>but I do really like a heterogenous cultural situation, so I think it's interesting and probably to the overall good to have a country pushing on these matters very hard

Censorship increases homogeneity, because it reduces the amount of ideas and opinions that are allowed to be expressed. The only resilience that comes from restricting people's speech is resilience of the people in power.

You were downvoted -- a theme in this thread -- but I like what you're saying. I disagree, though, on a global scale. By resilience, I mean to reference something like a monoculture plantation vs a jungle. The monoculture plantation is vulnerable to anything that figures out how to attack it. In a jungle, a single plant or set might be vulnerable, but something that can attack all the plants is much harder to come by.

Humanity itself is trending more toward monoculture socially; I like a lot of things (and hate some) about the cultural trend. But what I like isn't very important, because I might be totally wrong in my likes; if only my likes dominated, the world would be a much less resilient place -- vulnerable to the weaknesses of whatever it is I like.

So, again, I propose for the race as a whole, broad cultural diversity is really critical, and worth protecting. Even if we really hate some of the forms it takes.

They were downvoted for completely misunderstanding the comment they replied to.

I really don't see reasonable enforcement of CSAM laws as a restriction on "diversity of thought".

This is precisely the point of the comment you are replying to: a balance has to be found and enforced.

In what world is generating CSAM a speech issue? Its really doing a disservice to actual free speech issues to frame it was such.

The point of banning real CSAM is to stop the production of it, because the production is inherently harmful. The production of AI or human generated CSAM-like images does not inherently require the harm of children, so it's fundamentally a different consideration. That's why some countries, notably Japan, allow the production of hand-drawn material that in the US would be considered CSAM.

If libeling real people is a harm to those people, then altering photos of real children is certainly also a harm to those children.

I'm strongly against CSAM but I will say this analogy doesn't quite hold (though the values behind it does)

Libel must be as assertion that is not true. Photoshopping or AIing someone isn't an assertion of something untrue. It's more the equivalent of saying "What if this is true?" which is perfectly legal

“ 298 (1) A defamatory libel is matter published, without lawful justification or excuse, that is likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published.

    Marginal note:Mode of expression

    (2) A defamatory libel may be expressed directly or by insinuation or irony

        (a) in words legibly marked on any substance; or

        (b) by any object signifying a defamatory libel otherwise than by words.”

It doesn't have to be an assertion, or even a written statement.

You're quoting Canadian law.

In the US it varies by state but generally requires:

A false statement of fact (not opinion, hyperbole, or pure insinuation without a provably false factual core).

Publication to a third party.

Fault

Harm to reputation

----

In the US it is required that it is written (or in a fixed form). If it's not written (fixed), it's slander, not libel.

The relevant jurisdiction isn't the US either.

Pictures are statement of fact: what is depicted exists. Naked pictures cause harm to reputation

That's not what we are discussing here. Even less when a lot of the material here is edits of real pictures.

> The point of banning real CSAM is to stop the production of it, because the production is inherently harmful. The production of AI or human generated CSAM-like images does not inherently require the harm of children, so it's fundamentally a different consideration.

Quite.

> That's why some countries, notably Japan, allow the production of hand-drawn material that in the US would be considered CSAM.

Really? By what US definition of CSAM?

https://rainn.org/get-the-facts-about-csam-child-sexual-abus...

"Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is not “child pornography.” It’s evidence of child sexual abuse—and it’s a crime to create, distribute, or possess. "

if pictures are speech, then either CSAM is speech, or you have to justify an exception to the general rule.

CSAM is banned speech.

Freedom of one starts where it confirms freedom of others.

Of course everybody is going to find a point when freedom of speech have to be limited. Otherwise, anyone can justify that cutting the head of their neighbour with a katana while dancing is part of an artistic performance, and absolute free speech is only possible if all artistic expression is given complete license. Those who pretend otherwise will have no ground to defend themselves on legal basis from being wiped out of existence by the very same logic.

Very different charges however.

Durov was held on suspicion Telegram was willingly failing to moderate its platform and allowed drug trafficking and other illegal activities to take place.

X has allegedly illegally sent data to the US in violation of GDPR and contributed to child porn distribution.

Note that both are directly related to direct violation of data safety law or association with a separate criminal activities, neither is about speech.

I like your username, by the way.

CSAM was the lead in the 2024 news headlines in the French prosecution of Telegram also. I didn't follow the case enough to know where they went, or what the judge thought was credible.

From a US mindset, I'd say that generation of communication, including images, would fall under speech. But then we classify it very broadly here. Arranging drug deals on a messaging app definitely falls under the concept of speech in the US as well. Heck, I've been told by FBI agents that they believe assassination markets are legal in the US - protected speech.

Obviously, assassinations themselves, not so much.

The issue is still not really speech.

Durov wasn't arrested because of things he said or things that were said on his platform, he was arrested because he refused to cooperate in criminal investigations while he allegedly knew they were happening on a platform he manages.

If you own a bar, you know people are dealing drugs in the backroom and you refuse to assist the police, you are guilty of aiding and abetting. Well, it's the same for Durov except he apparently also helped them process the money.

"I've been told by FBI agents that they believe assassination markets are legal in the US - protected speech."

I don't believe you. Not sure what you mean by "assassination markets" exactly, but "Solicitation to commit a crime of violence" and "Conspiracy to murder" are definitely crimes.

An assassination market, at least the one we discussed, works like this - One or more people put up a bounty paid out on the death of someone. Anyone can submit a (sealed) description of the death. On death, the descriptions are opened — the one closest to the actual circumstances is paid the bounty.

One of my portfolio companies had information about contributors to these markets — I was told by my FBI contact when I got in touch that their view was the creation of the market, the funding of the market and the descriptions were all legal — they declined to follow up.

Sounds like betting on Polymarket: will $person die this year? If you're going to kill him, you bet everything you have on yes right beforehand.

OK this sounds more like gamer dipshittery than anything serious.

In some shady corners of the internet I still see advertisements for child porn through Telegram, so they must be doing a shit job at it

I wouldn't equate the two.

There's someone who was being held responsible for what was in encrypted chats.

Then there's someone who published depictions of sexual abuse and minors.

Worlds apart.

Telegram isn't encrypted. For all the marketing about security, it has none, apart from TLS, and an optional "secret chat" feature that you have to explicitly select, only works with 2 participants and doesn't work very well.

They can read all messages, so they don't have an excuse for not helping in a criminal case. Their platform had a reputation of being safe for crime, which is because they just... ignored the police. Until they got arrested for that. They still turn a blind eye but not to the police.

ok thank you! I did not know that, I'm ashamed to admit! sort of like studying physics at university a decade later forgetting V=IR when I actually needed it for some solar install. I took "technical hiatus" about 5 years and recently coming back.

Anyway cut to the chase, I just checked out Mathew Greens post on the subject, he is on my list of default "trust what he says about cryptography" along with some others like djb, nadia henninger etc

Embarrased to say I did not realise, I should of known! 10+ years ago I used to lurk the IRC dev chans of every relevant cypherpunk project, including of text secure and otr-chat when I saw signal being made and before that was witnessing chats with devs and ian goldberg and stuff, I just assumed Telegram was multiparty OTR,

OOPS!

Long winded post because that is embarrassing (as someone who studied cryptography undergrad in 2009 mathematics, 2010 did postgrad wargames and computer security course and worse - whose word once about 2012-2013 was taken on these matters by activists, journalists, researchers with pretty knarly threat model - like for instance - some guardian stories and former researcher into torture - i'm also the person that wrote the bits of 'how to hold a crypto party' that made it a protocol without an organisation and made clear the threat model was anyone could be there, oops oops oops

Yes thanks for letting me know I hang my head in shame for missing that one or some how believing that one without much investigation, thankfully it was just my own personal use to contact like friend in the states where they aren't already on signal etc.

EVERYONE: DON'T TRUST TELEGRAM AS END TO END ENCRYPTED CHAT https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2024/08/25/telegram...

Anyway as they say "use it or lose it" yeah my assumptions here no longer valid or considered to have educated opinion if I got something that basic wrong.

>but I do really like a heterogenous cultural situation

Why isn't that a major red flag exactly?

Hi there - author here. Care to add some specifics? I can imagine lots of complaints about this statement, but I don't know which (if any) you have.

Maybe you could start by expanding on what you mean?

It's a statement that could be taken to favor xenophobia and isolationism.