This is not an official statement - any views expressed or wording used is my own
Hi all,
One of the projects Prostasia is hoping to make progress on in 2023 is building our Get Help page into a collection of pages for members of our stakeholder groups in need of support. As part of this, we plan to add additional resources for each of the groups listed, and we’d like your help to do that.
If you’re a CSA survivor, someone who has encountered CSAM online and needed help to report it, or if you had your rights infringed due to overreaching laws in the name of “protecting children,” please feel free to share any resources that you found useful in the replies or in a DM with me.
This will also include updates to our listings for MAPs and people who need professional support to stop viewing CSAM, and although our existing lists for those groups are already relatively strong and up-to-date since they’re heavily aligned with our prevention focus, suggestions are still welcome.
Thank you in advance, and I’m also open to additional suggestions on what types of resources would be useful for each group, what information you’d like to see on the new pages beyond resources, and what other groups we should consider including resources for to advance our mission of protecting children and defending human rights.
Every country has their own definition of CSAM and I cannot take that word serious anymore, because it has been used synonymous with fictional stuff more often than not. How do you even clarify it? It feels like “pedophile” where that word has also lost its true meaning.
I am aware of what you mean, but I just realize how that word loses its power more and more as time goes on and legislators start to clown around.
One of the reasons the term CSAM is preferred by organizations like Prostasia is to distinguish between fictional content and actually abusive content. Child Sexual Abuse Material requires that real abuse occurs (obviously some people misuse it, but there are always gonna be people who benefit from misinformation)
“Child pornography,” the legal equivalent, has become overly broad, and that’s one of the reasons it’s not as useful a term as something like CSAM. I believe you may be confusing the two
No, the word CSAM has also been used to refer to fictional media, because of many other nations. They might not make it look like it at first glance, because of the context, but they HAVE to include fictional contents in it. Might be different for an american, but as an european it is easier to get desensitized about it.
All the EU counter parts of NCMEC are either based in countries that criminalize it, or include it under their definition, because they work with countries that do include it, so they accept reports and simply forward it to national agencies.
The laws you’re referring to use the term “child pornography.” You might also be thinking of Child Sexual Exploitation Material, which is used by organizations like the UN and other groups that want to include fictional content and teen sexting in the definition. From a definition standpoint, CSAM only includes actually abusive content, and most countries do not use the term because it would limit their ability to engage in legislative overreach.
We plan keep the wording in our information about reporting CSAM that clarifies why reports should only be filed for content that is actually abusive
Words have different meanings when it comes to legal talk, but what I am referring to is the usage of the word not only in context of law and organizations. You cannot deny that many people call specific cartoons CP, or CSAM, CSEM etc. Since language is defined by what most people agree on and not what an institution, or a select group of people think it is not unusual for words to lose their true power, because they have been used to describe things that they were not meant to.
I could link numerous articles that describe cartoons as CSAM/CSEM (especially from the UK) and orgs like INHOPE and other national agencies that list cartoons under crime prevention websites as CSAM etc.
As I have said, I know what you guys mean, but I just wanted to voice my thoughts since I seriously struggle to take even that word serious anymore.
People do misuse it, but there’s a reason it specifically includes the word “abuse.” It’s the best word we have because that is a rebuttal that can be used against people who do misuse it.
Words can be misused on a widespread basis, but when it comes to terminology related to abuse, widespread misuse isn’t and shouldn’t be enough to change the intended meaning of the word, which is why organizations like Prostasia continue calling out people who use it incorrectly and try to use children as pawns to justify prosecuting people who write stories and make drawings that the state doesn’t like.
