Stanford researchers find Mastodon has a massive child abuse material problem
theverge.com
Not a good look for Mastodon - what can be done to automate the removal of CSAM?
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Not a good look for Mastodon - what can be done to automate the removal of CSAM?
Stopped reading.
Child abuse laws "exclude anime" for the same reason animal cruelty laws "exclude lettuce." Drawings are not children.
Drawings are not real.
Half the goddamn point of saying CSAM instead of CP is to make clear that Bart Simpson doesn't count. Bart Simpson is not real. It is fundamentally impossible to violate Bart Simpson's rights, because he doesn't fucking exist. There is nothing to protect him from. He cannot be harmed. He is imaginary.
This cannot be a controversial statement. Anyone who can't distinguish fiction from real life has brain problems.
You can't rape someone in MS Paint. Songs about murder don't leave a body. If you write about robbing Fort Knox, the gold is still there. We're not about to arrest Mads Mikkelsen for eating people. It did not happen. It was not real.
If you still want to get mad at people for jerking off to the wrong fantasies, that is an entirely different problem from photographs of child rape.
Oh, wait, Japanese in the other comment, now I get it. This conversation is a about AI Loli porn.
Pfft, of course, that's why no one is saying the words they mean, because it suddenly becomes much harder to take the stance since hatred towards Loli Porn is not universal.
I mean, I think it's disgusting, but I don't think it should be illegal. I feel the same way about cigarettes, 2 girls 1 cup, and profane language. It's absolutely not for me, but that shouldn't make it illegal.
As long as there's no victim, knock yourself out with whatever disgusting, weird stuff you're into.
You should keep reading then, because they cover that later.
What does that even mean?
There's nothing to "cover." They're talking about illustrations of bad things, alongside actual photographic evidence of actual bad things actually happening. Nothing can excuse that.
No shit they are also discussing actual CSAM alongside... drawings. That is the problem. That's what they did wrong.
Okay, thanks for the clarification
Everyone except you still very much includes drawn & AI pornographic depictions of children within the basket of problematic content that should get filtered out of federated instances so thank you very much but I'm not sure your point changed anything.
They are not saying it shouldn't be defederated, they are saying reporting this to authorities is pointless and that considering CSAM is harmful.
Everybody understands there's no real kid involved. I still don't see an issue reporting it to authorities and all the definitions of CSAM make a point of including simulated and illustrated forms of child porn.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography
Definitions of CSAM definitely do not include illustrated and simulated forms. They do not have a victim and therefore cannot be abuse. I agree that it should not be allowed on public platforms, hence why all instances hosting it should be defederated. Despite this, it is not illegal, so reporting it to authorities is a waste of time for you and the authorities who are trying to remove and prevent actual CSAM.
CSAM definitions absolutely include illustrated and simulated forms. Just check the sources on the wikipedia link and climb your way up, you'll see "cartoons, paintings, sculptures, ..." in the wording of the protect act
They don't actually need a victim to be defined as such
That Wikipedia broader is about CP, a broader topic. Practically zero authorities will include illustrated and simualated forms of CP in their definitions of CSAM
I assumed it was the same thing, but if you're placing the bar of acceptable content below child porn, I don't know what to tell you.
That's not what I was debating. I was debating whether or not it should be reported to authorities. I made it clear in my previous comment that it is disturbing and should always be defederated.
Ah. It depends on the jurisdiction the instance is in
Mastodon has a lot of lolicon shit in japan-hosted instances for that reason
Lolicon is illegal under US protect act of 2003 and in plenty of countries
What's the point of reporting it to authorities? It's not illegal, nor should it be because there's no victim, so all reporting it does is take up valuable time that could be spent tracking down actual abuse.
It's illegal in a lot of places including where I live.
In the US you have the protect act of 2003
Linked to the obscenity doctrine
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1466A
Wow, that's absolutely ridiculous, thanks for sharing! That would be a very unpopular bill to get overturned...
I guess it fits with the rest of the stupidly named bills. It doesn't protect anything, it just prosecutes undesirable behaviors.
I don't think there's anything ridiculous about it. Lolicon should be illegal.
Why? Who is the victim?
There's no definite conclusion on whether consuming and distributing lolicon content could lead some individuals to seek out or create explicit content involving real children
If they rule that out entirely through the scientific method one day, then I'll join your side
Weebs usually respond to that "Well that's like saying video games cause violence!" so I'll jump ahead of you, that would be like saying we should forbid Lolicon videogames in a society that already has lolicon books, lolicon movies, lolicon cartoons and where history classes mostly cover instances of countries showing lolicon to each other. That's not the situation we're in, and even if it was, it's still not necessarily comparable. Sexual urges have properties that violence doesn't share.
Yeah, I'd definitely like more research on the topic. I imagine it's a correlative relationship, but not causal (as in, pedos disproportionately also like loli, but enjoying loli won't likely make you a pedo), but I don't have much to go on there.
What I do know is that most reports of "gateway" behaviors end up being false. For example, smoking weed isn't going to push you toward harder drugs, but people who may be interested in harder drugs will likely start with weed. The same goes for violent video games, gambling, prostitution, etc. Each of those things can be used in a healthy way, so imo they should not be illegal.
But I don't have a high quality study to back it up. I'm completely willing to concede if the science shows otherwise.
If you don't think images of actual child abuse, against actual children, is infinitely worse than some ink on paper, I don't care about your opinion of anything.
You can be against both. Don't ever pretend they're the same.
Step up the reading comprehension please
I understand what you're saying and I'm calling you a liar.
You mean to say I'm wrong or you actually mean liar?
'Everyone but you agrees with me!' Bullshit.
'Nobody wants this stuff that whole servers exist for.' Self-defeating bullshit.
'You just don't understand.' Not an argument.
Okay, the former then.
Let's just think about it, how do you think it would turn out if you went outside and asked anyone about pornographic drawings of children? How long until you find someone who thinks like you outside your internet bubble?
"Nobody wants this stuff that whole servers..."
There are also servers dedicated to real child porn with real children too. Do you think that argument has any value with that tidbit of information tacked onto it?
Ask a stranger about anything pornographic and see how it goes.
This is rapidly going from pointless to stupid. Suffice it to say: stop pretending drawings are ever as bad as actual child abuse.
Oh it will go much different if the pork doesn't involve depuctions of children.
I don't care what you think. Stop equating drawings with rape.
Step up the reading comprehension please
Insult-dribbling troll repeats failed deflection.
Doesn't work this time either.
Just stop lying about this topic. It's kind of important.
Hey, just because someone has a stupid take on one subject doesn't mean they have a stupid take on all subjects. Attack the argument, not the person.
Some confused arguments reveal confused people. Some terrible arguments reveal terrible people. For example: I don't give two fucks what Nazis think. Life's too short to wonder which subjects they're not facile bastards about.
If someone's motivation for making certain JPEGs hyper-illegal is "they're icky" - they've lost benefit of the doubt. Because of their decisions, I no longer grant them that courtesy.
Demanding pointless censorship earns my dislike.
Equating art with violence earns my distrust.
Perhaps. But pretty much everyone has a stupid take on something.
There's obviously a limit there, but most people can be reasoned with. So instead of jumping to a conclusion, attempt a dialogue first until they prove that they can't be reasoned with. This is especially true on SM where, even if you can't convince the person you're talking with, you may just convince the next person to come along.
Telling someone why they're a stupid bastard for the sake of other people is not exactly a contradiction. You know what doesn't do observers any good? "Debating" complete garbage, in a way that lends it respect and legitimacy. Sometimes you just need to call bullshit.
Some bullshit is so blatant that it's a black mark against the bullshitter.
Sure, and I don't think that's the case here. If someone is literally arguing that a certain race should be exterminated that's one thing (report, down vote, block, and move on), but someone arguing that lolicon is just as bad as CP is something completely different entirely.
I'm just arguing that it's generally better to have the conversation than to completely shut them out. I really hate cancel culture, so I will always call out anything that seems similar. I believe in letting people explain themselves, to an extent, and my limit is if they're actively promoting real harm to actual people (e.g. encouraging violence against some group).
Someone arguing child rape is only as bad as drawing Bart Simpson naked is some kind of fucked up.
As other subthreads should thoroughly demonstrate - I don't have to respect someone, to call them out. A position you recently endorsed. The end of polite and civil discussion between equals doesn't mean the yelling has stopped.
I'm not saying you shouldn't call them out, in fact I'm 100% in favor of calling out BS. What I'm saying is to not shut down the conversation if the other side is willing to explain themselves or open to learning more.
One thing I absolutely loved about Reddit was joining communities where I was a minority and having a good faith discussion with someone I wasn't ideologically aligned with. A lot of times I got completely shut down, but sometimes I had really good discussions and better understood the other side's perspective.
So all I'm saying is you (and everyone here honestly) should seek to enable that kind of discussion instead of just stopping at the first sign of disagreement. Someone saying lolicon is as harmful as CP is probably just misinformed.
I have yet to see that, because I make a solid effort to have polite and civil discussion and I usually get it reciprocated.
If you're aggressive, you'll get aggressiveness back, but if you're inquisitive and polite, you'll likely get the same in return. Some people can't be reasoned with, but I have found that many are open to hearing other perspectives, provided I go out of my way to be polite.
The guy here saying CSAM and drawings are the same keeps insisting he's not saying that and then immediately saying it again. I'm still here calling him a stupid bastard. As often as he needs to hear it. Again: if you're worried about the thread stopping, I am not your concern. But I'm not about to give dolts like that some undue fair shake, after the fifth time they sneer "reading comprehension!" in response to rubbing their nose in the inescapable meaning of the words they keep saying.
Sometimes you get assholes no matter what you say.
That's not why I value blunt honesty, in some contexts, but it's a counter to the most common criticism of blunt honesty. Bending over backwards to appease unreasonable people is worse to do and worse to read than someone barging in to accurately and lucidly call bullshit.
I'm responding to this comment you made earlier ITT, emphasis mine:
It's quite an extreme position to me to completely shut someone out because they hold a relatively popular opinion (e.g. lolicon and CP are treated under the same federal statute in the US). You constructed a strawman (they didn't say they were equivalent), and then you jumped to saying you don't care about their opinion about anything because of it. That's ridiculous and unnecessarily inflammatory.
I'm not saying you should try to appease everyone, just that you should consider toning things down a bit and inquire instead of accuse. If we want a polite and civil discourse, everyone needs to make an effort. I certainly try, and I respectfully ask that you do the same.
What you're asking for is what I'm very obviously doing, here. Again: "shutting someone out" does not mean the talking stops. I am almost pathologically inclined to continue bickering with someone, for the sake of a potential audience.
This ding-dong's false equivalence is equally obvious. They've contradicted their contrary insistence within the same sentence as some of those insistences. Most recently they've blamed it on the laws where this study took place. Last I checked... Stanford is in California. American laws do not say diddly fuck about drawings of Bart Simpson's dick. There's public-facing sites where you could find one in a heartbeat. The FBI is not out a-hunting them. Their legal troubles will mostly come from the Walt Disney Corporation.
Not that any country's laws could possibly make child... sexual abuse... materials... somehow include computer renderings of fictional characters.
Why is that the highest goal?
The creeping demand for "civility" above all else is a detriment to conversational honesty. That doesn't mean anything-goes. Screaming escalations and blatant trolling are not the same thing as identifying bullshit and saying 'that's bullshit.' Saying so is not polite or civil, but surely it's important. Rules saying otherwise have been a gift to bullshitters. Moderation never comes down hard and fast enough on their fallacies, abuse, and manipulation, compared to how mods pounce on direct call-outs. Even in language and tone that would scarcely raise eyebrows face-to-face. As if 'do you still beat your wife' is ambiguous, but 'hey, get bent' is inexcusable.
Long ago and far away, the point of reference was a cocktail party.
Most forums are not debate clubs, or kindergartens, or any other equivalent scenario where a quiet 'what are you fucking talking about' would get someone ejected. They're indoor-voice banter. Constructive, ideally, and sober enough to side with well-spoken rationale over ingroup posturing... but somewhere that 'here's why you're wrong, jackass' will be judged on 'why' more than on 'jackass.'
And sometimes the person you're talking to is obviously drunk or stupid or both, but you can keep calmly telling them how they're wrong about everything that comes out of their mouth. Debate is not what's happening. Civility won't help. But you can keep it reasonable, and frankly, that's better.
He invented the stupid take he's fighting against. Nobody equated "ink on paper" with "actual rape against children".
The bar to cross to be filtered out of the federation isn't rape. Lolicon is already above the threshold, it's embarrassing that he doesn't realize that.
I don't think the OP ever said the bar was rape, the OP said the article and the person they responded to are treating drawn depictions of imaginary children the same as depictions of actual children. Those are not the same thing at all, yet many people seem to combine them (apparently including US law as of the Protect Act of 2003).
Some areas make a distinction (e.g. Japan and Germany), whereas others don't. Regardless of the legal status in your area, the two should be treated separately, even if that means both are banned.
“treating them the same” => The threshold for being refused entry into mainstream instances is just already crossed at the lolicon level.
From the perspective of the fediverse, pictures of child rape and lolicon should just both get you thrown out. That doesn’t mean you’re “treating them the same”. You’re just a social network. There's nothing you can do above defederating.
No, more like "treating them the same" => how the data is reported in the study. Whether they're both against the TOS of the instance you're on is a separate issue entirely, the problem is the data doesn't separate the two categories.
Look elsewhere ITT about that exact perspective. Even the US law (Protect Act of 2003) treats them largely the same (i.e. in the same sentence), and includes other taboo topics like bestiality, even if no actual animals are involved.
It's completely fine for neither to be allowed on a social network, what isn't okay is for research to conflate the two. An instance inconsistently removing lolicon is a very different thing from an instance inconsistently removing actual CP, yet the article combines the two, likely to make it seem like a much worse problem than it is.
That's an arbitrary decision to make and doesn't really need to be debated
The study is pretty transparent about what "CSAM" is under their definition and they even provide pictures, from a science communication point of view they're in the clear
And their definition kind of sucks. They're basically saying it's anything that SafeSearch or PhotoDNA flags, or something that has hashtag hits.
That said, there's absolutely some terrible things on Mastodon, including grooming and trading. I'm interested to know what the numbers look like for lolicon and similar vs actual CP, which would give me a much better understanding of how bad the problem is. As in, are the things included in the report outliers, or typical of their sample set?
I guess I'm looking for a bit more granularity in the report.
We're not just talking about 'ew gross icky' exclusion from a social network. We're talking about images whose possession is a felony. Images that are unambiguously the product of child rape.
This paper treats them the same. You're defending that false equivalence. You need to stop.
Who places the bar for "exclusion from a social network" at felonies? Any kind child porn has no place on the fediverse, simulated or otherwise. That doesn't mean they're equal offenses, you're just not responsible for carrying out anything other than cleaning out your porch.
We're not JUST talking about exclusion from a social network.
Do you speak English?
The subject matter is the part that's a felony - so the glib inclusion of the part you just don't like is dangerous misinformation.
I am calling out how this study falsely equates child rape and gross drawings, and your neverending hot take is 'well I don't care for either.' There's not enough 'who asked' in the world. One of these things is tacitly legal and has sites listed on Google. One of these things means you die in prison, anywhere in the world.
And here you are, still calling both of them "child porn." In the same post insisting you're not equating them. Thanks for keeping this simple, I guess.
They're studying the prevalence of CSAM under the definition of the country they're in. It'd be arbitrary to separate the two and make two different conclusions.
Also you seriously need to take a chill pill
No possible definition of child sexual abuse can include drawings.
Tell me otherwise in the same breath as insisting you're not making that false equivalence. Apparently my patience is limitless when the lie is that fucking obvious.
edit: Hang on, the obvious lie disguised a stupid lie. What country do you think Stanford is in? Drawing Bart Simpson's dick is not illegal in America. You could do it right now, in MS Paint, and e-mail it to the FBI, and they'd just formally tell you to go fuck yourself. Which would obviously not be the case with ACTUAL "child sexual abuse materials," being evidence of abusing a flesh-and-blood child.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1466A
(a) In General.—Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly produces, distributes, receives, or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that— (1) (A) depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and (B) is obscene; or (2) (A) depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; and (B) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value; or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be subject to the penalties provided in section 2252A(b)(1), including the penalties provided for cases involving a prior conviction.
No possible definition of child sexual abuse can include drawings, no matter who writes it. That's not what those words mean.
Drawings... aren't children. It is literally that simple.
And if you think any of this is identically illegal to actual photos of child abuse - one, there's a whole network of shamelessly public US-hosted sites for you to turn in and be a national hero, and two, you might be wholly incapable of remembering what you're arguing. Whether you think these things are equivalent oscillates between letters.
Step up the reading comprehension please :)
It's pretty funny having you state, re-state and re-re-state the exact same obvious things that everyone understands while not seeing that everyone gets that, that you're missing the point, and that you're yelling in a hole
Why do you keep going?
Are you that painfully unconvincing in real life like cmon
Step it up
Oh no, what you describe is definitely illegal here in Canada. CSAM includes depictions here. Child sex dolls are illegal. And it should be that way because that stuff is disgusting.
Literally impossible.
Child rape cannot include drawings. You can't sexually assault a fictional character. Not "you musn't." You can't.
If you think the problem with child rape amounts to 'ew, gross,' fuck you. Your moral scale is broken, if there's not a vast gulf between those two bad things.