Hello everyone,
We unfortunately have to close the !lemmyshitpost community for the time being. We have been fighting the CSAM (Child Sexual Assault Material) posts all day but there is nothing we can do because they will just post from another instance since we changed our registration policy.
We keep working on a solution, we have a few things in the works but that won’t help us now.
Thank you for your understanding and apologies to our users, moderators and admins of other instances who had to deal with this.
Edit: @[email protected] the moderator of the affected community made a post apologizing for what happened. But this could not be stopped even with 10 moderators. And if it wasn’t his community it would have been another one. And it is clear this could happen on any instance.
But we will not give up. We are lucky to have a very dedicated team and we can hopefully make an announcement about what’s next very soon.
Edit 2: removed that bit about the moderator tools. That came out a bit harsher than how we meant it. It’s been a long day and having to deal with this kind of stuff got some of us a bit salty to say the least. Remember we also had to deal with people posting scat not too long ago so this isn’t the first time we felt helpless. Anyway, I hope we can announce something more positive soon.
Contact the FBI
This isn’t as crazy as it may sound either. I saw a similar situation, contacted them with the information I had, and the field agent was super nice/helpful and followed up multiple times with calls/updates.
This doesn’t sound crazy in the least. It sounds like exactly what should be done.
yha, what do people think the FBI is for… this isn’t crazy. They can get access to ISP logs, VPN provider logs, etc.
I think what they’re saying is that contacting the FBI may seem daunting to someone who has never dealt with something like this before, but that they don’t need to worry about it. Just contact them.
Under US jurisdiction, yeah. Could be slightly more difficult depending on the country, LEGAT can’t conduct unilateral operations so they’ll have to cooperate with foreign authorities. These assholes can get away with exploiting jurisdictional boundaries. Hopefully they will be caught, but oh well.
This is good advice; I suspect they’re outside of the FBI’s jurisdiction, but they could also be random idiots, in which case they’re random idiots who are about to become registered sex offenders.
You might be surprised to discover that the USA does not believe their laws end at their borders. That is why Kim Dotcom was arrested by the FBI in NZ for violating US law.
In this case I doubt any LE agency abroad wouldn’t like the tip off.
I’m not saying anybody takes csam less serious. But I wish the American government Went after minor csam events as much as they go after copyright/IP violations. Its not like mike pompeo flew out to other countries to strong arm them into new laws to prevent csam like they have done with pirates who threatened Hollywood profits
We did that back in the 1990s under Clinton and a bit under GWB as well. If I recall correctly we got really firm with Japan about how they needed to ban CP there.
There is no CP and no porn in Japan… add some tiny censor bars, and it’s just some wholesome family tentacle fun!
That one backfired spectacularly.
As I recall the laws at the time were that you could not show pubic hair so naked kids who had no pubes were fine.
TIL. Oh well, it probably will keep backfiring as long as Japan insists on having “morality laws” instead of something more objective.
Yeah there was even that case where a citizen and resident of Mexico was arrested and detained in the US for breaking US law, even tho it technically didn’t apply to them since they were under Mexican sovereignty… Borders mean little to the US
I have to wonder if Interpol could help with issues like this I know there are agencies that work together globally to help protect missing and exploited children.
‘Criminal activity should be reported to your local or national police. INTERPOL does not carry out investigations or arrest people; this is the responsibility of national police.’
From their website.
What the hell do they actually do then?
“Interpol provides investigative support, expertise and training to law enforcement worldwide, focusing on three major areas of transnational crime: terrorism, cybercrime and organized crime. Its broad mandate covers virtually every kind of crime, including crimes against humanity, child pornography, drug trafficking and production, political corruption, intellectual property infringement, as well as white-collar crime. The agency also facilitates cooperation among national law enforcement institutions through criminal databases and communications networks. Contrary to popular belief, Interpol is itself not a law enforcement agency.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol
Huh. Thanks!
The FBI reports it to interpol I believe, interpol is more of like an international warrant system built from treaties.
The FBI has offices in alot of other countries and work with local law enforcement.
https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/international-offices
Can’t really hide from them unless you live in North Korea or Russia
Wait, is this like China having police offices in other countries?
I knew the US collects taxes on their citizens no matter where they live, but isn’t this kind of excessive? Wasn’t INTERPOL supposed to take care of international crime?
It is similar to China’s international police but keep in mind quite a few other countries have a similar setup
I’m just surprised that it’s FBI personnel, I thought the CIA was in charge of international affairs, with INTERPOL acting as liaison for the FBI with other countries.
IIRC in the EU we have EUROPOL acting as liaison between the national law enforcement branches, and while there is nothing stopping personnel from one country to enter another, I don’t think they do. But maybe that’s more like the state vs. federal jurisdictions in the US. On the other hand, it’s been some time since I’ve looked deeper into it, and things keep changing.
Perhaps most importantly, it establishes that the mods/admins/etc of the community are not complicit in dissemination of the material. If anyone (isp, cloud provider, law enforcement, etc) tries to shut them down for it, they can point to their active and prudent engagement of proper authorities.