This is contradicted by the evidence we have to the contrary, in particular the model of supply and demand identified in child porn markets.
Child porn piracy is an essentially victimless crime.
Note: In the above I am considering the generic example of "child porn" to be broadcasting the forcible rape of prepubescents, not 17 year olds sending each other naughty pictures, which is what most content matching the US legal definition is (the UK one is just stupid as it includes drawings).
This runs contrary to the fact that people share things not just for monetary profit, but for other videos/pictures in exchange, and voyeuristic/exhibitionist reasons.
I'm sure some of the kids in those videos would have something to say about that.
I'm sympathetic to those people's plight but ultimately I place a very high valuation on not only my privacy but everyone's privacy, A much lessor but still very great valuation on preventing such evil happening to the victims, and only a small valuation on preventing the ultimate sharing of those images between perverts except insofar as it serves to lead us to people doing the wrong.
I believe that via a substantial effort we can work to reduce the abuse of children, I think we can via a lot of work take down the groups of people sharing such data by infiltrating such groups and taking down the people participating. I believe that outright stopping all such sharing is probably impossible and I'm unwilling to implement 1984 to try.
I don't see those kids getting hurt any further unless they happen to be the sort of people that go out of their way to seek out child abuse material. It's hard to imagine anyone ever accidentally running into images of themselves being abused. You can't possibly be re-victimized if you don't know.
I don't mean to sound heartless, obviously these are horrific acts which hurt people deeply. I simply don't think banning encryption or otherwise eroding our rights to go after distributors and consumers is really going to have much practical effect on how the victims end up feeling.
E: HN doesn't let me reply to selectodude below
>the mere knowledge that pictures of you being abused on the internet is extraordinarily difficult to deal with
I absolutely agree with this. I just know that nobody can ever go tell the victim that now those pictures are forever gone off the internet.
But yes, the mere knowledge that pictures of you being abused on the internet is extraordinarily difficult to deal with. Maybe not the best direction to go in when arguing.
I for one am not willing to give up any freedoms in order to prevent the sharing of such vile material. Perhaps the creation, but not the sharing.