[Teever]

What terrible reasoning.

'Child pornography' is already too long to say repeatedly in a sentence so it is often shortened to "child porn." CSAM has far too many syllables so it too is shortened to two syllables in the form of the spoken acronym "CSAM" and so we're back to square one.

With that said this is a fascinating display someone pressing the reverse button on the euphemism treadmill. I don't think I've ever seen that before.

[function_seven]

I don't think the number of syllables is the important thing here. Rather that the term "porn" doesn't—by itself!—impute any moral judgement. It's just a thing. Some people think it's all bad, others think some is okay while some isn't, and some think anything with consenting performers is fair game.

But children are incapable of being consenting performers. That's what separates abuse material from porn. So to make damn sure there isn't any overlap in the Venn diagram of media that depicts sexual acts, they'd rather not associate "child porn" with anything else that exists in the universe of "porn".

It's a completely separate category, not some "bad" end of a spectrum.

That's the reasoning I've heard before, anyway.

And I agree with you on the reverse treadmill thing. It's interesting. On a related tangent: I've always hated how journalists use the term "sexual assault" to refer to a wide range of offenses, from forcible rape to a passing grope. Although those are both bad things, it's clear that one is tremendously more harmful than the other. We should use language to clarify that.

[Teever]

The number of syllables matter if the goal is to prevent a term from feeling too sterile. If a term is too long and unwieldy then people will naturally shorten it to an acronym. And once they're using an acronym then we're back to square one because acronyms are devoid of the meaning that words have.

I've wondered if there is an intent to distinguish between child pornography that teenagers are producing on their own to share with each other and the kind child pornography that pedophiles and child rapists create forcibly against the will of the children in the content.

Maybe that's the actual difference between CP and CSAM. Maybe both are a subset of CP.

[function_seven]

Oh, that’s a good point about the syllables. I agree. “Cee-Sam” is a technical jargon-y sounding term. No visceral feeling behind it.

[headmelted]

The logic seems backwards here.

I think saying “child porn” is clearer. That term is horrific as it is. If anyone sees that in a sentence they’ll be rightly revulsed and know what’s being talked about right away.

I had to have someone explain the CSAM acronym. How many people are going to skip over that because they assume its something benign and unrelated?

[015a]

Well, it is from an organization named "NCMEC". Not exactly pros at inventing marketable acronyms.

[casefields]

You ever notice when cops bust a prostitution ring they never call it that? It's been renamed human trafficking. Law enforcement is all in on the marketing game.

Using scarier words will get the public to trade liberty for security every time.