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.

Let that sink in for just a moment: Jailbait, Cooper said.

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.

The idea that they have no control over their posters, that's simply wrong, Toobin said.

A look at reddit Friday indicates that many redditors saw Cooper's show: Multiple posts address the segment, and a suprising number of users have posted images of Cooper's face photoshopped onto bikini-clad female bodies.

I didn't even know this subreddit existed. Thanks Anderson Cooper! one redditor wrote.

Could someone rip the soundbite of Anderson Cooper saying 'keep a teen off the streets -- put her in your van' and make it so when you click on the banner on r/jailbait, it plays that soundbite? another wrote.

But not every redditor thinks it is a big joke.

Jailbait is the subreddit I have encountered that really makes me detest the hypocrisy on reddit, a subscriber wrote. Whenever there's a submission related to child abuse or whatever, Redditors swarm for the Karma. Complain about sexually suggestive images of children on reddit, and they suddenly become Captain America with their defense of the First Amendment.

Firstly, not all of us are Americans and give a sh*t about your perverted sense of free speech. I have witnessed redditors get more worked up discussing movie tastes than the sickening shit on jailbait. Secondly, can anything objectionable be posted, no matter who is exploited or hurt?

Some redditors are calling for Jailbait to be shut down.

I loved this site until I learned about the Jailbait thing, said one. I strongly disagree with the whole concept of that section of Reddit, and think that Reddit tacitly approves of pedophilia by keeping it active. I am not a Christian right wing nutcase. Seriously, AMA if you have the balls. I want to see well thought out opinions on the topic, and I am fully capable of being swayed by your (potential) logic on the matter.

As Jezebel reported, 'Jailbait' was shot down, briefly, in August. Not because it's disgusting, but because of an internal power struggle between moderators and site administrators, the article said.

Watch the Anderson Cooper 360º segment here:

What do you think? Is 'Jailbait' a constitutionally protected forum, or is it illegally promoting child pornography?

Facebook Facebook Facebook Reddit