[Spooky23]

The CSAM issue is both very real and abused by politicians. When I did some work with a police agency, it was explained to me that there’s a pattern of escalation with people and they tend to accumulate collections and many escalate to actual behavior.

The detectives assigned to this work tend to not last long, and the horrific nature of the crime affects them.

Like all rape, it’s a combo of control and dopamine. The church and Boy Scout leaders leveraged their societial influence and power to compel compliance and even loyalty from their victims. Boy Scouts as an organization inserted itself into existing power structures like church, police and other institutions. It’s difficult for a 11 year old victim to make an accusation about a beloved community figure. They also tend to find ways to make their victims feel complicit. Even if people come forward, they are hard cases to try and exposes young victims to public shame. Many of these people plea to lesser crimes to protect the victim.

I wasn’t a victim thank god, but a Boy Scout leader at my parish was a serial molester who abused dozens or hundreds of children. I learned about it years later and realized that some of my friends were almost certainly victims — in his case everyone in authority just blew it off

[wickedsight]

This is correct. Also, the people who produce CSAM usually don't just stop, so tracking down material, especially new and unknown, is one of the most important ways to stop active abuse. Also because the material is actual proof and many (C)SA cases fail due to lack of exactly that.

This doesn't mean I agree with active scanning of things like iCloud, effectively making everyone a suspect, but counter to what people here seem to think it really might help prevent CSA.

[inigyou]

> the material is actual proof

How do you square this with fictional material being illegal?

[paulryanrogers]

IIRC, courts in the US ruled it's legal to produce entirely fictional art depicting children in explicit scenes, so long as no real minors were involved in production.

[giantg2]

Just Google "arrested for AI generated CSAM" and you will find tons of cases, including police officers as perps. Looks like the Protect act of 2003 make it illegal if basically looks real enough (cartoon ok, AI generated realism is apparently not).

[giantg2]

I completely get tracking CSAM to get to the creator to stop the abuse. But how does that work for fictional works that are considered CSAM?

[xyz1234999]

> there’s a pattern of escalation with people and they tend to accumulate collections and many escalate to actual behavior

I was curious about this. I did find some research here: https://www.suojellaanlapsia.fi/en/post/csam-users-in-the-da... (2021)

That paper states

> Traditional research on individuals who use CSAM is often inherently biased as it has focused primarily on convicted and known offenders.

and appears to be directly trying to avoid that bias, which is good to see.

Isn't there still some bias here though? They only got answers from 1. people who were using a dark web search engine with ads, 2. felt the need to click a "Help us to help you" link, 3. were willing to discuss the topic with strangers on the web. Only (3) was (almost) acknowledged in the Limitations section.

They concluded that "Many CSAM users are not just viewers" and, while "many" could mean any number, I think readers would probably take it to mean something like 30% (shown in graphs) which isn't indicated by their data.

Furthermore, the "not just viewers" conclusion is from a question about "seeking direct contact with children through online platforms". I'm not sure why they didn't more directly ask if respondents took action towards abusing children, with the inspecific "direct contact" qualifier and very specific qualifier "through online platforms". I wonder what the results would have been if they removed "direct" and "through online platforms" from the question.

Admittedly I don't know a lot about statistical techniques! Has there been other research, or do you know what the police agency was basing their explanation on?

[inigyou]

FYI you are shadowbanned. Did you write this comment with AI? If you did, that's why.

[xyz1234999]

No... does it look like I did somewhere? Ah well...

[john_strinlai]

it didnt seem like ai to me. more likely its because it is a brand new account. a vouched comment or two clears it up.

[antonvs]

> it was explained to me

Or as the Dothraki put it, “it is known”.

[belorn]

Lets look at this specific situation. Was there regulation that dictate/encourage screening and education for organizations that work with children? How many adults were there in the organization and on activities with this scout leader? How much involvement had parents? Was there any adult in the children environment that was trained to detect CSA, for example school personal?

It is technical possible that in small villages there is only a single Boy Scout leader and no other adults, who then spend a lot of time alone with children. In my experience however, after school activities involving children also generally involve several adults. That makes it a major structural issue among the adults if they fail to detect a problem like hundreds of victims, and the more common remedy would be to train people, apply some form of screening, and change routines that limit risk and encourage reporting in case of inappropriate behavior.

In addition, having trained people that regular meet and talk to children can help detect situations even when they happen in peoples home, like having school employees training in detecting signs of CSA.

[lstodd]

> When I did some work with a police agency, it was explained to me that there’s a pattern of escalation with people

You have been mildly brainwashed.

It would be best if that episode lead you to study a bit of psychology but instead you chose to believe.

Like any belief it's a combo of control and dopamine. The feeling of belonging to a group and being righteous within that group hits so hard that it takes hard explicit effort to screen your perception of its effects.

You are a victim because you failed to accept reality.