"People rioted when we scanned for CSAM in a privacy-preserving manner but don't give a shit when we do the same thing when it's not privacy preserving so I guess just do that."
I mean, unlike perceptive hashing, cryptographic hashes do not lie.
If that article is correct it doesn't sound like they've abandoned the idea at all, only modified. It's still the same thing essentially, they check your file hashes for "known illegal images or other law enforcement inquiries".