alt Hacker NewsI am not a lawyer.
There is something ironic about US laws that attempt to prevent crime A by outlawing action B. For example:
* A: physical sexual abuse of children. B: possession or distribution of CSAM
* A: drug trafficking or tax evasion. B: structured cash withdrawals
It's my understanding that conviction of CSAM-related crimes do not require any physical act to have ever occurred to any real person: one can be convicted of CSAM-related crimes related to paintings/drawings/created_art of fictional people.
It's my understanding that one can be convicted of structured withdrawals that are not driven by, linked to, or in any way related to anything nefarious.
Replies
I don't think these are the same. Outlawing CSAM gives law enforcement the ability to shutdown markets and prevent commercial distribution of CSAM. Sexually abusing children is heinous, but sexually abusing children for financial gain is even worse.
At least in the US, fictional content is legal even if it depicts minors sexually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalit...
There have been a handful of convictions based on fictional content, but usually the defendants also possessed real CSAM so there wasn't much point in contesting the charges over fictional images.
Our society is pretty aligned that distribution is another kind of harm. Non-consented distribution of sexual images (eg: revenge porn) is also a crime. Children don’t need to be the ones to press charges in child porn unlike with adults. That’s a good thing.
No. In short, in US law, CSAM is a visual depiction of a real-world act of child sexual abuse. Visual depictions like you're describing are covered under a different law, and I'm not aware of it having a short name. There's a good expert thread on this with links to the relevant federal laws here: https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3lbt7zkvlq...
> CSAM (“see-sam”) refers to any visual content—photos, videos, livestreams, or AI-generated images—that shows a child being sexually abused or exploited. Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is not “child pornography.” It’s evidence of child sexual abuse [1]
I can't wrap my head around how AI-generated imagery is evidence of child sexual abuse (CAS). How are you abusing a real child by generating an image of a fake one?
[1] https://rainn.org/get-the-facts-about-csam-child-sexual-abus...
a 17 year old can take a nude selfie and be charged as an adult in possession of CSAM
A: cyber crimes or other digital crimes. probably applies to many of the other crimes you mentioned too. B: privacy
> one can be convicted of CSAM-related crimes related to paintings/drawings/created_art of fictional people.
This isn't necessarily the case in the US, though I believe only for drawings. AI-generated CSAM probably wouldn't fly in a court of law.
Regardless, it's a naive conception of a system of law to think of it as a utilitarian system of restitution in contexts of "this individual harmed this individual". In fact, that would fall under the category of a "tort" rather than a "crime". The law is just as much about enforcing social mores and norms as it is about dealing with individuals harming each other. Hence why locales like Canada outlaw all forms CSAM, even fictional ones. The victim taken is to be society itself. The possession of this material, implicitly entailing enjoyment of it, is so gross a violation of society's norms and mores that it becomes elevated to a legal matter.