Black Mirror : Shut Up and Dance

Can anyone tell me how could "they" possibly prove the connection between the kid masturbating and the children photos? I mean OK the laptop camera recorded him masturbating, but could not possibly record what he was masturbating to.

I've seen another trend here, asking for suggestions for the worst episode. Haven't seen the last 3 yet, but until now this is definitely the worst. :(

They had control of his whole computer, not just the camera, so yes they could prove what he was looking at. They could have easily saved, recorded or taken screenshots of the kiddie pics. Why do so many people not understand this?

Additioinally, it doesn't even matter either. EVERYTHING they stored or saved, can be manipulated to frame them in any way they wanted. "Photoshopped"

True, but then the whole idea of the movie goes out the window. In that case anyone can be blackmailed with anything, whether they've done it or not, so there's no longer anything special about the movie.

it's special because it's real.

if someone faked a video of me and told me to rob a bank i would call the police.

if someone did that to you and it was fake would you not fight it?

blackmail only works if the person being blackmail is legitimately more fearful of the blackmail than the actions they are being blackmailed to do. you can't fabricate that fear with fake evidence.

Precisely, all through the movie I was thinking "It's just masturbation, I won't get an armed robbery charge just for masturbating" but then discover exactly what he was masturbating over and it makes sense. Also at the bit where Jerome Flynn is saying how he loves his kids and how he'd die if anything happened to them, it now makes you realise just why Kenny was so panicked in the car during that part of the conversation. He knew that if he had told Jerome what he had been masturbating over then Jerome probably would have battered him to death there and then with a tire iron.



Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. -Isaac Asimov

I'm not sure he was masturbating to kids.

We (all those many dumb people) understand that they had control over the computer and could have done anything they wanted.

The question (which apparently you didn't understand :-) was how could they possibly prove that. Having a video with someone masturbating (or simply looking at a screen, for example) in one hand and a bunch of pictures/videos off the Internet in the other hand does not prove any connection between the 2.

Not in a simple online publishing, anyway. A forensics team, having the laptop at hand, that would be a different story

Haven't you ever seen a video where it's a split screen, with the person being recorded by the camera on one side, and the screen they are looking at on the other? The hackers could have easily done that. I doubt a scared teenager would think to try and deny the authenticity of it as a defense. Also, if they hacked in, they have his IP address and internet search history, and could have easily used that to expose him.

they don't need to prove it to the kid. the kid knows it's real cause he did it.

they don't need to prove it to his friends and family either. they either believe it because of other clues they've witnessed in the past or they don't believe it.

they don't need to prove it to the cops, they just need one person to be slightly interested in getting the cops to investigate. in which case your "different story" would than take place.

who exactly do you think the hackers have to prove it to?

i guess i am one of those who didnt get it, i was little distracted, despite good actors still it was just too slow of an episode. so all those people, including kid were pedophiles? so they were looking at kids pictures, i mean i am not into it but its not illegal or anything right? it shouldn't be anyone's concern who masturbates on what specific fantasy. until you kidnap children it shouldn't be anyone's business what you do indoors

i thought Waldo was worst episode but actually this one is. and last thing. just dont negotiate with terrorists/blackmailers/[insert anyone who forces you to do anything]. they just need to understand this so they dont make episodes like this and the one with pig

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so all those people, including kid were pedophiles?

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no, only the kid and the guy he fought and killed at the end.

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so they were looking at kids pictures, i mean i am not into it but its not illegal or anything right?

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yes it is. it's illegal to produce, distribute and possess child pornography in basically every advanced country in the world. it most certainly is in the UK and the US.

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it shouldn't be anyone's concern who masturbates on what specific fantasy. until you kidnap children it shouldn't be anyone's business what you do indoors

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it's a concern because children can not consent to make child pornography. if someone wants to masturbate to real rape videos and pays to have those videos made should that be anyone's concern? all child porn is real (if we don't get into the discussion of animation).

if you're paying/coercing someone to abuse children that's of concern to me.

The reason is that production goes by demand. Of course viewing child porn isn't hurting the child directly, the damage has already been done. But if you can stop let's say like 80% of pedophiles from obtaining child pornography by penalizing it then there will be produced way less of it since the "market is saturated". That's the reason, to protect children from being harmed not to punish people for their sexual orientation.

it's not the viewing that's a crime, it's the possession of the material that's a crime. i don't know if streaming counts as possession, have to ask a lawyer.

slippery slope is not an argument.

it's illegal to possess nuclear materials and biochemical weapons. should people be able to possess everything?

its important to notice that i have problem with restriction of information. not anything else

so this whole law seems to be based on slippery slope. its only related to child abuse indirectly

i guess its no surprise though. government had restricted us from having access to classified information for ages. i guess with child abuse they are more right than with other things. just every time they deny us certain information it seems like slippery slope is becoming even more steep

child porn is not classified information.

lexob9, I don't know if you were serious with this comment. I find it hard to believe that anybody doesn't understand why there are laws against child porn. But just in case you were being serious, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

If somebody watches children having sex, either with adults or with other children, that means that, short of CGI or puppets, a child actually performed a sexual act to make that video. Children aren't naturally sexual beings, which implies that somebody either forced or coerced the child, which is child abuse. Child sexual abuse inevitably leaves the child with emotional issues and difficulty forming relationships and trusting people in adult life, and some become child abusers themselves. By watching an act of child abuse online, a person is directly or indirectly supporting the abuser or the network of abusers who supplied the video.

By making the viewing of child porn a crime, police have the power to seize the viewer's computers and equipment to help them track down networks of child abusers and thereby protect their current and future victims.

I'm gobsmacked this had to be explained but well put.

Yeah, it's pretty messed up that anyone has to explain why child porn is illegal and immoral, but you did a good job.

Also, as to some people saying this episode is slow or bad, I could not disagree more. It was almost unbearably tense (in the best way) and was, in my opinion, the best episode of the season three, and one of the best of the whole show. Again, that's just me; I realize this episode is one of the more polarizing episodes of the show.

Peter, is your social worker in that horse?

Thank you and I agree, this is my favourite episode of Black Mirror so far. The episode has a point to make, but you have to find it yourself and decide what that point is. It doesn't shove the message in the viewer's face like some episodes do.

For me the themes of the episode are:
Don't cooperate with blackmailers (as National Anthem also shows)
How far would you go to hide your darkest secret?
The sliding scale of the wrongs of paedophilia. Kenny hadn't ever harmed a child, so should he be painted with the same brush as somebody who had?
Vigilantism, and the morality of ruining somebody's life. As with White Bear, we can ask; Are these methods of punishment ever justified?

The number of opinions and discussions this episode can lead to is endless, as can be seen on this message board.

There's nothing to say whether he has or hasn't harmed a child. The foreshadowing at the beginning suggests if he isnt already he was slowly becoming a predator

Are you fcking kidding me? Kids are being harmed during the process of making child porn, against their will and will likely mess them up for the rest of their lives and you're concerned about the "rights" of the viewer and calling it an "intrusive law"?

Honestly, this is an argument only a pedophile would make.

Totally agree with you Charlotte. Some of the comments and opinions on this thread are EXTREMELY concerning.

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no, only the kid and the guy he fought and killed at the end.

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Are you sure about that?

It's not said what the moped delivery guy did and Hector could've lied about meeting a 20-something prostitute. He could very well have been trying to meet up with a minor.

The only clues towards what you said are that both Hector and Moped Man got off 'easy'. but besides that I don't think it's clear what they did exactly.

Maybe I missed something?

Wasn't someone from the family yelling at the guy in the end, saying "What are you now, a pervert" or something like that? I thought that was a pretty clear indication that they were all doing the same thing.

Yes - I'm pretty sure that all of them were pedos except the lady CEO - she was 'just' a racist.

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Some people consider looking at regular porn or being gay as perverted, so this doesn't really mean anything.

The whole scene was a complete chaos, everyone was yelling and it really seemed like something big happened. I doubt the whole family would be that upset just because he was was watching porn.

But I also doubt they'd just call him a pervert for looking at child porn. It's OBVIOUS that only Kenny and the other guy were pedophiles and that's why they were tormented more, up until they had to fight and have the cops called on them. The racist CEO wasn't as morally wrong so she was just exposed and wasn't tormented too much, same with the father who was "only" cheating on his wife so his punishment wasn't as bad.

To be honest I'm quite surprised at how bad people are at understanding any narrative. There are still people who question whether Kenny actually looked at child porn. Come on guys.

First off, I feel like you're just trying to gage is what you personally do is illegal lol.. If you don't know that looking at kiddy porn is illegal, then you really need to stop looking at kiddy porn for one, and brush up on your laws, secondly..

Please don't refer to this as 'kiddy porn', it is nothing less than CHILD ABUSE. This thread is making me feel sick. I work with survivors.

Did you go to special school?
yes of course it's illegal to watch CHILD pornography. who do you think is in the pictures/videos?

This episode needed to be seen.. If this made you feel uncomfortable, then it probably needed to be seen by you.. Another thing, this was the slowest thing from slow paced.. It was one of the most tension filled episodes of anything, I've ever watched on Tv This show seems a little too mature for you!

Furthest thing*

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just dont negotiate with terrorists/blackmailers/[insert anyone who forces you to do anything].

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Oh, that's a fantastic movie clich. It probably works in real life too, wouldn't it?

So what was the alternative? Going to the police and let them know you're being blackmailed by a group of people that know you were watching child pornography?

Probably worth a try before you rob a bank/fight a man to death. Have them try to proof their caseor they won't bacause they don't want to get in the open.

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Probably worth a try before you rob a bank/fight a man to death.

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It's pretty obvious that from the protagonist's perspective, it was better to rob a bank than being publicly known as a pedophile. Also, it clearly wasn't easy to do it in the first place. The twist at the end made all of the internal conflict during those scenes a lot better.

Also, before the fight he did try to kill himself. The only reason he killed the other guy at that point was because the other guy attacked him.

many governments have already adopted that policy long time ago so that works in real life too

and btw i read all your replies and well done guys. good bunch of SJWs you are. hold the line like that. what you going to do? give me 0 rating?

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and btw i read all your replies and well done guys. good bunch of SJWs you are. hold the line like that. what you going to do? give me 0 rating?

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lol What???

Obviously you are from a place that places no value on children. A horrible human that thinks anything goes as long as you don't kidnap a baby. Please tell us where you live so someone can investigate. It's not illegal. Right?

obviously you are a moron but here i am still surviving these news, so you'll survive reading this too, considering boards are closing so this wont be available much longer to overload your brain

I disagree with this being the worst episode. It was excellent and disturbing in a different way.

They had his hard drive.. Remember the scene in the car before the bank robbery when the guy said "they have everything in my hard drive.. There's no cure for the internet", and you notice Kenny starting to wiggle around, even more nervous.. He knew they had more than him just masturbating

Can we please STOP with the term child 'porn'. It is child ABUSE.

of course it's abuse but the police call it child pornography it doesn't matter what the name is anyone who has a semblance of intelligence knows it's abuse. Its severely disturbing that that poster isn't aware that it's disgusting, abusive and illegal

Those are two different things. I understand the urge to escalate the language, but if one gets so sloppy with using the terms, it will be impossible to differentiate. E.g. if you record your children playing doctor, it is not child abuse, but can still be child porn. If CG characters are used, it is still child porn, but no child abuse takes place. If all child porn gets deleted, the abuse still took place, as it cannot be deleted. For those reasons it is important to have different terms for different issues and not to throw the ability to communicate away just to show how much a topic enrages you.

The video file was only 23 seconds long. poor kid. Also this episode was a lot like the movie nerve, minus Emma roberts