Researchers found CSAM within five minutes of searching Mastodon.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/6795142

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.

  • density@kbin.social
    5·
    1 year ago

    In just two days, researchers found 112 instances of known CSAM across 325,000 posts

    “We got more photoDNA hits in a two-day period than we’ve probably had in the entire history of our organization of doing any kind of social media analysis, and it’s not even close,”

    In the whole history of this group they have found less than 112 pieces of CSAM? It’s Stanford University. Why not drop in on a few of Jeffery Epstein’s friends and fans. They can tell you were to look.

    • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de
      31·
      1 year ago

      Yeah literally. What a propaganda piece. Now do twitter, or Facebook, or Instagram. Except due to the walled garden effect of those platforms, the dangerous material probably isn’t viewable by just anyone. That doesn’t mean it’s not there though.

      • inexplicablehaddock@lemmy.loungerat.io
        1·
        1 year ago

        Or Reddit. You know, the website where a community dedicated to sharing CSAM was one of the biggest on the site and its lead moderator was a sitewide celebrity (oh, and Reddit’s current top admin was also a moderator on that community).

      • Quik@infosec.pub
        1·
        1 year ago

        I don’t think it’s a propaganda piece as it’s even bringing up ideas on how to do moderation better in the Fediverse, it seems to me to be a bit too constructive to just call it propaganda and move on.