

Microsoft's Bing introduces child abuse search pop-ups - klearvue
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23476089

======
mherdeg
Interesting that they'll combat child abuse but they still haven't changed
their attitude towards [suicide].

A Google search for the term [suicide] gets you a onebox search result with a
phone number you can call for help, plus some essentially harmless ads and
results: [http://i.imgur.com/aEzc1Tt.png](http://i.imgur.com/aEzc1Tt.png)

A Bing search for the term [suicide] gets you no help line phone number but
does offer a bunch of prominent "related search" suggestions like [Easy
Suicide], [Painless Suicide], [Painless Suicide Methods Pills], [Pictures
Suicide Hanging], [Suicide Methods]:
[http://i.imgur.com/XEtevKf.png](http://i.imgur.com/XEtevKf.png)

This is actually _better_ than it was a year or two ago, when you would also
be offered special media content regions like [Videos of Suicide], [Pictures
of Suicide], but it's still not very good!

Difficult to avoid the conclusion that although Microsoft is eager to reduce
certain kinds of politically popular crime, they care less about harm
reduction than their competition.

~~~
kshatrea
Or... They simply might not have been as competent as their competition in
addressing it. I realize MS-hating is popular around here but we need not jump
to the worst conclusion every time.

~~~
mherdeg
The Bing folks are very competent and extremely sharp — they just clearly have
different priorities.

Back when I was with the company, I brought this concern to the internal
search feedback team's attention once or twice a year.

------
lhnz

        2013: Warning child abuse is illegal.
    
        2015: Warning Tor/VPNs are illegal.
    
        2020: Warning extremist left-wing sites are illegal.

~~~
greenyoda
2013: Warning: _____ is illegal. Your IP address and search terms have been
logged and we will give this information to the police if they ask.

2015: Warning: _____ is illegal. Your IP address and search terms have been
automatically sent to the Department of Homeland Security's _____ enforcement
unit.

2020: Warning: _____ is illegal. You haven't searched for it yet, but your
search history to date indicates that you might have _____ tendencies, and
your friends include several people who have searched for _____. The Thought
Police has been notified.

------
jurassic
As internet filtering expands in the West, the only bright side of these types
of notifications is that they will remind people that nothing they do online
is really private and the internet is not really free. I know that I'd rather
have filtering with notifications than silent filtering for my non-government-
approved searches.

In the case of pedophiles, maybe some will seek help but I imagine most will
quickly adapt by seeking abuse images via other channels like tor, hidden
wikis, etc.

------
Micand
The issue of how to deal with people who seek out child porn troubles me. The
tone accompanying an article such as this inevitably vilifies those who
consume such material, as though this is a clear moral issue. This implies all
of us have pedophilic urges, with only those who lack the moral fortitude to
resist going on to seek out child porn. But this is not accurate -- I don't
have the least desire to view such images, but instead feel a visceral
disgust. Most others, I imagine, have the same reaction.

People who _want_ to view sexually explicit images of children are sick, not
immoral. They suffer from a deviant urge from which the rest of us are free.
The issue, then, should not be how to punish them, but how to cure them of
this urge. (Whether such a cure is possible is another matter altogether --
our sexual desires exert regrettable power over our behaviours.) In
conjunction, we must do everything we can to halt the dissemination of such
material, just as Microsoft is doing here. By shifting our reaction from
wanting to punish consumers of child porn to wanting to rehabilitate them, we
will encourage more to come forward for treatment, ultimately reducing the
amount of such material that is consumed, and thus the number of children
harmed in its creation.

~~~
mistercow
I appreciate that you are trying to take a reasonable stand here, but I do
think there are some things wrong with your reasoning.

First of all, it is not at all clear that mere consumption of child
pornography leads to the production of more child pornography. This gets
asserted all the time, but I have never seen anyone produce a shred of
evidence for it. Because people tend to see red at this point and stop reading
closely, I want to be very, _very_ clear that I am not advocating child abuse
in any way. Rather, I think that focusing on _consumers_ of child pornography
is a waste of energy that would be better directed at the _producers_.

When I press people on this (which is not usually a popular move), the
response I always get is along the lines of "they wouldn't make it if people
weren't watching it", which is, in addition to begging the question, totally
at odds with what we know about human sexuality in general. Look at non-
pedophiles and you'll find no shortage of people documenting their sexual
experiences in various ways that are never meant to be public. Hell, the whole
"revenge porn" thing can only _exist_ because people enjoy documenting their
sexuality. Perhaps if you _eliminated_ consumption of child pornography, so
that the producers of it were truly shouting into the void, you would cut down
on some of it. But that's not going to happen, and there's no middle ground.
As long as they have _some_ audience, those seeking an exhibitionist thrill
will keep doing it.

And if CP stopped existing, would that really plausibly lead to less child
_abuse_? I seriously doubt it. It seems overwhelmingly likely that people who
abuse children on camera are doing so primarily because they like to abuse
children. Yes, having images of their abuse float around the internet probably
adds to the child's psychological pain. But that seems like kind of a drop in
the bucket compared to the abuse itself, and the globs of shame and
disempowerment that our society smears on victims.

And that's my point here. We waste a tremendous number of resources on trying
to solve what is a fairly minor part of the problem. Why? Well, as far as law
enforcement is concerned, I suspect that it's because it's easier to catch the
consumers (there are more of them), and the rest of us cheer just as hard for
either. As far as the rest of us are concerned, I reckon that part of it is
that we need _someone_ to pin our anger on for the injustice that's happening
to these children. And, reaching into the darker parts of our psyches, we
_really_ love to see someone get stomped down, and not have to feel guilty
about cheering for it, or worried that we might be next (for evidence of this,
pick a random page from any history book and start reading).

Now sometimes, every once in a while, someone notices that consumers of CP are
_people_ , like you did. But seeing the cognitive failure is often not enough
to recognize the damage that it has done. People's brains are consistency
engines, and wrong ideas tend to pollute the ideas they're connected to, like
a ripple of wrongness. It's natural, then, when you see a problem with the way
people are thinking, to smooth over the inconsistency by saying "well, we
should focus on curing them instead of punishing them", and to miss that we're
actually focusing on entirely the wrong part of the problem.

And that brings me to one last point: pedophilia is very likely not something
we're going to cure - at least, not until we're able to do extensive, direct
brain modification. A lot of effort has been put into trying to cure
paraphilias and sexual orientations, and it just doesn't seem to be something
you can do.

But what we _might_ be able to do is help people who are sexually attracted to
children to find harmless outlets for their urges, and teach them to handle
them without acting on them. It would also help if we could stop filling them
with shame and guilt over something they can't control.

And it would help even more if we could stop filling the _victims_ with shame
and guilt over something they can't control. When someone says something like
"child abuse is soul murder", we shouldn't let that slide, and we certainly
shouldn't nod sadly in agreement to such a fucked up sentiment. We have to
stop telling people that they're broken, that they're lost causes, no matter
how much delicious anger at the perpetrators it stirs in us. It's selfish.

And it's also selfish to bask in our moral superiority as we obsess over the
easiest and most futile part of the problem.

~~~
airnomad
I just can't understand how mere reading, watching or even private storing any
content could be illegal.

I just don't like where this (or that NSA thing) goes and I don't think
trading freedom for safety is neccessary a very good deal.

------
altogethernow
I am one of them. Some of you know me, but seven proxies.

I will never make advances on a child. The law has nothing to do with it.

Still it's aggravating when people offer to cure me, just like it would a
closeted homosexual to tell them they are going to hell because of how their
brain is wired. Society wisened up about homosexuals, but I still have to
hide.

It might be surprising that I am an opponent of child abuse; but these laws
help nobody, especially children, who get terrorized with "stranger danger",
"online safety" and other gobbledygook, ignoring that child abuse almost
always happens within the family. Banning child porn prevents a father from
abusing his child in private... how? Might as well ban condoms to prevent
rape.

You think the war on drugs was a disaster? Sexual urges are even more basal
than the drive toward altered states of consciousness. Abusers will abuse and
druggies will drug. It sucks, and I don't know what the real solution looks
like.

But this whole CP thing? It's a political tool to piggyback agendas onto, like
the anti-piracy lobby or thinly veiled justification for sweeping spying
programs. Anything can be justified if the discussion can be conveniently
derailed into For The Children territory.

~~~
aneth4
Personally I have some sympathy for the argument that possessing child porn
should not be criminal. There are arguments for this. They satisfy urges and
curiosities without victimizing real children. They are documents of abuse
that could lead to more victims being discovered and perpetrators being
prosecuted.

We do not, for instance, ban rape porn (yet) because there is no evidence it
harms society. Cp is somewhat different because the children can not legally
consent, whereas in produced rape porn the acts are consensual.

[http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22803502](http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22803502)

------
mindstab
What's also concerning is that child abuse help sites will likely get caught
up in all this depriving victims of much needed resources. Just like already
many gay help websites and now being blocked and hidden.

And so in the naming of helping vulnerable victims we're actually hurting
them.

------
Daiz
I wonder if these warnings will also pop up for search terms into fictional
art that depicts children in sexual situations, even though no children were
obviously harmed in the production of such material... After all, "but think
of the fictional children!" has been getting more popular around the world
lately.

Japan's going through one of these phases once again[1], with some politicians
wanting to ban such things. The thing that truly boggles the mind about this
is that they have no intention to do anything about "junior idols", which are
much closer to actual child abuse (how about some camel toes of 12-year-olds
in suggestive positions?) than any drawn fictional art ever will, even if it's
hardcore tentacle rape pornography or something.

[1] [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-05-27/japan-
ruling...](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-05-27/japan-ruling-party-
to-reintroduce-child-pornography-law-revision)

~~~
timthorn
Probably, as even fictional images are illegal in the UK.

------
drunkenmasta
just think how great this technology would have worked back in the day when
homosexuality was taboo. Think of how many people could have been cured or
could have found help for their illness.

~~~
aneth4
Yes. In the future when child abusers are liberated from political oppression
we will look back shamefully on these offensive popups suggesting they seek
help.

------
andyhmltn
See this is the thing: I can guarantee you the majority of the people that are
getting those type of images aren't using a standard web connection and
searching generic search terms into Google/Bing.

------
runn1ng
I am just thinking here - has anyone really seen any child abuse images
outside of Torspace?

Torspace is a wild west and anything goes there, but I haven't really seen any
child abuse on normal web...

~~~
corin_
My assumption would be that they exist outside of Tor too, just hidden away in
private communities. I'm sure there are even legal things on the web that
you've never come across because you haven't looked for them, and I would
imagine child abuse images aren't particularly easy to search for.

Even on Tor... where do you find them there? It's not like suddenly when you
load a site through Tor you see child porn on every site yo visit.

~~~
runn1ng
By "torspace" I meant websites running as Tor hidden services.

Anything flies on there.

------
rdl
Clearly the Huawei "Great Firewall of Britain" can be additionally tasked with
blocking horrible images like these are protecting children.

Piracy and malware, too. Protects vital British IP.

------
keithpeter
Any measures to prevent a sinister variation on rickrolling [1]?

Are Microsoft planning to keep records of the IP addresses/MAC addresses
triggering the popups?

I think Google's approach is more sensible. Most people leave Google's safe
search defaults switched on anyway.

Edit: oops, does Google search default to safe settings on Windows these days?
Just checked on Firefox/CentOS and found the safe settings _unticked_. This is
a fresh install.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling)

~~~
eksith
I don't think Microsoft, Google etc... keep IP addresses _specifically_ with
regard to filtered searches, but they do keep logs of all searches/IPs for
analytic purposes.

We should all be conscious of the fact that any amount of "web usage"
generates logs somewhere. How much of your details end up in these logs depend
on what your system/browser leaks and how much detail your ISP has on you.

~~~
keithpeter
Yes I am aware of server logs, and very unlikely to trigger one of these pop-
ups as I use Google safe search all the time.

Rickrolling could be an issue though with a spammed link to a Bing search.

------
northwest
Technical solutions may help to combat the issue, but imagine a society where

\- you're not judged for seeking help (maybe even applauded or even rewarded?)

\- everybody receives complete information about how to get help

\- everybody is socially integrated (called "social life") and therefor gets
feedback on his/her behavior (and thus gets a hint on when it's time to
correct an issue)

~~~
Wingman4l7
> everybody is socially integrated (called "social life") and therefor gets
> feedback on his/her behavior (and thus gets a hint on when it's time to
> correct an issue)

That sounds horrifying.

~~~
DanBC
Paedophiles are often socially isolated; hated by society. They only speak to
other offenders.

This means that they can start to have thoughts about offending behaviour
which are reinforced by other offenders.

If paedophiles had access to non-sex-offenders to talk to they'd get early
nudges about how unacceptable their thoughts are, and guidance about avoiding
those thoughts and behaviours.

I'm not sure how the "friendship circles" worked out. Maybe they were
hopeless?
([http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/3873083.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/3873083.stm))

~~~
anonymoushn
Saying that paedophiles often only speak to other offenders suggests that
paedophilia is a crime. It could be better to make a distinction between
people of certain sexual orientation and people who commit certain crimes,
unless you believe that these two groups of people intersect completely.

I have not encountered any evidence that a certain treatment or social
surrounds can change a person's sexual orientation, so avoiding unacceptable
thoughts may be impossible for these people. Avoiding unacceptable behaviors
is certainly achievable, though.

------
peterkelly
This is almost annoying enough to make me switch away from Bing and give this
Google thing a try.

