The evil of child sexual abuse is not new, but the internet has changed the scale and nature of it beyond recognition.
Can we blame that on the technologists and companies who put together and/or profited handsomely from the systems that have allowed this to happen? Hmm.
Whether there is any point in doing so in respect of what is now a highly diverse and fragmented industry is another matter, but it does entitle us to expect a little humility from those who purport to speak for that industry. Particularly when they sign letters.
It does entitle us to be sceptical when they make predictions about the future. Big Tech intervened in the world without thinking things through. Alternatively, if they did realise what they were doing, they just did not consider protecting children from the dark side of already known humanity sufficiently important, likely to be profitable enough or intellectually interesting to warrant them giving it their time, attention and resources. They spent giant sums working out how to make their products “sticky”. Not safe. Caveat emptor works if you read Latin but not otherwise.
Child sexual abuse is a “societal issue”, “parents’ and schools’ responsibility” , ” nothing to do with us guv”. That is the techie mind set which allowed this to happen. Blinkered but happily very profit-enhancing for their employers, grant-givers, contract-awarders.
“Once the rockets go up who cares where they come down? That’s not my department“, as a famous aviation engineer famously probably didn’t say.
Building in more security, more checks, would have slowed down the “on-boarding process”, “put a brake on growth” for which read “reduced profit margins”. The law didn’t require online businesses to think about protecting children to the greatest extent possible. So they didn’t. Making money? Yes. They thought about that a lot. Meanwhile the volume of reports of child sexual abuse continues to increase. What takes your breath away, though, is the sheer chutzpah of claiming that actually these companies were simply and always on a mission to make the world a better place. That lasted about 5 minutes.
No. Looking back, we can now see how a set of products were developed and marketed. Wrapping them in the wings of angels was all part of the sales pitch. We’re hearing echoes of this again in the debate around the EU’s proposed new Regulation designed to address child sexual abuse. The thing they overlooked before. This time their alibi for inaction invokes issues of privacy. Falsely. And chutzpah upon chutzpah this comes from the mouths of the most privacy invasive, privacy denying industry ever to grace our planet. Having invaded our privacy they have now done a 180 degree flip and are selling it as the shiny new thing. Angel’s wings under another guise. They are nothing if not flexible.
But listen, or rather read, what some of the victims of this egregious corporate neglect have to say. Over to you Phoenix 11.
Desiderata 