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...child pornography was previously banned (duh), and it's still banned (duh). Their employees still need to moderate their platform and ensure there's no chil

...child pornography was previously banned (duh), and it's still banned (duh). Their employees still need to moderate their platform and ensure there's no child porn. Banning regular, legal porn has zero bearing on this.

dgzl 8y ago
I imagine it would take careful and meticulous observation to differentiate between legal porn and almost-legal porn. Dissolving the platform of porn entirely would streamline this process and potentially be automated. Banning regular porn has a greater than zero bearing on moderating child porn, and you're being disingenuous in pretending otherwise.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > I imagine it would take careful and meticulous observation to differentiate between legal porn and almost-legal porn. Dissolving the platform of porn entirely would streamline this process and potentially be automated. Banning regular porn has a greater than zero bearing on moderating child porn, and you're being disingenuous in pretending otherwise. Why do people keep repeating this? No, it's much more difficult to ban all pornography than it is to ban only child porn. One requires analyzing the content of photos and the other doesn't.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    > No, it's much more difficult to ban all pornography than it is to ban only child porn. One requires analyzing the content of photos and the other doesn't. Since it's easier to spot pornography in general than differentiate between very disturbing types of pornography, the work load is lessened and overall less stressful. Not to mention the amount of work ai could automate. That's your point, right?
    - chimeracoder 8y ago
      > Since it's easier to spot pornography in general than differentiate between very disturbing types of pornography, the work load is lessened and overall less stressful. Not to mention the amount of work ai could automate. That's your point, right? No, detecting child pornography by matching photos to known datasets and then extrapolating rings dedicated to sharing child porn from the social graph is already a solved problem. NCMEC already provides the tools to do this. You don't need to do any image analysis. There are no effective tools for detecting porn more generally. That's a much harder problem.
      - michaelt 8y ago
        According to [1] a Tumblr spokesperson said "we work collaboratively with [...] partners like NCMEC to actively monitor content uploaded to the platform. Every image uploaded to Tumblr is scanned against an industry database of known child sexual abuse material, and images that are detected never reach the platform." Evidently that wasn't sufficient to stop Apple removing them from the App Store, though. [1] https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3066654/tumblr-pulled-from-apples-app-store-due-to-child-pornography-issues https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3066654/tumblr-pul...
      - monadgonad 8y ago
        Most of the child porn probably wasn't known stuff shared by rings, but teenage users uploading their own photos.
        chimeracoder 8y ago
        > Most of the child porn probably wasn't known stuff shared by rings, but teenage users uploading their own photos. Except that's not what the issue was.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    You're blatantly wrong. Training a classifier to determine if a previously unseen image contains nudity is easier than training a classifier to determine if a previously unseen image contains a nude 18 year old or a nude 17 year old. The later task is virtually impossible, which should make it obvious to you that tech like PhotoDNA is not classifying previously unseen photographs.
    - chimeracoder 8y ago
      > You're blatantly wrong. Training a classifier to determine if a previously unseen image contains nudity is easier than training a classifier to determine if a previously unseen image contains a nude 18 year old or a nude 17 year old. Why is it so hard to believe that there exists a solution to this that's much easier than training an image classifier? As I've explained elsewhere, multiple times, this is a solved problem. There's no image analysis required.
      - darkpuma 8y ago
        > previously unseen You missed that part. That requires classification, either by a human or by an algorithm. There is no way around it.
        chimeracoder 8y ago
        > You missed that part. That requires classification, either by a human or by an algorithm. There is no way around it. I did not miss anything. "Previously unseen" only matters if your primary means of identifying people who share child porn is based on analyzing the content of images. I'm very aware of how these systems work, not just at Tumblr but in the industry at large at other, larger companies. I'm not just speculating here; this is literally how NCMEC works and what they expect of companies that host user-generated content.
        darkpuma 8y ago
        For years tumblr neglected to address the issue of teenagers that haven't been trafficked or otherwise gone missing, posting pictures of themselves that did not exist in any database. That is the issue they addressed by banning all pornography, removing any ambiguity over whether any particular never-seen-before image was permitted or banned. NCMEC is out of scope here. They do not have magical powers that allow them to distinguish between an 18 year old or a 17 year old uploading pictures of themselves. You may not like it, I can tell you're very upset at tumblr banning pornography, but this is the reality. Throw around as many of your qualifications as you like, it changes nothing.
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Now they can use crude bots to flag too much skin. That isn't possible if you permit legal porn.
- kakarot 8y ago
  But you already know how stupid and lazy this idea is. Tumblr may be a company. But it was also a community. Real relationships were made on there. I wasn't big on Tumblr but it meant the whole world to thousands of people growing up. Verizon could make its decisions in the context of running a company, or in the context of running a community. They chose the former, because as a money machine they have no interest in spending capital to be the bearers of a meaningful online community which facilitates the formation of meaningful connections between people.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    > "But you already know how stupid and lazy this idea is." Aka cheap. Cheap is key, that's what Verizon cares about. Particularly since they're unable to monetize the legal pornographic content anyway, so ridding the site of it is doubly cheap.
    - kakarot 8y ago
      You missed the point. Verizon only values cheapness over duty to their community precisely because of what I just said. They want to run a company, not a community. The same thing happened when Yahoo was running the show, the bleed-out was just slower because they were more timid about making sweeping changes to Tumblr's ecosystem. Instead of Yahoo or Verizon realizing that they weren't fit to run a community and divesting the company to more competent leadership, as money machines they were unable to recognize the human element behind these companies and ripped them to shreds trying to scrounge up pocket change.
      - darkpuma 8y ago
        > You missed the point. Verizon only values cheapness over duty to their community Of course they do. It's foolish to ever believe that isn't the case, with any for profit corporation. Who do you expect to run tumblr as a charity?

dgzl 8y ago

I imagine it would take careful and meticulous observation to differentiate between legal porn and almost-legal porn. Dissolving the platform of porn entirely would streamline this process and potentially be automated. Banning regular porn has a greater than zero bearing on moderating child porn, and you're being disingenuous in pretending otherwise.

chimeracoder 8y ago
> I imagine it would take careful and meticulous observation to differentiate between legal porn and almost-legal porn. Dissolving the platform of porn entirely would streamline this process and potentially be automated. Banning regular porn has a greater than zero bearing on moderating child porn, and you're being disingenuous in pretending otherwise. Why do people keep repeating this? No, it's much more difficult to ban all pornography than it is to ban only child porn. One requires analyzing the content of photos and the other doesn't.
- dgzl 8y ago
  > No, it's much more difficult to ban all pornography than it is to ban only child porn. One requires analyzing the content of photos and the other doesn't. Since it's easier to spot pornography in general than differentiate between very disturbing types of pornography, the work load is lessened and overall less stressful. Not to mention the amount of work ai could automate. That's your point, right?
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > Since it's easier to spot pornography in general than differentiate between very disturbing types of pornography, the work load is lessened and overall less stressful. Not to mention the amount of work ai could automate. That's your point, right? No, detecting child pornography by matching photos to known datasets and then extrapolating rings dedicated to sharing child porn from the social graph is already a solved problem. NCMEC already provides the tools to do this. You don't need to do any image analysis. There are no effective tools for detecting porn more generally. That's a much harder problem.
    - michaelt 8y ago
      According to [1] a Tumblr spokesperson said "we work collaboratively with [...] partners like NCMEC to actively monitor content uploaded to the platform. Every image uploaded to Tumblr is scanned against an industry database of known child sexual abuse material, and images that are detected never reach the platform." Evidently that wasn't sufficient to stop Apple removing them from the App Store, though. [1] https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3066654/tumblr-pulled-from-apples-app-store-due-to-child-pornography-issues https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3066654/tumblr-pul...
    - monadgonad 8y ago
      Most of the child porn probably wasn't known stuff shared by rings, but teenage users uploading their own photos.
      - chimeracoder 8y ago
        > Most of the child porn probably wasn't known stuff shared by rings, but teenage users uploading their own photos. Except that's not what the issue was.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  You're blatantly wrong. Training a classifier to determine if a previously unseen image contains nudity is easier than training a classifier to determine if a previously unseen image contains a nude 18 year old or a nude 17 year old. The later task is virtually impossible, which should make it obvious to you that tech like PhotoDNA is not classifying previously unseen photographs.
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > You're blatantly wrong. Training a classifier to determine if a previously unseen image contains nudity is easier than training a classifier to determine if a previously unseen image contains a nude 18 year old or a nude 17 year old. Why is it so hard to believe that there exists a solution to this that's much easier than training an image classifier? As I've explained elsewhere, multiple times, this is a solved problem. There's no image analysis required.
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      > previously unseen You missed that part. That requires classification, either by a human or by an algorithm. There is no way around it.
      - chimeracoder 8y ago
        > You missed that part. That requires classification, either by a human or by an algorithm. There is no way around it. I did not miss anything. "Previously unseen" only matters if your primary means of identifying people who share child porn is based on analyzing the content of images. I'm very aware of how these systems work, not just at Tumblr but in the industry at large at other, larger companies. I'm not just speculating here; this is literally how NCMEC works and what they expect of companies that host user-generated content.
        darkpuma 8y ago
        For years tumblr neglected to address the issue of teenagers that haven't been trafficked or otherwise gone missing, posting pictures of themselves that did not exist in any database. That is the issue they addressed by banning all pornography, removing any ambiguity over whether any particular never-seen-before image was permitted or banned. NCMEC is out of scope here. They do not have magical powers that allow them to distinguish between an 18 year old or a 17 year old uploading pictures of themselves. You may not like it, I can tell you're very upset at tumblr banning pornography, but this is the reality. Throw around as many of your qualifications as you like, it changes nothing.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

Now they can use crude bots to flag too much skin. That isn't possible if you permit legal porn.

kakarot 8y ago
But you already know how stupid and lazy this idea is. Tumblr may be a company. But it was also a community. Real relationships were made on there. I wasn't big on Tumblr but it meant the whole world to thousands of people growing up. Verizon could make its decisions in the context of running a company, or in the context of running a community. They chose the former, because as a money machine they have no interest in spending capital to be the bearers of a meaningful online community which facilitates the formation of meaningful connections between people.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  > "But you already know how stupid and lazy this idea is." Aka cheap. Cheap is key, that's what Verizon cares about. Particularly since they're unable to monetize the legal pornographic content anyway, so ridding the site of it is doubly cheap.
  - kakarot 8y ago
    You missed the point. Verizon only values cheapness over duty to their community precisely because of what I just said. They want to run a company, not a community. The same thing happened when Yahoo was running the show, the bleed-out was just slower because they were more timid about making sweeping changes to Tumblr's ecosystem. Instead of Yahoo or Verizon realizing that they weren't fit to run a community and divesting the company to more competent leadership, as money machines they were unable to recognize the human element behind these companies and ripped them to shreds trying to scrounge up pocket change.
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      > You missed the point. Verizon only values cheapness over duty to their community Of course they do. It's foolish to ever believe that isn't the case, with any for profit corporation. Who do you expect to run tumblr as a charity?