Who Exactly Is Ashton Kutcher’s Anti-Sex-Trafficking Tech Company Helping?
Who Exactly Is Ashton Kutcher’s Anti-Sex-Trafficking Tech Company Helping?
The actor’s recent PR crisis has led to scrutiny of his complicated advocacy work.
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.
In 2011, a public-awareness campaign for DNA featured Donald Trump, Jamie Foxx, and the slogan “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls.”
Donald - "they just let you do it" - "beauty pageant dressing room" - Trump
🙄
Kutcher and his first wife, Demi Moore, founded an organization called DNA in 2009 after watching a Dateline special
Combine this with Kutcher not knowing Masterson and scientology numerous trafficking accusations really illuminates how unserious they were about the program.
This was always just a PR move for Kutcher, so he doesn't care if he is doing damage to legitimate sex workers. Much like FOSTA/SESTA, it's real easy for anyone who wants to boost their image, lawmakers included, to play the hero as you take a "protect the children at all costs zero tolerance" stance and handwave away the harm you do "helping".
Well said
Of course, that's the point.
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.
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.
Ashton Kutcher.
Jack Nicholson
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.
yes, but thorn is lobbying for changes to EU law that would require tech companies there to, among other things, purchase thorn's product to scan user's data
Permanently Deleted
Oh for the love of god. When did we get to the point where EVERYTHING is a sinister plot hook.
Fucking lighten up.
Because it's a self interested millionaire with a sketchy past, nothing he does is altruism, it's all PR and self jerking.
Oh you poor fool...
Ugh, it's helping kids. Yuck, what an insincere article.
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.”
they're selling a tech product that they hope to make mandatory by law, it's not some charity lol
laWl totally.
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.
Rather than talk about the abuse of power, this article titles itself and spends much of its content hemming and hawing over Ashton Kutcher and the oh dear but what if the actor man you thought was good was not as good as you wanted him to be?
Puffy predatory crap.
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.
Cops are the ones raping kids, judging by recent headlines
I'm sure it will. The problem is that instead focusing on that issue, the article is mostly melodramatic bandwagon bullshit.
The article contains less journalism than it does pearl-clutching and veiled tsks about actors.
Again, insincere.
If the article is about the threat of illegitimate police use of a legitimate and useful law enforcement tool saving children, make the article about that, rather than title it with a facetious question tied to the latest media punching bag irrelevant to any meat in the story.
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.
Again, if what are you are writing about was the content of the article and how the article was presented, it would it be a good article.
Instead, it's some coy vulture shaking their head and demanding everyone stare at the pop culture dunce of the day who has removed himself from spotlight because he knew the vultures were descending.
You've written more relevant content in your post and presented said content more genuinely than this article has done with thousands of words.
Yep, and the Patriot act made us all safer. /s
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.
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.
Is the article about how spotlight doesn't save children? No. Because it does.
Is it about the apparently genuine campaign to make some impact on a horrific reality? No.
Is Kutcher implicated in anything other than a good-faith effort to aid in identifying and fighting against sex trafficking? No.
He resigned immediately after making a culturally insensitive sentence to avoid vultures, and a vulture is swooping after him to capitalize on his poor judgment.