India: Okay, No More CSAM or Else the Cash Register Will Ring

October 12, 2023

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

X (the Tweeter thing), YouTube, and Telegram get a tough assignment. India wants child sexual abuse material or CSAM for those who want to do acronym speak scrubbed from content or services delivered in the great nation of India. There are some interesting implications for these US technology giants. First, the outfits are accustomed to just agreeing and not doing much to comply with government suggestions. In fact, most of the US high-tech firms offer promises, and those can be slippery fish. Second, determining what is and what is not CSAM can be a puzzler as well. Bad actors are embracing smart software and generating some realistic images and videos without having to find, coerce, film, and pay off humans involved in the distasteful but lucrative business. Questions about the age of a synthetic child porno star are embarrassing to ask and debate. Remember the need for a diverse group to deliberate about such matters. Also, the advent of smart software invites orchestration so that text prompts can be stuffed into a system. The system happily outputs videos with more speed than a human adult industry star speeding to a shoot after a late call. Zeros and ones are likely to take over CSAM because … efficiency.

“India Tells X, YouTube, Telegram to Remove Any Child Sexual Abuse Material from Platforms” reports:

The companies could be stripped of their protection from legal liability if they don’t comply, the government said in a statement. The notices, sent by the federal Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), emphasized the importance of prompt and permanent removal of any child sexual abuse material on these platforms.

My dinobaby perspective is that [a] these outfits cannot comply because neither smart software nor legions of human content curators can keep up with the volume of videos and images pumped by these systems. [b] India probably knows that the task is a tough one and may be counting on some hefty fines to supplement other sources of cash for a delightful country. [c] Telegram poses a bit of a challenge because bad actors use Dark Web and Clear Web lures to attract CSAM addicts and then point to a private Telegram group to pay for and get delivery of the digital goods. That encryption thing may be a sticky wicket.

Net net: Some high-tech outfits may find doing business in India hotter than a Chettinad masala.

Stephen E Arnold, October 13, 2023

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under cybercrime, Government, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.