If that’s the case, I’ll probably be sticking around! I’m not fond of having the possibility of CSAM but unlike a lot of lawmakers I see the logical difference between photos and videos (disgusting abuse) versus artificial images (artwork with no basis in reality) and know there are developed and functional nations where the former is absolutely illegal but the latter is not (just FYI, best examples are Japan and Colombia, and I’ve been to the latter personally) and the instances of both filmed CSAM and IRL sexual assault have gone down in both since the relevant laws were passed.

I get the squick, I’m asexual and very protective of children, I just know that someone directed me to the evidence (multiple websites with reseach articles about the psychology of pedophilia including Wikipedia pages) and while filming real kids being forced into that is evil, I cannot ignore the psychological evidence that even regular, consenting adult porn is illegal in India and China yet rape and sexual assault in those countries are higher than the average per population in the US, Australia, Germany, etc. If a fictional portrayal keeps real people safe, we can’t afford to unquestioningly believe big media when news networks provide information. I’ve seen cops mention “it encourages the sickos” on live TV news but the evidence isn’t completely backing that up, so I decided the only moral solution is to allow people to exist in privacy instead of witch-hunting.

Aside from that, sickos aren’t the main worry for parents when it comes to kidnapping; Divorces where the one parent can’t handle losing visitation are common, and sad and horrifying as it is a lot of kidnappers are looking to sell their targets into slavery in another country, not make videos that could be traced back to the criminals.

By all means try to remove CSAM of real children, because how would you feel if you were the child who had been abused to make it? How would you feel if that child was someone you know? If someone is being directly hurt then they’re being directly hurt. My problem with almost the entire internet is that if someone is being indirectly hurt, that’s like an SJW saying an Irish immigrant is guilty of racism against African-Americans just for being white-skinned, or an Alt-Right Conservative politician saying a transvestite or homosexual is automatically a sexual offender.

I’ll leave it on this note. I tried to look up an episode of an old kid’s cartoon from the 90s called Bobby’s World on Start page. Safe Search was absolutely on. Apparently the made up word I misremembered as the episode title, “Kidzilla”, somehow triggers this: stopitnow.org

No search results, just loads up that site whenever a search contains that word. That is some serious 1984 thoughtcrime bullshit. If having uncomfortable content is the price I pay for having an uncensored internet, I’ll fight in a court to say “enough is enough, you (politicians) don’t have the right to e-police everyone 24/7/365 just to pretend you aren’t terrible people, and peer-to-peer services NEED to be designed as uncensorable platforms, fix this oversight because if I have to run 12 commands to delete one image then I’m only running it to protect REAL children, not a collection of pixels or words created entirely from scratch by some poor artist with a disturbing but not necessarily harmful kink”.

Now, if you DO put actual photos, video or audio of CSAM on my planned Lemmy server, I won’t just report that shit to the police, I’ll tell the cops “better find this bastard before I do because I’ll f-ing murder him for what he’s directly and purposefully supporting something that - despite my disagreement with the current boundaries of legality - is on the wrong side of even the line I feel should be drawn”.

Seriously, people, we’re talking about protecting free speech here becuase we’re trying to protect kids from harm, not to escape justice; Big Brother is a creep who watches your children with a predatory gaze too, after all.