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Comment by claytoneast | Hacker News Reader

The sources in that article who lead these anti-child-trafficking/image organizations complain about cripplingly inadequate budgets and lack of human resources (employees). They do NOT complain about end-to-end encryption. They ask for more people, and more money, which the government is apparently consistently unwilling to grant them. Instead, the govt foists this absolute horseshit about limiting/backdooring e2e on us, while screaming THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

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WFIW I didn't advocate backdooring either, I'm just asking how we, as technologists, balance what I think are reasonable and compelling goals: protect user data, and protect children.

One reasonable answer is that FB/Google/etc. should donate or donate more (Google is called out as donating already) to these organizations. I think another reasonable answer is that technologists donate our time, perhaps as 20% projects or as sabbaticals to these orgs and help them modernize.

It does seem Congress (per the NYTimes article I linked above) isn't doling out as much funding as we would like to see.

And, in fairness, children are being harmed here, and at an incredibly alarming rate. Please do read the NYTimes article. The Times is, IMO, a fairly responsible actor in truth telling.

I did read the article, though I think I may now see your point: this technology has greatly enabled abusers, perhaps more than it has helped finders-and-punishers-of-abusers. Your question is a good one: "how we, as technologists, balance what I think are reasonable and compelling goals: protect user data, and protect children."

"How do we, as postal workers, balance the reasonable and compelling goals: get people their mail, and protect children."

One is our job that we are directly and morally responsible for (like a civil engineer being responsible for having a bridge not collapse at a load of >2 cars), the other is not. Call me callous, call me cold, but that is not explicitly up to us, we can't be under the delusion that we are the one key to everything and anything. It wouldn't make sense to have a "quick-release" button forcibly installed on all bridges that would cause an instant collapse if triggered "because countless children that are victims of human trafficking are taken over bridges everyday."

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