3 ms·

Isn't flagging pictures making a suggestion so that a real law enforcement officer can check a reduced number of pictures instead of all pictures in existence?

• amykhar 9y ago
  I had the same thought, but then realized the tech could plant images on the computer himself.
  • NutriSugar 9y ago
    I'm not as worried about techs planting the images because even among people willing to break the law to make money, this is an area often considered too immoral to touch and the consequences are massive if caught. I'm more worried about people over reporting images and people having lives ruined over the mere allegations and investigations. Photos of your own kids running around a water sprinkler on a hot summer day can be enough for some busy body to call inappropriate. Even fully clothed images fall on the copine (spelling?) scale. Or maybe there is some films of people who specialize in looking young, but who are of age (I remember a court case where a court expert testified than someone was clearly underage, until that person showed up and proved they were of age and were a professional in the industry; imagine what could've happened if she hadn't shown up).
    • logfromblammo 9y ago
      It goes beyond that. My father once tried to print some photographs through Wal-Mart. They refused to do so without a copyright waiver from the photographer--which was him. They looked at the images, decided they were "too professional", and proceeded to enforce the copyrights of the imaginary professional photographer. Not only is this troubling from a law enforcement perspective, but it also provided him with a true story he could use to backhandedly brag about how great his photos are, and also an excuse to purchase expensive, top-of-the-line photo printers until the end of time. ~Thanks, Wal-Mart.~ There is good reason to avoid empowering busybodies to enforce laws on other people in public when they would have no standing to do so in a court. We simply can't trust random people to know the laws they purport to enforce, enforce them fairly and impartially, and preserve the rights of those they target for that enforcement. We can't even fully trust professional cops, judges, and lawyers with all that at once, which is why the legal system is set up to be adversarial. If you witness a crime, you can certainly report it if you feel that's necessary, but paid informants and vigilante enforcers are a few steps too many down a very dark path.
• gt_ 9y ago
  That is definitely the idea. But, the point here concerns the opportunity for crime-making by the incentivized Best Buy employee. Nothing in that process raises the barrier to that happening.
• gambiting 9y ago
  Yeah, but I'm sure there was a case of someone flagged in this exact way for possession of child pornography, and obviously the guy was branded a pedophile by local news, fired from his job, spent months in jail....and in that time, literally no one thought to look at those pictures and make a common sense decision. When he finally managed to get them in front of the judge, it was obvious the only pictures found were of his own kids playing in the kiddie pool outside in the summer. I think what I want to say is that I have no trust in the process, it's incredibly easy to ruin someone's life permanently.