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Mastodon, an alternative social network to Twitter, has a serious problem with child sexual abuse material according to researchers from Stanford University. In just two days, researchers found over 100 instances of known CSAM across over 325,000 posts on Mastodon. The researchers found hundreds of posts containing CSAM related hashtags and links pointing to CSAM trading and grooming of minors. One Mastodon server was even taken down for a period of time due to CSAM being posted. The researchers suggest that decentralized networks like Mastodon need to implement more robust moderation tools and reporting mechanisms to address the prevalence of CSAM.

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[-] pglpm@lemmy.ca 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not fully sure about the logic and perhaps hinted conclusions here. The internet itself is a network with major CSAM problems (so maybe we shouldn't use it?).

[-] mudeth@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It doesn't help to bring whataboutism into this discussion. This is a known problem with the open nature of federation. So is bigotry and hate speech. To address these problems, it's important to first acknowledge that they exist.

Also, since fed is still in the early stages, now is the time to experiment with mechanisms to control them. Saying that the problem is innate to networks is only sweeping it under the rug. At some point there will be a watershed event that'll force these conversations anyway.

The challenge is in moderating such content without being ham-fisted. I must admit I have absolutely no idea how, this is just my read of the situation.

[-] shiri@foggyminds.com 27 points 1 year ago

@mudeth @pglpm you really don't beyond our current tools and reporting to authorities.

This is not a single monolithic platform, it's like attributing the bad behavior of some websites to HTTP.

Our existing moderation tools are already remarkably robust and defederating is absolutely how this is approached. If a server shares content that's illegal in your country (or otherwise just objectionable) and they have no interest in self-moderating, you stop federating with them.

Moderation is not about stamping out the existence of these things, it's about protecting your users from them.

If they're not willing to take action against this material on their servers, then the only thing further that can be done is reporting it to the authorities or the court of public opinion.

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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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