#csem

I dont know the OG poster, but found this and thought it was good.

Stop. Everyone hold on a minute. This is clearly one of those questions where people’s revulsion gives us an answer faster than our reasoning does, and I do always say that that's a bad sign. I pride myself on being open-minded and thinking things through logically, not just based on emotional gut reactions.

So what I need to do is take my time, meditate, clear my mind, and approach this from a sort of clear, rationalist, philosophical perspective.

Hmm...

Okay.

Yes, there is a real ethical distinction there. If no actual child is being abused, no existing abuse material is being recirculated, and the images are generated from one’s own baby pictures, then that is plainly not the same category as real CSAM. I mean that is true.

Most importantly, it does avoid the central horrors of CSAM: the fact that a real child was sexually exploited, and that the resulting material continues that violation every time it is possessed and shared.

So I do think you're identifying a genuine philosophical point, and I do not think it should just be sort of brushed off due to our instinctual disgust.

In fact, I'll preemptively say that some of the most obvious potential arguments against this material don't really hold water to me:

People might say that a baby can't consent to having porn made of them, even if that is going to happen in the distant future, and even if the person doing so is their future adult self. I don't buy this claim because it starts getting into territory that's weirdly like... metaphysical, I guess? Like, this claim seems to view the infant and the adult as two separate people, one of whom is being wronged by the other across time. But that's just not true. The way human rights are conceptualized is entirely based on the idea that people have an unbroken continuity of their personhood over time (even if it's rarely spelled out because it seems so obvious).

One seemingly strong argument people might make is a sort of social argument: if we were to fully allow synthetic sexual imagery of children’s bodies, even under narrowly defined consensual circumstances, it may start to "normalize" such depictions in ways that subtly and nefariously shifts societal and cultural values over time. But that whole concept really does go against my entire perspective on Free Expression. I think I've been pretty explicit here that I only think media should be outlawed if it causes tangible, direct harm to a specific person. Because once you establish that you can ban something because it might subtly push culture in a bad direction over time, you've set this precedent that WILL be used for other things. It's something that you really can't start making exceptions for.

HOWEVER before I throw my unconditional support behind this concept (and get absolutely cancelled into fucking oblivion in the process lol), I should say that there might still be some other less obvious ethical questions this raises, mainly when it comes to someone consenting to a third party using their photos, and/or when money gets involved:

Not to state the obvious here, but there are already issues regarding the exploitation and coercion of vulnerable individuals in the world of pornography. Is it possible that we might see poor people being offered serious money to allow deepfakes to be made using their childhood photos and video, even if they feel uncomfortable with it?

I'm actually super unclear whether a third-party would be obtaining the rights to the individual's likeness, or just getting the right to use the childhood photos. That might not seem important, but there's a serious difference there that many people might not realize: the person who owns the rights to a photo is almost always the person who actually took the photo. So if this is just about the right to use photos of someone, that raises some red flags. Could a parent sell the rights to use photos they took of their own child in this manner (after the child turns 18)? What about a professional photography studio (yes, they still own the rights to the photo), if the child had previously been working as a model or something? I actually don't know how it would work.

Allowing this could end up potentially causing some evidentiary and enforcement problems. Because in theory, yes we could construct a tiny, carefully walled-off category of "fully consensual, non-abusive synthetic material." But in practice, people lie, verification is messy, provenance is weak, etc. Now, it would be trivially easy to prove that it's you in an AI photo you made of yourself. But I suspect that opening it up to third-parties who have obtained consent from others to use their childhood photos would make things vastly more complicated.

So the strongest argument here can be made regarding someone using their own childhood photos for sexual AI-generated images. I'm actually finding it surprisingly hard to find logical arguments for any direct harm happening there.

But the idea of somebody else consenting to allow a third party to use their childhood photos in this manner raises a lot more questions. Now yes, that is ethically distinct from CSAM - that's absolutely true. But its not like that automatically means ethically good. I'm not saying my answer is definitive on this, but it's just not yet clear to me if there's a way to safely allow this.

Holy shit this is long lol.

But you know what? This topic is complex enough that it requires a long answer.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice is worth the watching if only to see the extended sequence in which they detail the completely ridiculous and over the top death of Delia's dad, whose actor was caught with CSEM multiple times and worse.

🗝️🏷️ stalking, SA, CSEM, mention of sex toys in orange (start and end: The one pice of evidence…show we had.)

This is maybe a therapy thought, but therapy is gonna be busy✨this week.

We have a problem with not documenting evidence of our abuse because we assume we won’t be believed.

An example that comes to mind is stalking. We’ve been through that more than once, but one time we were regularly in therapy and most frequent fronters knew about our abuse history. Two or three men were showing up in places we needed to be exactly when we needed to be there.

We are medium trusting in two extremes, either I would die for you or I will put in effort to avoid you. These guys wore garments we were conditioned to respond to, so we initially avoided them to not creep them out. When they became more of a fixture, we were more inclined to dodge.

And that’s why we think it was stalking, because they went out of their way. Sometimes they walked behind us for like ten minutes, following while we took weird turns and crossed streets. If they were going the same place, they inconvenienced themselves doing it our way. Standing in doorframes for an hour, looking out. Always where we were going. Taking pictures with us in frame where there was nothing of interest to photograph. Once they were all together, and they passed a nearly empty elevator to try to get on with us. We went without our notebook that day. So many mildly weird things, not really anything huge.

I could’ve taken a picture. That was a safety idea we had. See the guys, take a picture. Kinda invasive, but they seemed to be doing it to us. It would’ve illustrated how often they were there, that they were behaving oddly, that situationally we were right to be distressed. But I never did. I told my therapist: “Even if I do have proof, proof of what? That bald white guys exist?”

I wasn’t sure then that it was stalking, and I’m still not now. It was very mild for our experience, no break-ins or getting snatched. That was also why I was so careful, because those were scary and I didn’t want a repeat. But when I tell people, they don’t believe me. One asked “are you sure that wasn’t a dream?” Pictures would’ve been something, some proof. At least that I didn’t make the guys up.

Our family has occult paraphernalia in the home, or did for years. The one time I thought I should document that and was there to do it, everyone was in the room with the storage boxes and I didn’t try to get past them.

We don’t have any of the clothing we were abused in. I’ve never found any CSEM with us in it (or any at all), but I know some of the things we were wearing to the venue. We don’t have any photos of us before we got a cell phone and have never seen the photo albums that supposedly existed.

The one piece of evidence that we do have is a sex toy we were abused with. It wasn’t one of the… communal(?) ones. I’ve never tried to explain that before. It wasn’t a gift. We got it during puberty with a secret gift card, and they found it. It was one of two that came with us when we left. It’s glass, and someone dropped it at exactly the right angle to crack a chunk off. It’s oddly sentimental, so I don’t want to throw it away, but it’s dubious on body safety now. One more thing I won’t even be able to show we had.

It feels like the only evidence I have now is this body I carry around everywhere I go. Just me, the others, and the vessel we’re stuck in.

It took me so many years to open the box in my mind and actually open up about my trauma. Now it looms over me like an ever present shadow. I shoved that shit so deep that I never let myself grieve what was done to me.

I know I’m not the only person who was the victim of sextortion, CSEM cam work, and a ring of pedophiles as a minor. I don’t have the bandwidth to type my whole story atm but I KNOW I am not the only one in gen z who experienced this while being online at an extremely young age.

The problem arises when I can’t find community with others who have experienced this. There are practically ZERO resources for adult survivors. No forums, no groups, no books.

So I search the tags here and it feels even more isolating…

#csem = people complaining about a03, art, and fan fiction (very few discussions from survivors)

#omegle = people complaining that their favorite rp website is gone (no stories of the THOUSANDS of victims of pedophiles who blackmailed, recruited, and groomed children into CSEM and cam work)

#sextortion = news articles and posts cautioning people to stay safe online (very few first hand experiences)

And don’t get me started on the far right delusional hysteria about the political elite trafficking babies instead of the VERY REAL CHILD TRAFFICKING that we should be educating people about.

Anon who sent me the ask about “joining the group of anons appreciating your takes” asking about the AO3 volunteer and CSEM situation -- I appreciate the faith in me, and I think you were sincerely looking for information and analysis. That said, I was concerned the language in the ask could be read as a bit inflammatory, so rather than reply directly I’m posting independently. 

For those who aren’t familiar with the situation, OTW has released a statement on it here, responding to Rahaeli/Synedochic/Denise’s statements here. (I’d link to the specific tweets but I don’t know how to do that on Twitter, and they’re not difficult to find.) Other people are speaking about it as well but that gets real rabbit-hole real quickly and I wouldn’t know how to curate those properly. 

In any case, I don’t think I’m qualified to discuss this in detail or offer an opinion. When I speak on issues related to AO3, I try to confine it to things I have working knowledge of, which tend to be in the nonprofit fundraising space. I don’t have the legal experience to speak intelligently on this one, and I don’t have a ton of knowledge about what went down, as I don’t know anyone involved very well. That said, I do have ties to some people and groups involved (on both sides) in the sense of “negative encounters in the past” which also complicates matters. There’s a contingent of fandom which enjoys reading my participation as part of a sinister plot of some kind; I suppose it’s more interesting than me just being an awkward dipshit with a history of poor decision-making. Either way, it makes it dicey to speak to wanks in fandom without being very measured. 

Certainly while I’m happy to defend AO3 when I have the knowledge to do so and believe they’re in the right, I also know the organization isn’t perfect and there have been volunteer/labor issues in the past, so I would recommend hearing all sides in this case with an open mind but a critical eye. I unfortunately just...can’t speak to this one in the confidence I’ll do more good than harm.