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Ashton Kutcher’s non-profit, Thorn, supports EU plans for CSAM scanning

raxxorraxor 4y ago
Warning, long EU critical rant: This is again a fundamental flaw of the EU. It is much easier for lobbyists with deep pockets to influence policies on the continent. A few years ago EU advantages wwere sold as keeping the peace and making travel easier. Well, I think the first one isn't true and the second is a tiny advantage in comparison to have vastly less influence. I don't have a solution and theoretically we have subsidiarity here but it empirically doesn't work, especially concerning civil liberties. Those are reduced while economic interests are completely unchallenged, even supported by the political structure. Ever wondered why retail tries to use as few suppliers as possible? For a number of reasons but one is certainly to make that supplier dependent and to influence decisions in production. Now take this idea and transfer it to the EU. I don't think a lot of friends of the EU are capable to understand these dynamics and therefore are not really good political allies because refusing to talk about the problems doesn't make the problem go away. There is just hot air as a response if you even get one. The weight the EU provides to defend against the influence of other states is also useless if we emulate corrupt autocracies anyway. So what is the excuse this time? We have a Hollywood actor influencing policies trying to sell his shitty AI solution. Sure, there is domestic support too, especially with personnel like UvdL who certainly nobody elected. Maybe people that cannot understand her might like her because she looks a bit sympathetic. Great union... We simply cannot have a political institution on the highest level where nations offload their most incompetent politicians. Public policy is too important for that. As a citizen I cannot keep up with the issues in Spain or Sweden if I live in central Europe. How can I know what to vote for here? I could focus on my interest as a citizen, but right now it feels like a headless race forward with possibly very bad decisions that can do a lot of damage. Most people in the EU not from Germany don't know UvdL and they should know that she has the capability to severely damage the net and to me this is a case of cronyism right in front of our eyes without much recourse.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Most people in the EU not from Germany don't know UvdL Oh, we do, and we hate her and unfortunately Germany too, because they push their incompetent and corrupt politicians to the EU, where they're using the country's immense economic leverage to push unpopular policies across EU level.
  - jotm 4y ago
    On that note, other EU countries should pull their heads out of their asses and start creating better environments for business and especially small business/startups. You know what happens in my country when you get a big sum of money from crowdfunding or the tax authority thinks you owe them money? They block your bank accounts. Yeah, they actually do that, and then tell you to come and resolve the problem. Which can take weeks to months. You know what happens in a "normal" country like the UK, Germany, Netherlands or any other with a healthy number of small/medium business? They notify you and tell you to come and resolve the issue asap. If you fail to do that, they can block and check your bank accounts. In the meantime, you can continue doing business. The punishment for tax evasion/etc is about the same all over. So why the extra totalitarianism? Anyone with half a brain would never want to deal with that bs. And that's just one example, there's lots more. You know where big companies come from? Small ones grow into them. Good luck growing much of anything with this kind of approach. Sit there and be envious of Germany and everyone else.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      What does 'your country ' whichever that is, and their abusive way of way of handling business have to do with Germany's way of doing business and their corrupt politicians? The US is number one in the world for top companies, does that automatically make them the best example for policies on everything and the best politicians? I just don't understand where you were going with this off topic rant.
- AlbertoGP 4y ago
  > Most people in the EU not from Germany don't know UvdL and they should know that she has the capability to severely damage the net I gave a bit of context on UvdL (Ursula von der Leyen) in a comment a few hours ago in the thread “European Commission prefers breaking privacy to protecting kids”: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31344817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31344817
hulitu 4y ago
To call it a star for "Kutcher is known to older millennials for movies such as „Dude, where’s my car“." is a bit too much.
- rglover 4y ago
  Nah, that's great. https://youtu.be/G2Mbj06Ns2Y?t=27 https://youtu.be/G2Mbj06Ns2Y?t=27
- windowsrookie 4y ago
  It was strange to just mention that movie. I remember Ashton Kutcher more from his role on "That 70's Show". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_%2770s_Show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_%2770s_Show "Its eight seasons, consisting of 200 episodes, made it Fox's second-longest-running live-action sitcom ever behind Married... with Children," Also I remember him from when he hosted (and apparently co-created) Punk'd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk%27d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk%27d I had completely forgotten about him, but had a generally positive perception of him. That is no longer true.
  - monetus 4y ago
    His public presence the past few years has mostly revolved around hedgefunds and other investment vehicles.
    - bitwize 4y ago
      You've heard of wantrepreneurs? Meet the wanture capitalist.
usrn 4y ago
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Does one or two retired actors’ investments and business interests in surveillance technology companies qualify as “Hollywood” campaigning for the destruction of free countries?
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  But Hollywood also loves money, so this figures. Won't be hard to extend copyrighted material the CP hashes and make it harder to store, transfer or view unapproved media. We have already seen Hollywood ready to abridge freedoms anywhere people make unauthorised copies of their films/shows. So this would mesh well with that. They were disgusting long ago. But to be fair, you're lumping them into the wrong broad category. They obviously aren't all pedophiles, but most of them are greedy.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- aweflkjl34t 4y ago
yeneek 4y ago
I don't see how government reading through personal messages is gonna protect children. From all the possible solutions, this is the most useless and the most unsecure.
- frankharv 4y ago
  The line about "Grooming" was also very ambiguous. What is the legal definition of grooming?
  - weikju 4y ago
    It's a very specific term when referring to this subject matter https://www.rainn.org/news/grooming-know-warning-signs https://www.rainn.org/news/grooming-know-warning-signs > grooming: manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught.
    - voakbasda 4y ago
      I would argue that most corporate marketing to consumers meets each and every one of those criteria.
      - cyborgx7 4y ago
        You would be correct. Marketing in general and advertising in particular is a villainous practice.
        hunterb123 4y ago
        Yeah child trafficking is almost as bad as villainous targeted advertising /s
        cyborgx7 4y ago
        what?
aeno 4y ago
German data protection officer Ulrich Kelber thinks the proposal is incompatible with applicable EU law: https://twitter.com/UlrichKelber/status/1524738280171913218 https://twitter.com/UlrichKelber/status/1524738280171913218
- blibble 4y ago
  so it'll take 10 years to reach the courts, who'll (maybe) strike it down then they'll re-legislate, pass it in a slightly modified form, and then we wait 10 years again same as with the EU-US data privacy laws
micromacrofoot 4y ago
Single-issue advocates are important because they focus on an issue more than most, but this is a great example of why you need to take their initiatives with a grain of salt... eventually single-issue champions will always lean towards authoritarianism. You need someone you trust to tell you when to stop.
- beart 4y ago
  I feel like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) pushing for sobriety checkpoints is another great example of this.
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    Lots of big charities fall into this, probably 100 examples from PETA alone.
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    I lived in San Juan county, New Mexico, which had (has?) one of the worst records in the nation for drunk driving fatalities. Like it or not, that statistic was due to the presence of and proximity to the dry Navajo reservation. Checkpoints were rampant, but it was both easy to discover their locations as well as avoid them. In practice, I found them to be opportunities to shakedown the population and issue any possible citation that they thought could stick, with drunk driving prevention being the ostensible reasoning to defend what would otherwise be an indefensible violation of the 4th Amendment. The net result for me personally was a near total loss of respect for law enforcement and our government in general. It demonstrated that the majority conform to our system of laws out of abject terror, or risk being arbitrarily targeted and persecuted under fundamentally unjust laws. No one in their right mind would claim to obey the government out of respect for the system’s righteousness. That’s not a sustainable way to run a government, so here we are: in the midst of a civil war (being waged in the courts… for now) and on the brink of outright revolution. The current assault on reproductive rights offers yet another glimpse into this now-endemic ongoing conflict, with actual violence occurring almost daily.
darkhorn 4y ago
>The European Union debates a new law that could force platforms to scan all private messages for signs of child abuse. This is how censorship started in Turkey. They said that they are not going to censor opposing view but now 99% of censorships are to silence anything that speaks against the current president.
- alaricus 4y ago
  exactly this. this is a very slippery slope.
- Tozen 4y ago
  Good point.
Traster 4y ago
One thing I think is important to highlight here is people often make the argument that this sort of legislation is just a grab for power using child exploitation as a cover. But if you actually take seriously the arguments made by people like Ashton Kutcher there's no doubt that there are people who genuinely are trying to solve the problem of child trafficking and this would actually help them do that. That's not to say that there aren't significant draw backs of this type of legislation, nor that on balance this type of solution is correct. I'm simply pointing out that there are genuine policy reasons to endorse this and if you oppose this it would be wise to find other ways of solving the concerns people like Kutcher are raising.
- pmontra 4y ago
  It seems that this guy is looking for a way to make a lot of money with the blessing of governments. There is no evidence that he cares more about kids than money. It could have been anything else IMHO.
- INTPenis 4y ago
  Of course, the path to destruction is always paved with good intentions. But time and time again humans have shown that they cannot handle the responsibility of power. And giving governments access to all private communications is absolute power.
  - ng55QPSK 4y ago
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
- dijit 4y ago
  I'm not going to say you're wrong, but I think it's extremely important not to dilute the public response to this. CSAM scanning is arbitrary, opaque and ubiquitous. You cannot know what the blocklist contains, such a system is not introspectable and it is not outside the realm of reason that a more totalitarian government could insert a picture of President Xi photoshopped as Winnie the Pooh or the famous Putin in make-up picture: and then they will immediately get a list of all dissidents. It's absolutely Orwellian, and it's invisible too. This is not the way. ---- I'll add that in general the hacker community (CCC and ilk) can be a bit more distrustful of authority than perhaps is healthy. I attended one talk at CCC where a person detailed all the "wrong" ways that the FBI was hacking pedophile sites and collecting personal information on the darkweb. I openly responded to him in support of the FBI; that wholesale collection of registered accounts on a pedophile website represents probable cause; that if it's illegal to gather information of pedophiles across county or country lines: then we should work on making it legal. There's a large difference in my mind, between taking conscious action in doing something, such as trying to buy drugs vs submitting yourself for a mandatory drug screening every week. Here's the talk: https://api.media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8018-law_enforcement_are_hacking_the_planet https://api.media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8018-law_enforcement_are_hac...
freddealmeida 4y ago
tootie 4y ago
Absolute outrage clickbait. The bill is intended to protect children from traffickers. It is sponsored by the European Commission. The nonprofit founded by Ashton Kutcher supports it. He's not personally in Brussels demanding surveillance. The draft of the bill is likely written from a single point of view with a set of rules beyond what they expect to get, then it will be negotiated down and they'll get some of it or none of it. The notion that we should not even try to combat child sex trafficking because it will have some associated cost is really selfish. Obviously, we have to balance concerns, but that's entirely possible to do responsibly. I think the last 20 years (really 100 years) have shown that abuse of free speech and privacy will happen no matter what when the authorities want it to and not at all when the don't. The US ran warrantless wiretapping for over a year post 9/11 and sucked up all sorts of completely illegally obtained communication and as far we know not a single civilian was remotely inconvenienced for it. Meanwhile Russia is throwing journalists out windows for their very public statements of fact.
- yunwal 4y ago
  So wait, your point is "Governments are going to spy on you no matter what"... and your plan is to make measures that protect against that such as encryption illegal?
  - hunterb123 4y ago
    That wasn't his point at all. Instead of badly paraphrasing why don't you reply to what he actually wrote. He was clarifying the situation unlike everyone else talking in hyperboles. I'm not for this specific suggestion but Ashton and his foundation are truly trying to help fight child trafficking. Let's talk through a solution instead of ignoring it or slandering those trying to do something.
  - tootie 4y ago
    No. My point is governments will _repress_ people regardless of their surveillance capabilities. The Gestapo didn't need to monitor WhatsApp to detain disloyal citizens without trial. On the flip side, there are billion dollar corporations who exist solely to shit on the leaders of their countries as loudly as possible with no repercussions. I'm not saying surveillance is great and we just blindly accept it, but I am saying the cost of heightened surveillance is a lot lower than the HN crowd seem to think it is. When you're balancing the scale of public safety against increased surveillance it's not a simple equation.
api 4y ago
> Kutcher is known to older millennials for movies such as „Dude, where’s my car“. Outside of his acting career, he has dabbled in technology investing. With Thorn, Kutcher entered the market for surveillance technology: In 2020, the organization launched „Safer,“ which claims to be the „first comprehensive third-party CSAM [child sexual abuse material] detection platform“. So he's shilling his startup investment by trying to get the EU to mandate it.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  I don't want to sound too cynical, but, basically, yes. I mean, I suppose if you look at it objectively, it is not a bad business model. How can you possibly oppose protecting children? Why, you must be one of 'them'.. and as a bonus: sufficiently powerful people will pay just to make sure they have either blackmail material or control over the process to protect themselves.
vslira 4y ago
I said it once, I’ll say it again and I’m willing to het someone else in this same thread already vented the same opinion: Big Content (Copyright holders of all sorts) are probably salivating at the possibility of a content blocklist that you can’t turn off on your devices
deleted 4y ago
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alaricus 4y ago
Tell this Yankee to go back to America. We don't want him in Europe meddling with our affairs.
andreisbc 4y ago
He looks like a fucking hot head. I grew up with The Butterfly Effect, but this dude is just trying to juice his celebrity into something he either doesn't have the capability to understand - to its full extent - either his acting days are over and he just wants to make some profit, being the puppet of someone that knows better. Anyway, Ashton isn't dumb - he's just trying to be alive, doing all that it takes. Just fucking human nature man
- rvz 4y ago
  Woah, my goodness. Why are you so upset?
ycombinator3 4y ago
stickyricky 4y ago
The over abundance of useless people with stupid amounts of money has got to be the greatest social malaise of our time.
orthoxerox 4y ago
TIL he's not Trump's son-in-law.
wpdev_63 4y ago
Apparently "trafficking children" is so wide spread and rampant that europeans must give up more of their privacy and their liberties for "security and the children". Welcome to politics in 2022!
- nmz 4y ago
  This is super old, you may remember the patriot act, privacy has been in a state of consistent erosion. Hell, before Snowden any type of surveillance movie was considered paranoia.
BurningFrog 4y ago
This may not have an answer, but... why is a random former actor the leading advocate for this?
- romanhn 4y ago
  I tried to answer in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356567
medo-bear 4y ago
this is hilarious. does anyone remember britney spears promoting the 'war on terrorism' ?
no-dr-onboard 4y ago
This is a highly editorialized headline. Ashton Kutcher has worked for almost a decade to fight against online Child Sexual Abuse Material. Though a proponent of internet privacy myself, even I can see the hamfisted attempt to label this as "a lobby for more surveillance." Read the bill for yourself https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_2976 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_...
- deeviant 4y ago
  "To effectively address the misuse of online services for the purposes of child sexual abuse, clear rules are needed, with robust conditions and safeguards. The proposed rules will oblige providers to detect, report and remove child sexual abuse material on their services." It does seem like a "lobby for more surveillance". Or can you think of a way to "detect, report and remove..." content without examining the contents of every single message sent on the platform?
  - anonymouswacker 4y ago
    The best way to "detect" would be to, obviously, read it. So yes, this is surveillance, and just because you have good intentions doesn't mean you're not wrong.
    - no-dr-onboard 4y ago
      Connotation vs denotation, but I understand where you're coming from. Admittedly, I'm increasingly shocked that I've found myself on this side of the surveillance debate for this issue. I suppose this has something to do with my susceptibility to the "think of the children" tactic. What separates this from other "appeal to pity" tactics is that this bill is the source of this bill. This isn't a group of EU equivalent democratic/republican lawmakers who are pushing for a surveillance bill because they have their wallets padded with intelligence contractor money. This is a philanthropist who has track record of sustained, devoted, high-effort actions in fighting against this dark industry. I suppose the counter argument remains the same though, right? Whomever is granted the authority to surveil will ultimately misuse their access. Admittedly, I can't pull myself away from agreeing with that. What a mess.
aweflkjl34t 4y ago
aweflkjl34t 4y ago
aweflkjl34t 4y ago
belter 4y ago
Ashton Kutcher seems to spend most of his time, using his celebrity to pump up the companies he has investments on. He lost all credibility, when he decided to do this interview and help is buddy Adam Neumann. You can notice he is not completely comfortable doing it, but he did and that is all that matters at the end. "Interview with Ashton Kutcher and WeWork CEO Adam Neumann" https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/01/14/watch-cnbcs-full-interview-with-ashton-kutcher-and-wework-ceo-adam-neumann.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/01/14/watch-cnbcs-full-inter...
ibejoeb 4y ago
This presumption is that the governments, who maintains the secret CSAM database, are not also participating in the exploitation. I don't know how anyone reconciles this with government-controlled borders that allow practically unfettered crossing, which certainly drives human trafficking.

Warning, long EU critical rant: This is again a fundamental flaw of the EU. It is much easier for lobbyists with deep pockets to influence policies on the continent. A few years ago EU advantages wwere sold as keeping the peace and making travel easier. Well, I think the first one isn't true and the second is a tiny advantage in comparison to have vastly less influence. I don't have a solution and theoretically we have subsidiarity here but it empirically doesn't work, especially concerning civil liberties. Those are reduced while economic interests are completely unchallenged, even supported by the political structure. Ever wondered why retail tries to use as few suppliers as possible? For a number of reasons but one is certainly to make that supplier dependent and to influence decisions in production. Now take this idea and transfer it to the EU. I don't think a lot of friends of the EU are capable to understand these dynamics and therefore are not really good political allies because refusing to talk about the problems doesn't make the problem go away. There is just hot air as a response if you even get one. The weight the EU provides to defend against the influence of other states is also useless if we emulate corrupt autocracies anyway. So what is the excuse this time? We have a Hollywood actor influencing policies trying to sell his shitty AI solution. Sure, there is domestic support too, especially with personnel like UvdL who certainly nobody elected. Maybe people that cannot understand her might like her because she looks a bit sympathetic. Great union... We simply cannot have a political institution on the highest level where nations offload their most incompetent politicians. Public policy is too important for that. As a citizen I cannot keep up with the issues in Spain or Sweden if I live in central Europe. How can I know what to vote for here? I could focus on my interest as a citizen, but right now it feels like a headless race forward with possibly very bad decisions that can do a lot of damage. Most people in the EU not from Germany don't know UvdL and they should know that she has the capability to severely damage the net and to me this is a case of cronyism right in front of our eyes without much recourse.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>Most people in the EU not from Germany don't know UvdL Oh, we do, and we hate her and unfortunately Germany too, because they push their incompetent and corrupt politicians to the EU, where they're using the country's immense economic leverage to push unpopular policies across EU level.
- jotm 4y ago
  On that note, other EU countries should pull their heads out of their asses and start creating better environments for business and especially small business/startups. You know what happens in my country when you get a big sum of money from crowdfunding or the tax authority thinks you owe them money? They block your bank accounts. Yeah, they actually do that, and then tell you to come and resolve the problem. Which can take weeks to months. You know what happens in a "normal" country like the UK, Germany, Netherlands or any other with a healthy number of small/medium business? They notify you and tell you to come and resolve the issue asap. If you fail to do that, they can block and check your bank accounts. In the meantime, you can continue doing business. The punishment for tax evasion/etc is about the same all over. So why the extra totalitarianism? Anyone with half a brain would never want to deal with that bs. And that's just one example, there's lots more. You know where big companies come from? Small ones grow into them. Good luck growing much of anything with this kind of approach. Sit there and be envious of Germany and everyone else.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    What does 'your country ' whichever that is, and their abusive way of way of handling business have to do with Germany's way of doing business and their corrupt politicians? The US is number one in the world for top companies, does that automatically make them the best example for policies on everything and the best politicians? I just don't understand where you were going with this off topic rant.
AlbertoGP 4y ago
> Most people in the EU not from Germany don't know UvdL and they should know that she has the capability to severely damage the net I gave a bit of context on UvdL (Ursula von der Leyen) in a comment a few hours ago in the thread “European Commission prefers breaking privacy to protecting kids”: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31344817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31344817

hulitu 4y ago

To call it a star for "Kutcher is known to older millennials for movies such as „Dude, where’s my car“." is a bit too much.

rglover 4y ago
Nah, that's great. https://youtu.be/G2Mbj06Ns2Y?t=27 https://youtu.be/G2Mbj06Ns2Y?t=27
windowsrookie 4y ago
It was strange to just mention that movie. I remember Ashton Kutcher more from his role on "That 70's Show". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_%2770s_Show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_%2770s_Show "Its eight seasons, consisting of 200 episodes, made it Fox's second-longest-running live-action sitcom ever behind Married... with Children," Also I remember him from when he hosted (and apparently co-created) Punk'd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk%27d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk%27d I had completely forgotten about him, but had a generally positive perception of him. That is no longer true.
- monetus 4y ago
  His public presence the past few years has mostly revolved around hedgefunds and other investment vehicles.
  - bitwize 4y ago
    You've heard of wantrepreneurs? Meet the wanture capitalist.

usrn 4y ago

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Does one or two retired actors’ investments and business interests in surveillance technology companies qualify as “Hollywood” campaigning for the destruction of free countries?
Sporktacular 4y ago
But Hollywood also loves money, so this figures. Won't be hard to extend copyrighted material the CP hashes and make it harder to store, transfer or view unapproved media. We have already seen Hollywood ready to abridge freedoms anywhere people make unauthorised copies of their films/shows. So this would mesh well with that. They were disgusting long ago. But to be fair, you're lumping them into the wrong broad category. They obviously aren't all pedophiles, but most of them are greedy.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
aweflkjl34t 4y ago

yeneek 4y ago

I don't see how government reading through personal messages is gonna protect children. From all the possible solutions, this is the most useless and the most unsecure.

frankharv 4y ago
The line about "Grooming" was also very ambiguous. What is the legal definition of grooming?
- weikju 4y ago
  It's a very specific term when referring to this subject matter https://www.rainn.org/news/grooming-know-warning-signs https://www.rainn.org/news/grooming-know-warning-signs > grooming: manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught.
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    I would argue that most corporate marketing to consumers meets each and every one of those criteria.
    - cyborgx7 4y ago
      You would be correct. Marketing in general and advertising in particular is a villainous practice.
      - hunterb123 4y ago
        Yeah child trafficking is almost as bad as villainous targeted advertising /s
        cyborgx7 4y ago
        what?

aeno 4y ago

German data protection officer Ulrich Kelber thinks the proposal is incompatible with applicable EU law: https://twitter.com/UlrichKelber/status/1524738280171913218 https://twitter.com/UlrichKelber/status/1524738280171913218

blibble 4y ago
so it'll take 10 years to reach the courts, who'll (maybe) strike it down then they'll re-legislate, pass it in a slightly modified form, and then we wait 10 years again same as with the EU-US data privacy laws

micromacrofoot 4y ago

Single-issue advocates are important because they focus on an issue more than most, but this is a great example of why you need to take their initiatives with a grain of salt... eventually single-issue champions will always lean towards authoritarianism. You need someone you trust to tell you when to stop.

beart 4y ago
I feel like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) pushing for sobriety checkpoints is another great example of this.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  Lots of big charities fall into this, probably 100 examples from PETA alone.
- voakbasda 4y ago
  I lived in San Juan county, New Mexico, which had (has?) one of the worst records in the nation for drunk driving fatalities. Like it or not, that statistic was due to the presence of and proximity to the dry Navajo reservation. Checkpoints were rampant, but it was both easy to discover their locations as well as avoid them. In practice, I found them to be opportunities to shakedown the population and issue any possible citation that they thought could stick, with drunk driving prevention being the ostensible reasoning to defend what would otherwise be an indefensible violation of the 4th Amendment. The net result for me personally was a near total loss of respect for law enforcement and our government in general. It demonstrated that the majority conform to our system of laws out of abject terror, or risk being arbitrarily targeted and persecuted under fundamentally unjust laws. No one in their right mind would claim to obey the government out of respect for the system’s righteousness. That’s not a sustainable way to run a government, so here we are: in the midst of a civil war (being waged in the courts… for now) and on the brink of outright revolution. The current assault on reproductive rights offers yet another glimpse into this now-endemic ongoing conflict, with actual violence occurring almost daily.

darkhorn 4y ago

>The European Union debates a new law that could force platforms to scan all private messages for signs of child abuse. This is how censorship started in Turkey. They said that they are not going to censor opposing view but now 99% of censorships are to silence anything that speaks against the current president.

alaricus 4y ago
exactly this. this is a very slippery slope.
Tozen 4y ago
Good point.

Traster 4y ago

One thing I think is important to highlight here is people often make the argument that this sort of legislation is just a grab for power using child exploitation as a cover. But if you actually take seriously the arguments made by people like Ashton Kutcher there's no doubt that there are people who genuinely are trying to solve the problem of child trafficking and this would actually help them do that. That's not to say that there aren't significant draw backs of this type of legislation, nor that on balance this type of solution is correct. I'm simply pointing out that there are genuine policy reasons to endorse this and if you oppose this it would be wise to find other ways of solving the concerns people like Kutcher are raising.

pmontra 4y ago
It seems that this guy is looking for a way to make a lot of money with the blessing of governments. There is no evidence that he cares more about kids than money. It could have been anything else IMHO.
INTPenis 4y ago
Of course, the path to destruction is always paved with good intentions. But time and time again humans have shown that they cannot handle the responsibility of power. And giving governments access to all private communications is absolute power.
- ng55QPSK 4y ago
  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
dijit 4y ago
I'm not going to say you're wrong, but I think it's extremely important not to dilute the public response to this. CSAM scanning is arbitrary, opaque and ubiquitous. You cannot know what the blocklist contains, such a system is not introspectable and it is not outside the realm of reason that a more totalitarian government could insert a picture of President Xi photoshopped as Winnie the Pooh or the famous Putin in make-up picture: and then they will immediately get a list of all dissidents. It's absolutely Orwellian, and it's invisible too. This is not the way. ---- I'll add that in general the hacker community (CCC and ilk) can be a bit more distrustful of authority than perhaps is healthy. I attended one talk at CCC where a person detailed all the "wrong" ways that the FBI was hacking pedophile sites and collecting personal information on the darkweb. I openly responded to him in support of the FBI; that wholesale collection of registered accounts on a pedophile website represents probable cause; that if it's illegal to gather information of pedophiles across county or country lines: then we should work on making it legal. There's a large difference in my mind, between taking conscious action in doing something, such as trying to buy drugs vs submitting yourself for a mandatory drug screening every week. Here's the talk: https://api.media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8018-law_enforcement_are_hacking_the_planet https://api.media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8018-law_enforcement_are_hac...

freddealmeida 4y ago

tootie 4y ago

Absolute outrage clickbait. The bill is intended to protect children from traffickers. It is sponsored by the European Commission. The nonprofit founded by Ashton Kutcher supports it. He's not personally in Brussels demanding surveillance. The draft of the bill is likely written from a single point of view with a set of rules beyond what they expect to get, then it will be negotiated down and they'll get some of it or none of it. The notion that we should not even try to combat child sex trafficking because it will have some associated cost is really selfish. Obviously, we have to balance concerns, but that's entirely possible to do responsibly. I think the last 20 years (really 100 years) have shown that abuse of free speech and privacy will happen no matter what when the authorities want it to and not at all when the don't. The US ran warrantless wiretapping for over a year post 9/11 and sucked up all sorts of completely illegally obtained communication and as far we know not a single civilian was remotely inconvenienced for it. Meanwhile Russia is throwing journalists out windows for their very public statements of fact.

yunwal 4y ago
So wait, your point is "Governments are going to spy on you no matter what"... and your plan is to make measures that protect against that such as encryption illegal?
- hunterb123 4y ago
  That wasn't his point at all. Instead of badly paraphrasing why don't you reply to what he actually wrote. He was clarifying the situation unlike everyone else talking in hyperboles. I'm not for this specific suggestion but Ashton and his foundation are truly trying to help fight child trafficking. Let's talk through a solution instead of ignoring it or slandering those trying to do something.
- tootie 4y ago
  No. My point is governments will _repress_ people regardless of their surveillance capabilities. The Gestapo didn't need to monitor WhatsApp to detain disloyal citizens without trial. On the flip side, there are billion dollar corporations who exist solely to shit on the leaders of their countries as loudly as possible with no repercussions. I'm not saying surveillance is great and we just blindly accept it, but I am saying the cost of heightened surveillance is a lot lower than the HN crowd seem to think it is. When you're balancing the scale of public safety against increased surveillance it's not a simple equation.

api 4y ago

> Kutcher is known to older millennials for movies such as „Dude, where’s my car“. Outside of his acting career, he has dabbled in technology investing. With Thorn, Kutcher entered the market for surveillance technology: In 2020, the organization launched „Safer,“ which claims to be the „first comprehensive third-party CSAM [child sexual abuse material] detection platform“. So he's shilling his startup investment by trying to get the EU to mandate it.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
I don't want to sound too cynical, but, basically, yes. I mean, I suppose if you look at it objectively, it is not a bad business model. How can you possibly oppose protecting children? Why, you must be one of 'them'.. and as a bonus: sufficiently powerful people will pay just to make sure they have either blackmail material or control over the process to protect themselves.

vslira 4y ago

I said it once, I’ll say it again and I’m willing to het someone else in this same thread already vented the same opinion: Big Content (Copyright holders of all sorts) are probably salivating at the possibility of a content blocklist that you can’t turn off on your devices

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

alaricus 4y ago

Tell this Yankee to go back to America. We don't want him in Europe meddling with our affairs.

andreisbc 4y ago

He looks like a fucking hot head. I grew up with The Butterfly Effect, but this dude is just trying to juice his celebrity into something he either doesn't have the capability to understand - to its full extent - either his acting days are over and he just wants to make some profit, being the puppet of someone that knows better. Anyway, Ashton isn't dumb - he's just trying to be alive, doing all that it takes. Just fucking human nature man

rvz 4y ago
Woah, my goodness. Why are you so upset?

ycombinator3 4y ago

stickyricky 4y ago

The over abundance of useless people with stupid amounts of money has got to be the greatest social malaise of our time.

orthoxerox 4y ago

TIL he's not Trump's son-in-law.

wpdev_63 4y ago

Apparently "trafficking children" is so wide spread and rampant that europeans must give up more of their privacy and their liberties for "security and the children". Welcome to politics in 2022!

nmz 4y ago
This is super old, you may remember the patriot act, privacy has been in a state of consistent erosion. Hell, before Snowden any type of surveillance movie was considered paranoia.

BurningFrog 4y ago

This may not have an answer, but... why is a random former actor the leading advocate for this?

romanhn 4y ago
I tried to answer in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356567

medo-bear 4y ago

this is hilarious. does anyone remember britney spears promoting the 'war on terrorism' ?

no-dr-onboard 4y ago

This is a highly editorialized headline. Ashton Kutcher has worked for almost a decade to fight against online Child Sexual Abuse Material. Though a proponent of internet privacy myself, even I can see the hamfisted attempt to label this as "a lobby for more surveillance." Read the bill for yourself https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_2976 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_...

deeviant 4y ago
"To effectively address the misuse of online services for the purposes of child sexual abuse, clear rules are needed, with robust conditions and safeguards. The proposed rules will oblige providers to detect, report and remove child sexual abuse material on their services." It does seem like a "lobby for more surveillance". Or can you think of a way to "detect, report and remove..." content without examining the contents of every single message sent on the platform?
- anonymouswacker 4y ago
  The best way to "detect" would be to, obviously, read it. So yes, this is surveillance, and just because you have good intentions doesn't mean you're not wrong.
  - no-dr-onboard 4y ago
    Connotation vs denotation, but I understand where you're coming from. Admittedly, I'm increasingly shocked that I've found myself on this side of the surveillance debate for this issue. I suppose this has something to do with my susceptibility to the "think of the children" tactic. What separates this from other "appeal to pity" tactics is that this bill is the source of this bill. This isn't a group of EU equivalent democratic/republican lawmakers who are pushing for a surveillance bill because they have their wallets padded with intelligence contractor money. This is a philanthropist who has track record of sustained, devoted, high-effort actions in fighting against this dark industry. I suppose the counter argument remains the same though, right? Whomever is granted the authority to surveil will ultimately misuse their access. Admittedly, I can't pull myself away from agreeing with that. What a mess.

aweflkjl34t 4y ago

belter 4y ago

Ashton Kutcher seems to spend most of his time, using his celebrity to pump up the companies he has investments on. He lost all credibility, when he decided to do this interview and help is buddy Adam Neumann. You can notice he is not completely comfortable doing it, but he did and that is all that matters at the end. "Interview with Ashton Kutcher and WeWork CEO Adam Neumann" https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/01/14/watch-cnbcs-full-interview-with-ashton-kutcher-and-wework-ceo-adam-neumann.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/01/14/watch-cnbcs-full-inter...

ibejoeb 4y ago

This presumption is that the governments, who maintains the secret CSAM database, are not also participating in the exploitation. I don't know how anyone reconciles this with government-controlled borders that allow practically unfettered crossing, which certainly drives human trafficking.