The Internet Watch Foundation, an organisation funded by almost all of big tech, is already at work pushing for client side scanning next [1], for the children, of course.

[1] https://www.iwf.org.uk/policy-work/preventing-the-upload-of-...

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slg an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I feel like if people wanted to counter this push, the more effective route would be addressing the "for the children" motivations seriously rather than fully dismissing them. You could cut the legs out of this effort by capturing the part of the population that does have an honest desire to protect children by offering an alternative that actually protects children. Instead, that concern is treated as 100% disingenuous which pushes many normal people to the side of wanting to enact these controls. This is a political problem, you need to solve it with politics.

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matthewdgreen an hour ago | parent [-]

I know a number of people who have gone down this route, including Senators. For example, here's Senator Wyden's proposal to add $5 billion in mandatory funding to investigate and target sexual abusers [1]. The problem with these efforts is that they're expensive: fighting child exploitation requires enormous amounts of funding.

Guess what doesn't require billions of dollars? Mandatory scanning paid for by tech companies, followed by dumping the billions of hits they produce [2] on overworked police and clearinghouses that mostly ignore them.

[1] https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-eshoo... [2] https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/cybersecurity/su...

	▲	slg 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Then fund the initiative by taxing those same tech companies. "This problem is hard or expensive to address" does not assuage the desire to fix the problem. There are countless reasons to be against these chat controls, but it's easy for a layperson to understand how they would address their specific concerns. The only way to effectively counter that is providing an alternative that does a better job.

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peyton 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Interesting. It would be easy to detect hate speech client-side too I’d imagine. My phone already listens for certain words.

	▲	anonym29 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Why stop there? This system can easily be used to target welfare recipients, immigrants, LGBT+ people, black/brown/indigenous people, pretty much any disfavored group of choice! You're just one election away from "that was during the previous term of office" https://media.mullvad.net/web/chatcontrol2_en.jpg

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xienze an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> for the children, of course.

Kind of surprised they don't just pitch it as a way to root out Russian propaganda and right-wing extremism. Public opinion would shift overnight. They'd practically demand it!

	▲	bee_rider 30 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Actually, what are the partisan leanings of the parties actually actively pushing this, since you’ve brought it up? Despite being fairly left-leaning I wouldn’t automatically blame the right for this particular type of invasive nonsense… is this a centrist spawned nuisance, or something?