this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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Once you’ve traded your principles for proximity to power, do you even run your own company?

Archived version: https://archive.is/20260109213037/https://www.theverge.com/policy/859902/apple-google-run-by-cowards

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[–] Kalon@lemmy.world 107 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Why won't X be held liable for distribution of child pornography?

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 58 points 2 days ago

Pedophile in chief probably personally intervened.

[–] snoons@lemmy.ca 23 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Manufacturing consent is the name of the game. The bottom line is money, nobody gives a FUCK.

System of a Down - Boom!

[–] SARGE@startrek.website 12 points 2 days ago

4,000 hungry children leave us per hour from starvation, while BILLIONS are spent on BOMBS

CREATING DEATH SHOWERS

[–] artyom@piefed.social 8 points 2 days ago

You can't blame a computer for what it does. Only the user who asks for the content is to blame. /s

[–] sausager@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

According to this article it doesn't actually put out porn or child porn. It's gross but not porn. Relevant text:

"Nonconsensual AI-generated images of women in bikinis spreading their legs, and of children with so-called “donut glaze” on their faces"

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 3 points 2 days ago

I couldn't even get it to output nudity

[–] kungen@feddit.nu 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think it's disgusting that X probably doesn't see a problem with it, but it still wouldn't be legally classified as CSAM, no?

[–] ILikeTraaaains@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

In some places it is CSAM and in others it is being working into convert into law.

I think the issues are:

  • It can pass as real
  • Unlike run-of-the-mill cartoon porn, real photos of children (even not CSAM) are involved, either in the training or as input for the generation
[–] Bristlecone@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago
[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 32 points 2 days ago

Why do you think? Rules are for poor people.

[–] slothrop@lemmy.ca 29 points 2 days ago

Because billionaires.

[–] belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 17 points 2 days ago

Billionaires have the tightest class solidarity

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] doleo@lemmy.one 12 points 2 days ago

I'm not going to use that website to check, but is nobody making Tim Apple deepfakes to goad him? Cant somebody just ask it to recreate that emo-Elon picture that he tried to ban?

[–] jasoman@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

Cause they found funding fascism was easier.

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Could Elon buy them? Does he have that much wealth power?

EDIT: to be clear, it’s not that I want him to.‘it’s just frightening that it even sounds plausible enough to question in ignorance

[–] naom3@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago

Google and apple? Absolutely zero chance of him doing that on his own. They each have a market capitalization of almost $4 trillion, and even though he’d only have to buy 51% of them that’s still way more than his net worth. And that’s not getting into how most of his wealth is in the form of tesla stock, which he can’t sell to much of without tanking the stock price. Plus corporations have ways to stop people who are trying to buy them out if they don’t want to be sold, like even though twitter was a publicly traded company musk still had to negotiate a deal with twitter’s management

He might be able to buy a significant portion of one or both companies stocks and then be able to vote for board members and stuff and try to gain influence that way, but that’s not the same as owning a controlling stake in the company, and frankly I don’t see him politically out manoeuvring alphabet or apple’s existing boards of directors

[–] TheRealKuni@piefed.social 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Nah. He can’t buy Apple (market cap $3.8T), or Google ($3.96T). He’s not a trillionaire yet.

[–] calliope@retrolemmy.com 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

To put it into perspective, if he managed to sell all of his ownerships of companies for the most optimistic idea of his current net worth*, he could still buy less than 19% of Apple.

He’d need several friends to chip in to even get to 50%. A trillion is a lot until inflation gets out of hand.

* $717 billion; probably $100 billion too high at least.

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com -2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Should they pull every web browser, too? They can clearly be used for nefarious purposes.

[–] Sunflier@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The difference between the two is that, while the browser can be used to access child porn, X actively generated the porn.

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The browser can access X & any website. Isn't material produced from actual child sexual abuse worse than fictions generated without it?

[–] Sunflier@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The browser can access X & any website.

A browser doesn't activately generate it. X did.

Isn’t material produced from actual child sexual abuse worse than fictions generated without it?

They're both equally as bad because they result in the same things: production and advancement of child porn.

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Actual child sexual abuse is equally as bad as fiction? Did you know there's a difference between truth & fiction? I doubt abuse victims would agree these are the same or equally as bad.

Pulling the X-only client while keeping the everything including X client doesn't seem to accomplish anything. Neither client is actively generating anything: it's server side. Your argument seems to be the client that accesses bad needs to be blocked, but the client that accesses bad & worse somehow does not.

[–] Sunflier@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Actual child sexual abuse is equally as bad as fiction? Did you know there’s a difference between truth & fiction? I doubt abuse victims would agree these are the same or equally as bad.

Both equally propegate child sex abuse, and I'm sure the kids these deep fakes are on might agree with me. In both topics, a kid is getting exploited for sexual material.

Neither client is actively generating anything: it’s server side

Oh, so the generating and/or distributing technology of the child porn is in the possession, custody, and control of X? Seems to make my point: X generated and/or distributed the child porn. On top of that, it made revenue off it from the ads that supported the active distributed of said child porn. Whose paying the electricity bill as an expense to profit on the child porn? X.

Your argument seems to be the client that accesses bad needs to be blocked, but the client that accesses bad & worse somehow does not.

My point, going back to my origional supposition, is that it is absurd to blame Mozilla (or the like) for the nefarious uses of all its users when they merely are a tool through which the web is accessed, and they don't make a profit directly from whatever material is accessed.