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[wierd]

Well, here... I bought the bullet... Here is one of the cultures that has child sex I mentioned.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/05/11/kenya.children.beading/index.html

[martinuzz]

*timidly puts on the 'that guy' hat*

Uhm... Not every culture adheres to the "No sexy with children" societal mores. I would google for some examples, but I am at work atm, and that is bad juju to do. (There are at least 3 that I have heard of, and they tend toward being "primitive", but they do exist. Historically, you have ancient greece, and a few others.)

This is not an endorsement, just a needed rupture of the echo chamber.

One of those countries would be the US, or at least the bible belt. Between 2000 and 2010, at least 250 thousand children were forced to marry in the US.
Cases like Sherry Johnson, from Florida, who in 1971 was not only forced to marry a 9 year older man, when she was 11, but that man was also the one who raped her and got her pregnant, are sadly not a thing of the past.
250 thousand children in the US met a similar fate between 2000 and 2010. Texas scores high, with 40 thousand child marriages occuring there. In Florida, about 16500 children got married. Most of these marriages aren't bewteen two children, but between an underage girl and an adult man.
Although the official minimum age to get married in most states is 18, the law is wide open for exceptions, and exceptions are often made, when parents consent, or a judge gives permission.

The problem is most persistent in orthodox religious communities, like christians, jews, hindus, muslims, and buddhists. In Republican states, there are more child marriages than in democrat states.

It is strange and unsettling to consider that in Afghanistan, the law is much more strict than in the US. The minimum age to get married there is 16, 15 if the father gives permission. But there's no exceptions possible below that age.
In a lot of US states, it is technically possible to get an exception to have a toddler get married to a 40 year old.

In Florida, where Sherry Johnson, now 58, still lives, the people are trying to change that. The state is in the process of making a new law that sets the minimum marriage age to 18, with extremely minimal possibilities for exception. Most of this is thanks to the hard work of child marriage victim Sherry Johnson.

The US ministry of foreign affairs considers child marriage as a breach of human rights, and combats it around the world by financially supporting aid organisations.
Yet, in their own country, there's plenty of conservative politicians that are outspoken about their opinion that a child that gets pregnant has to be forced to marry, because abortion and single motherhood are sinful.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/zij-moest-als-11-jarige-trouwen-met-haar-verkrachter-en-ze-is-in-de-vs-niet-de-enige~a4576509/

[Sheb]

This is more like if someone went up to another person and was like, "Hey, is murdering someone a bad thing to do?" I would not blame the second person for being suspicious of the first in this situation.

Maybe, but it would be more like "Do you personally think murdering is a bad thing to do?". Facebook is trying to collect data, not solicit advice from its users.

On it's own, collecting data is fine, but there is a difference between asking something sensible vs asking something which only has one answer, "Of fucking course not, no!". Not to mention what the law says.

It's not that simple. Facebook and other platforms is under a lot of pressure to control all kind of content, from racist hate speech and islamist propagando to, yes, child predator. It's not clear how they should go around prosecuting it, and who should get to choose who gets to police what kind of content.

[wierd]

Martinuz:

Not gonna deny it, the US has some screwed up state laws. (Or rather, things that are "technically legal", but only because there is no overt law against them--) It also has some screwed up catch 22s, that result in teens going to jail for statutory rape, when they play doctor with each other, or take nudies of themselves (to show to other teens.)

[SalmonGod]

Got any info in Buddhism's relation to childhood marriage?  I know what's going on with Abrahamic religion's stances on abortion and unwed mothers.  Don't know enough about Hindu to care.  But I've never heard of any Buddhist teaching even related to marriage.  A quick Google isn't turning up anything, either, other than sources saying Buddhist teaching has very little input on marriage.

[wierd]

I do not.  I dont actually go out of my way to learn about cultural practices that are wholly incompatible with my own, such as child sexuality.  I tend to find out about them "on the edges", looking up things that are fringe, but not THAT far over. That is to say, the material I am reading mentions or alludes to them, and then I am compelled to learn more-- but I dont just plop down on Google and go "hey google, what cultures consider it OK to have sex with prepubescent children?"

It is enough (For me) to know that such cultures exist, to make the question of Facebook (A multinational, and thus multicultural corporation catering to humans and their social interactions) asking such a difficult question get a squeemish 'That guy' response, rather than a righteous condemnation, such as SMJJames'.

[SalmonGod]

Previous post was directed at martinuzz, since he mentioned Buddhism by name, but my impression is it was a careless shotgunning of whatever major religions he could think of off the top of his head on the assumption that they're all the same.

[martinuzz]

No, I was just translating a Volkskrant article, which specifically mentions Buddhism. They're not really a newspaper to 'careless shotgun' whatever religion they can think of. I'm sure they have based their article on US research.

[Maximum Spin]

I'm sure they have based their article on US research.

Yeah, uh, I hate to tell you this, but those claims are just straight false.

[martinuzz]

Which claims exactly? The numbers of US child marriages between 2000 and 2010 are from US non-profit organistation Unchained At Last.
Research is scarce on the subject, it's a hidden problem because of taboos.
http://www.unchainedatlast.org/

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/feb/06/it-put-an-end-to-my-childhood-the-hidden-scandal-of-us-child-marriage

EDIT: NB, the author of the Guardian article is the same person as the author of the Volkskrant article.

[Sheb]

I'm sure they have based their article on US research.

Yeah, uh, I hate to tell you this, but those claims are just straight false.

Source?

[Maximum Spin]

In particular, all US states have a minimum marriage age of at least 18. The fact that exceptions are permitted if you can convince a judge (which is hardly "wide-open to exceptions", and the comment about it being technically possible for a toddler to marry a 40-year-old shows that the source doesn't understand the principles of common law — in the US, in principle, anything is technically possible if you can convince enough judges) is true, but martinuzz' phrasing implies that some states have a statutory minimum less than 18. The exception principle is also a good thing since even crazy single-issue nonprofit Unchained at Last admits that not all or even most underage marriages are forced. The number martinuzz stated, also, of "at least 250 thousand children" is clearly impossible — Unchained at Last, a biased source if there ever was one, was only able to find 167,000 underage (note: not child, as this includes marriages of 17-year-olds to 18-year-olds) marriages over that same ten-year period and "estimated" (read: pulled a number out of their ass) only that there were about 248,000 total including those they don't know about.

And as for Buddhism, Buddhists are actively discouraged from marrying or having children at all, as it is considered a form of attachment that is harmful to enlightenment.

ETA: I see you expanded your post asking which claims since I read it. Let me add that there really aren't any particular taboos against discussing or researching this in the majority of the US! Anyone who claims to have been discouraged from researching it is probably lying, because marriages are a matter of public record. Furthermore, since you've clearly seen Unchained at Last, I'm surprised that you didn't notice that they directly contradict your numbers. Moreover, while marriages of actual children have happened, a few records being found with girls as young as 10 and boys as young as 11, they are extremely rare, and I'm not convinced that this needs to be made illegal anyway.

[martinuzz]

In particular, all US states have a minimum marriage age of at least 18.

The Guardian and the Volkskrant disagree. They definitly write 'most US states, not 'all US states'.

In most US states, the minimum age for marriage is 18. However, in every state exceptions to this rule are possible, the most common being when parents approve and a judge gives their consent. In 25 states, there is no minimum marriage age when such an exception is made. But now Johnson’s home state, Florida, is poised to pass a law that sets the minimum marriage age at 18 with very few exceptions – thanks largely to her campaigning.

[Maximum Spin]

In particular, all US states have a minimum marriage age of at least 18.

The Guardian and the Volkskrant disagree. They definitly write 'most US states, not 'all US states'.

Then they're wrong, or, more likely, being deliberately misleading because two US states have a minimum marriage age that is higher than 18 (so it is true that only some states have a minimum marriage age of 18), and that enables them to imply to readers that some states have a lower marriage age without falsely stating that.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Before this tangles up any worse, nominal minimum age is 18 in 48 states, 19 in Nebraska, and 21 in Mississippi. Younger marriages are wholly the province of approval by a judge.