folks are missing something important. First of all, I fully agree that child molesters are nasty criminals, and that people who enslave children and force them to commit sex acts, on or off camera, are even worse.
However, the person in this case was (allegedly) *watching* kiddie porn. Certainly unacceptable in the workplace, but I am not convinced that *viewing* illegally created material is in and of itself a crime. (sort of like the **IAA trying to nail people for watching illegally copied DVDs).

I don't know about the US, but in many jurisdictions, possession of pornographic material involving minors is a crime.
Any company that does not excert swift justice in such cases is pretty f*cked up.
At any rate, alerting the police would be a good deed, as watching child pornography is in most cases a first step down the road for offenders...

cellocgw:

I have to say the "send him to jail" folks are missing something important. First of all, I fully agree that child molesters are nasty criminals, and that people who enslave children and force them to commit sex acts, on or off camera, are even worse.
However, the person in this case was (allegedly) *watching* kiddie porn. Certainly unacceptable in the workplace, but I am not convinced that *viewing* illegally created material is in and of itself a crime. (sort of like the **IAA trying to nail people for watching illegally copied DVDs).

People who purchase, download and watch kiddie porn are still commiting a crime and will be arrested. Granted, they get much more lenient sentances (only a few decades compared to a few lifetimes that the produces of kiddie porn get), but it's still a rather long time. People who watch kiddie porn tend to get longer sentances than people who commit some very egregious crimes, such as rape and manslaughter.

Disclaimer: This is all from memory from reading newspapers and watching the news. I have not researched this, nor do I have time to. If someone can show this is wrong through actual research (with links to said research), listen to them.

Addendum (2008-05-26 13:10):
I love how there were 4 responses saying more or less the same thing in the time it took me to write my post...
Touchy subject, isn't it?

i remember once seeing some porn with a teenager in it on the tech network. her brittle smile for the attention of the camera while she was vigerously violated by a man with an evil grin, it was truly horrific.

the juxtaposition of this euphamized article and that memory is...

well i think i'm better prepared for what i would do in this situation.

They should fire him. He should wait until he gets home before he does that.

With it being kiddie porn and not normal porn the police should have been called for starters.

Secondly the HR person giving the talk should have been formally complained about to the HR department. If someone accused me of downloading kiddie porn I would quite happily sue them.

Lastly the line was probably the best one they could have done, although I personally would have been tempted to hit the individual after their accusation of guilt by association.

tezoatlipoca:

Someone:

Second, kiddie porn is not very legal you know. And most people don't really like people who like to watch it.

I do however trust in the system: those that are convicted, if not securely isolated, tend to meet tragic, but somewhat deserved, ends in prison.

Ooooh yes. Pederasts will live their worst nightmares in Mexican federal prisons as soon as they go in. Thats for those who go in, however, some high-profile clerics have managed to elude that well-deserved fate.

tezoatlipoca:

George Nacht:

(I myself fear the day I am caught reading The Daily WTF).

The key is getting to know the guy in IT who oversees acceptable use policies and/or who admins the corporate web surfing proxy - TDWTF blocked? send it to them in a "hey, you gotta check this site out, its hilarious." email.

Um... I know of some places I've worked in that would actually block TDWTF as soon as it dawned what it is all about ... for fear of finding their own code posted there. Or some of their brillant (sic) practices.

Welcome to Clinton Nationalized Health Care:

Everyone at the company that knew about the kiddie port that didn't go to the police is just as likely to go to prison. In a civilized society normal people know that averting their eyes on felonies is a felony too.

Actually, no. You are correct in that title 18, §4 of the US code states that whoever conceals a felony are punishable (by fine or up to three years in prison). However, this requires active concealment, e.g. lying to the police or removing Web server logs.

But yes, it is downright immoral to not act...!

Every barrel has its bad apple. There are no apostrophes in possessive pronouns.

There's some great material for loaded questions in the article. "Do you watch excessive amounts of child pornography at work?" - "Hell, no!" - "So you do it after hours then?"

I wonder if it occurred to anyone that the original author might have meant something else by "kiddy porn" since 1. the colleagues tolerated is so long, 2. the management tolerated it multiple times, 3. he was not fired and police was not called ? Let me propose that the author was foreign and didn't really know what he was implying (or he is fortunate having no idea actual child porn really exists) and in reality it was some soft erotica.

But of course that wouldn't be dramatic enough to put on the best of sidebar. Alternatively, the "kiddy" aspect was added to the story in postproduction to boost the embellishment/drama.