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This is great and all, but I've been noticing a trend of "go after child porn first" since it's unquestionably evil, and then those same tools are later used to
by lubujackson 13y ago
This is great and all, but I've been noticing a trend of "go after child porn first" since it's unquestionably evil, and then those same tools are later used to strip away civil liberties (usually these are legal tools).
What happens when someone gets the idea to use this tool against any copyrighted photo? Because it will be trivial to start doing that once a consortium of companies are already flagging, reporting and blocking images.
I appreciate the intent, but these are the sort of consequences that need to be considered when a company tries to dictate legal enforcement online.
- mpyne 13y agoThose types of consequences should indeed be thought through, but your same argument applies to essentially everything else that even a local city government could possibly do. E.g. police, what if someone gets the bright idea to use them to suppress lawful, peaceful protesters or hackers just trying to change the world, instead of just going after the unquestionably evil? The conclusion you might reach would be that the government should not have any police, or military, or taxes, or social welfare programs, etc. Maybe someday we'll have an anarcho-utopian world where that not only works, but is ideal; but for now I'd prefer to avoid living in a stateless wasteland where the only real rule is that might makes right. Does that mean this program to reduce child porn is worth the risk to civil liberties? I don't know, I haven't really looked at it. But if we consider only whether what we do could possibly harm anyone else ever then there won't be much we can do at all.
- icebraining 13y agoWell yes, but this isn't an action by an elected government. The IWF is a private organization, established by the Internet industry.