• Pooptimist@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Hear me out on this one:

    If we take it as given that pedophilia is a disorder and ultimatly a sickness, wouldn’t it be better that these people get their fix from AI created media than from the real thing?

    IMO there was no harm done to any kid in the creation of this and it would be better to give these people the fix they need or at least desperately desire in this way before they advance to more desperate and harmful measures.

    • DrPop@lemmy.one
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      9 months ago

      You have a point, but in at least one of these cases the images used were of the girls around them and even tried extorting one is then. Issues like this should be handled on a case by case basis.

    • hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Some of the comments here are so stupid: “either they unpedophile themselves or we just kill them for their thoughts”

      Ok so let me think this through. Sexual preferences in any way or pretty normal and they don’t go away. Actually if you tend to ignore them they become stronger. Also being a pedophile is not a crime currently. It’s the acting on it. So what happens right now is that people bottle it up, then it gets too much and they act on it in gruesome ways, because “if I go to prison I might as well make sure it was worth it”. Kids get hurt.

      “But we could make thinking about it illegal!” No we can’t. Say that’s a law, what now? If you don’t like someone, they’re a “pedophile”. Yay more false imprisonment. Also what happens to real pedophiles? Well they start commit more acts because theres punishment even for restraint. And the truth is a lot of ppl have pedophilic tendencies. You will not catch all of them. Things will just get worse.

      So why AI? Well as the commenter above me already said, if there’s no victim, there’s no problems. While that doesn’t make extortion legal (I mean obv. it’s a different law), this could make ppl with those urges have more restraint. We could even still limit it to specific sites and make it non-shareable. We’d have more control over it.

      I know ppl still want the easy solution which evidently doesn’t work, but imo this is a perfect solution.

      • foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I largely agree with what you’re saying and there definitely is no easy solution. I’ve never understood why drawings or sex dolls depicting underage people are illegal in some places, as they are victimless crimes.

        The issue with aigen that differentiates it a bit from the above is the fidelity. You can tell a doll or an anime isn’t real, but in a few years from now it’ll b difficult to spot aigen images. This isn’t unique to this scenario though, it’s going to wreck havok on politics, scams, etc, but there is the potential that real CP comes out from hiding and is somewhat shielded by the aigen.

        Of course this is just speculation, I hope it would go the other way around and everyone just jacks off at their computers and CP disappears completely. We need to stop focusing our attention on people with pedophila, get them mental support, and focus on sex offenders who are actually hurting people.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          I’m all for letting people have their dolls, drawings, and AI generated stuff, but yeah… it would become easy for offenders to say “Naw, I snatched that shit off of DALL-E.” and walk in court, so some kind of forensic tool that can tell AI Generated Images from Real Ones would have to be made…

          Actually there’s a lot of reasons we’d want a tool like that that have nothing to do with hypothetical solutions to kiddie diddling.

          Can you imagine how easy extortion would become if you could show an AI pictures of your neighbor next door killing some rando missing person in the area? But every new technology enables crime, until we find out what the proper safeguards are so I’m not too worried about it in the long-term.

          • Anomalous_Llama@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            It’s also worth remembering that to make super accurate pictures of children the AI may have been trained on illegal photos (on purpose or not)

            But that’s an issue for the AI creator

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        I pretty much agree, while we should never treat Pedophilia as “Just another perfectly valid sexuality, let’s throw a parade, it’s nothing to be ashamed of” (Having the urge to prey on children is ABSOLUTELY something to be ashamed of even if you can’t control it.), we need to face facts… It isn’t someone waking up one day and saying “Wouldn’t it be funny if I took little Billy out back and filled him full of cock?”

        It’s something going on in their head, something chemical, some misfiring of the neurons, just the way their endocrine system is built.

        As much as I’d love to wave a magic wand over these people I reluctantly call people and cure them of their desires, we don’t have the power to do that. No amount of therapy in the world can change someone’s sexual tastes.

        So in lieu of an ideal solution, finding ways to prevent pedophiles from seeking victims in the first place is the next best thing.

        It’s not dissimilar to how when we set up centers for drug addicted people to get small doses of what they’re addicted to so that they can fight withdrawal symptoms, crimes and death rates go down. When you enact things like universal basic income and SNAP, people have less of a reason to rob banks and gas stations so we see less of them.

        It’s not enough to punish people who do something wrong, we need to find out why they’re doing it and eliminate the underlying cause.

      • Skwerls@discuss.tchncs.de
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        9 months ago

        There’s also a difference (not sure if clinically) between people who sexualize really young kids and someone who likes kids that are under the age that whatever society has decided splits children and adults. In the USA porn depicting the latter is fine as long as everyone is over the age of adulthood, even if they dress up to look younger.

        I think in general people who refer to pedophilia are usually referring to the former and not the 30 year old dating a 17 year old or whatever. But the latter makes it a little weird. Images of fictional people don’t have ages. Can you charge anyone who has aigen porn with csam if the people depicted sorta look underage?

        Ai generated content is gonna bring a lot of questions like these that we’re gonna have to grapple with as a society.

        • hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          The first part of your comment is rather confusing to me, but the latter part I fully agree with. Decoding age on appearance is a thing that will haunt us even more with AI until we face new solutions. But that is gonna be one of a list of big questions to be asked in conjunction with new AI laws.

        • hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          You know what? Sure. Imagine I find ppl really taste, especially hands. But I never chew on one. I just think about it. Literally the same thing. You should be rewarded for restraint on these urges. If I’d get punished for thinking about munching on a thumb, I’d at least take a hand with me to jail. I’m going there anyway.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      That’s basically how I feel. I’d much rather these kinds of people jack it to drawings and AI Generated images if the alternative is that they’re going to go after real chidlren.

      • Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        At some point the fake images won’t do it for them and then they’d fix their attention to real kids. We don’t want to wait for that to happen.

        It’s like using a drug with your threshold increasing each time you use, they’re will be a time that your old limit will have no effect on your satisfaction level.

          • MBM@lemmings.world
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            9 months ago

            None of us are specialists here, so people saying it is and people saying it isn’t harmless are both speculating

          • datavoid@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            Seems like speculation, but personally I’d be amazed if it were completely incorrect.

            If people who are attracted to children are constantly looking at CP, they are inevitably going to become more comfortable with it. Same with any other type of porn - do you think people who watch tons of torture porn dont become increasingly unaffected by it? It’s also the same for any other illegal or shocking content. I spent enough time on 4chan 10+ years ago to vouch for this personally.

            I’m not saying that everyone who looks at these AI images will act on their desire, but some people will absolutely end up wanting more after having open access to pictures of naked children.

            Honestly it’s a bit concerning how people are voting this down, why do we value the sexual gratification of pedos higher than the potential safety of children?

            • foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              This is the War on Drugs argument all over again, except using porn instead of marijuana as a “gateway”.

              You’re correct that there can be some crossover and some unstable people could have an addiction that gets out of control, but I don’t think there’s any proof that happens in high enough numbers.

        • Neil@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          Yeah, man. Marijuana is totally a gateway drug that will lead to METH AND HEROIN ABUSE!

          Fuck off.

        • papertowels@lemmy.one
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          9 months ago

          By your logic, does everyone who’s into bdsm have a sex dungeon in their bedroom?

          Your comment reduces everyone to their base fetishes, as if that were the only thing enacting pressure on an individual to act, and I don’t believe that’s the case.

          • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            I’ll come right out and say it, I’m into inflation.

            The amount of times I’ve went out, bought a helium tank, and shoved a tube up anyone’s ass is just about equal to the amount of times I’ve been the Republican Candidate for the US Presidency… and I’m not even 35 yet.

            I think we all have weird kinks, it’s a part of the human experience.

            Heck imagine if we thought this way for EVERY sexual desire someone had.

            “Porn for people who prefer blondes? I dunno, what if they get carried away and start dying random brown haired people? The consequences are too great!”

            Sounds fucking ridiculous when you think of it that way.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Do you know how much porn there is of the My Little Pony characters? Tons

          Do you know how much of an epidemic there is of cartoon watchers going out and fucking ponies? Somewhere between null and zilch… Maybe one or two extreme cases, but that’s around the same amount of people who watch Super Hero movies and try to jump off the roof in order to fly.

          This is a slippery slope fallacy if I ever saw it.

          Heck, if anything we’ve seen that restrictions on porn actually leads to increased instances of sexual assault, in the same way a crackdown on drugs just leads to more deaths from overdoses.

          If letting some sicko have fake images of pretend children saves even one real child from being viciously exploited, I think it’s worth it.

          It’s not ideal and yeah, it makes the skin of any sane person crawl… Ideally we should be out curing pedophiles of their sexual urges entirely, but since we don’t have a way to do that why let perfect be the enemy of good? I mean what other ideas do we have? Cause “To Catch A Predator” may have been good television, but even that had ethical concerns ending in lawsuits lost and suicides performed, and castrated everyone convicted isn’t exactly 8th Amendment friendly… and even then that prevents repeat offenses, not initial offenses. (Prevention > Cure)

          Now all this aside, we do need to look at this on a case by case basis. If real children are being used to model for the AI or fake images are used as a form of blackmail (Think “Revenge Porn”, but way, way worse), then cuffs need to be slapped on people.

    • random65837@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      In the US we ignore mental illness, make excuses for it, and then patiently wait until sometime terrible happens.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        And when it does, can’t do anything about it “While making sure this never happens again is a noble goal, let’s not politicize this tragedy.”

        Or as they say over in Europe “Apparently the Americans say there’s no way to prevent that problem that literally doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world.”

    • ⚡⚡⚡@feddit.de
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      9 months ago

      Well, technically the AI is trained on existing data and the data is closed source. So, we do technically not know whether harm was involved.

    • Ataraxia@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Jfc what’s with these pedo apologists. If someone were a cannibal, would it be totally fine to just give them human flesh removed from surgeries or dead people? Maybe let him pay people to eat them and drink their blood? AI images are trained on actual CP and CP anyway should not be normalized. If someone has ideation of violence then the last thing you do is feed those ideations. Would you think a suicidal person should watch simulated suicide? Why would watching simulated acts of depraved violence because you enjoy them somehow prevent you from committing that act yourself? If you enjoy something that much then you are thinking about doing it yourself.

      • mordred@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Actually the analogy here would be to give “wannabe cannibals” synthetic meat/stuff that tastes like human meat/stuff

      • captain_spork@startrek.website
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        9 months ago

        That is not required. Especially in the larger models like a DALLE-3 it can combine concepts even without being directly trained on it. The one they had in the showcase for DALLE-2 was a chair shaped like an avocado. It knows what a chair is and it knows what an avocado is, so it can combine them. So it can know “this is what a naked human looks like” and “this is what a human child looks like” and could combine them without having ever seen CSAM.

          • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            See, this is the problem with this entire thread. You guys are, rightfully, upset about what you perceive, but then you take that and use that energy to spread false claims because you think they’re true, or you think the lie will help bolster your side of the argument. Instead it just makes you look disingenuous and paints a bad look for everyone. There’s plenty of accurate points to be made for why this stuff isn’t okay, but you guys are making none of them, very matter-of-factly. Do better. Be better. Make valid arguments, based on fact, or do what people used to do and sit back and let the people who know what they’re talking about make the arguments.

    • eatthecake@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I dont beleive its a sickness. Humans vary in innumerable ways and defining natural variations as sickness is a social decision, not medical. If you look at the DSM you will find that that social problems are sometimes given as a reason for defining something as illness. This is just the medicalisation of everything.
      Even if you grant that its a sicknesd, how does it follow that sickness should therefore be treated by AI? I see no argument or logic here. Do you think harm would be done if the paedophile knows the child? If the child finds out they are the object of rape fantasies? If you find you are married to a person who gets off on raping children? Your children?
      Do you allow for disgust and horror at sadistic desires or are we ‘not allowed to kink shame’.

    • treefrog@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Sex offenders aren’t allowed to watch porn at all in my state.

      Because science suggests watching porn, and getting your fix as you put it, through porn, encourages the behavior.

      Watching child porn teaches the mind to go to children to fulfill sexual urges. Mindfulness practice has been shown to be effective in curbing urges in all forms of addiction.

      So, no. Just no to your whole post.

      There’s effective treatment for addictions, rather sexual or otherwise. Rather the addiction feeds on children or heroin. And we don’t need to see if fake child porn helps. Evidence already suggests it doesn’t and we already have effective treatments that don’t put children at risk and that don’t encourage the behavior.

      • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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        9 months ago

        Not judging/voting your comment, do you have the data at hand? Just out of interest.

        Some input though, you are not making a difference between offenders and non-offenders and i doubt there is even good data on non offenders to begin with.

      • Forbo@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        As mentioned on another one of your comments, I am having a hard time finding the science you reference.

      • Pooptimist@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        This isn’t about addiction, it’s about sexuality. And you can’t just curb your whole sexuality away. These people have a disorder that makes them sexually attracted to children. At this point there is no harm done yet. They just are doomed to live a very unfulfilling life, because the people with whom they want to engage in sexual practices can’t give their consent, which is morally and legally required, no question about that. And most of them don’t give in to these urges and seek the help they need.

        But still, you can’t just meditate your whole sexuality away. I don’t want to assume, but I bet you also masturbate or pleasure yourself in one way or another, I know I do. And when I was young, fantasy was all I needed, but then I saw my first nude and watched my first porno and it progressed from there, and I’m sure fantasy won’t be enough for these people as well. So when they get to the stage where they want to consume media, I prefer it to be AI created images or some drawn hentai of a naked young girl or whatever, and not real abused children.

            • PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              9 months ago

              As someone who’s spent a couple weeks down a stable diffusion rabbit hole. I can attest that they don’t need to be trained on CP to generate CP content. Using some very popular checkpoints I inadvertently created some images that I found questionable enough to immediately delete. And I wasn’t even using prompts to generate young girls, with the right prompts I can easily see some of the more popular checkpoints pumping out CP.

            • SuddenlyBlowGreen@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              I think it it becomes widespread, like you want it to be, models that generate CSAM will be trained on such material, yes.

    • Llamatron@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Because eventually looking at images might not be enough

      Edit: Do we want to be normalising this? It’s disturbing how there’s people defending it.

      • photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        Bro I’ve watched a lot of regular porn and never once have I gone out and thought “why yes I’d sure like to rape that person”

        • Llamatron@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          But you will at least have an outlet if you get yourself a partner or hire an escort. There’s the prospect of sex in real life. You’re not forever limited to porn.

          • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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            9 months ago

            I did not have sex in years, yet luckely nobody thinks i am a danger to women. It is nearly as if people do not suddenly feel the need to rape someone just because they dont have sex.

            • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              Slippery slope arguments almost exclusively come from the only people who they seem to affect. You see the same worrying mentality from religious people who tell you that without god they would be commiting serious crimes. Most people have inherent morality that these people seem to lack without strict legal or religious guidelines.

              • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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                9 months ago

                I mean that makes sense i guess. I hate these “arguments” because it kills the debate. On the other hand i am totally not used to see any debate on this topic without it derailing into people calling each other pedos. So props to most people in here.

      • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        By that logic almost everyone in Hollywood should be in prison for depicting violence, murder, rape etc in movies/shows etc. This argument was put to rest back in the '90s.

      • khalic@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        They have their little secret forums and brigade a lot, don’t trust the up/down votes

    • snownyte@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      That’d be like giving an alcoholic a pint by the end of the week to reward their alcoholic behavior that they’d want out of.

      That’d be like giving money to a gambling addict as they promise to ‘pay you back’ for the loan you’ve given them.

      My point is, enabling people’s worst habits is always a bad idea.

      And how can you guarantee for certain that after awhile of these AI-generated CP crap, that they eventually wouldn’t want the real thing down the road and therefore, attempt crimes?

      Your solution is just dumb altogether.

      • AnonTwo@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        …Aren’t drug patches already a thing for more extreme drugs? I feel like you just gave bad examples when there’s actual examples that exist…

        • snownyte@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          You really like spamming that “slippery slope” term, don’t you? It’s like your ultimate go-to for feeling like you’re superior. Just wait until you use it in a context where you’ll look like a dumbass, one of these days in where it doesn’t fit.

          • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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            9 months ago

            If i use such an “argument” and someone calls me out on it i hope i take the critique to heart and think of an actual argument. Everyone looks like dumbass from time to time and so will i.

        • snownyte@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          I don’t claim to be an expert either, but it’s kind of a no-brainer to see what addiction is and what it does to people. Really simple stuff.

      • Kxpqzt@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        No, it’s like flooding the rhino horn market with fake rhino horn. Literally.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      While I don’t disagree with the initial premise, image AI requires training images.

      I suppose technically you could use hyper-realistic CGI CSAM, and then it could potentially be a “victimless” crime. But the chances of an AI being trained solely on CGI are basically non-existent. Photorealistic CGI is tough and takes a lot of time and skill to create from scratch. There are people whose entire careers are built upon photorealism, and their services aren’t cheap. And you’d probably need a team of artists (not just one artist, because the AI will inevitably end up learning whatever their “style” is and nothing more,) who are both capable and willing to create said images. The chances of all of those pieces falling into place are damned near 0.

      Maybe you could supplement the CGI with young-looking pornstar material? There are plenty of pornstars whose entire schtick is looking young. But they definitely don’t look like children because the proportions are obviously all wrong; Children have larger heads compared to their bodies, for example. That’s not something that an adult actress can emulate simply by being flat chested. So these supplemental images could just as easily end up polluting (for lack of a better word) your AI’s training, because it would just learn to spit out images of flat chested adult women.

      • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        Generative Ai is perfectly capable of combining concepts. Teach it how do today do photorealistic underage and photorealistic porn and or can combine them together to make csam without ever being trained on actual csam

      • 3laws@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        My autism can also be cured by d*ing… my ADHD can be fixed forever by the same thing. They come with intrusive thoughts, do you also want the final penalty for people like me?

        I’m not apologizing for people’s crimes or intentions of a crime at all, but your argument is complete bonkers if you want societies to just behave like that.

          • jinarched@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder. Sexually abusing a child is a terrible crime.

            Lots of pedophiles will never touch a child. Alternatively, some people who are not pedophiles will sexually assault children (sometimes, it can be just a power dynamic thing for example).

            I think you are confusing the terms. Nobody here is defending people who assault children.

      • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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        9 months ago

        Cool solution to kill people that did not offend. You sound like a real humanist. Do you by any chance run some for profit prison?

        • Mango@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Wrongthink. You are no longer allowed to feel this way under penalty of satisfying our bloodlust. /s

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    9 months ago

    One thing I have to ask for those that say pedos should seek psychological/psychiatric treatment: do you even know a professional that won’t immediately call the cops if you say “i have sexual desires for kids”?

    I wholly agree that this is something that should receive some form of treatment, but first the ones afflicted would have to know that they won’t be judged, labeled and exposed when they do so.

    • NAXLAB@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Things that happen inside your head = not illegal

      Things that happen outside of your head = can potentially be illegal.

        • Miqo@lemmy.world
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          No, it does not. Many people struggle with intrusive thought, as an example.

          An intrusive thought is an unwelcome, involuntary thought, image, or unpleasant idea that may become an obsession, is upsetting or distressing, and can feel difficult to manage or eliminate.

          Bad thoughts ≠ bad person.

        • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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          Bro everyone has dark intrusive thoughts, these folks just have ones that they’re wildly ashamed of and that they’re scared of not knowing how to control most of the time.

          There are some who cross the threshold into action, but in all likelihood those are a comparable ratio to people who actually turn into serial killers compared to people who have intrusive thoughts about wanting to throttle someone out of frustration with them.

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        But doctors are required to report anything that they identify as an immediate physical threat (e.g., to the patient or because of the patient). I found out recently that this is entirely subjective - different doctors have different ideas about what constitutes a threat. So, in a lot of ways, no, medical secrecy may not protect you if you tell the wrong doctor.

        • khalic@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          You underestimate how much medical professionals cherish their license. And immediate danger is well defined. Maybe these people should accept that they might need to be restrained in case there is a risk of them raping a child.

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            You underestimate how sheltered, bureaucratic and extraordinarily hard it is for a medical practitioner to lose their license. I’ve seen literal convicted murderers who didn’t lose their license and were still licensed doctors (for a while) while in prison. I’ve seen rapists retain the medical license that allowed them access to their victims.

      • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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        While that is true it would be enough for a therapist to say they see someone as a threat. As hate for pedophiles is on a rather high level i understand the fear however unwarranted it might be. Luckely at least in germany there is some kind of help group named somewhat like “Kein Täter werden” if i remember correctly. I think we could use more of that in more countries.

    • DarthFreyr@lemmy.world
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      What are the cops going to do? Round here at least, thought crime isn’t yet a thing. It’d essentially be the same as if you said “Sometimes, I want to hurt people”. If you’re actually speaking with a medical professional, what you say is legally privileged information, and AFAIK for the US at least, that continues until there is reasonable belief that you will harm someone or commit a crime.

      This totally glosses over the social aspect, but for any legitimate medical provider that shouldn’t be a problem. I don’t want anyone who needs help to be afraid of seeking it.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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        What are the cops going to do? Round here at least, thought crime isn’t yet a thing.

        True, but anyone admitting to being a pedo is very likely to have something in their phones or computers that they really hope nobody ever sees, especially the cops (whether real CP, AI generated or drawn, and whether the possession is a crime, varies). An “anonymous” tip leading into an investigation could easily end up with jail time.

    • TheGalacticVoid@lemm.ee
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      In the US, they will call the cops if they know you did something illegal, so it does require some form of secrecy from the patient.

    • RazorsLedge@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      People are attracted to whoever they’re attracted to. Saying someone should get psychiatric treatment for the sexual preferences in their own head sounds misguided, similar to “pray the gay away”

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    9 months ago

    I’m very conflicted on this one.

    Child porn one of those things that won’t go away if you prohibit it, like alcohol. It’ll just go underground and cause harm to real children.

    AI child pornography images, as disturbing as they might be, would serve a “need”, if you will, while not actually harming children. Since child pornography doesn’t appear to be one of those “try it and you’ll get addicted” things, I’m genuinely wondering if this would actually reduce the harm caused to real children. If so, I think it should be legal.

    • clausetrophobic@sh.itjust.works
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      Normalisation in culture has effects on how people behave in the real world. Look at Japan’s sexualization of women and minors, and how they have huge problems with sexual assault. It’s not about whether or not real children are getting hurt, it’s about whether it’s morally right or wrong. And as a society, we’ve decided that CP is very wrong as a moral concept.

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        Here’s the thing though, being too paranoid about normalization also makes the problem worse, because the truth is that these are people with severe mental problems, who in all likelihood want to seek professional help in most cases.

        The problem is the subject is SO taboo that even a lot of mental health professionals will chase them off like rabid animals when the solution is developing an understanding that can lead to a clinical treatment plan for these cases.

        Doing that will also help the CSAM problem too since getting people out of the alleyways and into professional help will shrink the market significantly, both immediately and overtime, reducing the amount of content that gets made, and as a result, the amount of children victimized to make that content.

        The key factor remains, we have to stop treating these people like inhuman monsters that deserve death and far worse whenever they’re found. They’re sick in the head souls who need robust mental health care and thought management strategies.

        • JoBo@feddit.uk
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          9 months ago

          None of that is an argument for normalisation via legalisation. Offenders and potential offenders should feel safe to seek help. Legalising AI-generated CSAM just makes it much less likely that they’ll see the need to seek help. In much the same way that rapists assume all men are rapists, because most men don’t make it clear that they’re not.

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            9 months ago

            I’m sorry, should I make clear to every bank that I’m not a bank robber? Do I seriously have to tell every woman that I am not a rapist? That is a really bad argument. The vast VAST majority of men are not rapists, saying that it’s men’s fault because they don’t apologize or clarify that they’re not rapists is just… crazy

            • JoBo@feddit.uk
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              Where did you get any of that from? Why does any of what I said somehow imply telling women anything at all?

              Get a fucking grip.

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        9 months ago

        On the other hand, producing porn is illegal in India and they have huge problems with sexual assault too.

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      I heard an anonymous interview with someone who was sickened by their own attraction to children. Hearing that person speak changed my perspective. This person had already decided never to marry or have kids and chose a career to that same end, low likelihood that kids would be around. Clearly, since the alternative was giving up on love and family forever, the attraction wasn’t a choice. Child porn that wasn’t made with children, comics I guess, was used to fantasize to prevent carrying through on those desires in real life.

      I don’t get it, why anyone would be attracted to kids. It’s gross and hurtful and stupid. If people suffering from this problem have an outlet, though, maybe fewer kids will be hurt.

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      I’m thinking it should still be illegal but if they get charged for it, make it less severe than being charged with actual cp. This might naturally incentivize that industry to go for ai generated images instead of trafficking. Also I think if they took an image of an actual child and used AI to do this stuff it should be more severe than using a picture of a legal aged person to make cp.

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      9 months ago

      I’d go more in the direction of state sponsored generation and controlled access.

      If you want legal unlimited access to AI generated CSM, you need to register with the state for it and in so doing also close off access to positions that would put you in situations where you’d be more able to act on it (i.e. employment in schools, child hospitals, church youth leadership, etc).

      If doing that, and no children are harmed in the production of the AI generated CSM, then you have a license to view and possess (but not redistribute) the images registered with the system.

      But if you don’t have that license (i.e. didn’t register as sexually interested in children) and possess them, or are found to be distributing them, then you face the full force of the law.

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        I think this idea rests on the false premise that people both need and have a right to pornography.

        Many adults go about their lives without accessing it/getting off on it. It’s not a human need like food or shelter. So government isn’t going to become a supplier. Parallels could be made, I suppose, with safe injecting rooms and methadone clinics etc - but that’s a medical/health service that protects both the individual and the community. I don’t think the same argument could be made for a government sponsored porn bank.

        • kromem@lemmy.world
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          You don’t think there’s an argument to be made that motivating people sexually attracted to children to self-report that attraction to the state in order to be monitored and kept away from children would have a social good?

          I guess I just don’t really see eye to eye with you on that then.

          • Kage520@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            This is such a touchy subject I find it difficult to articulate what society actually needs. We need a system where PEDOPHILES are able to receive the mental health they need before they become MOLESTERS.

            But any time you say something about helping someone who is attracted to children the knee jerk reaction is always like “kill them. What you don’t want them dead? Are YOU a pedophile?” And I end up unable to convince them that helping them to not molest children by treating their mental health condition will actually help children not be molested. I really feel like this reactionary public opinion is causing people to go underground and is actually causing more children to be harmed.

            • kromem@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Agreed.

              There’s a world of difference between socially inappropriate desires that someone might be born with and can’t help and inappropriate behaviors that they chose to do.

              By all means demonize the latter. But demonizing the former along with it does mean a likely increase in the latter by forcing a social climate where being open and transparent about the former to avoid the latter is far less common.

              People suck even dealing with people being alcoholics or drug addicts and giving them the space and situational consideration to avoid temptation.

              All that said, IIRC the numbers are something like 50% of people with a sexual attraction to children will have acted on it by college, so it’s understandable that the animosity for the former is often not far distanced from the latter.

              But I’m all for any social programs that provide support for helping the other 50% avoid going down that path.

              • dustyData@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                It’s impossible to talk about any kind of numbers or statistics regarding sexually attraction to minors. It all gets muddled up really fast. A lot of men normalize underage attraction to teenagers, but don’t consider it pedophilia (legally it is). Which brings up the question of classifying attraction, but in public speech this of course brings in the knee jerks reaction of questioning and attacking the person for knowing or addressing that there’s a qualitative different between attraction to a 5 year old and a 17 year old. But it does make statistics really hard to define.

                Plus most of the information we have comes from felons and convicted criminals which are the worst or most extreme examples. Non-molesters pedophiles have absolutely no incentive to tell anyone, not even their psychologists, which means we don’t know anything from them. A few researchers try to get into their world and derive some understanding, but it is always a hard sell for grants. But a friend researcher once told me, if we could only interview felons, we would be convinced that most people will murder someone before turning 30. The truth is we don’t know, and we currently have no way of knowing the real numbers regarding pedophilia.

                • kromem@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  ‘Pedophilia’ has no legal definition.

                  And the psychiatric definition is attraction to pre-pubescent children.

                  And the statistics aren’t actually as hard to define as you might think, though the amount of research this topic gets is woefully underrepresented relative to the social impact.

                  For example, on the topic of violent offenders in prison you bought up:

                  Of the 100 male inmates who participated in this study, 59% reported experiencing some form of sexual abuse before puberty, and all such instances occurred before or at the age of 13 years.

                  This issue has a much bigger and broader impact on society than most people realize.

          • boogetyboo@aussie.zone
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            9 months ago

            That component I don’t have an issue with at all, actually. But providing government sanctioned ai porn? Unlikely

    • UsernameIsTooLon@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s an ethical dilemma. It’s just an extremely controversial one. You really have to weigh in whether or not we should keep chaos if it means betterment for society as we advance forward.

      I don’t think things should be as black and white as legal or not. I think the answer lies somewhere between something like decriminalizing drugs. Mostly illegal, but could benefit those who are genuinely seeking help. It would just have to take me a lot of convincing on an individual to need to seek out this material or else they are a danger to those around them.

    • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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      There are many things still unclear about whether or not this will increase harm.

      We don’t know how these images effect people and their behaviour. Many techbros online treat it like it’s a fact that media does not influence behaviour and thought processes, but if you look at the research this isn’t clear cut at all. And some research was able to show that specific media indeed does influence people.

      Additionally, something rarely talked about, these images, stories and videos can be used to groom children and teenagers. Either to become victims and/or to become consumers themselves. This was a thing in the past and I bet it is still happening with Manga depicting Loli Hentai. Making these images legal will give groomers even better tool.

      • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        If Loli porn can turn people into pedophiles then I think humanity is having bigger issues

      • Skwerls@discuss.tchncs.de
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        9 months ago

        Yes, but not in the way I think you’re implying, it is not trained on csam images. It can put the pieces together to varying degrees of success. If you ask for a Martian hedgehog in a tuxedo riding a motorcycle, it can create something looking like that without being trained on exactly that thing.

        • LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz
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          9 months ago

          Martian hedgehog in a tuxedo riding a motorcycle

          Just to prove your point I fed that into an AI (dreamshaper 8). no other prompts or anything, and this was the first image it generated.

    • JoBo@feddit.uk
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      You can certainly argue that AI-generated CSAM does less harm but you can’t argue from that to legalising it because it still does a bucketload of harm. Consumers of CSAM are very likely to harm real children and normalising CSAM makes that much more likely.

      This argument is a non-starter and people really need to stop pushing it.

      • NightAuthor@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Consumers of CSAM are very likely to harm real children and normalising CSAM makes that much more likely.

        If any of that was objectively true, then yeah, I agree. Problem is, it looks like you just pulled that out of your ass.

      • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        You’re literally claiming a bunch of things as facts. Any spur ea to back that up?

    • Discoslugs@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I’m genuinely wondering if this would actually reduce the harm caused to real children. If so, I think it should be legal.

      So tired of seeing this point made. Allowing animated or AI generated CSAM to exists openly and legally will not reduce violence against childern. It will increase it. It will normalized it.

      You seem to think people who are willing and capable of commiting sexual violence against childern are going to do it less when theres a robust market of leaglly accessable CSAM.

      It wont. it will instead create predator pipelines. It will take people with mild sexual disorders and histories of their own sexual assualts as childern and feed them CSAM. It will create more predators.

      It will allow for communities of pedophiles to exist openly, findable on google searchs and advertised on regular porn sites.

      Also the people who make AI generated CSAM are not going to be water marking it a AI genrated.

      They are going to make it as real as possible. it will be indistinguishable to the naked eye and thus allow for Actual CSAM to masquarade and AI generated.

      I could go on. But im not an expert on any of this.

      • shrugal@lemm.ee
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        You completely ignored the “state controlled generation and access” part of the argument. Experience with addictive drugs has shown us that tightly controlled access, oversight and possibly treatment can be a much better solution than just making it illegal. The truth is that we just don’t know if it would work the same with CSAM, but we do know that making it a taboo topic doesn’t work.

        • JoBo@feddit.uk
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          There’s no parallel here. Providing safe access to drugs reduces harm to the user and the harm done by the black-market drug trade. Normalising AI-generated CSAM might reduce the harm done to children during production of the material but it creates many more abusers.

          The parallel only works if the “state controlled generation and access” to drugs was an open shop handing out drugs to new users and creating new addicts. Which is pretty much how the opiate epidemic was created by drug companies, pharmacists and doctors using their legitimate status for entirely illegitimate purposes.

          • shrugal@lemm.ee
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            Normalising AI-generated CSAM might reduce the harm done to children during production of the material but it creates many more abusers.

            The problem with your argument is that you assume a bunch of stuff that we just don’t know, because we haven’t tried it yet. The closest thing we do know are drugs, and for them controlled access has proven to work really well. So I think it’s at least worth thinking about and doing limited real-world trials.

            And I don’t think any sane person is suggesting to just legalize and normalize it. It would have to be a way for people to self-report and seek help, with conditions such as mandatory check-in/counseling and not being allowed to work with children.

            • Discoslugs@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              You dont need to keep arguing with this person. There are a pro capitial chump.

              He believes " sure capitalism sux but its the best system we have"

              Go check out It their comment history.

              It has all the feels of a libertarian.

            • JoBo@feddit.uk
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              The closest thing we do know are drugs, and for them controlled access has proven to work really well.

              Controlled access to drugs does work well. But legalising AI-generated CSAM is much more analogous to the opiate crisis, which is an unmitigated disaster.

              • shrugal@lemm.ee
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                How so, if you don’t commercialize it? No legal actor would have an incentive to increase the market for CSAM, and it’s not like people who are not already affected would or could just order some for fun.

                • JoBo@feddit.uk
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                  That would be a discussion for an entirely different thread. I would still disagree with you but the people arguing in favour of CSAM on this thread don’t think it should be a crime to make it using AI.

              • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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                Again, how do you know this for a fact? I see your argument being feelings over facts

            • JoBo@feddit.uk
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              Says me. And I explained exactly why. Feel free to engage with that argument.

      • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        You make a huge amount of claims, all as fact. How do you know that any of it is true? I’m not trying to defend rapists and pedophiles, I’m trying to think rationally and pragmatically about how to solve or at least improve this problem. Your reaction to it seems to be more emotional than rational and factual.

        • Discoslugs@lemmy.world
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          I’m trying to think rationally and pragmatically

          Ahh yes the rational thought process which leads you to think a government is capable of Safely facilitating the production of csam. ???

          They are unable to stop child poverty but totally capable to producing CSAM in a safe way…

          Spare me Your fact finding mission.

          Im not an expert or a social worker but i can tell But i can tell you that drug addiction and pedophilia are not the same.

          To consider these two the same, as the original commentor did, is disgisting, offensive and ignorant.

          There is no inherent victim with drug use. The same cannot be said pedophilia and Child sexual assualt.

          While there is always a spectrum of people particpating in child victimization. The people who are the creators of the CSAM and those who participate in its distribution are not addicts. The are predators.

          I’m not trying to defend rapists and pedophiles

          Well you are…

  • Surreal@programming.dev
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    If the man did not distribute the pictures, how did the government find out? Did a cloud service rat him out? Or spyware?

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      He was found extorting little girls with nude pics he generated of them.

      Edit: So I guess he just generated them. In that case, how’d they become public? I guess this is the problem if you don’t read the article.

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        Earlier this month, police in Spain launched an investigation after images of underage girls were altered with AI to remove their clothing and sent around town. In one case, a boy had tried to extort one of the girls using a manipulated image of her naked, the girl’s mother told the television channel Canal Extremadura.

        That was another case in Spain. Not the guy in Korea. The person in Korea didn’t distribute the images.

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          I really gotta wonder what the difference is between prosecuting someone for their thoughts and prosecuting them for jerking it to their own artwork/generative whatever they kept entirely to themselves. The only bad I see here is someone having their privacy invaded by someone else bigger than them and being put on display for it. Sounds familiar?

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          Because that was another case. Extortion and blackmail (and in this case would count as production of cp as would be the case if you would draw after a real child) are already illegal. On this case we simply dont have enough information.

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    So this does bring up an interesting point that I haven’t thought about - is it the depiction that matters, or is it the actual potential for victims that matters?

    Consider the Catholic schoolgirl trope - if someone of legal age is depicted as being much younger, should that be treated in the same way as this case? This case is arguing that the depiction is what matters, instead of who is actually harmed.

    • ilmagico@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Every country has different rules, standing on wikipedia.

      Personally, I feel that if making completely fictitious depictions of child porn, where no one is harmed (think AI-generated, or by consenting adults depicting minors) was legal, it might actually prevent the real, harmful ones from being made, thus preventing harm.

      • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        At the same time, an argument could be made that increasing the availability of such a thing could land it in the eyes of a person who otherwise wouldn’t have seen it in the first place and problems could develop.

        It could normalize something absurd and create more risks.

        I’m no expert and I’d rather leave it to people who thoroughly understand such behaviors to determine what is and isn’t ultimately more or less detrimental to the health of society.

        I just know how (anecdotally) pornography desensitizes a person until it makes more extreme things less bizarre and unnatural. I can’t help but imagine a teenager who would have otherwise developed a more healthy sexuality stumbling on images like that and becoming desensitized.

        It’s definitely something that needs some serious thought.

        • Jaxom_of_Ruatha@lemmy.world
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          “I’m no expert and I’d rather leave it to people who thoroughly understand such behaviors to determine what is and isn’t ultimately more or less detrimental to the health of society.”

          One of the big problems with addressing this problem is that NOBODY thoroughly understands these behaviors. They are so stigmatized that essentially nobody voluntarily admits to having pedophilic urges and scientists can only study those who actually act on them and harm children. They are almost certainly not a representative sample of the entire population of pedophiles, and this severely limits our ability to study the psychology of the population as a whole and what differentiates the rapists among them from the non-rapists.

          • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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            I think Japan would make a really good case study. Childlike aesthetics and behaviors are strongly sexualized in Japan. They also produce the most simulated CSAM per capita with few laws restricting production. Actual child pornography wasn’t made illegal until 1999. They still sell photo books of tweens in swimsuits and stuff in Japan. That, and lolicon, which is basically hentai with kids in it.

            There isn’t the same stigma against attraction to children, and we see that some 15-20% of the Japanese male population holds some aesthetic preferences that most westerners would consider pedophilic.

            I think we’d probably see similar numbers in America if we could cut though the stigma, which some people would panic over, but if anything we should be relieved that despite such numbers, actual sexual abuse of children is very rare.

            I mean, the writing is on the wall already. Nothing in the West is more sexualized than youth, we just like to pretend that 18 is some magical age where you looked completely different the day before your birthday or something, and ignore that puberty comes a lot earlier than that.

            What really matters is the social norms surrounding these things. We shouldn’t care if a 40 year old man thinks a 15 year old girl is attractive, we should care if he tries to do anything about that attraction, because the latter is a conscious choice that does harm, while the former is more complex matter of human sexual response.

        • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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          Most of what you’re repeating about porn “normalizing” things and “desensitizing” viewers is straight out of the puritan handbook. There is evidence that men who overconsume porn and don’t have a healthy sex life can fall into self-destructive patterns, but porn consumption doesn’t work like a drug. It’s not like the more you consume the more hardcore of content you desire, or that being exposed to certain types of porn will create new preferences that you wouldn’t otherwise have had. This is just long-standing anti-sex-work propaganda that tries to liken pornography to narcotics.

          People who consume CSAM are already into that kind of thing. Seeing CSAM isn’t going to turn anyone into a pedophile just as playing GTA isn’t going to turn anyone into a hardened street criminal. The goal should be to protect children, not to censor any content that sexualizes youth, because that really is a slippery slope. More on that here: https://nypost.com/2010/04/24/a-trial-star-is-porn/

        • ilmagico@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Yeah, valid points, but it’s not gonna be easy to tell, in practice. Doing a proper scientific test is likely going to be unethical for obvious reasons, so we’re left to wonder if the cons outweigh the pros or not.

      • papertowels@lemmy.one
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        Thanks for sharing that link. I hated reading through it, but it answered the question haha…

        I don’t really have strong feelings about it but I do think I lean towards agreeing with you.

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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      How I see it: creating fake child porn makes it harder for authorities to find the real ones.

      • papertowels@lemmy.one
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        That’s a good point. On the flip side, I remember there was a big deal about trying to flood the rhino horn market with fakes a few years ago. I can’t find anything on how that went, but I wonder if it could have that effect as well.

    • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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      In America at least, people often confuse child pornography laws with obscenity laws, and they do end up missing the point. Obscenity laws are a violation of free speech, but that’s not what a CSAM ban is about. It’s about criminalizing the abuse of children as thoroughly as possible. Being in porn requires consent, and children can’t consent, so even the distribution or basic retention of this content violates a child’s rights.

      Which is why the courts have thrown out lolicon bans on First Amendment grounds every time it’s attempted. Simulated CSAM lacks a child whose rights could be violated, and generally meets all the the definitions of art, which would be protected expression no matter how offensive.

      It’s a sensitive subject that most people don’t see nuance in. It’s hard to admit that pedophilia isn’t a criminal act by itself, but only when an actual child is made a victim, or a conspiracy to victimize children is uncovered.

      With that said, we don’t have much of a description of the South Korean man’s offenses, and South Korea iirc has similar laws to the US on this matter. It is very possible that he was modifying real pictures of children with infill or training models using pictures of a real child to generate fake porn of a real child. This would introduce a real child as victim, so it’s my theory on what this guy was doing. Probably on a public image generator service that flagged his uploads.

    • eatthecake@lemmy.world
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      The intent is to get off on fucking children, how you make that happen shouldnt matter

      • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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        If we decide that nothing else matters but protecting children, then protecting children will be the only thing that matters anymore. That’s not a reasonable outcome.

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    Considering every other aspect of this is being argued in this thread to exhaustion, I just want to say it’s wild they caught him since it says he didn’t distribute it.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      He probably just used a cloud service that wasn’t private.

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        Yeah he probably wasn’t generating locally. Seems like that would be pretty hard to detect if you don’t distrubute.

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        Is it Child Sexual Abuse Material if there are no children involved?

        “Anime should also be banned”, - - “All anime characters in anime should show passport with their date of birth”.

          • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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            I think you responded to the wrong comment, because while it is true that there are 2.4B people under the age of 18 alive today, it doesn’t appear to have any relevance to what you were replying to.

            • JoBo@feddit.uk
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              Only if you assume that the only children harmed by CSAM are those used to produce CSAM.

              Consumers of CSAM are (actual or potential) perpetrators of abuse. Normalising it is not an option.

  • Golden Cow@lemm.ee
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    Some interesting information on the impact of targeted mental health therapy and the recidivism rates of sexual assault offenders:

    “Despite their concerns about methodological limitations, the authors summarize several studies attempting to examine the effects of treatment on recidivism. A 1980 study of 260 mentally disordered sex offenders treated in a California maximum security hospital and compared with a group of untreated sex offenders released from prisons showed 15% recidivism for the treatment group compared with 25% for the untreated group. The greatest difference was for child molesters offending against boys (15% for treated and 38% for untreated). For child molesters offending against girls, the difference was not statistically significant (20% for treated and 18% for untreated). The follow-up period was five years and recidivism was measured by reconviction.”

    https://www.cga.ct.gov/PS97/rpt/olr/htm/97-R-1451.htm

    "It is worth noting that some of the subgroup analyses performed in the California Sex Offender Treatment and Evaluation Project study did find a treatment effect. Specifically, high-risk offenders who participated in treatment and demonstrated they "got it " — meaning that they derived benefit from the program, or basically met specified treatment goals — recidivated at a significantly lower rate than offenders who "did not get it.“10 Only 10 percent of the high-risk treated offenders who “got it” recidivated, compared to 50 percent of the high-risk subjects who “did not get it.” While this finding was based on a small sample — only 38 high-risk study subjects were part of the analysis ― a similar finding was observed for treated child molesters who “got it” based on a larger sample of 126 subjects. Individuals with child victims who “got it” recidivated at a significantly lower rate than similar offenders who “did not get it” — 9.3 percent compared to 31.3 percent”

    https://smart.ojp.gov/somapi/chapter-7-effectiveness-treatment-adult-sex-offenders

    I would also implore everyone to learn about restorative justice as well as (P OCD)

  • 0ddysseus@lemmy.world
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    (Apologies if I use the wrong terminology here, I’m not an AI expert, just have a fact to share)

    The really fucked part is that at least google has scraped a whole lot of CSAM as well as things like ISIS execution bids etc and they have all this stuff stored and use it to do things like train the algorithms for AIs. They refuse to delete this material as they claim that they just find the stuff and aren’t responsible for what it is.

    Getting an AI image generator to produce CSAM means it knows what to show. So why is the individual in jail and not the tech bros?

  • Jessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    My god there are way too many comments in here trying to normalize pedophilia. Disgusting. Pathetic.

    These are people that need serious psychiatric care, not acceptance or to be included in the LGBTQ+ community. There is absolutely nothing to compare between them and any group within the LGBTQ+ community. Nothing.

    Combatting CP is a hard enough task for the poor bastards that have to do it. There does not need to be AI produced images in the mix.

    Lemmy, do better.

    • dsemy@lemm.ee
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      I think pedophiles should be treated with compassion, as being a pedophile doesn’t make someone a sexual predator.

      IMO the stigma against pedophiles worsens their mental state and could push them to become sexual predators. This is just a guess though.

      However, I do think “treatment” of pedophilia with generated CP should only be tried after conducting proper research into the actual effectiveness of it (maybe with general sex offenders and regular porn). In the end I think the top priority should be to minimize the amount of pedophiles who are also predators.

      • Ataraxia@sh.itjust.works
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        The stigma against racism and sexism I guess a are also making people want to hurt these groups?

        • dsemy@lemm.ee
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          I believe racism and sexism are choices, while I think most pedophiles would prefer not to be pedophiles. If a pedophile doesn’t hurt anyone, why should people want to hurt him?

      • treefrog@lemm.ee
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        Sex offenders aren’t allowed to watch porn because the evidence suggests it doesn’t treat the behavior, but encoureges it.

        • Forbo@lemmy.ml
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          Having a hard time finding the evidence you mention, got a citation? First few articles I saw were actually advising against blanket pornography bans.

          • treefrog@lemm.ee
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            For example, Vega and Malamuth (2007) explored the role of pornography in the context of risk factors associated with sexual aggression within a group of male university students. They found that excessive pornography consumption added significantly to the prediction of sexual aggression.

            This review was unable to demonstrate that there was not a relationship between early exposure to pornography and sexual offending. It also consistently appears that men who sexually offend report less exposure to pornography and that exposure to pornography does not result in more harm being caused to the victim. The review suggests that there is not a consistent relationship between exposure to pornography and offending shortly after exposure.

            So a recent meta analysis has not found anything conclusive one way or the other. Operant conditioning does suggest a correlation (watching naked children while masturbating reinforces the neural pathways that link sexual arousal to kids).

            I did time for a drug offense and met a lot of sexual offenders. In my state, they’re not allowed to watch porn if they’re on parole.

            Anyway, the jury is out on if there is enough correlation between the two. But there’s definitely not evidence that I could find that letting pedophiles masterbate to pictures of children is helpful, as you suggest. Rather those images are simulated or not.

            https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359178918302404

            • Forbo@lemmy.ml
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              I didn’t suggest shit, so please don’t put words in my mouth. Thanks for the citations though.

              • treefrog@lemm.ee
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                However, I do think “treatment” of pedophilia with generated CP should only be tried after conducting proper research into the actual effectiveness of it (maybe with general sex offenders and regular porn).

                Okay. Well this research has been tried with general sex offenders and it’s inconclusive rather it’s helpful or harmful.

                Sorry for reading your post suggestion that we try treating pedophiles with AI generated CP as a suggestion that CP would be helpful for pedophiles.

                • dsemy@lemm.ee
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                  Maybe I could’ve written it more clearly, but I thought it was pretty obvious we shouldn’t try treating pedophiles this way if research shows it doesn’t work.

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      Not that I think they should be included in LGBTQ+ but as someone who is bisexual I feel they’re not as far from us as you seemingly believe. Why wouldn’t we compare them? Both are sexual attractions that deviate from the norm. A pedophile didn’t choose to be a pedophile anymore than I chose to be bi.

      Growing up in a conservative household and town was a miserable experience for me. I hated myself, didn’t want to accept it, and felt utterly alone. Now think about how much worse it must be to realize you’re attracted to children. You have zero allies, you have zero people you can talk to, and a lot of people hate you merely for existing and/or want you dead. From where I stand their experience echoes my experience being LBGTQ+ quite heavily. Except over my lifetime LBGTQ+ acceptance grew quite rapidly and my husband was the light at the end of the tunnel. But pedophiles will never get that, probably ever. I feel nothing but sympathy for their situation.

      And what “serious psychiatric care” do you even think there is for it? Unless you also believe in gay conversion camps, we have nothing. We don’t even really know how sexuality actually works in the brain, we definitely aren’t anywhere close to being able to treat it.

      • cucumber_sandwich@lemmy.world
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        And what “serious psychiatric care” do you even think there is for it? Unless you also believe in gay conversion camps, we have nothing. We don’t even really know how sexuality actually works in the brain, we definitely aren’t anywhere close to being able to treat it.

        There’s programmes that focus on how to deal with it in a societally acceptable way, mainly on how not to become a predator. That’s a pretty good start.

      • Ataraxia@sh.itjust.works
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        Excuse me what? I’m pansexual and fucking what? I’m nothing like a kiddy diddler. I don’t revel in the agony inflicted onto a child. These people get off on violence and destroying people. These victims are never the same again. That’s why parents catching someone doing this to a child will kill the perpetrator and nobody would fault them. Pedos are criminally insane if anything.

      • Jessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        Why wouldn’t we compare them?

        Really? What part of your sexuality, or mine, involves raping children? Nothing, right? One step back, what part of you being bisexual or my being trans involves harming anyone? That’s right, nothing.

        I don’t have the answer of how to deal with those that are attracted to children. But to suggest psychiatric care for those who have serious pathology is akin to gay conversion camps is gross.

        This is not some philosophical debate. Stop playing into the hands of bigots who are actively trying to paint LGBTQ+ folks, especially trans people at the moment, as “groomers” and “pedos”.

        We are not associated or comparable with pedophiles in any way, shape or form—full stop.

        • hikaru755@feddit.de
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          Tf are you talking about, unless being gay involves raping men, being pedo also doesn’t involve raping children. Even as a cishet non-pedo you will often encounter situations where acting on some attraction you feel would be anywhere from morally questionable to straight up illegal, and most of us manage to deal with that just fine. Of course that’s going to be tougher for someone whose entire experience consists of that, rather than just part of it, but nothing about being pedo forces you to become a child-raping piece of shit.

          Of course psychiatric care is important, but the point the other commenter was making is that it’s currently impossible to change anyone’s attraction, so it’s not a pathology that can be “cured” in this way. Any psychiatric care currently has to be aimed at helping people deal with being pedo without acting on it and also not developing any other psychological afflictions because of suppressing their attraction. Trying to “cure” the attraction itself would indeed be akin to gay conversion therapy: there’s no scientific evidence it works, and it’s going to do more harm than good.

        • Critical_Insight@feddit.uk
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          Most people in jail for abusing children are not pedophiles, but normal rapists and kids unfortunelately just happen to be easy targets. Even most pedophiles have morals. They know what they like is wrong and they wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. Just like most men aren’t rapists despite being turned on by women.

          Just imagine being born as someone with these urges. What a shitty fucking hand you’ve been dealt and as if that’s not bad enough, people want to murder you just for coming out and asking for help.

          • Ataraxia@sh.itjust.works
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            If people stopped blurring consent lines that’d be great. Either you consent or you don’t. Fantasizing about rape legitimized incel’s attitude that women want to be raped. Nobody who is kentwlly healthy fantasizes about it. Therapy, not cnc.

        • eatthecake@lemmy.world
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          Im sorry, they make it make sense by using disease. They can’t just say paedophiles are bad because they dont want to beleive in ‘bad’. It is a philosophy debate though, its evil versus sick. They’ll agree you’re not evil but you’ll get lumped into sick.

    • thrawn@lemmy.world
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      Off the bat, I wholly disagree with the idea that this should have been legal. That filth, even if AI generated, should be illegal for a multitude of reasons, one of them being that it allows those… urges to be practiced. I’m not one for the slippery slope fallacy but in situations where it could escalate to real child abuse, there should be zero tolerance and indulgence. If it’s a mental illness, they don’t need to fulfill that urge.

      That said, I think the people suggesting otherwise here are just looking at it from a perspective of numbers and nothing else, with little consideration of the significant downsides. The stance also ignores that offenders are likely in it for the taboo more than actual interest in kids— it sure seems like Epstein’s friends were mostly doing it because they could, and it was a new level of depravity to try. If you ignore all of these, AI generated filth could indeed reduce actual child abuse. That’s a good thing and theoretically comes with no additional suffering, right?

      I see this as naivety. Rude to imply about others here but better than CSAM apologism. It’s about the best I can think of, and I try to assume the best in people these days.

      Also to make clear why I think the slippery slope is valid here, making some form of that awful “interest” legal dramatically lowers the bar of entry. And unlike violent films that are accused of increasing violence, that filth will never have wider societal acceptance, so a legal but taboo on-ramp is more likely to lead to illegal and taboo viewing, then perhaps onto the real thing. Society should never be willing to risk that by indulging in their mental illness.

    • eatthecake@lemmy.world
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      The psychologists have tried to normalize everything and sympathy for the devil is the greatest signal of one’s virtuous compassion. There is no evil anymore, all characters are grey, just ask the game of thrones fans about all the sadistic psychopaths in that story, none are truly bad.
      One day soon someone will build a robot version of their own child to rape and abuse and people will hail it as the perfect solution. And when that child finds out they will be told to take a chill pill because there is no harm done.
      Paepophiles are not sick, they are part of the natural variation of the species. Sometimes those variations are harmful and that needs to be addressed. If someone died and made me god i would murder suicide everyone who isnt a card carrying vegan pacifist. Yes, im a monster too. Failing that, i vote we name, shame and imprison the bad people. Yes, i beleive in good and bad. No im not religious.
      The left will never get anywhere with this moral nihilism.

          • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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            Blaming psychologists for random things. The disdain for empathy towards people you see as less than you. The generally nutty long-winded rant.

            If you’re not a scientologist, look them up. You’d fit in well.

            • eatthecake@lemmy.world
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              I dont see paedophiles as less than me, they are entirely human. What i dont see is the notion that all humans are wonderful and good.

              • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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                Literally no one is saying pedos are wonderful or good. Literally no one. So if your point is that you agree with 100% of the planet, then yes, you are correct.

  • WuTang @lemmy.ninja
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    And by the way, kudos to fediverse instances, you do a crazy job. That’s the only good thing of this AI techno, detecting such crap and obliterate it. I don’t care about false positive. if there’s a false positive, OP could still try to defend their case if necessary.

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      Can’t have any nuanced discussion here! Glad to see people such as yourself engaging in reductionism and shutting down thinking, because all interactions online have to be boiled down to five words TL;DR pithy sound bites.

      Leave the shit on Twitter, we can do better here.

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        I actually typed out a more lengthy response to someone here already, read more responses/viewed the vote counts, and then wrote this top level comment pointing out how backwards this community’s views are. No one is directly supporting assaulting children, but as I wrote elsewhere: “why do we value the sexual gratification of pedos higher than the potential safety of children?”

        • MikuNPC@lemm.ee
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          Who the heck is proposing we value that? Everyone is saying we value the safety of real children which may entail keeping artificial CP legal.

          Also it’s a victimless crime so punishments dealt out are criticized heavily, and for good reason.

    • Ismayil@lemmy.world
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      Comments in this thread makes me laugh especially the ‘its not pedophila’ parts LOOOOOOOOOOOL

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      Yeah, I thought he whole MAP bullshit died out, but apparently it’s alive and well on lemmy. It’s pretry sad.