[joshred]

I don't think these are the same. Outlawing CSAM gives law enforcement the ability to shutdown markets and prevent commercial distribution of CSAM. Sexually abusing children is heinous, but sexually abusing children for financial gain is even worse.

[IncreasePosts]

There's also the argument that CSAM can act as a gateway leading people from just being a pedophile in their head, to going out and doing something to some child.

[MichaelDickens]

Yes, this is an argument that exists. But it's not supported by evidence. It's the same as the old "video game violence should be outlawed because it might cause real violence", which is just as unsubstantiated.

[ButlerianJihad]

Yeah, that old canard is ridiculous!

I mean, if there were any truth to it, surely our nation would have seen an uptick, in the past 30–40 years, of new generations picking up guns and just mercilessly mowing down soft targets as if playing GTA.

Thankfully, that is all confined to fantasy in cyberspace!

[john_strinlai]

gta is played all around the world yet only one country is an outlier in mass shootings.

perhaps there is more to it?

[Ardon]

Yeah, /your/ nation maybe. I wonder if there's any other reasons that could explain this, especially given the pretty uniform distribution of video games, and the extremely uneven distribution of violence.

Oh, and everywhere in your nation? At the same time?

Sorry, I think I have a button.

[ButlerianJihad]

https://youtu.be/g7tII_3WXqo?is=MagnO5GswnVJJltM

Mother Shares How Video Games Radicalized Her Son to Run Around and Pick up Coins

[tancop]

school shootings happen when lonely boys with mental health issues a) have access to guns and b) feel like society failed them and they need to take revenge.

the first one is the reason why it happens it america more than any other place. other countries also have youth unemployment and social isolation but they show up as bullying in schools or votes for fascist parties instead of mass murder.

the actual problem is people feeling hopeless, like theres no way they could ever be successful in this world so they want to burn it down. thats why some of them turn violent, when you feel like nothing you can do will make life better the only thing left is making it worse for those you think are responsible, like your classmates or gay/queer people or Jews.

none of this comes down to video games, feminism, rap music, violent movies, atheism or other cultural "problems" conservatives always like to blame. its a social issue that needs social solutions.

[inigyou]

> fascist parties

you mean anyone who isn't 100% all-in on globalism?

[pembrook]

Yes, it’s an argument but there’s zero data to support it, in fact the opposite.

If this were true then widespread availability of pornography on the internet would have resulted in a massive increase in rape of adult females. When in fact, assault numbers have been on a steady decline for decades.

[IncreasePosts]

Why would general pornography lead to rape? Most pornography is not rape pornography. Would people watching a bunch of rape pornography lead to more rapes? I don't know, but that seems more likely than general pornography leading to rapes.

60% of respondents who were found looking for CSAM on the dark web stated that they were fearful that consuming CSAM would lead them to do something to a child in real life: https://doi.org/10.54501/jots.v1i2.29

[pessimizer]

> Most pornography is not rape pornography.

I'm not taking a position here, but the total amount of pornography is irrelevant to the argument. If the amount of rape pornography available has increased 500x as the total amount of pornography has increased 5000x, the proportion of pornography that was rape pornography has been reduced by 90%.

> 60% of respondents who were found looking for CSAM on the dark web stated that they were fearful that consuming CSAM would lead them to do something to a child in real life

Someone looking for child pornography is somebody looking for child pornography, so their opinion about what the search might lead to seems a bit worthless. There's no reason to assume that they have any insight into what will happen next, but we know for a fact what has already happened.

That out of the way, though, and assuming that child pornography leads to child abuse, the good pro-pornography case that has been made is that when pornography is suppressed rather than regulated, the 95% of people who are exclusively interested in adult pornography will have to go through the same underground channels that child pornography flows through, thus having the perverse effect of exposing more people to child pornography (or at least obtaining access to it.) If exposure to child pornography causes child abuse, then the suppression of adult pornography would then lead to more child abuse.

[pembrook]

Does it need to be said that by making all pornography easier to access the internet obviously makes rape pornography more prevalent and easier to access as well?

Hence your theory should be easily visible in rape statistics, yet it’s the opposite.

[IncreasePosts]

It would be easily visible or not visible in the rape statistics if the world had a single variable. In any case, even if the world was extremely simple, 'rape porn' could increase rapes, and we could still observe a decrease in rapes if 'general porn' decreased the odds of rape to a larger degree than rape porn increased them relative to the population that consumed each.

[pembrook]

Yes exactly my point...so it sounds like you're admitting this "availability of porn leading to action" theory isn't a very good one? And that in fact it leads to less action given it satisfies urges at much lower cost.

[carljungslabtek]

There are even people involved in commercial distribution of it that claim to not even be interested in children, just in profit or even allegedly “for a sense of community” (someone actually said this after getting caught, he was in his 20s but I can’t remember his name — he might have been one of the red room guys).

On top of that, while there are different types of child abusers, the worst ones almost invariantly collect CSAM to the point of hoarding. So it really isn’t that bad of a proxy.

The root comment is implying that legalizing or decriminalizing csam would somehow help with prosecution of child abuse? I’m kind of speechless. Csam IS child abuse. The fact that there are consumers encourages producers to, well, produce!