[Netcob]

For some more recent crimes against society and humanity, I'd also compare it to Stasi. Plenty of people alive today who lived with that.

Around 1 in 30 people was secretly telling on their neighbors. After unification, it was presented as a dark chapter in German history that had finally come to an end. People would get to look into their own "file" to see what and how much had been written about their daily activities. I was a bit young at the time, but I do remember frequent discussions on TV about how to move on from this, and how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

And now we're talking about reading everyone's private messages on a scale that would be the Stasi's wet dream.

I wonder - if the Stasi had been presented as a legitimate way to fight CSAM - would that have been okay?

[beezlewax]

The Stasi while more recent and more correct a name to use here are still something not everyone knows about to the same extent as the gestapo.

[volkl48]

In Germany they certainly do.

[detaro]

indeed. Gestapo is "a long time ago", Stasi is something half the country at least knows people personally affected by.

[clickety_clack]

Stasi works better if this is a purely German question, but this is an international issue. Gestapoware is way more obvious than Stasiware for people outside Germany, while both surely resonate inside the country.

[1718627440]

They did say these protesting on the street are outlaws who also rape and kill the little children.

[petre]

Unsurprisingly the Stasi and Gestapo types always say things like that.

[some_random]

The trouble is that the Stasi are not seen in as negative of a light as the Gestapo.

[godelski]

In Germany?

I'm not German but the German people I do know don't see them positively. But could be selection bias

[lukan]

Only some rare soviet nostalgy people will see them as something positive. But there are indeed not considered as bad as Gestapo and I tend to agree.

[Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe]

Fern did a phenomenal video about Stasi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj7HX7I8KHs