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Stanford researchers find Mastodon has a massive child abuse material problem (www.theverge.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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Mastodon, an alternative social network to Twitter, has a serious problem with child sexual abuse material according to researchers from Stanford University. In just two days, researchers found over 100 instances of known CSAM across over 325,000 posts on Mastodon. The researchers found hundreds of posts containing CSAM related hashtags and links pointing to CSAM trading and grooming of minors. One Mastodon server was even taken down for a period of time due to CSAM being posted. The researchers suggest that decentralized networks like Mastodon need to implement more robust moderation tools and reporting mechanisms to address the prevalence of CSAM.

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[–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

I don't know how you get the impression that this increases censorship.

This tool would simply automate that process.

Well... precisely?

Censorship is any removal of material considered "undesirable", whether you agree with why it is considered "undesirable" or not.

If you want more censorship of "material that you personally consider undesirable", then just say so, don't hide behind some disingenuous "but it isn't censorship". Then we can discuss the merits of that classification, and of the means proposed to achieve such censorship.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    You seem to be missing my point.

    This tool would not increase censorship.

    Admins are already able to implement all censorship they want.

    Admins are already able to block left-wing opinions, right-wing opinions, child porn, normal porn.

    And that already happens.

    Lots of instances (like feddit.de) block pornographic content.

    Lots of instances (like lemmy.blahaj.zone) block right-wing content.

    It is already possible, and it is already happening.

    An AI which can detect CSAM (and potentially other content) won't change that. It will simply make the admins' job easier.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    I think you're missing the opposite point.

    An AI trained on a given instance's admin decisions, would increase the same censorship the admins already apply. We can agree on that.

    An AI trained by a third-party on unknown data (and actually illegal to be known) which can detect "CSAM (and potentially other content)", would increase censorship of both CSAM... and of "potentially other content" out of the control, preferences or knowledge of the instance admins.

    Using an external service to submit ALL content for an AI trained by a third-party to make a decision, not only allows the external service to collect ALL the content (not just the censored one), but also to change the decision parameters without previous notice, or any kind of oversight, and apply it to ALL content.

    The problem is a difference between:

    • instance modlog -> instance content filtered by instance AI -> makes similar decisions as instance admins
    • [illegal to know dataset] -> third-party captures all content, feeds to undisclosed AI -> makes unknown decisions in the name of removing CSAM

    One is an AI that can make mistakes, but mostly follows whatever an admin would do. The other, is a 100% surveillance state nightmare in the name of filtering 0.03% of content.

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