Who Exactly Is Ashton Kutcher’s Anti-Sex-Trafficking Tech Company Helping? : worldnews

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 85 points 1 year ago

One group that doesn’t love this technology is sex workers. The software can’t credibly discern between real escort ads and sex-trafficking-disguised-as-escort ads, meaning consenting adults often get swept up in its surveillance. In fact, a recent study funded by the Department of Justice found that police regularly mistake certain “red flags” in escort ads — like 24/7 availability or the use of specific emojis — for signs of trafficking.

That Thorn uses Amazon’s facial recognition tool is especially contentious. Research by MIT and the ACLU has shown that it falsely identified people of color, and the company itself has banned police departments from using Rekognition, except in trafficking cases through software like Spotlight.

[-] CeeBee@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That Thorn uses Amazon’s facial recognition tool is especially contentious. Research by MIT and the ACLU has shown that it falsely identified people of color,

No, what the ACLU did was knowingly leave the default setting of 80% confidence and do a "surprised" face when they got almost exactly 20% false detections.

They knew exactly what they were doing.

Amazon even responded to their claims criticising the lack of proper setup for such a complex system. But the ACLU's excuse was that it was the default setting, so they just used whatever it came with out of the box.

So all they managed to prove is that the default setting isn't adequate for accurate identification, and has nothing to do with what the system is able to do when correctly configured.

Edit: I see I'm being downvoted for stating facts.

[-] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 21 points 1 year ago

Is there any evidence to suggest that law enforcement agencies have these complex systems properly configured? I've seen plenty of articles talking about minorities being arrested after some facial recognition software misidentified them. Claiming that the ACLU isn't using the software properly doesn't mean that anyone else is using it properly.

[-] CeeBee@lemmy.world -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're talking about something else entirely. The ACLU's argument is "these systems are so bad we can't rely on them" and your argument is "law enforcement may not have them configured correctly".

One of those is factually false.

That being said, every FR system is built differently, and have their own advantages and considerations. But from what I've seen in the news over the past few years is almost always a policy and procedure failure. At some point between using a photo of such low quality that it shouldn't be used to the verifying officer looking at the source photo and recognizing the current suspect are different people, something broke down.

I'm actually astonished at how bad the average person is at comparing photos of people. Just look up the conspiracy nonsense these flat earthers go on about regarding the Challenger accident. They are convinced that each person that died are actually still alive and living under a new name. Then they show their evidence and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Sure, these people are similar enough that they could fit a verbal description, but when you actually compare features it's so easy to see they're all different people and can't be the same.

I know it's like that with some cops, because I know some people in emergency services that have been taking FR courses. They told me that so many departments (fire, police, 911 dispatch, forensics, etc) are being trained on it. And not for the software, it's for physically identifying people. With this tech and these false arrests I guess it's come to light that some people, cops or not, lack the fundamental ability to see minor but critical differences in facial anatomy.

Ultimately, whatever a computer system says, a person is making the final decision to arrest these people. This is where the issue lies.

Edit: I guess downvotes mean "I don't like that you're right" here also. I worked in the FR field for almost a decade. I'm familiar with the topic.

[-] the_q@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

Ashton Kutcher.

[-] HughJanus@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Jack Nicholson

[-] SpeedLimit55@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

Interesting article though I would not expect a technology company to have all of the answers. The police are doing the actual work and need to be held accountable.

[+] doom_and_gloom@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

[deleted]

[+] Pratai@lemmy.ca -71 points 1 year ago

Oh for the love of god. When did we get to the point where EVERYTHING is a sinister plot hook.

Fucking lighten up.

[-] Son_of_dad@lemmy.world 55 points 1 year ago

Because it's a self interested millionaire with a sketchy past, nothing he does is altruism, it's all PR and self jerking.

[-] Bonesince1997@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

What is this man's sketchy past?

[-] Son_of_dad@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

All you need to do is Google "Ashton Kutcher sketchy past" and you'll get lots of articles from long before this year, when shit finally hit the fan for him. He's been a clear fake for a long time.

[-] the_q@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Oh you poor fool...

[+] Varyk@sh.itjust.works -73 points 1 year ago

Ugh, it's helping kids. Yuck, what an insincere article.

[-] absentthereaper@lemmygrad.ml 48 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Iunno, if someone I knew was involved in trafficking-victim advocacy efforts, then turned around and penned a letter in defense of a rapist who caught 30 to life, I'd suddenly be second-guessing said advocate's bonafides, and double-checking them too. That's too rowdy a lapse of judgment for me personally to let slide; and all the parasocial weirdos suddenly jumping to Kutcher's aid when it's well known he was a 20 year old with a tongue down a 14 year old's throat on primetime television is equally as sketchy.

"‘Just trust Ashton Kutcher’ is terrible public policy.”

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Prediction: It'll be helping police arrest consensual sex workers at a higher rate than it helps abused children. In jurisdictions where police are paid off by organized crime, it will help organized pimps (who actually do sex trafficking) thwart competition from the consensual market.

[-] Son_of_dad@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

You think giving surveillance tools to cops helps kids? You think they don't abuse it? You didn't read the article so clearly not, but these tools are being used by cops to presecute sex workers and innocent people.

[-] remotelove@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago

And saving kids is great! The problem is basically the epitome of the phrase, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

On the surface, a false positive identification isn't that bad. Validate the data and move on. Case closed, right? Not exactly.

It probably takes time to filter through false positive alerts and maybe some additional investigations are started. The biggest problem is that society naturally follows "guilty until proven innocent". If someone is caught up in a trafficking case, and they are actually innocent, their career and association with their existing social circles are basically done. That is regardless if they are innocent and that is horrible.

Also there is persistence of data. Once a person gets associated in these datasets, is probably near impossible to have that data removed. This could look really bad if it is found as part of an unrelated investigation and exposed. I won't even go into the invasion of privacy issues.

While it is great to catch actual bad people, possibly destroying the life of another is also bad. I really wish I could say that is a person is actually innocent they have nothing to worry about. That simply doesn't apply here.

[-] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Yep, and the Patriot act made us all safer. /s

[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 year ago

This bandwagon you're scrabbling to catch hold of is actually for media gossip, not so much about corruption of authority, but your hyperbolic and irrelevant comment will be tacked on late though it is, to everybody else's.

[+] Pratai@lemmy.ca -18 points 1 year ago

Yeah, we live in a time there people want to be shocked/offended/angered by everything. And if it doesn’t fall into of these reactions- it’s not worth talking about.

World News

Rules: