Apple is responsible for breaking its promise to protect victims of child sexual abuse.

Question

Apple abandoned a tool in 2021 that would allow them to scan Apple products pertaining child sexual abuse images and reporting it to law enforcement. The company is facing a lawsuit saying that the company sold products that claimed they would protect victims but are not doing so. There's also concern now about the ability for such illegal material to be circulated without any consequences.

Comments

Now while you may have some good points and solid evidence the validity of this in my opinion is somewhat lacking. I think more evidence would be helpful and possibly more comparison to other software companies would make your evidence become more concrete. Overall interesting yet scary topic.

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The claim that Apple is being sued for abandoning its tools to alert when images of child abuse are being shared and abandoning its claim to protect victims is seemed to be very true. We know that this is true because the woman suing Apple was interviewed which she shared her story, "She claims that images of her abuse were stored on iCloud, and Apple’s decision allowed the material to be widely shared." By denying to use software that scans for CSAM Apple is breaking its claim to protect victims. Because of this Apples reported numbers compared to other tech companies have been significantly lower.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apples-abandonment-of-icloud-csam-scanner-is-hurting-victims-lawsuit-alleges/

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/tech/apple-csam-tool/index.html

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While you did a good job summarizing what your referenced source claimed, I don't think the source itself is convincing enough to make such a statement. The author who wrote this had always been reporting on tech companies like Apple and Google, and this raised questions as to whether he always tried to use his words to make the big tech companies look bad. And was Apple really responsible for protecting victims? Maybe tech companies use such advertising phrases to increase their fame and sales, but was it that serious that the article made it seem like Apple hurt people? Maybe it's better to collect more evidence and get quotes from multiple people and sources before making a claim.

Answer 1

This appears to be true, the Apple company is facing lawsuits over the claim of abusive materials not being reported to authorities. Their justification being "user protection." They also have historically lower reports of abusive material than their competitors. Apple also did stop the implementation of this feature that would help report these abusive materials.

https://www.benzinga.com/24/12/42381987/apple-faces-12b-lawsuit-for-dropping-csam-detection-while-google-and-meta-set-higher-standards-for-child-safety

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/tech/apple-csam-tool/index.html