Reconsidering Mandatory Minimums for Young Adults in CSAM Cases - A Policy Argument for Restoring Judicial Discretion

Reconsidering Mandatory Minimums for Young Adults in CSAM Cases - A Policy Argument for Restoring Judicial Discretion

Across the country, policymakers are grappling with the challenge of applying laws written decades ago to a digital world that has transformed far faster than the legal system. Nowhere is this tension more visible than in the prosecution of child sexual abuse material offenses involving young adults.

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Cached, Convicted, Condemned: Why Sex Offender Registries and Mandatory Minimums Fail Youth
CSAM, Searches, Warrants, Fear Michelle Friedman CSAM, Searches, Warrants, Fear Michelle Friedman

Cached, Convicted, Condemned: Why Sex Offender Registries and Mandatory Minimums Fail Youth

The doorbell rang before dawn on August 16, 2022. It sounded like a newborn’s cry, sharp and impossible to ignore. I checked my phone: 6:00 a.m., the sky was still dark. When I looked out our windows, officers stood at the front door in vests and fully armed. A Department of Justice forensic truck sat in our driveway; at least five squad cars surrounded our house like an impending storm.

That morning everything changed.

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Social Media Finally Held Accountable for Misleading Practices

Social Media Finally Held Accountable for Misleading Practices

Recent legal outcomes penalizing social media companies for misleading practices are taking hold. How long will it be until they are held accountable for allowing CSAM to be uploaded to their sites, and only reporting the harm afterwards? The recent decision against Meta may be a clue.

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Spain Orders Criminal Investigation Into X, Meta, and TikTok Over Alleged AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material

Spain Orders Criminal Investigation Into X, Meta, and TikTok Over Alleged AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material

"The Council of Ministers will invoke Article 8 of the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecution Service to request that it investigate the crimes that X, Meta and TikTok may be committing through the creation and dissemination of child pornography by means of their AI," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote on X on Tuesday.

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The Families of People Who Commit Sex Crimes Need Care and Support

The Families of People Who Commit Sex Crimes Need Care and Support

In a 2023 article authored by by Azadeh Nematy, a clinical psychologist and research assistant in the Department of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, there is a focus on the impacts on family members of those accused or convicted of a sexual offense.

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Online Social Media, Child Sexual Abuse Material Spreads Faster than it Can Be Taken Down

Online Social Media, Child Sexual Abuse Material Spreads Faster than it Can Be Taken Down

Child sexual abuse material runs rampant on the internet thanks to popular social media platforms like Facebook, even despite attempts to crack down on its spread. We need scalable technology to address it.

BY Glen Pounder and Rasty Turek

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