Embed Notice

Those considering the use of the PhotoDNA surveillance process in the fediverse are advised to inform themselves on it first. It doesn't just detect "positives", it can also auto-report them to authorities. Implementing it could turn this network into an automated police-state snitching system. Admins who do not choose auto-reporting may be legally obligated to manually report positives.

Also (independently verified and officially contradicted), PhotoDNA is utilized not just to detect CSAM, but also "terrorist and violent extremist content". So who decides what constitutes this content? Why, the private unaccountable black box which is Microsoft Corporation, that shining beacon of privacy-respect to which a hash of every image uploaded to and federated across enabled instances would be sent. Microsoft indicates the data can be utilized for facial recognition and "AI" ingestion as well.

Do they - or will they - rate advocacy of Palestinian equality and Kurdish feminism as extremist, as governments they do business with would demand? Do they or will they accept the inputs of oil and pipeline corporations in determining what constitutes terrorism? How will they expand the parameters of disallowed sexual deviance if Trump wins the election next year?

Understand that this is already happening. Elements are in the Mastodon Github Issues calling for the addition of PhotoDNA right now. The Pixelfed project may also be adding it very soon. If that is true, antiauthoritarian instances should consider the feasibility of defederation from Pixelfed altogether.

For all those considering this: Stop. Please. All the "report" issued by the Facebook-mafia describes is the fediverse - and in fact, mostly its evil twin, the defediverse - just as it existed last month, last year, years before most on here had ever heard of it. The purpose of their influence operation is scare everyone into turning the fediverse into the kind of policed and surveilled space suitable to Mark Zuckerberg.

Microsoft FAQ on PhotoDNA:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/PhotoDNA/FAQ

Microsoft Digital Safety Content Report, indicating use of PhotoDNA to detect extremism:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/digital-safety-content-report

Technical analysis of the PhotoDNA process:
https://hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?archives/931-PhotoDNA-and-Limitations.html

UN report referencing use of PhotoDNA to detect terrorism:
https://www.un.org/counterterrorism/sites/www.un.org.counterterrorism/files/countering-terrorism-online-with-ai-uncct-unicri-report-web.pdf

Transcript of 2018 US Senate hearing on terrorism and social media, referencing use of PhotoDNA:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg31316/html/CHRG-115shrg31316.htm

Journalism indicating use of PhotoDNA to detect extremism:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/a-tool-to-delete-beheading-videos-before-they-even-appear-online/488105/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-hatred-goes-viral-inside-social-medias-efforts-to-combat-terrorism/

Wikipedia pages:
PhotoDNA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoDNA
Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_Forum_to_Counter_Terrorism

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