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Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by BLKNSLVR on Thursday February 01, 2024 @04:40AM (#39214209)
Not to be insensitive to a sensitive topic, but isn't Meta the 'single largest market for <almost anything>'?
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by supriyo-biswas on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:13AM (#39214404)
One would have to assume all of these things are points of negotiation to get Meta to disable E2E on FB messenger and WhatsApp, along with the public allegations made for years prior that providing encrypted channels directly supported the cause of pedophiles.

(It is also interesting to me that in ~2010, such discussions used to use terrorism, and now it’s CSAM/pedophilia.)

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by Fnoord on Thursday February 01, 2024 @06:50AM (#39214971)
> (It is also interesting to me that in ~2010, such discussions used to use terrorism, and now it’s CSAM/pedophilia.)

Nah, CSAM/pedophilia argument goes way back. It is just that the terrorism argument has largely disappeared because the emotional impact of mostly 9/11 has been dealt with (terrorism was much more rampant in parts of the previous century, can't recall the decade but if I had to say it was 70s or 80s).

The thing is, tools can be used for Good and Bad. A knife, a car, the Internet, social media.

The problem is if we live in a society where your online identity is pseudonymous at best (remember Rotterdam hospital shooting recently, the shooter got found on 4chan), and there is post-moderation instead of pre-moderation you are going to have garbage content.

A lawsuit like this is used to prove negligence in proportion to the amount of users vs content. Ie. it will result in more active moderation by Meta. In that regard, it is The Netherlands hosting providers who were terrible with removing CSAM. And, almost all of them have improved.

Does that mean the content is removed from the Internet? No, impossible. But it sure as hell got more difficult for the perpetrators to distribute the content. Which is a decent compromise.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by wslh on Thursday February 01, 2024 @06:41AM (#39214901)
Isn't this a similar argument about controlling cryptography that happened in the "Crypto Wars" (90s) [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by thaumasiotes on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:35AM (#39214528)
In 2010 threatening people with terrorism was already almost a decade out of date.

Eventually, if you keep threatening people with an outcome that they can easily detect, they'll notice that it's not happening. It's better to threaten them with something invisible.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by jvanderbot on Thursday February 01, 2024 @06:06AM (#39214721)
The implication is that these are false allegations but that's not even necessary.

All this can be true and it is still a bad idea to unilaterally break encryption, just as it was a bad idea to allow unilateral use of wiretap.

If we stick the debate around the truthiness of the allegations, it only takes a few bad examples to lose that argument.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by thaumasiotes on Thursday February 01, 2024 @07:14AM (#39215145)
The implication isn't that the allegations are false. The implication is that the problem is imaginary. Facebook can easily be the largest site of an imaginary problem.

> If we stick the debate around the truthiness of the allegations, it only takes a few bad examples to lose that argument.

That is true, but the argument here is over why people stopped appealing to terrorism to support their policy preferences.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by jvanderbot on Thursday February 01, 2024 @07:52AM (#39215422)
I'm sorry. I don't see the difference between a problem being imaginary and allegations of a problem being false. If you allege a problem exists, and it's imaginary, then your allegation is false.

So, I'm just saying we can oppose the policy preference regardless of why they stopped appealing to a problem, and regardless of that problem's "realness"

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by thaumasiotes on Thursday February 01, 2024 @09:06AM (#39216014)
> I'm sorry. I don't see the difference between a problem being imaginary and allegations of a problem being false. If you allege a problem exists, and it's imaginary, then your allegation is false.

The allegation here, as seen in the headline, isn't that there's enough pedophile activity on Facebook to rise to the level of being a problem somewhere.

It's just that there's more on Facebook than there is in most other places.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by jvanderbot on Thursday February 01, 2024 @10:46AM (#39217150)
And regardless of that being true or false, we should preserve E2E encryption.

That's all I'm saying. Somehow was that lost? I think we may be having what a former mentor called a "Conflicting agreement" or "Violent agreement" :D

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by thaumasiotes on Thursday February 01, 2024 @12:03PM (#39218193)
Well, sure, I agree with your position.

But I think that the point I made is important, different from your point, and topical in the place where I posted it.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by jvanderbot on Thursday February 01, 2024 @06:01PM (#39222751)
Good old "handshake after 10 comments". Classic HN. Cheers!
[dead]
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by thaumasiotes on Thursday February 01, 2024 @07:13AM (#39215133)
I stand by my statement that nine years constitutes "almost a decade". What did you think was dishonest?
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by ffsm8 on Thursday February 01, 2024 @07:24AM (#39215226)
The anti terrorism rhetoric started almost a decade earlier, it wasn't out of date by that time.

It was still frequently pushed even into the 2010s

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by blackoil on Thursday February 01, 2024 @06:09AM (#39214731)
If we generalize further, the Internet is biggest distributor of CSAM.
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by EasyMark on Thursday February 01, 2024 @07:25AM (#39215238)
I have my doubts on that. I think the world has moved on from facebook, leaving only instagram as influential under the meta umbrella.

Amazon is the biggest market for buying stuff

Tiktok is the biggest market for pedophiles/disinformation

Instagram is the biggest market for self absorbed people

Twitter is the second biggest market for disinformation and terrorism

etc

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by Shish2k on Thursday February 01, 2024 @07:52AM (#39215420)
> I think the world has moved on from facebook

The HN bubble has moved on for sure, but going by DAU/MAU (which isn’t perfect but is better than “I think”), facebook is still the biggest and is still growing

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by EasyMark on Thursday February 01, 2024 @09:27AM (#39216259)
I just don't see how. I have several neices and nephews. I use facebook to share photos of family and such. I rarely see any activity at all from the younger relatives that I'm following. I just don't think it happens, they should be getting at all social media rather than just facebook. I don't support any of these "think of the children" laws though, because basically the government wants to use it as a backdoor to track everyone and their cat on social media.
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by reqo on Thursday February 01, 2024 @04:45AM (#39214245)
Yes but it does not invalidate the fact!
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by croes on Thursday February 01, 2024 @04:53AM (#39214291)
>says he believes the social media company is the “largest marketplace for predators and paedophiles globally”.

Doesn't sound like a fact.

On FB it's easier to find them compared to Telegram for instance

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by Arnt on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:34AM (#39214526)
It invalidates by twisting.

Rhetorically speaking it's simple to make the biggest in some class seem to be worst in some related class. If I'm the biggest taxi operator in town, I'm likely to have the highest CO₂ emissions of all the taxi companies, see? You can omit or deemphasise the connection between the two and make me seem bad.

It's just a form of lying by omission.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by wiseowise on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:06AM (#39214368)
100% of pedos drink water! 100% of pedos breath same air as you and me!

Wow, what a fact.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by meiraleal on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:45AM (#39214587)
Meta profits from pedo drinking their water.
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by wiseowise on Thursday February 01, 2024 @12:54PM (#39218927)
Buses profit from pedos spying on kids in them. Google and Apple profit from pedos using their phones to spy on kids. Public infrastructure provides convenience for pedos to do their dirty work.

I can continue like that for a long time, you know.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by coldtea on Thursday February 01, 2024 @04:52AM (#39214282)
Kind of does.

Facts don't mean anything without perspective.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by crotchfire on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:20AM (#39214451)
I'm pretty sure Silk Road had them beat on largest single market for outlawed drugs.

I have no idea which darknet market holds that crown today, but I'm willing to wager it isn't Zuckerland.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by walthamstow on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:21AM (#39214457)
I think you're underestimating the amount of drugs sold via WhatsApp and Facebook

The largest single market is probably Telegram. I bought some cannabis live resin on Telegram just this week. Next day delivery!

IMO no dark net market will ever be bigger than an app you can download on iOS and Android

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by herbst on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:42AM (#39214575)
> IMO no dark net market will ever be bigger than an app you can download on iOS and Android

I heavily doubt that and think you heavily underestimate DN markets by service and volume. We live in crazy times, that's sure.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by walthamstow on Thursday February 01, 2024 @06:03AM (#39214696)
Well, other services like CP and fraud don't matter because we're only talking about drugs anyway. I don't think I do underestimate the markets, but we never defined biggest in the first place and neither of us have any data so it seems moot.

The number of times I've tried to get friends to make orders on DNMs over the years with no success. If I'd just passed them a Telegram username and told them to download the app they'd have done it there and then.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by Arnt on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:49AM (#39214609)
How do you order on "DN markets"? Can you give me a three-paragraph howto, starting from the point where I have cash, a card or the kind of paypal/bank/… most people have, but not any particular software installed.

I ask because… if this is something a lot of people do, then it must either be really simple or there are howtos on youtube/quora/… and I can't find any howto.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by herbst on Thursday February 01, 2024 @09:44AM (#39216493)
You can just open it up and take a look yourself, it's no hidden secret it's just well encrypted.

It's not complicated at all

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by Arnt on Thursday February 01, 2024 @10:52AM (#39217232)
I feel that there's a lot hidden in that word "just". The shopping sites you have in mind, are they searchable using google? Do they accept visa cards or paypal?

You wrote that GP "heavily underestimate DN markets by service and volume". If those markets can't be found using mass-market search engines and don't accept payment using mass-market payment services, then I think they're either nïche or you need to explain how they reached large volume.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by herbst on Friday February 02, 2024 @03:32AM (#39226472)
I am not really sure where you are going at. You can very well Google this all (at least in Switzerland you find clear results) the time where onion.to was actually properly indexed in Google is over tho, but that was a thing not to long ago as well.

A crypto wallet, that connects to one of those multi Billion Dollar networks, very well could be viewed as 'mass market payment service'. I at least know more people using crypto than PayPal, most no 'hackers'.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by ChatGTP on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:52AM (#39214626)
Even if that's true, it's still a bad thing is used for the sale and or distribution of child porn.
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by jansan on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:12AM (#39214399)
> isn't Meta the 'single largest market for <almost anything>'

No, it isn't. Far from it.

Edit: Unless those angled brackets have a meaning that I am not aware of.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by remus on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:20AM (#39214444)
I suspect the GP was being facetious, but the point that meta is massive is a good one imo. With billions of users your platform can become 'the largest market for x' for many niche use cases without it really saying much about the platform itself.
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by BLKNSLVR on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:36AM (#39214536)
I try not to be facetious these days, especially on HN. What you said is basically what I was attempting to point out.

To jansan: The angled brackets is what I've used for a long time to represent a variable or as-yet-unknown value, ie. <Fill in the Blank>

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by meiraleal on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:46AM (#39214597)
I'm missing something or you guys are? They still should answer and pay for being the biggest market for criminal activities
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by jevoten on Thursday February 01, 2024 @06:44AM (#39214926)
Why Meta and not the ISPs trafficking the child exploitation bits, or Xiaomi and Apple for selling the silicon that enables it? Or the GNU project for providing disk encryption software that hides it.

The end goal is to morally and legally blackmail every company to act as an active spy for the panopticon.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by meiraleal on Thursday February 01, 2024 @10:15AM (#39216819)
Because Meta makes more money than all the ISPs together and the ISPs offer a much more useful value to the users. And no, the end goal is to not allow companies to profit from human misery which it seems you aren't against.
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by jevoten on Thursday February 01, 2024 @10:44AM (#39217128)
And there's the moral blackmail. Tell me, how does Meta "profit from human misery"? Do they take a cut from sex-abuse sales, deliberately turn a blind eye to it, and it represents a significant fraction of their profits? Or do they just imperfectly enforce bans on it, and to them it's nothing but a liability for their ad sales?

> And no, the end goal is to not allow companies to profit from human misery

So says you. But the end result will be a panopticon. Good thing government and corporate oppression are solved issues, so there's no need for impractical things like privacy or freedom anymore.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by meiraleal on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:18PM (#39222236)
Countries have laws. At least in my country if a company allows criminals to advertise and scam using their resources they respond for the crimes.

> Do they take a cut from sex-abuse sales, deliberately turn a blind eye to it

that's exactly it.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by TheOtherHobbes on Thursday February 01, 2024 @05:53AM (#39214632)
1. No

2. Even if it were true, it's irrelevant.

Because Meta is supposed to have automated systems that try to prevent this.

Which means they're not working, or Meta doesn't care, or both.

Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by Cthulhu_ on Thursday February 01, 2024 @06:02AM (#39214689)
At the scale of Meta, even if they're 99% effective, 1% still represents tens of thousands. Facebook currently has 3 billion active users per month.
Re:Meta is the 'single largest market for paedophiles', says... by slantaclaus on Thursday February 01, 2024 @08:51AM (#39215871)
Meta is a holding company I’ve been told