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Anderson Cooper took aim at the popular Web site "reddit" Thursday on "Anderson Cooper 360°," questioning whether the online community is illegally promoting sexually-charged images of presumably underage girls.
"We begin tonight's 'Keeping Them Honest' with the possibility that somebody, somewhere is looking at sexually suggestive images of your child," Cooper said, explaining that reddit is "part of one of the most respected publishing empires on earth."
(Until recently, reddit was a division of Conde Nast, and they now share the same corporate parent.)
reddit's content is user generated: Subscribers post links to stories and images for other users to vote on, and the most popular links are featured on the front page. As Cooper explained, reddit also has special interest sub-categories called "subreddits." One of these subreddits -- "Jailbait" -- was the subject of Cooper's inquiry.
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"Let that sink in for just a moment: Jailbait," Cooper said.
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"The ephebophile subreddit," as it is called, features user submitted photos of young women (and presumably girls) in various state of undress. (No nude photography is permitted on reddit). Perhaps more disturbing is the subreddit's headline: "Keep a teen off the streets -- put her in your van!"
Cooper acknowledged the rules and restrictions that prevented people from sharing personal, identifying information on the reddit. But "it doesn't say 'don't take some kid's Facebook photo' or 'don't put your girlfriend's bikini shots online.' It doesn't say anything like that," he pointed out.
Cooper contacted reddit CEO Eric Marden, who responded with the statement: "We're a free speech site and the cost of that is there's offensive stuff on there...Once we start taking down some things we find offensive, then we're no longer a free speech site and no longer a platform for everyone. We're exerting editorial control and that's not what we are."
Cooper invited two legal commentators to weigh in on whether reddit is violating any laws by permitting the questionable content.
"I didn't see anything illegal on there," said Jeffrey Toobin, legal analyst for CNN and The New Yorker. "The pictures of the girls...it's hard to tell how old they are. Many of them are clearly older than 16,17,18, some of them are probably younger, but all of them are clothed. I don't think there's any issue of kiddie porn, any issue with illegality. Is it in good taste? Is it appropriate for...the company to be involved? That's a very different question."
Sunny Hostin, legal contributor to "In Session" on TruTV, disagreed.
"I think it's borderline kiddie porn...The First Amendment doesn't protect child porn, so they're really straddling that line. And also, even if they aren't, don't we want them to be good corporate citizens? What happened to decency? What happened to corporations doing the right thing?
"I looked at a lot of the pictures," she continued, "and I thought they were very close to the child porn line."
Both analysts agreed that reddit may be hiding behind the First Amendment to dodge accountability for offensive and possibly illegal content.
