I’m being a bit extra but…

Your statement:

The article headline is wildly misleading, bordering on being just a straight up lie.

The article headline:

A Developer Accidentally Found CSAM in AI Data. Google Banned Him For It

The general story in reference to the headline:

• He found csam in a known AI dataset, a dataset which he stored in his account.
• Google banned him for having this data in his account.
• The article mentions that he tripped the automated monitoring tools.

The article headline is accurate if you interpret it as

“A Developer Accidentally Found CSAM in AI Data. Google Banned Him For It” (“it” being “csam”).

The article headline is inaccurate if you interpret it as

“A Developer Accidentally Found CSAM in AI Data. Google Banned Him For It” (“it” being “reporting csam”).

I read it as the former, because the action of reporting isn’t listed in the headline at all.

^___

Google isn’t the only service checking for csam. Microsoft (and other file hosting services, likely) also have methods to do this. This doesn’t mean they also host csam to detect it. I believe their checks use hash values to determine if a picture is already clocked as being in that category.

This has existed since 2009 and provides good insight on the topic, used for detecting all sorts of bad category images:

https://technologycoalition.org/news/the-tech-coalition-empowers-industry-to-combat-online-child-sexual-abuse-with-expanded-photodna-licensing/

There’s no point in taking moderation seriously. It’s a volunteer position and the tools to handle slop aren’t there.

I hear they’re bringing back digg.

I also hear it’s a former Reddit C-suite that’s bringing it back, so it’ll probably be more of the same.