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Comment by asfginmionio | Hacker News Reader

From their website (https://report.iwf.org.uk/en/report):

>We take reports on UK-hosted non-photographic images of child sexual abuse, such as computer-generated images. The images we can take action on must be of children, pornographic, grossly offensive, and focus on a child's genitals or depict sexual activity involving or in the presence of a child.

More detail here: https://www.iwf.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-assess-and-remove-c...

It's rich to complain about people wasting time that could be spent on "real abuse imagery" when this organization is also going after cartoons. Maybe they should sort that out first?

Also, the HN title is inaccurate. The article claims these reports are mistaken, but does not say they are fraudulent. In fact, I do not see fraudulent reports mentioned in the article at all.

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>when this organization is also going after cartoons.

It's the law that is the problem not the organization. Originally these laws where made to protect people. But over time the laws became a moral enforcement on people. For obvious reasons no politician did intervene and the people who made the law celebrated them self as the heroes who protect the most vulnerable. The same flaw in laws are made over and over again basically every time something is made illegal that does not actually hurt or put other people in danger. They just make whatever illegal and think its doing something good or even solves a problem. Whether its illegal images, videos, audio, books, games, substances or tools. Even descriptions on how to create "that illegal thing" are made illegal. On top of that the laws are sometimes conflicting like you are not allowed to store or transfer certain illegal data but at the same time you should hand it over to authorities. You may also not be allowed to delete it as it could be evidence of a crime. Or worse you may be the owner of something illegal that someone gifted to you. Sounds stupid but there are places where the content of your mailbox digital or not is considered your possession although anyone can drop in whatever they want. In the end such laws put people in danger rather than protecting people.

I welcome a title change. False is equally good at articulating the subject.

There is a specific case of deliberately fraudulent reports mentioned in the article. Or highly likely to be such. An individual who makes thousands of false reports despite being repeatedly reminded not to do so.

The new title is more accurate (in the sense of fraudulent) although the new terms may be less immediately recognizable to readers and it doesn't mention the sheer scale of the problem. What IWF chases goes beyond the range of actual abuse to actual people too.

I don't really mind it. I'm just clarifying my rationale for the previous one I chose. The new one is fine as it's closer to the original title of the article.

> this organization is also going after cartoons.

Are they devoting substantial resources to that? I can see an argument maybe for the law criminalising non-photographic images so someone can't argue images were computer generated when they are in reality probably real. It isn't exactly in line with the assume-innocent principle but people get angry about skirting child abuse so I can see the pendulum might be tilted a little the other way on this issue.

If they are actually going after cartoons that seems pretty stupid. There are real problems in the world they could be working on. Like, say, child abuse.

> I can see an argument maybe for the law criminalising non-photographic images so someone can't argue images were computer generated when they are in reality probably real.

There are so many obvious ways to close that loophole that don't involve criminalizing provably-fake images (such as making an exception for when the images are obviously fake, or can be irrefutably proven as such), that I'm forced to conclude that criminalizing cartoons was the lawmakers intention.

There's a potential good use for fake images. Virtual, or well photoshopped, images could be used to lure dealers into distribution, so that a known trace can be followed, hopefully helping to bust them.

While I've learned to not give a shit about being downvoted, since it happens more and more often out of personal taste than objective thinking, still It just amazes me how some users hit the button without even thinking why they are doing it. Creating fake illegal things has been done in the past with the purpose of analyzing their path through the so called black markets in order to discover where they travel to go from point A to point B. So, why doing the same with fake child porn images should sound so weird? I mean, they're fake, it's not like someone is being harmed in the name of justice, but simply the authorities could pose as creators and attempt to get in contact with the distributors and bust them.

I don't think they need help to collect such material when it's readily available on the internet

Sadly, it's being also produced on request, as "new material" to them has more resell value.

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