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0 pointsjenadine2y ago0 comments

> although CSAM has proliferated with the growth of the internet

Do you know if actual child abuse also proliferated?

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4 comments · 2 top-level

anigbrowl2y ago· 2 in thread

That's a different question, isn't it? Maybe you should explore it on its own rather than letting it distract from the issue under discussion.

AnthonyMouse2y ago

It is the issue under discussion. The justification for prohibiting the material is that its production requires child abuse. But copying doesn't require additional production. It may have even gone down if dissemination of existing images competes with new production, or wider dissemination makes it easier for law enforcement to obtain the images and use them to track down the producers. Whether or not the amount of abuse increased is then quite relevant.

anigbrowl2y ago

No, the issue is the proliferation of CSAM. Reducing child abuse in CSAM production is only one of the reasons its prohibited. I find it hard to believe that a long time technology advocate like yourself is unaware of the fact that the circulation of older CSAM continues to hurt people who were abused in its manufacture.

Your comment unfortunately exemplifies the problem of tech people trying to define the problem away rather than directly address the harms involved or propose privacy-respecting technical solutions to proactively mitigate it.

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nforgerit2y ago

That's another absurd point about our public debates: No one cares to share some facts. It feels like it's all based on gut feeling and emotions.

As far as I know, we don't have official numbers (at least not shared as part of the discussion). But what we know is, those scanners have a significantly high error rate and will overwhelm law enforcement with false-positives. What we also know is that law enforcement is simply not competent enough, there was a case in Germany where they just removed links in a Forum forgetting to sweep the according link targets to file hosters.

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