After confirming the authenticity of the Bigo livestreamer with the authorities, The Times searched the Apple and Google app stores for other video chat apps. Reporters identified a sample of more than 80 apps that advertised children before stopping the search. They later contacted Homeland Security Investigations, the government’s main law enforcement group for international exploitation, for comment.
“The number one customer base paying for this abuse is in the United States,” the agent said. “It’s not like they are abused once a day. It’s 50 men getting 50 separate shows. They’ll wake up these kids in the middle of the night to be abused.”
Asked about The Times’s sample of offending apps, Mr. Sainz said a majority had been detected during the company’s standard review process, with an additional 20 taken down after an internal investigation in response to The Times’s findings.
What’s described in this article is a symptom which is not caused by technical progress but by poverty and greed
No need for liberal euphemisms.
Poverty and greed on one side, and fucked up people on both. Someone spending $130,000 over 10 years on this shit is insane from two perspectives…how can you consume this content for one, and secondly, how can you afford all that much money for this?
It doesn’t seem like the consumers are messed up by poverty. And I have no idea what’s causing them to be messed up, and therefore, I have no idea how we stop the consumers from wanting to consume.
Because like you said, as long as there’s a market, this is likely to continue due to the greed and poverty aspects on the “seller’s” side…
Exploitation is fundamental to capitalism. It’s just more obvious in this case.
Most capitalist societies draw the line somewhere before “Gaining capital through the Sexual exploitation of children is ok”
Keep telling yourself that.
Which ones? Epsteins clients came from all over the world…
It’d be interesting if cultural standards were upheld unanimously amongst all members of said culture…
Or, conversely, if a culture could be judged by the actions of a few outlying individuals…
Actually consensual economic interaction, aka free market activity, is fundamental to capitalism.
You consider this consensual?
Where can I not consent to capitalism in the world, without having to starve and be homeless?
You can just call it capitalism.
Yeah child abuse didn’t exist before capitalism
Child abuse for profit?
Nor did paying for it apparently. And it certainly doesn’t exist in whatever replacement OP wants…
Are you saying that child abuse for profit exists outside of capitalism? Any examples?
Look at any authoritarian regime. Here’s an article about laws by country, and Russia and China rank very poorly. I don’t think we can trust statistics for authoritarian regimes, but those statistics exist if you look.
yo wassup OP here on the mic
Wrong OP, I was referring to @technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com.
Because children are free to be raped, making it a free market activity?
Basically, yes. Everything is commoditized, even the abuse of humans.