Every justification for pervasive online surveillance starts with “it will protect the children.”
So if you’re someone who hates pervasive, overreaching, surveillence, taking the position that CP isn’t actually harming children makes sense as a tactic. I don’t think he was winning over too many converts to that POV though.
I think it’s possible to recognise that valid concerns are hijacked for other purposes without needing to take a stance against the concerns themselves though.
IE I think child porn is a bad thing and we should work as a society to address it in a multi-faceted way. I also think that using that as a way to gain legal capabilities to infringe on people’s rights in a way that is not actually related to the prevention of child porn is also a bad thing. Those aren’t mutually exclusive ideas. Though I did see the claim that he was 16 at the time he wrote it, so it’s possible he worked that out later?
Every justification for pervasive online surveillance starts with “it will protect the children.”
So if you’re someone who hates pervasive, overreaching, surveillence, taking the position that CP isn’t actually harming children makes sense as a tactic. I don’t think he was winning over too many converts to that POV though.
I think it’s possible to recognise that valid concerns are hijacked for other purposes without needing to take a stance against the concerns themselves though.
IE I think child porn is a bad thing and we should work as a society to address it in a multi-faceted way. I also think that using that as a way to gain legal capabilities to infringe on people’s rights in a way that is not actually related to the prevention of child porn is also a bad thing. Those aren’t mutually exclusive ideas. Though I did see the claim that he was 16 at the time he wrote it, so it’s possible he worked that out later?