Matthew's Journal

I actually find that a good example. Lots of fiction shows killing people in roughly that light. And it may cause social problems, but I don't think the film's actually saying "go out and kill people".

So how you understand "glorifying" or "advocating" really is crucial. Fiction could show something positively, but not necessarily actually advocate *doing* it -- eg. most violent movies, and some child abuse could fit in that category :( OTOH, fiction certainly *can* advocate things, I don't think Animal Farm is just talking about totalitarianism/Stalinism, I think it's saying "stop it if you can". (Of course, preventing repressive totalitarian regimes is not illegal and is very good, but you see the point.)

Eg. I didn't see "Death of a President", but I think Bush being assassinated was a metaphor or wish-fulfilment, not actually wanting it done. And shouldn't be banned. But if it had actually encouraged people to go and kill him, that would be advocating murder and *is* illegal.

So, I think the difference between the two is not just the difference in the crimes, but that I can't imagine someone talking about cycling without pedal reflectors almost certainly doesn't have an agenda, but the child abuse fiction might.

Of course, there are other potential reasons:

* The effort spent enforcing pedal-reflectors in fiction probably isn't worth it
* But preventing child abuse in fiction even if it only has a small reflection in reality, could be worth it because the results can be so bad
* But that only applies if someone is writing about it, but not actually saying you should do it (even if they want to), but that that itself is likely enough to cause problems, which may or may not be true...