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AUTHOR JOHN GRISHAM has said that prison sentences for people who look at child porn are too harsh.
Grisham (59) made the comments in an interview with the Telegraph.
The novellist said that America is jailing too many people for watching child abuse online.
“We have prisons now filled with guys my age. Sixty-year-old white men in prison who’ve never harmed anybody, would never touch a child.
But they got online one night and started surfing around, probably had too much to drink or whatever, and pushed the wrong buttons and went too far and got into child porn.
“These are people who haven’t hurt anybody. They deserve some type of punishment, whatever, but 10 years in prison?”
Grisham said that an old lawyer friend of his was jailed in Canada for three years after viewing pornographic images of underage girls while drunk.
It was 16-year-old girls who looked 30 … He shouldn’t have done it – it was stupid, but it wasn’t 10-year-old boys.
He added that he had “no sympathy” for “real peadophiles”, who deserve to be locked up.
Grisham is best known for penning legal thrillers The Pelican Brief, The Firm and A Time to Kill.
One in Four, which supports survivors of sexual abuse in Ireland, criticised the comments.
Executive Director Maeve Lewis said that Grisham’s assertion that “innocent middle-aged men stumble across such websites while under the influence of alcohol is not borne out by the international experience”.
“Across the world, most convictions for downloading images of child sexual abuse relate to people who have stored hundreds of these vile videos and photos on their computer and many of whom have shared such images with other sex offenders.
It is an added burden for the child victims that these images will be available on the web for all eternity and may continue to be circulated long after the child has grown up.
Lewis said that downloading images of sexual sex abuse can also be “a pathway for
the viewer to sexually abuse children in their own social network”.
She added that One in Four has seen “a marked increase” in the number of young sex offenders aged 18 – 25 attending their treatment programme.
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“This is why Snapchat fully deserves a €16 billion valuation” And yet the article doesn’t explain why Snapchat deserves a €16 billion valuation. Sure, I understand its potential revenue raising abilities. I understand its appeal to advertisers. I understand that it hosts a lot of personal information which would be invaluable to potential investors and advertisers. But why, exactly, is it €16 billion? Why not €15 billion? Or €1000 trillion? How did they arrive at a figure of €16 billion?
I think the headline means, “Snapchat has recently been valued at $16bn. Here’s why it’s so popular/unique”.
Yeah, but we know why it’s so popular and unique. We see articles about it every second day. If, at this stage, you don’t know about Snapchat’s popularity and uniqueness then the likelihood is you just don’t care, in which case you wouldn’t be reading this anyway. We have still to see how exactly the 16 billion figure was calculated, which I what the headline alludes to.
What I was saying above is that Snapchat has three major features that could be massive money spinners for them, and how it’s effectively become a multimedia platform as well, they’re the most quantifiable ones unless you’re privy to their future plans then fire away.
As for how a company is valued, that takes into a number of factors into consideration which would include money raised (so far, it’s raised $648m in 6 different funding rounds), current popularity, the potential for growth in both revenue and users, (which links to the last one but anyway), the value of the industry (instant messaging would be the obvious one, but it’s now become a media entity and has video on its side so that’s two, three if you include Snapchat Stories and its potential for widespread event), assets (both digital and physical), is it public or private, and so on.
Determining the exact reasons why it settled on $19/€16 billion to the point of a formula isn’t possible since you don’t know what factors they’re prioritising ahead of others. Also, when you’re dealing with a private company as unlike Facebook, Apple, Twitter or any other public company, they’ve no obligation to share details about their plans or forecasts to anyone.
In Snapchat’s case, it’s potential in three areas as I mentioned above: events, multimedia (it trying to become a Netflix-style entity for articles, music and TV), and payments/ecommerce as they’re the ones that have a massive influence on this valuation. Also the core psychological element of Snapchat of limitation (which is oddly overlooked and was the main reason I wrote this in the first place) is such a massive factor and that seeps into all of its features. If Snapchat was just about self-destructing photos/videos on its own, then it would have been overshadowed by Facebook Poke back in 2012 or accepted Facebook’s $3 offer back in 2013.
The discussions I’ve seen on the subject (on Twitter and other sites) only mention Discover as if that was the sole reasons behind such a high valuation. The main point above is that it’s rarely one factor that leads to that, (especially when it’s well-known), and it’s weird how other features are forgotten about just because they’re not as new or shiny as the latest thing (or the tired ‘sexting’ angle that’s peddled out regularly).
Give it 3 yrs and youll see all such companies worth a fraction of todays value, times they are a changin
I get all that. The fact still remains that the headline suggests that the accompanying article will explain exactly how the figure of 16 billion was reached. I was curious to know how they got that figure. And yet, I’m still none the wiser. Should it have a large valuation? Obviously the answer is yes, and you have explained that both in the article and your comment. But we’re still no closer to understanding the 16 billion valuation. Sorry, but I’m a stickler for this kind of thing. If you know how, then say it and let the headline reflect it. If you don’t, then don’t mislead the reader into thinking you do, only to leave the reader empty handed.
If everyone on snap chat had a super sweet party = 16 x the amount of willie photos ever sent = 16billion
On Sesame Street their number of the day is 16 x 1billion. Tomorrow it will be $43 Billion
I’d say the long term bet is when an analyst bets a pension fund on this.
I’d be nervous.
It could only ever be a trade sale to Google or the like …. Its a very limited product. If a pension fund manager bought snapchat, they should be sacked.
Nothing on this Earth deserves to be valued at €16 billion
So what’s your idea of a max cap value so Andy?
You haven’t seen my willy.
If I owned it I would sell now
Fapchat
It deserves about a 16 CENT valuation. It’s ridiculous, and hopefully a fad that will die quickly. If the world is lucky, some evil company will pay 16B, then go out of business when people realise how stupid Snapchat is.
Never seen such anger directed at a mobile phone application before! Got dumped via Snapchat did you? :-)
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