this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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[–] taladar 162 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Does it feel odd to anyone else that a platform for something this universally condemned in any jurisdiction can operate for 4 years, with a catchy name clearly thought up by a marketing person, its own payment system and nearly six figure number of videos? I mean even if we assume that some of those 4 years were intentional to allow law enforcement to catch as many perpetrators as possible this feels too similar to fully legal operations in scope.

[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Illegal business can operate online for a long time if they have good OpSec. Anonymous payment systems are much easier these days because of cryptocurrencies.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is that why Trump is so for them?

[–] gravitas_deficiency 30 points 1 week ago

Yeah, more or less

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's a side effect of privacy and security. The one side effect they're trying to use to undermine all of the privacy and security.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (4 children)

This has nothing to do with privacy! Criminals have their techniques and methods to protect themselves and their "businesses" from discovery, both in the real world and in the online world. Even in a complete absence of privacy they would find a way to hide their stuff from the police - at least for a while.

In the real world, criminals (e.g. drug dealers) also use cars, so you could argue, that druck trafficking is a side effect of people having cars...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Well, it does have to do with privacy and security, it just doesn't matter if it's legal or not for them. These people (in the US) always make a point that criminals will buy guns whether it's legal or not, but then they'll argue they need to destroy privacy because criminals are using it. It doesn't make sense, but it doesn't need to because honesty or consistency aren't important.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago (2 children)

with a catchy name clearly thought up by a marketing person

A marketing person? They took "Netflix" and changed the first three letters lol

[–] taladar 15 points 1 week ago

So you are saying it is too creative for the average person in marketing?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Exactly! There are plethora of *flix sites out there including adult ones. It does not take much of marketing skill to name site like this.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

With the amount of sites that are easily accessed on the dark net though the hidden wiki and other sites. This might of been a honeypot from the start.

On the contrary, why would they announce that they seized the site? To cause more panic, and to exaggerate the actual situation?

In addition, that last point should be considered because even if they used these type of operations, honeypotting would still be considered illegal. So Ultimately what is stopping the supreme power to abuse that power on other people?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

No judge would authorise a honeypot that runs for multiple years, hosting original child abuse material meaning that children are actively being abused to produce content for it. That would be an unspeakable atrocity. A few years ago the Australian police seized a similar website and ran it for a matter of weeks to gather intelligence which undoubtedly protected far more children than it harmed and even that was considered too far for many.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

"That would be an unspeakable atrocity", yet there is contradiction in the final sentence. The issue is, what evidence is there to prove such thing operation actually works, as my last point implied - what stops the government from abusing this sort of operation. With "covert" operations like this the outcome can be catastrophic for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It definitely seems weird how easy it is to stumble upon CP online, and how open people are about sharing it, with no effort made, in many instances, to hide what they're doing. I've often wondered how much of the stuff is spread by pedo rings and how much is shared by cops trying to see how many people they can catch with it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (16 children)

If you have stumbled on CP online in the last 10 years, you're either really unlucky or trawling some dark waters. This ain't 2006. The internet has largely been cleaned up.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't know about that.

I spot most of it while looking for out-of-print books about growing orchids on the typical file-sharing networks. The term "blue orchid" seems to be frequently used in file names of things that are in no way related to gardening. The eMule network is especially bad.

When I was looking into messaging clients a couple years ago, to figure out what I wanted to use, I checked out a public user directory for the Tox messaging network and it was maybe 90% people openly trying to find, or offering, custom made CP. On the open internet, not an onion page or anything.

Then maybe last year, I joined openSUSE's official Matrix channels, and some random person (who, to be clear, did not seem connected to the distro) invited me to join a room called openSUSE Child Porn, with a room logo that appeared to be an actual photo of a small girl being violated by a grown man.

I hope to god these are all cops, because I have no idea how there can be so many pedos just openly doing their thing without being caught.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

typical file-sharing networks

Tox messaging network

Matrix channels

I would consider all of these to be trawling dark waters.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

...and most of the people who agree with that notion would also consider reading Lemmy to be "trawling dark waters" because it's not a major site run by a massive corporation actively working to maintain advertiser friendliness to maximize profits. Hell, Matrix is practically Lemmy-adjacent in terms of the tech.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Correct. And even then, there's vanishingly little CP on lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

File-sharing and online chat seem like basic internet activities to me.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This ain't the early 2000s. The unwashed masses have found the internet, and it has been cleaned for them. 97% of the internet has no idea what Matrix channels even are.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

97% of the internet has no idea what Matrix channels even are.

I've been able to explain it to people pretty easily as "like Discord, but without Discord administration getting to control what's allowed, only whoever happens to run that particular server."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

not stumbled upon it but I've met a couple people offering it on mostly normal discord servers

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

most definitely not clean lmao, your just not actively searching for it, or stumbling onto it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

That's...what I said.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

it can hide in plain sight, and then when you dig into someones profile, it can lead to someone or a group discussing CSAM and beastility, not just CP. like a site similar to r/pics, or porn site. yea sometimes you stumble into a site like that, but it seems to occur when people search for porn outside of the Pornhub and affiliates sites. remember PH sanatized thier site because of this. last decade there was article about an obscure site that was taken down, it had reddit like porn subs,,,,etc. then people were complaining about the csam, and nothing was done about it. it was eventually taken down for legal reasons, thats not related to csam.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I can definitely see how people could find it while looking for porn. I don't understand how people can do this stuff out in the open with no consequences .

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

yea its often hidden too well to be easily found out and authorities might want to gather evidence so they let it accumulate then they pounce. one of the sites was mostly inneundos and talking about commiting it, but not actually distributing the material, they co-opt certain images to pervert it. other deviancies like beastiality were also present.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

universally condemned

There are a few countries that would disagree

[–] taladar 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Which countries do you have in mind where videos of sexual child abuse are legal?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Pick any country where child marriage is legal and where women are a object the man owns

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Context is important I guess. So two things.

Is something illegal if it's not prosecuted?

Is it CSA if the kid is 9 but that's marrying age in that country?

If you answer yes, then no, then we'll not agree on this topic.

[–] taladar 8 points 1 week ago

I am not talking about CSA, I am talking about video material of CSA. Most countries with marriage ages that low have much more wide-spread bans on videos including sex of any kind.

As for prosecution, yes, it is still illegal if it is not prosecuted. There are many reasons not to prosecute something ranging all the way from resource and other means related concerns to intentionally turning a blind eye and only a small minority of them would lead that country to actively sabotage a major international investigation, especially after the trade-offs are considered (such as loss of international reputation by refusing to cooperate).