from Hacker News

Microsoft's Bing introduces child abuse search pop-ups

by klearvue on 7/27/13, 11:47 AM with 44 comments

  • by mherdeg on 7/27/13, 2:23 PM

    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

    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

    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.

  • by lhnz on 7/27/13, 1:34 PM

        2013: Warning child abuse is illegal.

    2015: Warning Tor/VPNs are illegal.

    2020: Warning extremist left-wing sites are illegal.

  • by jurassic on 7/27/13, 12:41 PM

    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.

  • by Micand on 7/27/13, 2:01 PM

    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.

  • by altogethernow on 7/27/13, 2:51 PM

    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.

  • by mindstab on 7/27/13, 2:14 PM

    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.

  • by Daiz on 7/27/13, 5:32 PM

    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...

  • by drunkenmasta on 7/27/13, 1:10 PM

    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.

  • by andyhmltn on 7/27/13, 1:41 PM

    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.

  • by runn1ng on 7/27/13, 1:23 PM

    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...

  • by rdl on 7/27/13, 2:17 PM

    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.

  • by keithpeter on 7/27/13, 12:05 PM

    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

  • by northwest on 7/27/13, 12:14 PM

    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)

  • by peterkelly on 7/27/13, 4:37 PM

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