Nostr Web Client

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As a person coming from a relevant research background, online predators seeking to control and abuse victims cannot always use high security / privacy tools or services because vulnerable demographics, mostly children, are not technically capable or knowledgeable to use them and it would leave them out of reach.

The drugs trade have to work the same way. They cannot sell a product without real world interactions or engaging on mainstream social media platforms. Additionally, dark web marketplaces make up a tiny amount of drug trade - because most CUSTOMERS don't know about technologies that power it such as Tor or Cryptocurrencies, and when they do, they use it in a way that compromises their opsec. Your 20 year old college student just wants to pop pills and snort lines without doing all these steps.

Do you know Twitter, even long before Elon Musk's tenure, had been a hub for vulnerable demographics posting pro-eating disorder, self harm or other NSFW content, including by minors?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563222003399

In 2022, Rutgers University's Network Contaigon Research Institute reported self harm and suicide keywords and hashtags spiked up by 500%, many posted by people under eighteen, and evidence suggested that online predators engage with such communities? Not linking here due to extremely gorey content and imagery in the paper, but it's easily searchable should you need to be curious.

This harm is far more documented than any harm caused by GrapheneOS. And without GrapheneOS this would not have stopped anything. We are a net good in the world.

Such people need GrapheneOS and online privacy more than anybody - and they need to be helped. This is how online privacy and security protects you from crime, by keeping you out of reach from the criminal actors and predators who enable vulnerable demographics to continue destructive behaviour.

Less violent crime often happens because of struggle, misery and desperation. Governments are at fault for high crime society and bad upbringing and education is at fault for leading people down a path of destructive behaviour.

Scoundrel 6mo ago

That's a lot of words, and I think you chose weird examples, but that's dedinitely true. Criminals and predators depend enormously on their victims' choices. Imagine this: how could society ever stop a serial killer if his victims left their phones at home, drove themselves out into the middle of the desert and then stepped out into an already dug grave?

You can give the police and law enforcement all the tools and training and resources you can think of, but none of it compares to putting power kn the hands of the would-be victims. A victim always has the ability to prevent their own crime. It isn't always easy for them, but there is always a way. That's where their rights come from in the first place.

So many great tools and technologies out there exist that can make it easier for victims to avoid being victimized, to lower the cost. Developing these tools, distributing these tools to would-be victims, and training would-be victims to use these tools should be the highest priorities of anyone wishing to fight evil in this world.

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Discussion

Final 6mo ago

They may be strange or unique examples, but they're subjects I have unfortunately had to come across in some way or another in research settings and I would rather speak from experience. They're also the ones that hit and hurt the most for me when I think about them too, I suppose.