Snapchat Has a Child-Porn Problem | Hacker News Reader

Snapchat Has a Child-Porn Problem

bloomberg.com

37 pointsrayuela56 comments

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Photographic chat application aimed at teens has teens putting up nude photographs. Anonymous person claiming to be not a dog turns out to be a dog.

Say it isn't so!

I guess that depends on the definition of child porn!

I personally don’t think teenagers sending nudes to each other classifies at such

That's not even slightly what the article is about...

It may not be what the article is specifically about, but I'm willing to bet that a large majority of the "child porn" on services like SC are teen to teen, and in fact teens are being convicted as sex offenders for taking pictures of themselves.

Whats weird to me is the meeting point of where sex between two people is legal, but them taking pictures of each other naked is a felony.. there is a lack of common sense being applied here.

Right, age of consent is 16 in most of the US, so you could meet up and do all sorts of things, but if you take a picture of your consensual sex you are a felon. Hmmmmmm...

The law makes sense though from one perspective, as silly as this sounds. Having sex is far less worse than a video/picture of you naked, which may exist on the internet for a very, very long time. Think Amanda Todd and it being used as blackmail; the added threat of it being child porn is a real turn off.

Of course you then wonder how much can change in just 2 years, but if you're legally an adult, and you consented to the image, it won't be classed as child porn, but revenge porn laws are a thing.

But the easiest solution is not to consent to being filmed/photographed if you don't want to be...With how google photos uploads automatically the second you take a picture I don't trust smartphones these days...

I'm not sure a picture of you on the internet is a bigger responsibility to assume than creating a child, so I don't really think the law makes that much sense even in that perspective.

If we're honest, a lot of the laws were made so far away from the context of the current internet/smartphone culture that they are pretty much useless unless seriously reconsidered (and probably do a lot of immoral harm the way they are written right now).

The law correctly anticipates that teenagers would get it on. It did not anticipate that they would create and exchange explicit images of themselves. In retrospect, that's an obviously bad assumption, but it wasn't so obvious when photography required high cost/skills/turnaround time. It was assumed that photographer/exploiter and subject/victim were different.

Not sure how you fix it (other than to educate youth and setup technical blocks). I suspect in most cases that police, prosecutors, and other adults "apply common sense", but some prosecutors will do anything to get re-elected (a nude selfie doesn't necessarily ruin a teen's life, but a criminal conviction for it surely will).

So? The majority of anything is probably not criminal. This is about the portion that is.

"Images of child pornography are not protected under First Amendment rights, and are illegal contraband under federal law. Section 2256 of Title 18, United States Code, defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (someone under 18 years of age)."

A user who “sends nudes” is actually sending them to Snapchat, the company, who then sends them to the user’s friends. Snapchat also stores the nudes on its servers, and likely even has code that processes (reads!) those images for analytics purposes.

It’s not like Snapchat servers are some blackbox, either. Any engineer at the company with proper access rights could theoretically view any user’s uploads.

So I’m not sure “they’re sending them to each other” can really be a defense here, unless the media is truly e2e encrypted (it’s not).

By your definition, the postal service is the recipient of letters containing child porn.

However, the postal service doesn't retain a copy of the data it receives, nor does it even open or view said data.

No, because the postal service doesn't have access to read the contents of letters and parcels in transit. Not only do they not have access, but it is illegal for them to access the contents without a warrant.

This is why common carrier status is so important. Snap can't possibly police it's user base.

Which is probably why they're involved in investigations and prosecutions of same.

Nah, they don't open the letter, make a copy, store it, etc...

I agree. The reason I see CP as bad is the implication of child abuse.

Underage teens sending nudes to each other doesn't seem a big deal to me, morally, irrespective of what the legal position happens to be.

Stop saying child porn. You are talking about documented abuse of children. Not porn.

On one hand I agree with you, as pedophiles are too often seen as child molesters. On the other hand there are people who consider those as porn. Pornographic content is simply impossible to classify.

Could easily substitute Snapchat with Facebook, Instagram, any cell provider, etc. I don't see how this really ought to be news.

On the contrary, the exploitation of children ought to be news every day that it's a problem.

Snapchat is the focus here because it's better-suited to exploitation than the others you name as part of its design and marketing. But yes, there are also clearly issues outside of Snapchat as well.

Yeah the whole, "Everybody does it" minimizing argument isn't really valid here.

I don't think it was an argument for the distribution of those photos. It was merely pointing out that punishing snapchat does not solve a societal problem. Instead you need to keep tracing this bug in the code of society and fix the root problem.

How do you propose fixing the problem? Not giving teens/kids smartphones is a sensible start, but that's not realistic, and they don't have the awareness (or the logical thing that screams "don't do this") developed yet. They're not technically aware of how the internet works (caches, archives, downloading media) and that images can stick around forever.

people think snapchat images are 'deleted', yet that's not actually true, and can be intercepted/recorded anyway.

>Not giving teens/kids smartphones is a sensible start, but that's not realistic

I don't know, I got by just fine with a dumbphone through high school (beginning of the iPhone era). I don't think most teens need smartphones, honestly.

But we've crossed the point where that matters.

Even dumbphones can do MMS, though.

No MMS without a data plan. Unless something's changed.

yep, this, at least when I was at that age.

And in schools in my area J2ME-capable phone were actually so ubiquitous I already was a heavy user of things like Opera Mini, BombusMod (Jabber client), and MidpSSH—all that a decade ago, when prices were given for each megabyte of data transfer. But that was me, others were just sharing music and pictures through Bluetooth amongst themselves most of the time.

> I don't think most teens need smartphones, honestly.

In today's schools, some teachers plan activities where students use their smart phones for specific projects, so this is becoming increasingly harder to do.

that's utterly ridiculous. what about students who can't afford smartphones?

There are old smartphones that, at this point, are cheaper than a BNIB dumbphone.

For my kids it'll probably be some combination of the lessons:

1. Trying to guard against the problem: assume anything on the internet will stay there forever, and will be public

2. Assuming the inevitable and mitigating possible damage: recognise that everyone does and can look stupid when they're naked - ie teaching kids to have a healthy body image and self-respect.

> How do you propose fixing the problem?

Teach your kids better. There are several factors at play here. One is the technological ignorance you mentioned. Kids don't understand caches, archives, downloading media? Teach them. It shouldn't be hard to explain those concepts at a level that will allow kids to make better choices.

Another thing to teach kids is about anonymity, falsehoods and trust levels. You want to connect to your friend Michael on Twitter? When you next meet him in person, ask him for his username and give him yours. Anyone you randomly "meet" online might not be who you think they are or who they say they are. You don't have to automatically assume someone is hostile, but never automatically assume someone is benign.

Above all, don't give your kids means to get themselves into serious trouble until you've taught them. That means that if the kid is too young to properly understand these things, don't give them a smartphone. If you wouldn't send a toddler to walk alone to preschool a few blocks (and pedestrian crossings) away, why would you give a 10 year old a smartphone?

It probably starts with the technological ignorance of the parents. Spreading stories like this hopefully reach these parents.

> Kids don't understand caches, archives, downloading media? Teach them.

Most adults don't really understand these things.

Also have you ever parented a teenager? Some are less troublesome than others but most will do what they want to do, regardless of what the adults in their lives tell them to do. They are actually individuals that way.

I haven't parented a teenager yet, but I remember doing all sorts of dumb shit myself. That's why I aim to teach my kid this stuff before he becomes a teenager ;)

That's what I feel is the hardest thing about parenting: coming to terms with the fact that you cannot guarantee nothing will ever happen to them. You have to try your very best, but there's no guarantee.

As for adults not really understanding these things, that's also an education problem. We can't just shrug and say that nobody really understands this, therefore educating people isn't really a solution.

> How do you propose fixing the problem?

Not a complete fix, but a service like snapchat specifically could use AI to block seemingly-nude photos for underage users. Perhaps it could offer parental oversight features too (though this would be hard to implement w/out teens flocking to fake accounts).

The drawback with this approach is that if it becomes mandatory (due to public pressure, legal risk, or legislative risk) it will work work to exclude startups from entering the market.

Good luck not getting arrested over your training data. And even humans can't tell the difference between a 16 year old and a 25 year old from nudes.

Honestly? I think Snapchat ought to go away completely.

This idea that images in Snapchat are temporary and therefore of little consequence is not a bug, it's a feature. It's the defining feature of Snapchat, the reason for its success, and they absolutely positively captured a large chunk of their marketshare based on the idea that young people could exchange risqué photos privately on Snapchat like they could nowhere else.

When a platform is built on marketing something horrifying, I don't think we need to feel any responsibility to come up with an alternate business plan for them. I don't have suggestions for Altria Group either, other than just: stop selling cigarettes and go out of business.

Enforcing a minimum age of 13, and actually trying to enforce it, would be a good start. Using the ML tech they're so proud of to recognize nudity in photos and popping up warnings, including refusing to send photos if there's a chance the sender is a minor, would be a good start.

But really, just shut it down.

Wait, so is the point that nobody should have security because a few people commit crimes under its cover?

Even though this story is horrible, it reminds me of a silicon valley episode

https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/1/15504692/hbo-silicon-valle...

Are they prescient or does things never change?

do you have to be prescient in order for common sense dots to be connected?

I don't think this is precience, though I often find many authors and artists to speak up for stuff repressed in our collective subconscious. This kind of stuff is becoming increasingly more difficult to bury, and it is the kind of stuff our civilization has never adequately addressed.

I think it can be changed, but not if we keep trying to bury it.

You guys can defend Snap all you want, but the fact is there is no single company on the planet or at any point in human history that has benefitted from child pornography more than Snap has.

They became popular as the “exploding image” app. The primary consumer use case for this is transmitting nude photos. Their valuation is due in large part to the youth of their demographic (younger users than just about any social app).

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say they probably owe most of their success to solving the problem of the consequences associated with sending nudes online for people in junior high and high school (or at least, these people think it’s solving that problem for them).

Comparing Snap to email or texts on this issue is a false equivalency. Snap is specifically intended for this, and owes a ton of their valuation to children using it and spreading it for this purpose.

This page loaded with an auto-starting, non-stoppable, not-mutable video... That's a new bottom mark for me.

Bloomberg has a revenue problem.

Is there anyone who wants to actually be bombarded by this crap? It's so obnoxious. If I wanted to watch TV I'd turn the damn thing on.

That's why I prefer MS keyboards with extra multimedia buttons: with a mute key on the keyboard, everything is mutable.

For what it's worth, you can stop it. Right click -> show controls -> pause button.

It is pretty terrible that you need to actively do this to stop it though.

FWIW you can disable the autoplay of all media, including animated gifs, in FF by going to about:config and setting media.autoplay.enabled to false.

Burn the witches! Down with flikr and pintrest while you're at it!

Snap should hire Craig Newmark. He was able to get away with pimping prostitutes on his site for a decade+.

AI filter trained to recognize such images can theoretically help here. Kind of catch-22 though here as training of such AI isn't practically possible (except by specially assigned/cleared FBI agents on the FBI database of child porn). Even if trained, deployment of such a neural net would also be problematic as the kernels in the deep layers would bear some resemblance to the parts of images it was trained to identify.

Though there are seems to be a kind of some partial solution here, and i wonder why Snapchat still seems to not have it - train 2 nets, one to recognize porn/erotica using completely legal adult images, and train another net to recognize young adults and children vs. adults on legal completely innocent images. While obviously not catching all illegal images, both nets producing positive signal may probably catch significant share of illegal images.

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