Those cases are not comparable, because the whole reason they have that impact is that the accusations are usually made publicly (because the whole point is to harm the reputation of one's rapist and warn others, should a conviction prove to be impossible), while CSAM review goes through a neural hash privately on your phone, then privately and anonymously through an Apple reviewer, then is privately reviewed at NCMEC (who - I think - have access to the full size image), and only then is turned over to law enforcement (which should also have access to the full image).

It only becomes public knowledge if law enforcement then chooses to charge you - and if all that happens on the basis of an obvious adversarial net image, the result is a publicity shitshow for Apple and you become a civil rights hero after your lawyer (even an underpaid overworked public defender should be able to handle this one) demonstrates this.

As others have stated in this thread, I think the real failure case is not someone's life getting ruined by claims of CSAM possession somehow resulting from a bad hash match, but the fact that planted material (or sent via message) can now easily ruin your life because it gets automatically reported; you can't simply delete it and move on any more.

We give way, way too much weight in the legal system to eye witness and victim statements, in absence of any corroborating evidence. That's a problem.

But not really comparable, IMO. You won't even know you got investigated until after the original images have been shipped off to NCMEC for verification.

Are you suggesting that perhaps less people should report rape accusations, because it might be awkward for the accused to get negative publicity? Thats messed up.