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Comment by picofarad | Hacker News Reader

36 million CSAM media removed in 2025? Why aren't millions of people in jail? Wtf?

That's a really common reaction to people first hearing about the delta between how society talks about the subject vs what they actually do about it. Its a bit like the fiction of the social safety net or strong institutions.

The truth is impunity is the rule, victims especially of CSA and CSAM, or revenge porn, or of Mark or Musk's companies generating naked images of their body have basically no power, and its an exception when someone who is an abuser AND has any amount of social standing is put away.

I think AI should the point where companies take some responsibility for the content produced with their tools. When the entire purpose of a machine is a form of thinking there should be some responsibility for what it thinks. It is nothing like a general purpose tool that the user just invokes.

it can take awhile for things to work their way from NCMEC (national center for missing & exploited children) to the appropriate local agency, then have that agency do their investigation, get a warrant (if they can), etc. and that is assuming that there is even a cooperative jurisdiction for NCMEC to send the initial report to.

but, plenty of people do end up in prison, especially if its facebook/dropbox/gmail/etc... they just dont make the headlines (especially nationally) unless its especially heinous.

I think there's also the "roll up a whole network at once" approach they prefer to take for things like this - hence nothing will happen for months/years whilst investigations happen in secret and then there'll be a day where you get 40 coordinated raids across 10 countries which lead to tens of people being arrested. Then of course there's another period of months/years where they have to work on the new stuff they've got from that raid and also preparing for trials, etc.

In most western countrys, is often more than 50% from CSAM from underaged teenagers, like selfies etc. And then are cases like some overmotivated parents post nude baby pictures. I guess such pictures also get flaged. But even if its just 50%, 18 million, your point still standes. Why are not more people in jail.

The US is already among the highest incarceration rate countries in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in...

Yes but, the US is also kind of special. There are absolute no rules for people like Elon and Donald. The can break all laws, all day long in front of everybody and nothing does happen. They just get richer and richer. The small guy goes in jail for something like just walk over the street on the wrong place.

Because the point of power and wealth is to avoid accountability for harm.

That is literally what "freedom" means in the US. It's not the pursuit of happiness, it's the pursuit of immorality without consequences.

If this isn't obvious - how many people mentioned in the Epstein files have been arrested?

I don't think parents should overshare pictures of their kids, but FYI, nudity does not automatically mean porn or abuse, even of children (which is legal in the U.S. as long as it is not sexual or focuses on genitals).

Well, 36 million images doesn't necessary imply 36 million people (in fact, it could possibly just imply 36...)

Does their definition of CSAM exclude material that's not unlawful in the US? People can be (let's say) tactical about its inclusion from case to case. But I can't say if it's the case here, nor how much it explains the 36 million not explained by other better replies.

Facebook's policy conspicuously lacks any definition of CSAM.

Because the overwhelming majority of these reports are for teens sexting each other.

VPNs, hacked accounts, no jurisdiction, etc., I'd presume.

> 36 million CSAM media removed in 2025?

No, not at all.

"removing over 36 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content last year"

Not CSAM.

Doesn’t the M stand for Material? What are you saying the difference is? Their quote just sounds like another phrasing

> Doesn’t the M stand for Material?

Yes. So?

> What are you saying the difference is?

Child sexual exploitation content is broader.

media without abuse is labelled csam

Seems they've mistaken child pornography (as per the US legal definition) as CSAM.

Bots, good luck finding the people responsible for them.

Also how much of the child exploitation material was created by the children themselves?

Teenagers who send each other nude photos are creating child exploitation material but you hardly want to put them jail for that.

> Teenagers who send each other nude photos are creating child exploitation material but you hardly want to put them jail for that.

Well rational thinking people wouldn't. A great many using CSAM as a wedge to de-anonymize the Internet or institute regressive "profanity" laws are often neither.

It’s hard to discuss that topic properly because many people see pedophile rings everywhere.

They forget most child abuse happens in the family.

Because then half the world leaders would be in jail and the other half would lose their excuse for building mass surveillance systems

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