Friday 31 August 2018

How social media companies encourage child abuse

Lately, some of the principal advocates against child sexual abuse have been paedophiles and other minor-attracted people. Some of these people were also survivors of abuse. In their articles, blog posts and online comments, they explained why sexual activity between adults and children is wrong and how best to prevent it, which importantly includes helping people who might be so inclined to deal with their feelings in a healthy way.

I am driven to wonder, however, if the various internet media companies actually want to prevent abuse. Not long ago, "micro-blogging" site Tumblr, part of the Oath/Verizon stable, removed a number of "anti-contact" MAP and MAP-sympathetic accounts, including those of young people who may be coming to terms with their feelings or even trying to analyse their own abuse.

Then chat host Discord removed a chatroom run by Virtuous Paedophiles, whose tagline is "sex with children is wrong and always will be", giving as a reason that the forum was "against their community guidelines". It wasn't, of course, but they refused to consider any appeal.

Publishing site Medium, which is more of a magazine than a blogging site, had a very good segment called "Paedophiles about Paedophilia", with articles not only by anti-abuse writers with paedophilia, but also mental health professionals and researchers. This entire section was removed, along with most of its authors, with no explanation. Writers who write about paedophilia as an "outsider", such as mainstream journalists, remained.

Twitter frequently removes people who write about paedophilia in anything but a negative way or identify as MAPs.

In all these cases, the removals seem to be based on who the writers are rather than what they write. Non-MAP writers such as psychologists do not get cut off, even though what they write is much the same as the MAPs. It's also notable that articles which promote abuse, violence including murder, hatred and even child pornography are still to be found.

The common factors in all those fora and accounts that are removed are (a) they are (mainly) written by people who identify as minor-attracted; (b) they are working to prevent child sexual abuse; and (c) they propose that support and help for paedophiles who haven't offended is the best way to ensure they don't.

Though most writers are MAPs, not all are. Others are abuse survivors, who have found the usual methods of prevention-after-the-fact wanting. A few are young people just realising where their attractions lie and need help in coming to terms with it.

Removing these various support networks has the effect that people who previously had a large amount of peer support and in some cases group therapy have suddenly been left with nothing. This will without a doubt cause some of them to suffer a significant reduction in mental health, into depression, into isolation, and away from anyone who might be able to do them any good. They will - and the idea is not illogical - wonder if people actually want them to offend.

This puts children at risk. Some people might find solace in child pornography, since they will find it easier to get hold of than useful support. Others will, perhaps after some period of time, go further and find a child to abuse. The most dangerous people are the ones who think they've got nothing left to lose.

I will say it again: by removing the support from people who need it, Children are being put in danger. Do the web sites really think they are somehow doing good for society by pandering to the gutter press and the right-wing foam-at-the-mouth types instead of helping people prevent child abuse? Or do they just not care?

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