Comment by spwa4
3 months ago
But this is the dream for the supposed protectors of children. You see, just because child porn production stops, does not mean those children disappear. Usually, of course, they go into youth services (in practice most don't even make it to the front door and run away to resume the child abuse, but let's ignore that). That is how the situation of those children changes when CSAM is persecuted. From the situation they were in, to whatever situation exists in youth services. In other words, youth services is the upper limit to how much police and anyone CAN help those children.
So you'd think they would make youth services a good place to be for a child, right. After all, if that situation were to be only marginally better than child prostitution, there's no point to finding CSAM. Or at least, the point is not to protect children, since that is simply not what they're doing.
So how is youth services doing these days? Well ... NOT good. Regularly children run away from youth services to start doing child porn (ie. live off off an onlyfans account). There's a netflix series on the subject ("Young and locked up") which eventually, reluctantly shows the real problem, the outcome (ie. prison or street poverty).
In other words your argument doesn't really apply since the goal is not to improve children's well being. If that was the goal, these programs would do entirely different things.
Goals differ. There's people who go into government with the express purpose to "moralize" and arrest people for offenses. Obviously, to them it's the arresting part that's important, now how serious the offense was and CERTAINLY not if their actions actually help people. And then there's people who simply want a well-paying long-term job where they don't accomplish much. Ironically these are much less damaging, but they still seek to justify their own existence.
Both groups really, really, really want ALL image generation models to be considered inherently harmful, as you say.
Yea, the nonprofit for commercially sexually abused children that I volunteer at is a much better way to know about reality. But conspiracies are a comforting way to understand why things can't just be fixed, sure.
I have experienced child services from the inside, including talking to quite a few kids caught, because caught is the correct word, in "that world". There was not a SINGLE example of one that appreciated the change, and one killed himself. All were essentially locked up. All were aggressive and for every last one the fault was the governments, in 2 cases teachers actively involved in sending students to "that world". Needless to say, these teachers, one who was caught red handed (by the press, no police involvement obviously), were entirely free, and the victims were locked up. ALL of these children had stories of police officers involved in "that world", none of whom had seen any punishment.
I also can absolutely guarantee you: child services CANNOT protect a child from drugs. Child services CANNOT protect a child from prostitution or sex. Child services CANNOT protect a child from violence, whether they are violent themselves or victim. For the same reason the sea cannot protect fish from water. Sex, drugs and violence are pervasive in even the youngest groups in child services, with people either pretending they're not seeing it or in bad cases participating.
There is not a doubt in my mind that had the police instead done nothing at all the outcome for all those children would have been better off, not worse. Every last one.
Oh and not because their situation was great and didn't damage them or any bullshit like that. They would have been better off because child services was orders of magnitude worse, didn't help, and DID fuck up any chance at a future they had (a few, including me, went normally to school. Went, past tense, as in child services made that utterly impossible. Often kid were sent to "idiot-schools" because that got the institution more money, almost always the school or someone at school was the one positive influence in their lives and child services ... just ... doesn't ... care, about such things, brutally and violently changing the school. The kid that later committed suicide beat up the guard of BOTH the idiot school AND hit the "guard" at his previous school and after that got the principal to accept him back, by essentially staying, and sleeping, in the waiting chairs at his office for 3 straight days until he was allowed to talk, then biking to school for 3 hours every day)