this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Mastodon, an alternative social network to Twitter, has a serious problem with child sexual abuse material according to researchers from Stanford University. In just two days, researchers found over 100 instances of known CSAM across over 325,000 posts on Mastodon. The researchers found hundreds of posts containing CSAM related hashtags and links pointing to CSAM trading and grooming of minors. One Mastodon server was even taken down for a period of time due to CSAM being posted. The researchers suggest that decentralized networks like Mastodon need to implement more robust moderation tools and reporting mechanisms to address the prevalence of CSAM.

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[–] Cylinsier@beehaw.org 25 points 1 year ago (12 children)

The researchers suggest that decentralized networks like Mastodon need to implement more robust moderation tools and reporting mechanisms to address the prevalence of CSAM.

I agree, but who's going to pay for it? Those aren't just freely available additions to any application that you only need to toggle on.

[–] pineapplelover@infosec.pub 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

One way to do this is to block hashes. This is a slippery slope though because it could be used maliciously. Only way to do this and protect freedom of information is to make this fully open source.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Block hash lists then? Something like a community driven hashlist for CSAM would work, of the majority of federated instances report it as that type then it would get added to the list. Instances could then choose what lists they wanted to block.

...instances could also show what lists they subscribe to so they users could see what sort of moderation they choose

[–] BarbecueCowboy@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is kind of problematic... By creating a community driven hashlist that is freely shared, you've also kind of created an index of CSAM content that could easily be extrapolated for people actively looking to find/share that content.

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