Tomorrow (Thursday) EU governments are to vote on a bill (officially called “child sexual abuse regulation” but known as “chat control”) that would require automated searches in and disclosure of private chats, including end-to-end encrypted chats, that might contain illegal photos or videos.
Further Reading:
https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/council-to-greenlight-chat-control-take-action-now/
So, this has nothing to do with “think of the children” and everything to do with “we can’t harvest encrypted data”, right?
Exactly this! Take it from someone who has worked in content moderation (including CSEM, amongst other things). What is being proposed will not help fight this battle.
And what kills me is that continually trotting out “for the children” as an automatic “gotcha” watchword lessens the public concern for actual children and muddies the proverbial pond with regards to the actual effective/productive methods for actually protecting children.
There should be a rule about using “think of the children”/“support our troops” where you have to actually be doing something that directly and proportionally affects the group you’re referencing in a positive manner commensurate with the amount of money that’s being funnelled into the effort.
That and no shilling for cancer research donations just to spend it on yachts and advertising or whatever.