• Clay_pidgin
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      11 months ago

      “Child Sexual Abuse Material”. It’s an awkward acronym that’s mostly overtaken “Child Pornography”.

    • endhits@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      CSAM is Child Sexual Exploitation Material

      People prefer using this term over CP because the word “porn” is considered too soft. Porn is generally a consensual, adult medium made with adults for adults. CP is not that, it’s first and foremost harm of a child.

      • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org
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        11 months ago

        Another reason is that “CP” got jokingly coopted by abusers in the form of various dogwhistles (e.g.: “cheese pizza”). It made more sense to adopt a new acronym rather than try to uphold any sense of decorum while sharing ownership of the term w/ edgelords & predators.

      • fsxylo
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        11 months ago

        That’s strange to me, because Child Porn sounds revolting to me but CSAM sounds like something I can treat with aspirin.

        • mindbleach
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          11 months ago

          It’s mostly to distinguish actual photographs of actual children from drawings of fictional characters. Unfortunately, the same dolts who threw around the previous term are just as glib about throwing around this one, and routinely rail against “drawn CSAM.”

          It is fundamentally impossible to draw CSAM. You cannot abuse children who do not exist. The entire goddamn point of saying “CSAM” is to distinguish doodles we may find distasteful to the point of endorsing censorship, versus evidence of rape.