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Comment by eterps | Hacker News Reader

> Almost no one would disagree that removing all instances of CSAM from the internet would be a good thing, whether it's a "human problem" or not. That's not really the issue.

Would removing all instances of CSAM from the internet be a good thing if it would lead to an increase in CSA? After all the human problem still exists after removing CSAM.

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> Would removing all instances of CSAM from the internet be a good thing if it would lead to an increase in CSA?

Yes.

Even if CSAM would reduce actual abuse (which is a big "IF", last time I looked researched leaned weakly towards that it increased abuse), the argument is essentially a variant of the trolley problem: "we'll let one kid be abused to make the CSAM to save n others". I'm not comfterable with that, especially since alternatives such as cartoons, AI-generated, or just old-fashioned photoshop exist (but whether that's a good thing is debatable, and is rather off-topic here).

> AI-generated, or just old-fashioned photoshop exist

Aren't those considered CSAM as well? At least as far as the EU Chat Control proposal is concerned?

BTW, you raise an interesting point about the argument being a variant of the trolley problem.

I don't know what the EU chat law thinks of that, I'd have to read the law[1], but no child was abused so it's not CSAM under a "common sense" definition.

[1]: The definition that the law uses is in Directive 2011/93. In a very quick check it probably would be considered CSAM, but I'd have to read the entire thing to be sure: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

No one uses a common sense definition of CSAM. No child was abused if 16 year olds send each other pictures of themselves. But it is child pornography even so. And groups pushing to say CSAM instead of child pornography push for fictional depictions to be criminal also.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something, but are you saying that if the research said conclusively that banning CSAM absolutely leads to an increase in actual sexual assaults against children, it would still be a good idea to ban CSAM?

They’re saying the opposite. Use of CSAM material is linked to increased likelihood of real world abuse in some research. Which makes sense to me. The existence of a community encourages people to contribute and participate for basically any “activity”

No they're not. It's thankfully been deleted now, but they responded with a very explicit "yes"

my bad, i read it twice and apparently still got it wrong

Research leaned how the reader wanted last time I looked. And was confounded by requiring subjects to confess a crime.

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