Homosexuality used to be illegal. If we censored anyone talking about it, it would probably still be illegal today and millions of people would still feel disgusted at themselves for having "unnatural feelings."

Legality isn't always the best way to draw a line.

I didn't say it was moral or what's best for the world, I just meant it's an easily defined goal. And with regards to the other commenter asking about jurisdiction, you change it based on the IP address (obviously this can be spoofed).

I am not claiming that there is a simple solution for how to handle censorship that is optimal for the benefit of mankind. I am saying the way companies should approach implementing it is relatively straight-forward.

Otherwise you'll have endless debates about what is and is not moral, where nobody will ever agree and product managers and engineers and everybody else will constantly be in tension and nobody will be happy.

Censor as little as necessary based on laws and let people make their own decisions for what they want to view.

I agree with the sentiment, but the problem is that it's actually quite hard to distinguish "legal" and "illegal". Judges do that for a living and see how long a single case takes them. It's simply not feasible for an automated system to do it properly.

You're giving me flashbacks to 'slippery slope' arguments I was hearing from people years ago...

Oh believe me, the slippery slope is real. (NSFW) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsUMGY9hSqC/

Can someone who is not at work describe the contents of this link for those who are?

Children in drag? I don't get it.

Its just kids dancing around some of them dressed up like adults with heavy makeup. Nothing id really consider NSFW.

I don't really "get' it either.

> Homosexuality used to be illegal. If we censored anyone talking about it, it would probably still be illegal today and millions of people would still feel disgusted at themselves for having "unnatural feelings."

But that's not what the issue is here. Displaying CP is literally illegal - was discussing homosexuality illegal? Was viewing nude males? It's the difference between blocking the literal illegal item or blocking items adjacent to it.

Yes there are countries where displaying homosexuality is illegal (e.g. Iran). I cannot comment on the legality of discussing homosexuality but that's irrelevant anyway since discussing CP is also legal.

> Displaying CP is literally illegal - was discussing homosexuality illegal? Was viewing nude males?

These are weird comparisons to try to make.

Discussing CP is legal. Viewing it is not. Viewing homosexual pornography has been illegal in the past. Viewing nude males wasn't illegal, just like viewing nude children isn't necessarily.

Perfect. Discussion is fine, but the actual illegal act is illegal. So.. the line is easy to draw. Once viewing an imagine is illegal you shouldn't allow the viewing of that image.

Computers are incredibly dumber than you imagine. We are terribly excited that a computer can tell the difference between cat and not a cat.

The problem is that humans don't suddenly turn green or grow horns or have any other obvious and distinctive change upon immediately reaching the legal age for porn, there's issues of consent, etc.

Although legal vs illegal is binary, the decision tree leading up to that is ridiculously complex.

I don't think adding a little padding to be careful is going to hurt anyone in this case.

> but it's hard to decide where to draw the line

> It's actually very easy - legal and illegal.

In what jurisdiction?

The jurisdiction of the prosecutor.

legality is up to who?

its nice to think laws are just and they should be but thats not neccissarily the way of things some places are worse than others.

as for this subject specifically it should be obvious to people which side this is on.

.

Distributing digital images of marijuana is not illegal.

Should we censor all links with the words marijuana in? That's illegal in most jurisdictions. What if someone is trying to find a medical dispensary for it in a medical state and can't because -censored?

Obviously cp should be censored... but then SE's could start censoring political stuff or anything that does or doesn't support fascism or socialism depending on their mood and political leanings. Not that censoring fascism is bad, but people should still be able to make up their own minds about things through research.

Hopefully AI will become good enough to accurately 'age' and block under-age pictures of minors altogether regardless of whether they're nude or not, honestly I think minors should be protected a bit, although not sure how that would work w/ minors in the public image like child actors.