Tech, CSAM, And Accountability

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is producing CSAM — child sexual abuse material. And it is doing so with almost no punishment, push back, or consequences. More, it is doing so as a side effect of its main goal — to allow people to create porn-like images of any woman. This invulnerability in the tech world is and has been a problem for society for a long time, and it is likely to break Western democracies if we do not start holding these people accountable.

X and Elon Musk are almost certain to get away with this, because tech has largely, since the beginning of the internet era, gotten away with this. Politicians have always bent to the needs of tech firms. In the early days of the internet, in order to promote online sales, tech firms were exempt from collecting sales tax. This exemption existed in part because tech firms lied about the difficulty of collecting taxes (and yes, they were lies. Or at least exaggerations. It was entirely possible to collect sales taxes, even if it would have cost more than the firms would have liked.). There was a proposal for the Post Office to give every address a free email address. It never came to fruition, in part because of lobbying from tech firms.

Tech firms then got even more brazen as time has gone on. Meta, back when it was known as Facebook, knowingly enhanced a genocide. After it purchased Instagram, in Australia, it started deliberately showing teens ads based around eating disorders and depression. It knowingly allows fraud in its ads. If the mob did this, there would be no question it was a criminal enterprise. But because it is a tech firm, it is allowed to get away with it. Politicians and the courts allow them this freedom, and they take advantage of it in order to harm the rest of us. And that harm is likely to continue.

In the United States, internet firms are essentially protected from all accountability by Section 230. Section 230 refers to a portion of a law meant to prevent internet firms being sued for material others places on their websites. Basically, they wanted to protect firms from being sued if a commentator posted “J.D. Vance fucks couches” on their sites. However, it has been interpreted by the courts to neuter any accountability in any fashion. The courts have interpreted the law to shield firms from liability for the results of their algorithms as long as those algorithms are surfacing user generated content. Since the images could be construed as user generated content, it is possible that courts will not find X liable. And, of course, at no stage did the US government fix the law to prevent such horrible outcomes. Foreign governments are little better, at least at this stage. An neither Goole not Apple has removed the X app form the store despite it clearly violating their terms of service. The question is why?

Musk made the choice to allow these images to be created. They are mostly a side effect of the ability to undress anyone. Musk made a choice to allow innocent people to be sexually harassed and to have porn-ified images made of their pictures. It serves no purpose other than signaling to his followers that harming others is acceptable. Just this weekend, he claimed, using the same language that is often used to fight off any regulation of internet firms, that any attempt to hold him accountable for letting his company’s product as a harassment and a CASM machine is censorship. He could not make it more clear that he is perfectly happy that his product produces CASM. But no one moves against him.

Part of this is a misplaced fear of his money. Politicians remained convinced that his money can buy elections, despite his record of failure in that space. People are also convinced that any moves against a social media platform like X is a move against free speech. It is nonsense, of course. No society has to accept harassment and hurting children as the price of free speech. Apple and Google are likely just afraid of the Trump administration. Apple, for instance, has exemptions form tariffs on materials it needs. Anger Trump by holding Musk accountable and maybe those tariffs come back. Mostly, though, I think it is just inconceivable that powerful people would hold other powerful people to account.

Biden’s administration slow-walked the January 6th investigations so that they never reached anyone in power at the time. Only one low-level person went to jail for the 2008 financial crisis. No one in a leadership position was ever held accountable for the torture regime during the Iraq war. No one was held accountable for Iran-Contra. Nixon was pardoned. Our elites simply do not think it appropriate the hold anyone with any authority accountable for anything. What we are seeing with musk is not unique to Musk or X. It is the predictable result of the country’s inability to treat everyone the same.

The United States is not a nation of laws. Our elites have decided that the risk of them being held to account is too great if anyone in their class is held to account. They talk about turning down the temperature. They talk about civility. They talk about not politicizing events. They talk about everything and anything but the wrong doing by people in positions similar to theirs. And they sit, comfortable and untouchable, as they cheer on overly harsh penalties for people not in their powerful circles. For their peers, a free hand. For everyone else — violence.

This, more than anything, has to be the overriding differentiator in American politics. No one who talks about moving on, who wants to turn the page, who is more concerned with optics than with effects, who cares more about the Ny Times editorial page than making sure the law is applied to all is not someone who should ever be allowed within a mile of elected office. When this administration is finally swept into the dustbin of history, a mountain of potential bribes, illegal military actions, and violent oppression will remain. We see, now, the impact of a generation of elites protecting other elites and powerful from the consequences of their action. You do not live in a free society if some people have immunity. Ending that immunity is the first job of anyone who cares about being a citizen as opposed to a serf.