A trial program conducted by Pornhub in collaboration with UK-based child protection organizations aimed to deter users from searching for child abuse material (CSAM) on its website. Whenever CSAM-related terms were searched, a warning message and a chatbot appeared, directing users to support services. The trial reported a significant reduction in CSAM searches and an increase in users seeking help. Despite some limitations in data and complexity, the chatbot showed promise in deterring illegal behavior online. While the trial has ended, the chatbot and warnings remain active on Pornhub’s UK site, with hopes for similar measures across other platforms to create a safer internet environment.
TW: discussions about sexual abuse
spoiler
Fetishizing an abusive sexual behavior is not the same as same-sex attraction. We would be having the same conversation if we were talking about rape porn between adults: it’s the normalization of the abusive behavior that we’re primarily concerned with, not the ethics of watching simulated abuse in general.
While I don’t believe that banning simulated material would be helpful, it is completely reasonable to suggest that cautioning individuals about the proximity of their search to material that is illegal - and the risks associated with consuming it - would be preventative against future consumption.
Especially considering Pornhub is only placing cautions around that material and isn’t removing that content generally. It’s hard to read your objections as anything other than pedophilia apologia.
And I did not even hint at anything even close to the contrary.
Which is exactly the comparison I made.
I wasn’t talking about the normalization of anything anywhere. You inject a component, that wasn’t the subject in our conversation before, to defend a point I wasn’t questioning (red herring).
Another topic which we could discuss, but which - again - you just injected.
And again: I’m asking for qualitative and quantitative proof of that. It is the one and only thing I was and am questioning about the article.
The point to our discussion being what?
You seem to have major trouble with text comprehension and staying on track with discussions.
spoiler
No, you were comparing pedophilia with homosexuality. You attempted to distinguish between the attraction from the behavior, suggesting that pedophilia specifically was harmless, but could be abusive in certain contexts (i.e. sex is fine between consenting adults, but non-consensual sex is rape). I was pointing out that acts of pedophilia are definitionally coercive (a child cannot consent to something they do not understand, with someone who wields outsized influence over them). There is no room for an ethical sexual relationship with a child.
There are plenty of examples of proactive messaging impacting behaviors, take your pick.
While casting careless comparisons and writing CSAM apologia.
That the potential benefit of preventative messaging is largely harmless, and you haven’t justified your objection just yet.
“Pedophilia is the same as (or similar to) homosexuality” - You, definitely not minimizing the harm caused by CSAM.
This discussion is pointless. All you do is throwing around accusations and arguing against things I didn’t say.
You get hung up on one sentence and take it out of context completely ignoring what I said immediately after that talking about rape and consent. You are pretty much repeating what I said. You’re not arguing against what I said, but what you think I said, which I did not. Work on your reading skills.
That’s what I said. I emphasized the relevant passages to help you understand what I said.
This is the part that i’m objecting to. It’s amazing to me that this needs to be spelled out so explicitly: sexual attraction to children is as acceptable as being attracted to rape and other sexually abusive behaviors, not men being attracted to other men. Sexual relationships with children are definitionally abusive, and its depiction in media is as acceptable as depictions of rape (e.g., not particularly). If you disagree with that claim, then fucking say so, but don’t whine about me misinterpreting you when I’m direct-fucking quoting you.
The sexual preference you’re comparing with homosexuality is not the same as homosexuality. I don’t know how many times I need to say that before you either acknowledge it or amend your comparison.
That equation is plain wrong unless you equate thoughts to actions. First of all, not even imagined rape is actual rape. And your premise of being attracted to children being similar to being attracted to rape is also false. There likely are people for whom that is true, but it is not a prerequisite. The problem with pedophilia is, that it cannot be fulfilled in real life without abuse/rape.
Yes. Where did I say anything else?
Yes. Where did I say anything else?
You direct quoting me is evidently not the same as you understanding what I am saying.
It’s also not the same as heteosexuality. It would be pretty moot to use different words if they all were identical. What they all have in common is their sexual nature and that nobody chooses them. I’m consistently pretty clear about the distinction of sexual desire and its application in the real world; you keep conflating them. Saying sexual desire A is better or worse than sexual desire B is hypocritical. Fill in A and B arbitrarily - don’t forget pedophilia. I think we agree that there can’t be a consenting relationship between a child an an adult. And there can’t be acceptable pornographic material with actual children.
I don’t know how many times I have to repeat and clarify what I said. You keep on ranting against things I didn’t say or even hinted at.
They didn’t argue otherwise - you’re attempting to attack their position on something you both agree on. Their statement (much like the one I made to a different person) is that both forms of attraction aren’t (necessarily) a choice by the individual. Their argument isn’t that paedophilia is harmless (your words), but that a person’s inherent brain chemistry and natural development can’t be considered immoral, regardless of context - this would also apply to schizophrenia, sociopathy, various imbalances such as bipolarity, autism and, yes, homosexuality. It is, at worst, amoral, necessitating social help in the cases that do lead to harmful behavior (which don’t apply to e.g. homosexuality/autism, but does to sociopathy or bipolarity).
They used a careless comparison, and I’m only trying to unambiguously explain why that comparison is extremely misleading and potentially harmful.
I made the comment that exposure to simulated CSAM or CSAM-adjacent material could later lead to a realization of those attractions due to the behavior being normalized and repeatedly modeled in sexualized content. cnt0 then made the comparison you are now making - that sexuality is not a choice, and normalization of a particular sexual expression is the same as any other -namely homosexuality. I unambiguously contest that comparison, because while a preference for a particular sexual expression isn’t a choice, normalizing sexual relationships with children could lead to the false-assumption that it is ok in some circumstances to pursue it. Normalizing ‘gay content’ (their words) is definitively not the same as normalizing underage sexual relationships, since there are no healthy ways to express that attraction in real life with an actual child. Similar to having an attraction to rape or non-consensual bondage, having a sexual attraction to children is different from other forms of sexuality because the subject of that attraction cannot be ethically realized outside of simulated, consensual environments.
I happen to agree with the way you’ve phrased it here, and I knew there was a possibility that I had misplaced @[email protected]’s intent with their comment, but I think it’s extremely important not to equate the realization of sexual preference for children to the realization of sexual preference for members of the same sex.
I understand that I’ve been quite abrasive, and the downvotes are probably justified here. But I don’t think there should be any room left for ambiguity when dealing with the explicit sexualization of minors. I think cautioning against CSAM-adjacent material is justified, if only to clearly delineate the ethics of the relationships and acts portrayed in sexual content from the actual practice of those acts on minors.
It’s a small, possibly the smallest, action against the abuse and trafficking of children, but one that I think is easily the least we could be doing.
I 99% agree with what you’re saying here, so I’m not going to comment it line by line ;-)
And I’ll largely say that you’re right with that, however
That is part of the problem, in my view. It is actually the least we could be doing, as in barely more than nothing at all. Hell, it took PH a scandal for them to wipe illegal content from their servers (and as a result nuked quite a few perfectly legal and legitimate creators in the aftermath).
Minor complaint: try to get an empty paragraph between the spoiled text and the non-spoiled text whenever possible - makes it easier to read.
Regarding the discussion, you’re both right at the end of the day. Limiting exposure to illegal and immoral-adjacent material is obviously in society’s interest, but at the same time the implication that a glorified ad for a mental illness helpline is a good solution is ludicrous - it’s at the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to the kinds of issues we should be working on.
I’m actually not sure how to get another linebreak in there, I tried adding multiple but the markdown kept collapsing it.
And I happen to agree that a ‘surgeon general’s warning for CSAM’ isn’t doing much to solve the problem, but I do think alerting users to the adjacency is a good idea. OP seemed to be complaining about censorship, but this practice didn’t even amount to that. The article is mostly just marketing slop.