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Right, the same technology that would be used to block CP and abuse could probably be easily reconfigured to block any topic of choice. Some things are obviousl

Right, the same technology that would be used to block CP and abuse could probably be easily reconfigured to block any topic of choice. Some things are obviously worth blocking, but it's hard to decide where to draw the line, especially when many topics that some would consider blocking are highly politicized. edit: to clarify again, some things are obviously worth blocking (like CP)! The issue is that once that technology has actually been deployed and demonstrated, you can be sure that different groups will start pushing for other things to be blocked as well. It changes the dialogue from "it'd be nice if you could figure out how to block X" to "hey, you're already blocking Y so why not also block X?" and that's a fairly potent change in my opinion.

Judgmentality 8y ago
> but it's hard to decide where to draw the line It's actually very easy - legal and illegal.
- memory_grep 8y ago
  .
  - tlarkworthy 8y ago
    Distributing digital images of marijuana is not illegal.
- aaomidi 8y ago
  Homosexuality used to be illegal. If we censored anyone talking about it, it would probably still be illegal today and millions of people would still feel disgusted at themselves for having "unnatural feelings." Legality isn't always the best way to draw a line.
  - Judgmentality 8y ago
    I didn't say it was moral or what's best for the world, I just meant it's an easily defined goal. And with regards to the other commenter asking about jurisdiction, you change it based on the IP address (obviously this can be spoofed). I am not claiming that there is a simple solution for how to handle censorship that is optimal for the benefit of mankind. I am saying the way companies should approach implementing it is relatively straight-forward. Otherwise you'll have endless debates about what is and is not moral, where nobody will ever agree and product managers and engineers and everybody else will constantly be in tension and nobody will be happy. Censor as little as necessary based on laws and let people make their own decisions for what they want to view.
    - dvdkon 8y ago
      I agree with the sentiment, but the problem is that it's actually quite hard to distinguish "legal" and "illegal". Judges do that for a living and see how long a single case takes them. It's simply not feasible for an automated system to do it properly.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    > Homosexuality used to be illegal. If we censored anyone talking about it, it would probably still be illegal today and millions of people would still feel disgusted at themselves for having "unnatural feelings." But that's not what the issue is here. Displaying CP is literally illegal - was discussing homosexuality illegal? Was viewing nude males? It's the difference between blocking the literal illegal item or blocking items adjacent to it.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      > Displaying CP is literally illegal - was discussing homosexuality illegal? Was viewing nude males? These are weird comparisons to try to make. Discussing CP is legal. Viewing it is not. Viewing homosexual pornography has been illegal in the past. Viewing nude males wasn't illegal, just like viewing nude children isn't necessarily.
      - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        Perfect. Discussion is fine, but the actual illegal act is illegal. So.. the line is easy to draw. Once viewing an imagine is illegal you shouldn't allow the viewing of that image.
        michaelmrose 8y ago
        Computers are incredibly dumber than you imagine. We are terribly excited that a computer can tell the difference between cat and not a cat.
    - gnulinux 8y ago
      Yes there are countries where displaying homosexuality is illegal (e.g. Iran). I cannot comment on the legality of discussing homosexuality but that's irrelevant anyway since discussing CP is also legal.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    You're giving me flashbacks to 'slippery slope' arguments I was hearing from people years ago...
    - tql 8y ago
      Oh believe me, the slippery slope is real. (NSFW) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsUMGY9hSqC/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BsUMGY9hSqC/
      - throwdaway2342 8y ago
        Can someone who is not at work describe the contents of this link for those who are?
        SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
        Children in drag? I don't get it.
        astura 8y ago
        Its just kids dancing around some of them dressed up like adults with heavy makeup. Nothing id really consider NSFW. I don't really "get' it either.
- userbinator 8y ago
  The problem is that humans don't suddenly turn green or grow horns or have any other obvious and distinctive change upon immediately reaching the legal age for porn, there's issues of consent, etc. Although legal vs illegal is binary, the decision tree leading up to that is ridiculously complex.
  - CyberDildonics 8y ago
    I don't think adding a little padding to be careful is going to hurt anyone in this case.
- _kst_ 8y ago
  > but it's hard to decide where to draw the line > It's actually very easy - legal and illegal. In what jurisdiction?
  - criddell 8y ago
    The jurisdiction of the prosecutor.
- gremlinsinc 8y ago
  Should we censor all links with the words marijuana in? That's illegal in most jurisdictions. What if someone is trying to find a medical dispensary for it in a medical state and can't because -censored? Obviously cp should be censored... but then SE's could start censoring political stuff or anything that does or doesn't support fascism or socialism depending on their mood and political leanings. Not that censoring fascism is bad, but people should still be able to make up their own minds about things through research. Hopefully AI will become good enough to accurately 'age' and block under-age pictures of minors altogether regardless of whether they're nude or not, honestly I think minors should be protected a bit, although not sure how that would work w/ minors in the public image like child actors.
- reshie 8y ago
  legality is up to who? its nice to think laws are just and they should be but thats not neccissarily the way of things some places are worse than others. as for this subject specifically it should be obvious to people which side this is on.
magissima 8y ago
You don't need to draw an exact line in order to know which side CP should be on.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  You'd be surprised. The exact line gets blurry with various media. Kim, the female protagonist in the Broadway Musical "Miss Saigon" is a 17-year old whore. There's implied sex, as well as multiple stripper-dances throughout the musical to hammer in the sexual issues that Kim faces. Something like Miss Saigon is allowed and not CP (despite being below the age of 18) because of cultural significance and whatnot. There are clear cut cases of CP of course. But when musicals / movies / various media toy with the idea of 16-year-old or 17-year-old girls who are exploring their sexuality... where do you draw the line? What should get censored? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita Lolita the novel + movie also gets brought up a lot. As it is explicitly a story about a middle-age man exploring sexuality / erotic elements with an underage girl. It toes the line and never becomes sexually explicit, but its clear from the context what the novel is pushing.
  - magissima 8y ago
    I'm not outright rejecting that there are gray areas, but neither of your examples are ambiguous, because they're not porn.
    - dragontamer 8y ago
      Fair enough. I should note that Lolita, the book, has been called to be banned on several occasions though. Because the sexual nature of the book makes people uncomfortable. In any case, a search engine (like Google or Bing) may decide to ban sexual content like Lolita, for being sexual + about underage minors. As for an actual case of actually pornographic material, I have another example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18877901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18877901 I talk about an actual pornographic case in this post. A 14-year old girl sends a sexually explicit image to her boyfriend, and is therefore charged with distribution of child pornography.
userbinator 8y ago
Right, the same technology that would be used to block CP and abuse could probably be easily reconfigured to block any topic of choice. ...and more deviously, no one would want to be seen arguing for CP, so it makes for an effective "memory hole" to censor anything. I have on a few occasions been searching for some highly obscure and technical subjects with Google, using search terms that have basically no connection to porn nor children whatsoever, and saw the ominous "some results have been removed from this page because they contain suspected images of child abuse" message. It really makes one wonder, especially since the word "suspected" is somewhat unsettling: was it actual CP that was removed, or something else entirely for a different reason? The fact that mere possession of CP is illegal makes for a chilling effect ("how dare you even question it --- are you a pedophile? You would not have gotten that warning if you weren't searching for 'bad things', right?"), and an extremely powerful censorship tactic.

Judgmentality 8y ago

> but it's hard to decide where to draw the line It's actually very easy - legal and illegal.

memory_grep 8y ago
.
- tlarkworthy 8y ago
  Distributing digital images of marijuana is not illegal.
aaomidi 8y ago
Homosexuality used to be illegal. If we censored anyone talking about it, it would probably still be illegal today and millions of people would still feel disgusted at themselves for having "unnatural feelings." Legality isn't always the best way to draw a line.
- Judgmentality 8y ago
  I didn't say it was moral or what's best for the world, I just meant it's an easily defined goal. And with regards to the other commenter asking about jurisdiction, you change it based on the IP address (obviously this can be spoofed). I am not claiming that there is a simple solution for how to handle censorship that is optimal for the benefit of mankind. I am saying the way companies should approach implementing it is relatively straight-forward. Otherwise you'll have endless debates about what is and is not moral, where nobody will ever agree and product managers and engineers and everybody else will constantly be in tension and nobody will be happy. Censor as little as necessary based on laws and let people make their own decisions for what they want to view.
  - dvdkon 8y ago
    I agree with the sentiment, but the problem is that it's actually quite hard to distinguish "legal" and "illegal". Judges do that for a living and see how long a single case takes them. It's simply not feasible for an automated system to do it properly.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  > Homosexuality used to be illegal. If we censored anyone talking about it, it would probably still be illegal today and millions of people would still feel disgusted at themselves for having "unnatural feelings." But that's not what the issue is here. Displaying CP is literally illegal - was discussing homosexuality illegal? Was viewing nude males? It's the difference between blocking the literal illegal item or blocking items adjacent to it.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    > Displaying CP is literally illegal - was discussing homosexuality illegal? Was viewing nude males? These are weird comparisons to try to make. Discussing CP is legal. Viewing it is not. Viewing homosexual pornography has been illegal in the past. Viewing nude males wasn't illegal, just like viewing nude children isn't necessarily.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      Perfect. Discussion is fine, but the actual illegal act is illegal. So.. the line is easy to draw. Once viewing an imagine is illegal you shouldn't allow the viewing of that image.
      - michaelmrose 8y ago
        Computers are incredibly dumber than you imagine. We are terribly excited that a computer can tell the difference between cat and not a cat.
  - gnulinux 8y ago
    Yes there are countries where displaying homosexuality is illegal (e.g. Iran). I cannot comment on the legality of discussing homosexuality but that's irrelevant anyway since discussing CP is also legal.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  You're giving me flashbacks to 'slippery slope' arguments I was hearing from people years ago...
  - tql 8y ago
    Oh believe me, the slippery slope is real. (NSFW) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsUMGY9hSqC/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BsUMGY9hSqC/
    - throwdaway2342 8y ago
      Can someone who is not at work describe the contents of this link for those who are?
      - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
        Children in drag? I don't get it.
      - astura 8y ago
        Its just kids dancing around some of them dressed up like adults with heavy makeup. Nothing id really consider NSFW. I don't really "get' it either.
userbinator 8y ago
The problem is that humans don't suddenly turn green or grow horns or have any other obvious and distinctive change upon immediately reaching the legal age for porn, there's issues of consent, etc. Although legal vs illegal is binary, the decision tree leading up to that is ridiculously complex.
- CyberDildonics 8y ago
  I don't think adding a little padding to be careful is going to hurt anyone in this case.
_kst_ 8y ago
> but it's hard to decide where to draw the line > It's actually very easy - legal and illegal. In what jurisdiction?
- criddell 8y ago
  The jurisdiction of the prosecutor.
gremlinsinc 8y ago
Should we censor all links with the words marijuana in? That's illegal in most jurisdictions. What if someone is trying to find a medical dispensary for it in a medical state and can't because -censored? Obviously cp should be censored... but then SE's could start censoring political stuff or anything that does or doesn't support fascism or socialism depending on their mood and political leanings. Not that censoring fascism is bad, but people should still be able to make up their own minds about things through research. Hopefully AI will become good enough to accurately 'age' and block under-age pictures of minors altogether regardless of whether they're nude or not, honestly I think minors should be protected a bit, although not sure how that would work w/ minors in the public image like child actors.
reshie 8y ago
legality is up to who? its nice to think laws are just and they should be but thats not neccissarily the way of things some places are worse than others. as for this subject specifically it should be obvious to people which side this is on.

magissima 8y ago

You don't need to draw an exact line in order to know which side CP should be on.

dragontamer 8y ago
You'd be surprised. The exact line gets blurry with various media. Kim, the female protagonist in the Broadway Musical "Miss Saigon" is a 17-year old whore. There's implied sex, as well as multiple stripper-dances throughout the musical to hammer in the sexual issues that Kim faces. Something like Miss Saigon is allowed and not CP (despite being below the age of 18) because of cultural significance and whatnot. There are clear cut cases of CP of course. But when musicals / movies / various media toy with the idea of 16-year-old or 17-year-old girls who are exploring their sexuality... where do you draw the line? What should get censored? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita Lolita the novel + movie also gets brought up a lot. As it is explicitly a story about a middle-age man exploring sexuality / erotic elements with an underage girl. It toes the line and never becomes sexually explicit, but its clear from the context what the novel is pushing.
- magissima 8y ago
  I'm not outright rejecting that there are gray areas, but neither of your examples are ambiguous, because they're not porn.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    Fair enough. I should note that Lolita, the book, has been called to be banned on several occasions though. Because the sexual nature of the book makes people uncomfortable. In any case, a search engine (like Google or Bing) may decide to ban sexual content like Lolita, for being sexual + about underage minors. As for an actual case of actually pornographic material, I have another example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18877901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18877901 I talk about an actual pornographic case in this post. A 14-year old girl sends a sexually explicit image to her boyfriend, and is therefore charged with distribution of child pornography.

userbinator 8y ago

Right, the same technology that would be used to block CP and abuse could probably be easily reconfigured to block any topic of choice. ...and more deviously, no one would want to be seen arguing for CP, so it makes for an effective "memory hole" to censor anything. I have on a few occasions been searching for some highly obscure and technical subjects with Google, using search terms that have basically no connection to porn nor children whatsoever, and saw the ominous "some results have been removed from this page because they contain suspected images of child abuse" message. It really makes one wonder, especially since the word "suspected" is somewhat unsettling: was it actual CP that was removed, or something else entirely for a different reason? The fact that mere possession of CP is illegal makes for a chilling effect ("how dare you even question it --- are you a pedophile? You would not have gotten that warning if you weren't searching for 'bad things', right?"), and an extremely powerful censorship tactic.