You misunderstand the situation and what I was suggesting. GP was saying that AdGuard should have checked the contents of some random URL supposedly containing CSAM on archive.today.
This is not AdGuard’s job. Knowingly downloading CSAM is very likely illegal. And it also potentially opens them up for additional liability if they do determine that CSAM is present.
AdGuard seems like they did exactly the right thing, which is to send the report along to the party actually responsible for cleaning up the supposed CSAM.
> Knowingly downloading CSAM is very likely illegal.
Put CSAM in a banner ad, and arrest everyone who was served that ad?
Post a CSAM photo behind plexiglass on a wall in a public space, and arrest everyone who walks by and glanced at it?
Just how stupid do you think lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, and police are? People get arrested for paying for, or sharing CSAM, not just stumbling on a website that might have something questionable. It is illegal to possess, but just loading a website is hardly possession... If it was, all of Facebook and Google's content moderators would be facing life-sentences.
> Just how stupid do you think lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, and police are?
Very! Unimaginably so! A friend of mine from Germany received a GIF that contained ONE FRAME of CSAM from someone in a group chat, Whatsapp auto-downloaded it into the gallery, something auto reported it and a month later, cops showed up to take away all his electronic devices. This is apparently a thing people do there, like americans SWAT livestreamers. I think it took over a year for them to return his devices. He had to pay for a lawyer and buy a new phone and laptop. He wasn't charged with anything, but because the report was automated, there wasn't even anyone to sue for a false report.
Quite stupid, actually. Stuff like CSAM is not to be messed around with. Having it in your cache is considered possession by police forces, even if the judge won't convict you if you can explain it. Even if the police doesn't come after you, it's the exact point in almost every jurisdiction where someone else's content suddenly becomes your problem, legally speaking.
You won't go to jail or life most of the time if you can explain how or why, but there are extremely strict rules around CSAM that you need to deal with. One of those is "don't look at it unless absolutely necessary". For AdGuard, I doubt this use would qualify for "absolutely necessary". Even police forces use dedicated software that doesn't keep too many copies around, and restrict how many people are allowed to look at the screens for screening computers.
The people applying mass censorship are using CSAM as a weapon. It'd be unwise for AdGuard to give them the extra ammunition by (admitting to) checking the CSAM content themselves.
Furthermore, if the complaint has merit and the content linked does contain CSAM, there is some pretty bad shit out there. I'm not prepared to look at pictures of raped babies or tortured children but I know full well that that content is out there on the internet.
Arrests aren't the only way a company can be harmed. Being flagged or investigated is enough of a legal burden and reputational hit that it could be catastrophic. "Stumbling" is not a part of any network protocol. Over a network, viewing a link is indistinguishable from downloading its contents.
Illegal to possess, and you would have accessed it to view content that is illegal to access as well?
The people who do this as part of their job do so under strict supervision, legal guard rails AND mandatory counselling. Which happens to include a number of content moderators.[0]
There's another reason: the criminal justice system is structured in such a way that it requires material evidence to prove someone is guilty and punish them. It would be unacceptable to send an innocent person to prison, and you can't prove that someone has merely viewed content.
That's not the argument. The argument is that "when someone relays to you a claim of illegal activity, you are not allowed to verify for yourself" is not tenable in a free society.
In this particular example, you have admitted to reading the subversive post and therefore your post should also be deleted.
You misunderstand the situation and what I was suggesting. GP was saying that AdGuard should have checked the contents of some random URL supposedly containing CSAM on archive.today.
This is not AdGuard’s job. Knowingly downloading CSAM is very likely illegal. And it also potentially opens them up for additional liability if they do determine that CSAM is present.
AdGuard seems like they did exactly the right thing, which is to send the report along to the party actually responsible for cleaning up the supposed CSAM.
> Knowingly downloading CSAM is very likely illegal.
Put CSAM in a banner ad, and arrest everyone who was served that ad?
Post a CSAM photo behind plexiglass on a wall in a public space, and arrest everyone who walks by and glanced at it?
Just how stupid do you think lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, and police are? People get arrested for paying for, or sharing CSAM, not just stumbling on a website that might have something questionable. It is illegal to possess, but just loading a website is hardly possession... If it was, all of Facebook and Google's content moderators would be facing life-sentences.
> Just how stupid do you think lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, and police are?
Very! Unimaginably so! A friend of mine from Germany received a GIF that contained ONE FRAME of CSAM from someone in a group chat, Whatsapp auto-downloaded it into the gallery, something auto reported it and a month later, cops showed up to take away all his electronic devices. This is apparently a thing people do there, like americans SWAT livestreamers. I think it took over a year for them to return his devices. He had to pay for a lawyer and buy a new phone and laptop. He wasn't charged with anything, but because the report was automated, there wasn't even anyone to sue for a false report.
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Quite stupid, actually. Stuff like CSAM is not to be messed around with. Having it in your cache is considered possession by police forces, even if the judge won't convict you if you can explain it. Even if the police doesn't come after you, it's the exact point in almost every jurisdiction where someone else's content suddenly becomes your problem, legally speaking.
You won't go to jail or life most of the time if you can explain how or why, but there are extremely strict rules around CSAM that you need to deal with. One of those is "don't look at it unless absolutely necessary". For AdGuard, I doubt this use would qualify for "absolutely necessary". Even police forces use dedicated software that doesn't keep too many copies around, and restrict how many people are allowed to look at the screens for screening computers.
The people applying mass censorship are using CSAM as a weapon. It'd be unwise for AdGuard to give them the extra ammunition by (admitting to) checking the CSAM content themselves.
Furthermore, if the complaint has merit and the content linked does contain CSAM, there is some pretty bad shit out there. I'm not prepared to look at pictures of raped babies or tortured children but I know full well that that content is out there on the internet.
> Just how stupid do you think lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, and police are?
Quite often pretty stupid, honestly. Or careless, ignorant, jaded, corrupt, etc etc
https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/knowingly
You even quoted the word...
Arrests aren't the only way a company can be harmed. Being flagged or investigated is enough of a legal burden and reputational hit that it could be catastrophic. "Stumbling" is not a part of any network protocol. Over a network, viewing a link is indistinguishable from downloading its contents.
Illegal to possess, and you would have accessed it to view content that is illegal to access as well?
The people who do this as part of their job do so under strict supervision, legal guard rails AND mandatory counselling. Which happens to include a number of content moderators.[0]
0: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr9q2jz7y0o
You have way too much faith. Almost endless examples of injustice can be observed.
There's another reason: the criminal justice system is structured in such a way that it requires material evidence to prove someone is guilty and punish them. It would be unacceptable to send an innocent person to prison, and you can't prove that someone has merely viewed content.
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Nothing above links to anything suspicious mate, much less that.
That's not the argument. The argument is that "when someone relays to you a claim of illegal activity, you are not allowed to verify for yourself" is not tenable in a free society.
In this particular example, you have admitted to reading the subversive post and therefore your post should also be deleted.
You're engaging with my post so yours is also subversive ay lmao