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Child sex trafficking is primarily a law enforcement problem. You actually need someone to solve the case, visit and arrest the perpetrator.

Mass surveillance doesn't actually solve the problem because of how rare it is. Your signal is 99.99% noise in the first year and 100% noise in the second year after people get caught on the scanned platforms and switch to unscanned platforms.

> Genuinely, how do you expect someone concerned about child sex trafficking to receive this? "Oh, good point, I guess we can't do anything more to protect children because it isn't 'cost-effective'." Do you think that will be a common response?

I'm taking it as a given that we shouldn't do things that aren't cost effective, because that's what "cost effective" means. There are things we could do that would cost six trillion dollars in order to save one life, and we're not going to do those things, because it would be patently unreasonable and cost dramatically more lives than that as a result of what those resources would have to be allocated from.

It's possible that there are cost effective things we could do that we're not currently doing, but those things tend to be uncontroversial, so when someone uncovers one it generally does actually get enacted and becomes the status quo. That's the issue: Name any given thing you suppose we should do instead of Chat Control. Enact it, as many of them already have been. Tomorrow they propose Chat Control again, so what now? Offering and even enacting an alternative hasn't satisfied them, they keep trying to pass it anyway.

> You can't just call your opponent bad especially when your opponent is promising to address people's concerns, you need to actually engage with people about their concerns and offer solutions.

What are you supposed to do when you've not only offered solutions but enacted and implemented them already and your opponent is a fear monger who will never be satisfied because they have an ulterior motive for their dangerous and ineffective proposal?

>I'm taking it as a given that we shouldn't do things that aren't cost effective, because that's what "cost effective" means. There are things we could do that would cost six trillion dollars in order to save one life, and we're not going to do those things, because it would be patently unreasonable and cost dramatically more lives than that as a result of what those resources would have to be allocated from.

The problem with describing it in terms of cost-effectiveness is that you now have to put a price on how much we can justify spending on child sex trafficking. What is that number? How much is too much to save a child? How can you possibly answer that in a satisfying way?

>It's possible that there are cost effective things we could do that we're not currently doing, but those things tend to be uncontroversial, so when someone uncovers one it generally does actually get enacted and becomes the status quo. That's the issue: Name any given thing you suppose we should do instead of Chat Control. Enact it, as many of them already have been. Tomorrow they propose Chat Control again, so what now? Offering and even enacting an alternative hasn't satisfied them, they keep trying to pass it anyway.

>What are you supposed to do when you've not only offered solutions but enacted and implemented them already and your opponent is a fear monger who will never be satisfied because they have an ulterior motive for their dangerous and ineffective proposal?

The proposal up-thread seems like a good place to start. If we believe that these tech companies have through their software and platforms made it easier to exploit children, that justifies taxing them to offset the negative externalities they create. We then take that money and use it to increase funding for investigation and enforcement. I have no idea if that will work, but it at least puts the people you view as the enemy on the defensive and gives you the chance to win some of their supporters back to your side. Because right now you're letting those fearmongers dictate the terms of this political debate and their persistence on this issue shows you aren't making any progress in changing that.

> The problem with describing it in terms of cost-effectiveness is that you now have to put a price on how much we can justify spending on child sex trafficking.

The problem with not doing this is that you in fact actually have to do it, or else what are you going to describe as the problem with the proposal that would spend six trillion dollars to save one life?

> If we believe that these tech companies have through their software and platforms made it easier to exploit children, that justifies taxing them to offset the negative externalities they create. We then take that money and use it to increase funding for investigation and enforcement.

The problem with that proposal is that it's foolish. Special-purpose taxes should only be used if you're specifically trying to discourage something (e.g. cigarettes) since a) they're inefficient because you need a wasteful new collections bureaucracy instead of using the existing already paid for apparatus for collecting general revenues (money should go to protecting kids, not tax bureaucrats) and b) you're then targeting a specific industry for a new disadvantage which will oppose it much more strongly than trying to get the same amount of money from the general fund.

The actual meat of that proposal is to increase funding for law enforcement to investigate child exploitation. But that's exactly the sort of thing where if it's cost effective to do that then it will have no meaningful opposition and then will either be enacted without controversy or already has been. At which point they immediately go back to trying to pass Chat Control.

> If we believe that these tech companies have through their software and platforms made it easier to exploit children, that justifies ...

Do we believe that? At least relative to the rest of the internet (ie not-big-tech)? Isn't singling out big tech in this manner just a talking point used by the disingenuous actors attempting to foist this on us?

What is even the supposed motivating ill here? What exactly do you mean by the phrasing "exploit children"? That's awfully vague for something we're supposed to be targeting.

> ... at least puts the people you view as the enemy on the defensive ...

It feels like you're ignoring the point you're responding to here. The pattern outlined was one of bad faith, where after each reasonable attempt the process merely repeats itself ad nauseam. So then in effect your suggestion is to follow the same strategy that hasn't worked in the past.

We aren't dealing with a good faith opponent who will back down when an alternative wins out. They will return with the same argument, and it will still hold sway with the same people, because the rate of the crimes in question will almost certainly never reach zero. At some point the political solution must be to attempt to educate those who are being taken advantage of by the bad actor. To refuse further accommodations when the other party is clearly acting under false pretenses.

It also seems like you're neglecting to address the relative expense. Chat control is cheap compared with Wyden's proposal.

Anyone who things automated scanning of private messages will have any effect on sex trafficking of any kind is already beyond all reason.