‘I didn’t start out wanting to see kids’: are porn algorithms feeding a generation of paedophiles – or creating one?

This article is super thorough which I appreciate. I will say, though, it feels a bit biased towards two concepts:

1. That men are being pushed into these situations
2. That age verification is the only solution

I can understand that some people might be getting more extreme content in order to fulfill the dopamine hit. But most of these men went onto chatrooms and requested CP. That's a big leap to go from "18+ teen" porn on Pornhub and then hop into a chatroom on some other site to seek out underage porn. It's not like Pornhub pushed them into that chatroom or even - as far as I understand - offered a chatroom.

I also don't see how age verification will do anything to stop this. The article seemed a bit tech illiterate. The whole point of illegal forms of porn is that they're illegal. They're hosted on the darkweb or shared behind forums and chatrooms. They're not hosted (I think) on platforms like Pornhub. So how does age verification resolve this issue if the illegal websites won't comply? Not to mention, now the only legal sources of porn are behind some form of ID restriction which is going to make a lot of people who want to remain anonymous seek out alternative websites.

I don't believe Pornhub has likely been entirely innocent. Any website which allows users to upload media experiences this kind of corruption. I'm sure Google Drive has had countless zip folders of questionable material uploaded to it. As has, probably, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and - yes - Lemmy instances. What are we going to do? Require people use a driver's license for every online account so we can track who is uploading the illegal content? Who is responsible for validating IDs in that situation? Is a UK ID valid for a website hosted in the US?

As for the last section related to children seeking out content of teens their own age, I think age verification makes more sense there. But, again, it would require some massive overhaul of centralized IDs and tracking people across the web to stop it. It would effectively end the web as we know it.

It seems like - to me - the best thing we can do is educate people on why some porn is ok and why other porn is not. I think we should encourage others to report the illegal stuff when they see it. I just don't think age verification will be effective. It'll either work and make the internet inaccessible. Or it'll be easy to bypass and just make everything less usable.

I love porn. Like. I've watched porn for 30+ years.

At no point have I ever thought: "let's talk to people online about porn" or "let's share porn I enjoy with other people" or "wow, it would be great if I could find porn of younger people".

Everything this article talks about is fucking unfathomable to me.

If you are looking at CSAM it's probably because YOU'RE A FUCKING PEDO. I'm sure there are varying degrees of that but I just don't. Fucking. Get it.

It isn't porns fault you're a twisted fuck..And not once, ever, in 30 odd years of watching porn (ive definitely seen some out there shit but never anything illegal) have I randomly stumbled across CSAM.

This isn't a fucking conspiracy. Porn isn't a fucking gateway drug to CSAM. No one is going on pornhub and accidentally viewing images of eight year olds.

People access this shit because they fucking want to.

The reasoning here is specious and anecdotal. If extreme porno causes sex crimes, wouldn't you expect to see an accompanying rise in SA, incest, and rape? Why does it lead to the thing that the algorithm won't show you? Because the article admits that you have to go elsewhere for the offending media.

This highlighted the fact that most people – around eight out of 10 – caught with images of children being sexually abused are not jailed.

What can this mean other than most of the defendants are adjudicated not to be a threat to children?

And if you think I'm being permissive, this article's whole thesis is that internet porn turns normal dudes into pedos. Thus the offenders are not fully responsible.