While it may not have been your intent, your response felt dismissive and condescending to me. Additionally, the first paragraph seems to engage in whataboutism. Which, should it be the case, doesn’t serve the point you are trying to make.
I will however grant you the benefit of the doubt and engage further.
For you, child abuse might be an abstract concept. To me, it is gut-wrenching memories. I would have spared you the details, but it seems you prefer everything to be spelled out for you. So here it is.
I grew up in a country where impoverished families in rural areas often send their children to the city, supposedly to attend school. Instead of being educated or taken care of, many of these children are sent to beg on the streets, to bring back money, only to be beaten and starved until they meet their quotas. Some are raped. Some run away.
Of those who run away, some return home. When they do, their families often send them back, either because they don’t believe their stories, refuse to believe them, or simply cannot afford to keep them.
Those who don’t return end up living on the streets on their own, forming bands of children begging, stealing, and proudly telling you how they’re the ones buying the solvent to sniff for the group.
Despite witnessing this firsthand, I can only imagine that the full horror of it is far worse than I will ever understand.
To top it all, when I came back years to visit some friends I learned from social workers actually trying to get these children off the street that as they grow up some of the older kids actually often start raping the younger ones.
So, you see, I really could have been spared the lecture.
These experiences shape my deep concerns about the impacts of absolute anonymity and privacy. While I instinctively value these principles, actually understanding real-world implications make it difficult to hold them above all else without question.
There is a significant gap in our experiences. While I am glad many have no first or second hand knowledge on any of these topics, this gap might make it challenging for the two of us to have, on this topic, the fully rational discussion you appear to want.
Ironically, this difficulty perfectly underscores my point: while privacy and freedom of expression are crucial, some experiences compel me to question how we balance these ideals with the need to prevent harm.
Now, onto the censorship of evidence issue.
First, I fail to grasp how exposing unwitting people to this kind of content would, in any way, help find abusers. Your Vietnam war example might have been valid, arguably, if public awareness on the issue of child pornography needed to be raised. If, like during the Vietnam war, public opinion was divided on the topic. Thankfully, it isn’t.
Second, moderating such content doesn’t mean it couldn’t or shouldn’t reported to law enforcement. Such systems already exist. They have their faults [0], but they exist.
> see, it’s much easier to have a rational discussion when you spell out your position instead of relying on winks and nudges
I assumed the issue was clear and didn’t want to force explicit details onto unwitting readers. I will not apologise for that.
[0]: https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-On...